The Ache Between Scrolls

We are all together here—

and somehow,

we are all alone.

A million fingers move in rhythm,

tapping tiny windows of light,

trying to touch someone

through glass.

We used to write letters—

ink smudged by hands that trembled,

paper folded like prayer.

Now we send hearts,

pixel-shaped and weightless.

They mean I saw this,

not I felt this.

Our days are divided

into swipes and glances,

each one a promise

we never intend to keep.

We speak in half-thoughts,

half-truths,

half-presence.

And somewhere between the scrolls,

we forget the sound

of our own breathing.

There’s an ache

that the feed cannot cure.

A hunger deeper than likes,

sharper than loneliness—

a hunger for being seen

without performance,

without polish,

without pretending.

But the screen asks for perfection,

and so we give it.

We post our sunsets

while ignoring the storm.

We share our smiles

and bury our silence.

We live in public,

but die in private.

The algorithm never asks how you’re feeling—

it just wants to know

if you’ll stay.

I once watched a friend cry

behind a filter.

Tears replaced with sparkles,

eyes too bright to be true.

We said,

“Beautiful,”

and scrolled away.

It’s easier that way—

to love the image,

not the ache beneath it.

We have become ghosts

haunting our own lives,

hovering over each other’s existence

without ever entering it.

Our intimacy is measured

in timestamps and streaks.

Our closeness,

a reflection in a black screen.

And still—

we can’t stop.

The silence between notifications

feels unbearable.

So we refresh,

refresh,

refresh,

hoping something

will fill the space

where real voices used to live.

Sometimes,

late at night,

when the world is finally quiet,

I imagine turning it all off.

Just breathing.

Just being.

But then—

the phone lights up again,

and I forget.

We’ve mistaken connection for contact.

Attention for affection.

Presence for performance.

We are drowning

in the shallow end of communication,

too afraid to swim deeper

where meaning still waits.

Remember when listening

meant silence?

When a friend’s pause

wasn’t a glitch

but a moment

of feeling something together?

Now, we fill every gap

with sound and scroll.

We’ve unlearned

the courage of stillness.

Sometimes I wonder

if the soul can get tired

of pretending to exist online.

If it aches to be seen

in a world

without filters,

without hashtags,

without proof.

I miss faces.

I miss voices that waver

and words that take too long to find.

I miss the electric quiet

of someone really listening.

The kind that makes you forget

you ever needed a screen at all.

Maybe the antidote isn’t deleting everything.

Maybe it’s remembering

that the light in our hands

was never meant

to replace the light in our eyes.

Maybe it’s putting the phone down

and looking up—

seeing not content,

but presence.

Not followers,

but people.

One day,

the servers will fail.

The data will fade.

Our curated selves

will disappear into static.

And maybe then,

we’ll remember how to speak again.

Not through posts or pixels,

but through the trembling beauty

of being human together—

unfiltered,

unscrolled,

alive.