I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

I think my group chats are the best group chats.

We hit each other up every day, give verbal daps, check in on family, share progress videos of workouts.

We pass on new drafts of poems with no pressure to give feedback, but of course we do. Or we simply say,

good morning. When birthdays roll around, we make sure each fills the love. On our phones,

we are royalty. I'm in several group chats, one a decade old. I prize them all. Health tips are exchanged,

get-togethers are organized, book parties are planned. When I contemplate going silent,

of letting go of this piece of technology in my hand, I think of missing the shared means that have us cracking

up. Or in our phones, we set off laugh bombs. Of course, our flurries of text do not substitute for

IRL moments. In the past, yes, I railed against the world being too much with us. However, it boggles the

mind, this level of rapid support and ongoing community of family and friends. On our phones,

we are each other's EMT. Today's poem possesses that quality of floating with our crew

in the spaces between, that magic of turning up each other's light. It's a poem featured in

invisible strings, the anthology that celebrates Taylor Swift's lyrics.

Hey, Swifties, can you tell which song inspired the author's poem?

When you rise from the dead, I drive you to the after party by Melissa Stoddard for my favorite Swifty Carolyn.

If someone tossed us the sun, we catch it in our halos without getting burned.

We're cleaning up this constellation of fractured anthems and interstellar dust,

threading the debris we collect into daisy garlands for stars and

starfish and starlings. People say, we're good, but it's more like we're fabulous, like crushed

platinum and amethyst planet-shaped paperweights resting on palms scribbled by moth wings.

We slide from one side of infinity to the other without messing up our hair.

...