A follow up to In a Manner of Speaking by Alexa Lash – a writer, editor, and on-the-spot poet. Former Floridian and resident Bostonian, she has written for the Seminole Chronicle, Momslikeme, and the Central Florida Future. Illustration by Paula Damigella.
“When Tweeting politely, raise your pinky as you type.”—@okwithwords
“This place is so Twitter,
hip with the glitter,
twit to the flitter.”
Then check me in, dude.
“Not #cool, man. Not #cool.
Give me your handle and I’ll Tweet you direct—
interconnected by character
not status quo.”
But I like this place.
“Like, man? This place deserves a following:
hashtag #awesome
hashtag #wild.
Peep this:
A wall covered in conversation,
linked up or linked in,
1 New Tweet or thousands,
scrolling down:
#dance #music #party
the wall crumbles
from the sound of so many users
tweeting
cawing
singing
to the beat of a trend.
Tweets without end.
Character, limited.”
I think I get the message.
“If it’s a direct message,
people don’t usually check those.
It’s better to be forward,
to feel so #awkward
because you have maybe 10 Followers,
and the man, 10,000.
But put yourself out there on a spider’s web.
#SomePig
Your ego, once big,
now tiny, tiny.
Too afraid to hit reply, you retweet, non-modified.
RT vs. MT;
I love you vs. I like you a lot;
I’ll call you vs. I might call.
And when they pass over you,
no interaction,
no mention;
you don’t unfriend them,
you unfollow,
unfeel
as if 140 character-limits weren’t real
and you could type forever.”
Your @mom types forever.
“Not #cool, man. Not #cool.
If we weren’t face-to-face friends,
I’d block you.
Dude against Tweep.
But your are neither Tweeter nor Twitterer.”
Well what do you expect?
My face more in book than in phone.
I’d rather be socially strange,
than alone
in a nest of short phrases and links,
where #FF means something different than Friends Forever.
Tweeting is for the birds, dude.
Life, for the words.
“I dig, man. I @digg.”
Wanna read more captivating stories for geeks from Alexa’s series? Check out Crime of Fashion: A Crime Story in Fashion Design Terms, Love Triangle: A High School Romance in Mathematical Terms, What is Luv: Another Love Poem in Internet Slang, Text Drive: An Inappropriate Poem in Textual Terms, Less than Three: A Love Poem in Internet Slang, Type M for Murder: A Mystery Short in Graphic Design Terms, Pub and Marriage: A Noir Short Story in Publishing Terms & Kern, Baby, Kern: A Relationship in Typographical Terms.
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