(This poem was part of the MIT Media Lab's "A Day in the Life of Cyberspace" online event. Click here for the original page from that website.)
Hello.
There is contact, a connection.
Binary bits form characters, and my thoughts are now told by the voice in your head.
Please don't break the thread.
For countless thoughts from countless generations have been silenced by fading memories, by stilled tongues, by burning paper.
But mine have found sanctuary in the digital stream.
They don't ask to be followed, or to be believed, only to be heard.
They don't care how you look, or what you have, only that you'll listen.
And they say it's okay to be different, to be lonely,
There are many like you.
But there are other voices here beneath the digital waters
They lull, they seduce, and then...
They ask for more.
Yet, by understanding the obvious, we can begin to grasp the subtle.
By hearing other voices share the unspeakable, we can end the cycle.
For we cannot return to the past, of pretty families in pretty houses all in a row.
For we admire the masks, but never really knew the actors.
And there is hope.
We are alive, more alive than ever before.
But in our new world of stark reality, we must learn to trust ourselves, or trust no one.
Copyright 1995 John Gerner