The User Agreement
A stream of consciousness poem about consent, silence, and the cost of clicking “Accept”
I scroll.
I scroll like this is breathing,
like my thumb knows the way better than my heart.
Terms and conditions.
Small letters.
Big consequences.
I don’t read them.
No one reads them.
We just agree
because disagreement feels heavier
than ignorance.
I click Accept
the way I accept
being tired,
being watched,
being slowly divided into data.
mewhere between paragraph twelve
and the promise of “improved experience,”
I lose my name.
I become
a pattern,
a preference,
a habit at 2:13 a.m.
I am no longer a person—
I am a behavior.
ey say:
We respect your privacy.
The way strangers respect boundaries
by standing close enough to hear your thoughts.
The way mirrors respect honesty
by showing everything
and apologizing for nothing.
agree to be tracked,
not because I want to be,
but because the door only opens
after I surrender the key.
is agreement feels familiar.
Like jobs that promise growth
and deliver exhaustion.
Like love that says forever
but hides an exit clause in silence.
Like governments.
Like gods.
Like systems that smile
while collecting pieces of you.
scroll faster now.
Legal language blurs into lullabies.
“May.”
“Shall.”
“Not liable.”
Words that sound like water
but cut like glass.
mewhere it says
I can opt out—
but only if I already understand
what I was never taught to read.
think about consent.
How it’s supposed to be informed,
enthusiastic,
reversible.
This is none of those things.
This is survival.
This is clicking Yes
because the alternative
is digital exile.
wonder
how many versions of me exist now
on servers that never sleep.
Me when I searched for answers.
Me when I searched for escape.
Me when I searched for someone
who sounded like they cared.
onder
if grief has metadata.
If loneliness is stored in the cloud.
If healing gets flagged
as unusual activity.
agreement says
they may change the terms at any time.
Which feels honest, actually.
Life does that too.
lick Accept again.
Because I want access.
Because I want connection.
Because I am human
and humans choose convenience
over clarity
when clarity hurts.
don’t hate the system.
I just wish it didn’t pretend
we were equals at the table.
e checkbox is empty.
Waiting.
So am I.
accept.
Not because I agree—
but because this is how
the world works now.
About the Creator
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Where My Mind Wanders
My mind rarely stays where my body is. It wanders—quietly, stubbornly—slipping through moments, memories, and imagined futures while the world expects me to remain present. Sometimes it drifts without permission, and other times I send it away on purpose, just to breathe. Where my mind wanders is not always a peaceful place. But it is always honest. Between What Was and What Could Have Been Often, my mind wanders backward. It revisits conversations that ended too soon, words I never said, choices that seemed small at the time but turned out to be defining. It pauses at crossroads I barely noticed when I stood there, wondering who I might have been if I had chosen differently. There is a strange comfort in the past. Even painful memories carry familiarity. They remind me that I survived, that I learned, that I changed—even if the change came with scars. My mind doesn’t return to the past to torture me. It goes there to understand. To make sense of how I became who I am. The Quiet Spaces No One Sees Sometimes my mind wanders into silence. Not the peaceful kind found in nature or empty rooms, but the internal silence that appears when words fail. This is where emotions sit without names, where feelings exist without explanations. In these moments, I realize how much of life happens internally—unnoticed, unshared. We move through the world smiling, working, speaking, while entire emotional landscapes remain hidden inside us. My mind wanders there when I am tired of pretending that everything is simple. Imagined Futures and Unlived Lives There are days when my mind runs ahead of me. It imagines futures that may never arrive—versions of life where things turned out differently, where courage came sooner, where timing was kinder. These imagined futures are not always hopeful. Sometimes they are warnings. Sometimes they are wishes. I think about who I might become if I let go of fear. I wonder what kind of peace I could find if I stopped carrying what no longer belongs to me. My mind wanders forward not because I’m dissatisfied with the present, but because hope is a form of survival. Why the Mind Refuses to Stay Still People often treat wandering thoughts as a flaw. A lack of focus. A weakness. But I’ve come to believe the opposite. A wandering mind is searching. It is processing, healing, questioning. It refuses to accept life at surface level. It digs beneath routine, beneath habit, beneath expectation. My mind wanders because it wants meaning—not just motion. Where Pain Quietly Lives There are places my mind avoids until it can’t anymore. That’s where pain lives. Unresolved grief. Disappointments I never allowed myself to mourn. Relationships that ended without closure. Moments where I felt invisible, unheard, or misunderstood. My mind wanders there slowly, carefully, like stepping into cold water. But when it finally arrives, something important happens: I feel. And feeling, even when it hurts, is better than numbness. Creativity Is a Form of Wandering Some of my best ideas arrive when my mind wanders freely. When I stop forcing productivity, when I allow myself to drift, creativity appears. Thoughts connect in unexpected ways. Emotions turn into words. Chaos finds a shape. Writing, for me, is not about control. It’s about letting my mind wander and trusting that it will bring something back worth keeping. Loneliness and the Inner World There are moments when my mind wanders because I feel alone—even in a crowded room. In those moments, the inner world becomes louder than the outer one. Thoughts replace conversations. Reflections replace noise. Loneliness doesn’t always mean lacking people. Sometimes it means lacking understanding. My mind wanders then, searching for connection—not always with others, but with myself. Learning to Let the Mind Wander Without Getting Lost I used to fight my wandering thoughts. I thought discipline meant silence. Control. Stillness. Now I know better. The goal is not to stop the mind from wandering, but to return when it matters. To observe without drowning. To wander without disappearing. There is wisdom in knowing when to drift—and when to come back. Where My Mind Wanders, I Find Myself In the end, my mind wanders to teach me something. About who I am. About what I fear. About what I still hope for. It wanders through darkness and light, past and future, doubt and possibility. And every time it returns, it brings pieces of understanding with it. Where my mind wanders, I don’t lose myself. I find myself.
By Zahid Hussain18 days ago in Poets
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