brief beautiful internet

we used to reach our hands into
the mouths of strangers. crocodile glow.
there were windows without gods.
gardens in the dark. i am getting to the age
where "i remember when" starts
to feel thick & impossible. i loved
the old internet that i would crawl into
at a library computer. the way the internet
had edges & unfurled slowly. my fingers 
still learning how to walk a keyboard.
ads were strange & few. glittering billboards.
a chain email i sent to all my friends.
curses lifted. i let my face shrink 
to the size of a postage stamp. fell in love
with other girls pretending to be boys
pretending to be girls. characters who
could disappear between a tongue
& the roof of the mouth. i craved to be
closer. to sleep inside the old internet.
i think it would feel like crushed velvet. 
like licorice without the root. i saw my reflection
in the spaceship screen. my face was round.
my eyes, sockets. the machine drinking
a world too big to hold me. i slipped through
the mesh. a fish through a net. 
my favorite websites were the ones
where i could talk to other ghosts like me.
once, i had an online boyfriend. i do not know
who he is really. maybe he is horrible &
he once ate someone whole or maybe
he is a girl like me without any hair. 
a mirror hung on the ceiling. maybe he
daydreams about the old internet too.
remembers me briefly as a gap between teeth.