enough of can you see me, can you hear me
In this line, Limón quotes common questions asked at the start of a video call, a technology that skyrocketed in use and necessity in 2020. With the word "enough," the line alludes to the exhaustion—dubbed "Zoom fatigue," researched and reported on widely—one might experience after constant videoconferencing. The central theme of this poem is the speaker's frustration with everything that adds a layer of distance between us and reality, including poetic language and physical isolation. Video calls epitomize this distance, this abstraction: they are an imitation of face-to-face contact but cannot fully replace the real thing.
I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate,
This line uses "I" for the first time, in an intentionally ambiguous way. Is "I am alone and I am desperate" something the speaker herself is admitting? Or, like "can you see me, can you hear me," are they implied to be quotations? That is, it's unclear whether the speaker herself is admitting she's alone and desperate, or that she's tired of people saying those things. As a result, this line feels very meta, with both meanings true at once: she's alone and desperate herself, and she's tired of being alone and desperate, powerfully capturing the vicious cycle of loneliness and despair. The use of "I" foreshadows the final line, "I am asking you to touch me," which is even more clearly the speaker's own words.
