Just wrote this, asking for critiques (sorry, don't know how to insert the images)

Ode to the Man Behind the Screen
I would like to thank the man behind the screen in my life,
For so many things that have led me to success
Five things I will thank you for now

The first thing that I shall thank you for never really seeming to mean what you said
You consistently threatened my future romantic partner for years,
Claiming that if he hurt me
You would break his bones and drink his blood
Despite the fact that I have almost always known that I was only interested in women,
You continued saying this with the same pronouns after you already knew.
So therefore, when I was catcalled for the first time,
I assumed outrage
I assumed that you would question who it was and threaten to hang him from a tree
Instead, you barely looked up from the screen and said that it might’ve been a compliment
From a grown man to a fourteen year old
Thank you, man behind a screen, for teaching me that I could never really trust someone’s word
It only makes sense that you forgot
You are, after all, just a man behind a screen

The second thing that I thank you for is that you taught me to never trust people with my secrets.
I told you a secret once
A secret that I wanted you to keep from others
However, when opportunity arose, you hardly looked up from the screen in order to share it with the person who I specifically asked you not to share it with
Simply because
I had explained how I shared it with many others prior to feeling comfortable to tell it to you
So you seemed to just think that the secret was alright to spill
Because the person you told wouldn’t care about the secret
Was fine with its contents. 
You didn't understand that just because I knew that,
It didn’t mean I was ready
For that person to know
But you would never understand that, because you are just a man behind a screen
So you taught me that anything I share with anyone, I should immediately prepare to have it made public
Because you can never trust someone’s word
No matter how much they want you to

Third, I would like to thank you for teaching me that being comfortable in my opinion didn’t matter.
You claimed that you always tried to teach me to be a strong young woman,
That you always tried to teach me to express my feelings and emotions,
But hearing the things coming from behind your screen,
Then attempting to discuss them
Was impossible.
Vile and hurtful they were.
Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic… and you didn’t even know it
You sat and watched as your lesbian daughter kissed her dark-skinned, transgender girlfriend without a care in the world as you played 
Videos
Videos with threatening messages
You didn’t seem to remember your wife
Who provided for you
When you were overtaken by the screen
You didn’t seem to remember your youngest daughter,
A lesbian girl with dreams and aspirations of her own
That didn’t include becoming a wife or mother
You listened and watched as a woman explained why women shouldn’t vote
That they only voted for what sounded nice instead of what was genuinely good for the people
Not caring that your daughter sat right there
Wanting it to end
Wanting the ground to swallow her up
Because the man behind the screen
Who she thought she could have a well-thought out conversation with
Had become something that
She couldn’t recognise.
Not even if she tried.
But after all, he had been consumed by the screen.
So what was she to expect?

Forth, I would like to thank you for never noticing changes in my behavior
Which allowed me to become as successful as I am now.
You never noticed when I stopped sleeping the same way I did before.
I would stay up until three in the morning every night writing a story
That I started years ago
Just before the first time I was catcalled
A story that you would never understand
If you read it,
You’d probably say that the basis was good, but
You would be left to question
Why it was written like that
Why were the boys lovers instead of just friends?
If they were only friends, it would have wider appeal
It wouldn’t just have the appeal of the woke community
That you seemed to forget that your daughter was a part of at every passing moment
You wouldn’t understand that
If they weren’t lovers,
The emotional appeal wouldn’t be the same.
You would say that no one wants to see two men kissing
But you don’t seem to care watching two women kiss on your screen
Because everyone loves it when two women kiss
It’s hot, they say
But two men?
No. 
That is a disgusting deviation
But alas…
How could you ever understand
When you are just a man behind a screen?

And finally, I would like to thank you for my name.
Starting with my long last name
The name that my maternal grandfather still can’t spell
And many of my friends still can’t say
Then my middle name
Your mother’s first name
A strong woman, she was
You seem to forget her teachings sometimes, though
Which is alright, since you are just a man behind a screen, after all
And now my first name
The name that makes Christians swoon
And me internally wince every time
Because I haven’t been Christian since I was just a girl
But you never see that
Because you are just a man behind a screen

So I would like to call you all
To thank our men behind screens
Whether the screen be a phone or television screen,
A prison screen,
Or the screen that is created from miles of distance
Or after years of broken promises
Because we learned so much about the pains of the real world from them
And we certainly wouldn’t be the same without them.

Posted Jul 23, 2026, 4:57 AM UTC

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