Remote

I wake up to coffee. Pale light: 

it’s thin on the edges and hurts my eyes.

Groggily, I open my laptop.

Dozens of emails fly in. New York Times, 

of course, screaming headlines about

the country I used to call home.

- What has he done this time?

- More of the same.

I boot up Telegram. That familiar 

blue circle and white paper airplane,

which keeps me connected

to my hundred or so classmates.

“Connected.”

A funny word.

I scroll through the chats.

Worried comments about the assignment.

A few words of positivity—

roses in the thorn bush.

I grab my phone,

flick through Instagram.

The yellow-tinted, rosy residence hall.

Oh, look,

a mask-clad group went to study

at the park, with a view of the Golden Gate

swathed in clouds like an infant.

I notice their smiles.

I want to share their excitement.

The fear of missing out.

But being remote,

there are no ‘chance encounters’;

everything must be

meticulously planned

with correctly formatted

time zones, scheduled 

Zoom meetings, put on 

the Google calendar:

“Notify me 15 minutes before.”

Forced smiles,

long pauses. When the audio

cuts out midway through a sentence,

and you need to repeat

the whole thing over again.

I can’t blame the students in-res;

grabbing a coffee with your roommate

is so much simpler. “College 

is where you’ll meet your life-long friends.”

What if those people

are thousands of miles away?