There are days I wonder if I've disappeared.

Not in body. I still fumble for my glasses in the dark. Still hum old theme songs while brushing my teeth.

But in presence.

Because when I talk to people now, it's often through a screen.
Pre-edited, color-corrected, subtitled for ease. I am a waveform. A series of cuts. A captioned moment that ends before the awkward silence begins. Short bursts of video that vanish into the scroll.

And the strangest part? I think they like me better this way.

Brian Oblivion once said, "The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye."

If that's true, maybe I've spent too long on screen. Too long projecting instead of connecting. And I wonder, if the media becomes the man, does the man begin to blur and fade?

Don't get me wrong, I still crave being heard. I still want the views, the likes, the quiet nods of acknowledgement.

But I miss the flesh, the electricity of the room, the elbow nudges during jokes, the eye contact that says, "You belong here," the laughter that's not delayed by bandwidth.

These days, I feel like I'm orbiting something warm and familiar. Some lost planet of friends and lovers and like-minded souls, sending out signals from a little satellite that's drifting just close enough to make contact feel like connection.

And floating in that gulf of night, I can't help but ask the ugly questions.

Am I easier to digest in small, edited bites? Am I more comfortable as a concept than a human being? Is the raw version of me—the one with the silence and the sorrow and the awkwardness—too real for the room?

I don't have the answers.

So I just keep broadcasting. Because maybe someone out there is listening. Maybe someone else misses the warmth, the weight, the beauty of being fully in the room.

This has been a love letter to a forgotten thing.

And if you're out there, if you've ever felt yourself fading into the signal, know this: You're not alone. You never were.

We're still out here, reaching. Still hoping for static that sounds like home.