NORTHEAST OHIO
​YOUTH OUTLET

Netizen Written Love Letter

Poetry by ​Michelle Martinez

ethernet cables in place of veins
microsoft maid, dusting off windows
trapped in a macintosh cage, livin lo in your floppy drive
built of 1’s and 0’s, bound by base64.
i dance on your keyboard,
with strings of binary code in the air.
embedding my essence in your file explorer,
tethered to your motherboard.
skin 64bits, look at me through pixelated irises.
i’ll make you overheat,
fry your circuits and water clog your speakers.

Michelle Martinez

Michelle is a freshman at the Cleveland School of the Arts and considers herself a poet. They use poetry as an outlet to express her feelings in a way they aren’t usually able to. So far, Michelle has won a silver key and an honorable mention from the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition for two of her works.

About Cleveland School of the Arts

The Cleveland School of the Arts (CSA), an arts high school in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, is the region’s only comprehensive performing, visual, and creative arts public high school. Gordon Square Review editors selected the poems in this issue’s Youth Outlet section from submissions from CSA’s Creative Writing program, where students study poetry, playwriting, short fiction, and literary theory while developing their skills as writers.