Small glimpse into the imagination of someone imagining texts

When you see a girl crying over her iPhone, 
Teenage boys huddled around their devices, 
Young adults seemingly talking to themselves as they walk down the street, 
What's really going on in that small piece of glass that lights up a dark room? 

It illuminates the wall of my room. It's past 10. 
I can't sleep anyway, so I roll over and pick up my phone. 
There's a list of notifications. I do what every teenager does at this time of night.
I unlock my phone. 
We should be sleeping. We know it. Everyone tells us that.
We tell ourselves that. We get it.
But our brains work differently.
When I pick up my phone at night there are notifications. From my best friend, my ex, and my crush.
And it’s like a game. Who can I wait to respond to?
My ex, of course.
Who do I need to open right away?
My BFF.
Who do I want to open right away?
My crush.

Hey what’s up, he says, I didn’t see you around a lot today.
I blush a bit. Play it cool, I think. Yeah. I wasn’t feeling so great, I left early.
I debate what emoji to add. I decide on a frowny face.
Oh! I’m sorry! He texts back, feeling any better?
Yeah. Thanks for asking.
Insert smile. How was practice? He plays baseball. But he doesn’t respond right away.
So I open my BFFs chat.
JUST finished hw UGH algebra two is gross.
I laugh. I like algebra! I text back.
Welp. Not all of us are math geeks tongue emoji. I can tell she's smiling. 
I take that as a compliment. I write, then as a bonus I text the word *bows* with two stars around it, to signal I am bowing.
She starts to type a response, but I go to check on my other messages, impatient to wait for her response.  
I want to apologize. It reads. He always wants to apologize.
About? I sigh.
I was really rude today. He writes back. 
Yeah you were. I start, But thanks for the apology. I let him apologize, everytime. 
But just as I'm getting into that sad place, a new text pops up. 
It was really good! You should come to my game tomorrow :) 
I can't stop smiling. 

The thing is, we can imagine a million conversations 
About millions of things
With millions of different people
On one device. 
Because you never know who is talking to who on what 
Or what they are saying. 
But maybe, just maybe,
Before we go and judge the girl who's crying into her phone, 
The teenage boys huddled around their devices, 
Or the young adults who seem to be talking to themselves as they walk down the street, 
Just take a second to imagine, 
Maybe someone's falling in love. 
Maybe someone's creating a friendship, 
Looking for support, 
Apologizing. 

Just maybe, somehow, 
Phones aren't so bad at all. 

BlueEyedRose

VT

YWP Alumni

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