by Lylanne Musselman
The morning Facebook went down,
is a testament to the world we live in,
your first thoughts: someone hacked me—
your account is gone, the photos you trust
will always be there forever, deleted.
A life lived on social media, Instagram and
Threads vanished. You're not allowed to log in.
Wrong password. You know it’s correct,
but conditioned you change your password.
The platforms won’t let you. You’ve been shut out.
Meta doesn’t believe it’s you. How do you prove
you’re you to software programs that don’t
recognize passwords, or codes sent
directly to your phone to verify your identity?
Finally, you hear others are having issues
logging into Facebook and all related platforms.
Your next thought—we’re under attack.
Some nefarious group or country has taken control—
then like a miracle, we’re allowed back in.
It’s as if nothing happened at all, no real harm.
Except how pathetic we are
when we collectively have a panic attack
over social media, forcing us to face reality—
we rely too much on Meta to connect.
Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist. Her work has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, Poetry Breakfast, and The Ekphrastic Review, among many others, in addition to many anthologies. Her seventh chapbook Staring Dementia in the Face (Finishing Line Press) became available in 2023.