The Feed, the Feed, the Feed / The Name I Had Before
June 16, 2026 | By Emily H.
the feed, the feed, the feed
a portrait of the self in scrolling
i. morning
Before I've named the day,
I give it to the grid.
Forty-seven strangers
have already decided
what this morning means.
Someone's brunch
is perfectly lit.
I am still in bed,
mouth sour,
performing interest.
ii. the body
I find a photo of myself
from three years ago
and feel a grief.
it hasn't earned
its own name yet.
My face is content now.
My face performs wellness.
My face has three hundred
small approvals.
iii. the argument
A man I don't know
is wrong about something
that matters so much
I spend forty minutes
being right at him.
Neither of us changes.
The thread collapses
like a body
that was never going to stay.
iv. night
I post the sunset
before it finishes
setting.
I miss it
while it's happening.
Someone says
gorgeous.
I sleep with the word
the way you sleep
with a light left on—
afraid of the dark, afraid of the dark.
In the end I was a mirror
holding up other mirrors.
I think this is connection.
I think this is enough.
the name I had before
a portrait of the self in silence
i. morning
I lie still long enough
to notice the ceiling
has a crack in it
shaped like a river
I've never visited.
This is what boredom is,
I think—
a door you keep walking past
until you forget
it could open.
ii. the body
I catch my reflection
in the toaster
and laugh—
distorted, golden,
briefly warped into something warm.
My body is just
my body today.
It asks for water.
I give it water.
This is a kind of prayer.
iii. the afternoon
I think of something funny
and have nowhere to put it,
so I say it out loud
to the empty kitchen
and the kitchen doesn't reply.
The silence doesn't hurt
the way I thought it would.
It sits with me
the way old friends sit—
without needing anything.
iv. night
I watch the sunset
until it's gone.
The whole slow ceremony of it,
the orange going
without asking to be kept.
I don't tell anyone.
The beauty sits in me
like a secret
I finally get to keep.
In the end I was just a person
standing in the kitchen at dusk.
This is nothing.
This is everything.
About the Author
Emily (she/her) is a high school junior from Tustin, CA, passionate about youth mental health advocacy at the intersection of media and social impact. She is involved with the allcove Youth Advisory Group in San Juan Capistrano and leads an initiative called Sunshine Project, where she works to reduce stigma and expand access to mental health resources. In her free time, she loves writing, theater, journaling, and watching movies/TV shows! Due to her love for creativity, she also started Canvas the Vote, an initiative aimed to increase civic engagement and voter awareness through artistic expression.
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