1.

I feel so dirty, so ashamed:
I am powerless over the thrill of transgression, and the false importance gained from abusing the blockhead.

We can not communicate, his non-verbals suck,
I do not speak the language created by and for men who have not bodies nor souls.

He starts every new project with the same stupid notes, left cryptically on the desktop, " READ ME".
He's not the white rabbit and I am not Alice,
Explain Yourself, please, I plead,
but he never listens and even if he does, he just doesn't get it: some of us don't think like he does.

I tried, believe me, to show interest, be attentive
but he is just such a bore!
There's really very little thrill to plug into; and no chemistry like before.

I turn him on, he turns himself off
I'm tired of all this sleep lost
He takes all my money and now it seems that
my mind he's neatly tossed.

He's a fooking machine: thinks and talks in DIGITAL,
while I'm ensconsed in feelings.
His messages lack warmth, his mind is rigid
he's dry as a bone and twice as frigid.


They say I move too fast for him,
I don't think in bitsy pieces
I'm too abstract, he's too concrete.
He can not think while on his feet.
It has to be his way or else
he overloads and shuts down.

In the wink of a blink he looses my words
and makes of me want to drown.

Yet I keep going back to try again,
As if I could keep him turned on.
I'm deluding myself, in search of connection,
but he freezes or worse, he frowns.

I groan disgusted with his conventions.
I can not stand how he thinks:
he is just so tedius, and so pedantic;
How to cope with this guy without getting frantic?

I've stooped to probing his sensitive places,
as if I can change The System
but moving his things is the worst thing I can do,
without his tedius permission.



I hate myself but I can not stop
meddling in his thick brain.
Cause when he gets stuck on some stupid task,
I just feel such outright distain.

I try taking things out of files, then putting them back
I can't divorce him nor serve him a summons
so I end up just pushing his buttons
I've failed to move him and again he's broke down
so he gets private attention; and though they've worked,
He comes back to me with that stupid smirk,
Mac's pretending everything is back in gear, but if
I didn't document my every move he gets even more weird.

People ask me why do I bother?
As if I knew his insides.
It all happened so fast- twas a casual thing,
A one night stand, however, was not monetarily wise.

I didn't expect it to happen again.
I went overboard trying to get him to be human
and now we aren't even friends.

I should have seen it coming from the start:
He'd been getting loud, even acting kinda buzzed.
I was over-confident in opening him up,
didn't read his messages, but just because
I'd dabbled once and gotten connected, I'd believed I could heal him when he needed a mend.
I must have been mad, messing around with what I could not understand.

I've tried to just use him after that, to find someone more humane.
To my posting to the personals, he'd kindly claimed, that
there was "no threat detected".
But right after that he followed with, "You have been disconnected."


Why do I keep going back?
The answer, of course is money.
I can't afford a new guy and therapy's too high tech
Still, this guy's a pain in the neck.

He's stooped to getting others involved now.
To my printer he's showing no manners.
His memory is shot and now he claims
he can't recognize the scanner.

Perhaps he crashes from all the excitement
of being with someone so real.
And I'm getting so tired, wired, and uninspired from all the fiddling and fixing
that I can't even feel.

Though I dawdle longer and go deeper,
this he absolutely abhors.
Is he dead or just sleeping, I can never guess
when he sits there while my house accumulates mess.

How can he just turn off to me like that?
I'm loosing it to a machine.
I search his memory for what went wrong
and what made him so mean.
All friendly extensions have disappeared.
I will NEVER understand
I'm asking only that someone, his functioning, restore
And I promise in the future I'll stay out of the store
before I will again be such a whore.

2.

I finally tried getting some advice, confessed to a computer-whiz who is generally soft spoken and understanding. "Obeng, you've been through a lot," I begin. He groans without looking up from his computer.
I press on, "Obeng… it happened again".
My friend from Ghana puts a disk into his CD burner and I begin feeling creepy.

Maybe I didn't sound sorry enough." I really don't mean to get so involved. It's not like I'm trying to mess things up."
Obeng scowls, and I quickly remind him that I’m a good person... that I, like him, am just fascinated with computers!

Obeng looks down at his big digital watch and I feel so useless I actually get jealous of the stupid thing.
The silence has become unbearable. I turn to go upstairs.
Then, just as I’m about to leave and never speak to him again, he remarks that, "...it’s really kind of weird".
My heart pounds. "Weird?"
"Yes, kind of typical too…." .... "it's really kind of intrusive" to be "messing around" with my computer’s head without knowing anything about it's needs or preferences. I'm messing in files that even HE wouldn’t touch.

When his voice raises and he adds that I am, "like the mother who..." I cry out in pain, "Shut up!" and retreat up the stairs from his basement lab, hurrying out to my car.

Who is he to judge me, anyway? I came to him in confidence! And the worst part is he BLAMES me--as if I fooled around on purpose!

So I go to see Adam at Second Chance Computers; he’s more liberal, understands creative types with Adult A.D.D.
I have a face-saving strategy too: I will say the worst possible conclusion anyone could make about my behavior before he can.
So I tell Adam, right off that I’ve just completely lost it. I recklessly messed with and harassed my computer.
He can turn me in or he can help me.

It works: Adam tells me to just take a cold shower and forget about it; that everyone fools around, they just don’t talk about it, that’s all.

Still, I leave feel guilty; knowing that I probably won't stop…. So what if this abuse of innocent objects is a backlash.It's passive-aggressive, an unconscious transference of my deeply repressed anger against all men. Women didn't could think up such non-intuitive crap.

Still, it just isn't working for me to get so involved. Mac can't help it that he has to have his way. He wasn't created to be divine, just functional. So, I have finally decided to sell out: I am stooping to reading the directions before I get in bed with my laptop again.
Don't try to talk me out of it. I’m tired of feeling sleazy. The whole "trip" was an act of desperation.

I just hope that my computer guys will stay friends with me, understanding that addictions don’t go away overnight, when I come crying to them again.

...an abusive relationship with my Mac