FOMO

This poem was first published in The Fears of Us All: a collection of poems & short stories, Cherry House Press, 2018.

FOMO
I don’t need a pseudo-science charlatan
to tell me that my Fear of Missing Out
and thumbs-up connection obsession is unhealthy.
I always knew other people had more fun than me.

FOMO The Next Big Thing
Chasing the cool I never had, never will.
All of the all ̶ of everything ̶
fiction and non-fiction, Hollywood, D.C., music and sports ̶
It’s more than any one person can know or track.

FOMO Technology
Streaming digital data and entertainment,
endless updates, advances and improvements
have me on a short bus to rage town.
I’m becoming irrelevant.

FOMO Fun
I’ve peered over the edge
of the YouTube rabbit hole
and Googled myself into a Wiki Wonderland.
It wobbles my brain like a roller coaster.
The swirly whirly kaleidoscope makes me dizzy.

The riders on the outside lane of the carousel
reach for the brass ring from the back of a leaping horse.
I used to do that before I was sidelined
by an invisible age line, and motion sickness.

Watching other people have fun
my Fear of Missing Out is manifest.

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