Stop reading this.⁣
Are you still reading?⁣
Then you are clearly in need⁣
of some assistance,⁣
which I will now provide⁣
with great reluctance and small hope.⁣
⁣
Begin by hiding your phone⁣
in the middle of the books⁣
you bought but never intend to read,⁣
those impressive hardcovers⁣
that suggests a person you might have been⁣
in some other life.⁣
⁣
Or treat it like a jenga block⁣
buried in the centre of a pile,⁣
the kind that, when removed,⁣
brings everything else down with it,⁣
which is exactly what your phone⁣
does sometimes doesn’t it?⁣
⁣
Are you still reading?⁣
Then try the more dramatic options⁣
place it in a rat trap as bait,⁣
or take a flight, request the middle seat,⁣
slide the phone underneath,⁣
and let aviation design do the rest⁣
⁣
Or imagine, if you would,⁣
that you are on a bomb disposal team,⁣
thirty minutes left on the timer,⁣
the building must be evacuated ⁣
will you still check your notifications⁣
or will you save everyone?⁣
⁣
Are you still reading?⁣
Of course you are.⁣
So close your eyes⁣
(after you finish this poem, naturally),⁣
and wait for the next notification to arrive⁣
the way one waits for the next train⁣
⁣
Listen as it breaks the silence.⁣
Notice how the silence⁣
was the larger room all along,⁣
and the notification, merely a small disturbance⁣
passing through it,⁣
the way a bird passes through a sky
⁣
You stopped reading, didn’t you?⁣
You didn’t.⁣
The phone is still in your hand.⁣
But something in you is already⁣
somewhere else,⁣
and that, my friend, is enough sometimes.

NaPoWriMo Day 27 prompt – Last but not least, here’s today’s (optional) prompt. Start by reading Robert Fillman’s poem, “There should always be two.” Now, write your own poem in which all the verses contain the same number of lines (whether couplets, triplets, quatrains, etc.) and in which you give the reader instructions of some kind.