When you loved me
I was a television remote
with hundreds of buttons to push.

I could have been a vending machine
with salt and vinegar chips, a chocolate cream bar.
N6 would give free candy for life.

The problem with that small equation
and the function of mechanical arts
is that all I wanted was the pressure of your fingers
on the Braille number keypad across my chest.

As time for a snack break came and went,
each lonely candy bar melted in my hands.
Each unwatched channel faded to white,
but my DVR recorded it as an important event.

Then came the noise of someone else
chewing in the other room,
the sound of Brad Pitt from the love seat.

So when the cable was disconnected
and my middle layer left uneaten,
I devoured it myself one night
and only blinked one thousand times
to clear the snow from my screen.

Douglas Campbell