Poetry on Tareq is typing...

Devices I Knew

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It started with the Gameboy color.

Then, a portable CD player. Soon to be replaced by an MP3 player that could only hold 18 songs.

Then a flip phone. And next an iPod. Then a BlackBerry I could never put down.

Soon after an iPod touch. Then an iPhone. And another one after that.

A FitBit. Another iPhone. Then a pair of Beats wireless headphones that I just had to have.

He Kept Scrolling

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 12:00:00 +0000

He kept scrolling.

Past the depressing news, the challenging times.

He kept scrolling.

Past the funny jokes and memes, not to laugh but to see what made others laugh.

He kept scrolling.

Past the hot takes, the cries for help, the typos, the attempts at self understanding, the moments of vulnerability.

He kept on scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling.

He wasn’t looking to find anything specific.

He just didn’t want to think about what came after he stopped.

Mirrors

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Algorithms are like mirrors.

Some expand the light that hits them.
Some blur and dissipate their brightness.

Some distort their subject.

They are designed, engineered, tweaked.

They are made - some with evil intentions, some pure ones, and many with neither.

Yet, ultimately, all they do is reflect back what they see.

What the Pixels Produce

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Keys typing, mouse moving.

Clack, clunk, click, cluck.

Mouse moves right, back up around, to the left.

Click, right-click, click, hover, drag.

Delete, copy, space bar, paste, tab.

And so on. Click, clack, copy.

And so on. Paste, close, share.

And so on.

The cursor, tired of dancing, remains still as the hand says goodbye to the mouse. The pixels on the screen re-arrange one final time to show what one’s time has produced.

Wishes

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The dropdown wished it was the descriptive text before it, not needing a click to reveal itself.

The text wished it was highlighted, so it could feel important.

The highlights wished they were copied, so they lived not only on the page.

The copies wished they were pasted, so they weren’t held in memory to be forgotten.

The pasted wished they were committed into an input field, so they could change some possible future.

Shapes

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

She left her friends early that night to get back to her pursuit. For years now, she’s been looking for the perfect shape.

Triangles were too sharp, too convinced of their points. Rectangles too mundane and rigid. Squares tried for beauty through their uniformity but ended becoming a commodity for building greater things.

Then there’s the circle. Ah, the circle. The would be perfect shape if it didn’t exist in such an imperfect world. One could consider it having no sharp points or an infinite amount of them, depending on their outlook. Having the perfect curves, each angled to one another, turning into the next. Circles were too pretentious, trying too hard.

Disguises

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever heard of the story of the moose and the man?

It goes like this: a man dressed up as a moose on a fateful morning. The very same day, a moose just happened to dress up as a man. They encountered each other by a calm stream. Both were so nervous that their true identity would be revealed that they didn’t bother noticing how poor the other’s disguise truly was.

Upgrades

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It didn’t take long for me to realize that my body was turning into a computer.

All the signs were there.

First, I woke up to my right hand being a keyboard, my left a mouse. Didn’t take long after that to feel memory chips and cooling fans building inside of me. It was a matter of weeks before I’d be a full desktop.

As my heartbeat, which already spoke binary, started turning into a CPU, I contemplated what my life truly meant. Just like a computer, I too computed things. Sure, perhaps not as structural nor procedural but predictable the same.