UNSUBSCRIBE

by Mary K O’Melveny


I spent time today
pushing and clicking
buttons and links.
All designed to
remove me
from commerce,
from conversations,
from cooking insights
and calico curtains.
From onslaughts,
opportunities
and outrages,
sordid tales
of dreams gone dim.

No one really
wanted me to leave.
Some begged me
to stick around.
Offered options.
Sought my opinion.
Were sorry to offend.
Wasn’t it a simple
misunderstanding?
Wouldn’t I consider
a brief reprieve?
There were causes
in need of rescue.
Consciences to be saved.

Suppose memory
worked this way.
We controlled what stayed
and what strayed away
from our grasp like unruly
children on a playground.
We were in charge of synapse,
neurotransmitters bent
to our will, molecules
waiting to bond with our
best moments, swim away
from mistakes and regrets.
We want veto power.
A second chance to get it right.


* * * * *

Mary K O’Melveny, a retired labor rights lawyer, lives with her wife in Washington DC and Woodstock, NY. Mary, a Pushcart Prize nominee, is author of A Woman of a Certain Age and MERGING STAR HYPOTHESES (Finishing Line Press 2018, 2020) and co-author of the anthology An Apple In Her Hand (Codhill Press 2019).