# Stolen Focus and Phones There’s a weight in my pocket. Hard and humming. A rectangle of endless elsewhere. It promises poems soft words on a walk but every line breaks when I try to breathe and scroll. I reach for it like a habit, not a choice. Fingertips brushing glass instead of bark, instead of fur, instead of the warm wind’s hush. It is a key to every room I am not in. And I walk through those rooms while trees sway beside me unwatched. The phone is a tool But so is a bayonet So is a leash. It joins me in bed before my thoughts have woken. It sits with me in the bathroom, as if I'm never alone. Even solitude, my last secret thing, is shared with it. And what does it give me? A feed. Of everything but what I need. Sometimes I just put my hand in my pocket to feel it. Not to use it. Just to know it’s there. A modern rosary for a god of interruption. A security blanket stitched with tiny thorns. And I need it. And I hate it. And I carry it like a second skin that doesn’t breathe. So I write this down while walking through a park that I can barely see because I am looking into a little window. Avoiding the fact I'm missing the world