16 Memories Facebook Wants Me To Remember

1. My phone is cracked, so cracked that everyone asks me for how long I intend to keep it. I shoot a photo of it and caption it “Six months worth’ work in progress, found in rehab today for damage control. Most people I met asked me why I kept it like this for so long. It is funny, though. It was for the most a conversation starter and I liked to keep track of how well it still functioned despite it’s falling down pieces day by day. If people would look the same after damage and explicitly lose bits of them on the street, would you find it as disturbing as your screwed iPhone?”

2. It’s spring and I’m wearing Stella McCartney and plum lipstick at Cafe de Flore, pretending to be younger than my age with pigtails and a duck face, and my best friend Alex is handing me the camera to check my make-up once again before the shoot.

3. My father turns 60. He writes “I read your poetry. You are universal”. I cry.

4. My ex from another decade and I are having our portraits taken. It’s the last memory of us online. I don’t even know if he sees it too.

5. I get my first publishing deal and there’s a big party and I’m feeling blurry and far, I give a speech but I can’t recall anything I’ve said.

6. My flat in Berlin is filled with all my stuff. I sit on a pile of suitcases to get a better angle. There’s a strange late autumn light. I want to be here forever.

7. I write on Facebook “Who wants to be my boyfriend?”. He makes fun of it. I always forget I even came up with that.

8. I’m 18, taking my first selfie in my parent’s home. My hair is short, I look like a young version of my mother. It’s been 12 years and I can’t believe we had mobile phone cameras back then. I don’t think I’ll find the original shot ever again.

9. I used to be on Hi5. I probably still am, all passwords and account recovery data forgotten.

10. It’s January 2013 and I take a double exposure selfie with my red hair and my sad face against the 15 feet of pure white snow outside. We’re on a team building on the top of a mountain with no wifi and I cook 71 pancakes for everyone at the table in order to get him off my mind.

11. It’s summer and I dance with my best friends after we crashed a German only wedding, mumbling the few German words my German BFF Susanne attempted to teach us just minutes before pretending we know more than “Ja”.

12. It’s my birthday, 2015. I scream in the back of cab and take a quick screenshot of the email confirming my first poem will be published all over the world.

13. I’m packing my stuff to move to Barcelona. The cat kisses me on the nose. I’m wearing black and the light is unforgettable.

14. I drive my friend Andrea back to the airport. I’m broke, emotional and it’s July. I wish I could go with her. I can’t.

15. PJ Harvey is on stage in front of me. I close my eyes. I pull my camera one more time. This has to be good.

16. I play music for the first time in a club. My boyfriend takes a Polaroid of me. I play Tame Impala and everything else is noise.