Algorithm

I open the lid of my Macbook Pro
I watch pop music videos on YouTube
By Kanye West and Miley Cyrus
I don't have to search

Because the suggestions bar guides me
The suggestions bar knows me better than ever before
And it's almost like love
Like the feeling of intense belonging
When a barmaid addresses you by name
And you know in some way you have transcended

I move passively from song to song
Piloted by the light of the suggestions bar
Passing on the way dreadlocks of bright coloured hair
Lazy socio-political statements
And face tattoos
Occasionally interrupted Aubrey Plaza clickbait
And ASMR videos

On my iPhone I play games by Ketchapp and Voodoo
I scroll through Instagram
Another close algorithmic friend of mine
Making sure I see the posts of highest importance first
I move through the tanned, bikinied bodies of girls
I knew from secondary school

Who exist now to me only as ornaments
Mounted on the inner wall of my skull as I scroll
And who disappear the moment I lock my iPhone

I pass through Southeast Asia
Through enlightened gap-years
Each interchangeable with the last
American sneakers on Vietnam soil
Mounted on mopeds
All captured on bum bag disposable cameras

Boomtown festival survivors
Gurning and glittered
In Sector 9 at 8 am
My first urinary tract infection
Every straight guy at Pride
And every white girl at Notting Hill carnival
Who are all adorned in Christian Dior
And nothing was holy