No one writes things by hand anymore-
with email
and texting
IMing...
We've lost the art cursive.
Of writing neatly in large loopy letters.
We've lost the art of language.
preferring to keep our texts and emails as short as possible.
Our tweets must be less than 140 characters.
Our status updates can't be too long.
If they are no one will bother to read them.

I remember practicing my signature when I was little.
I had just learnt the characters in my name
and slowly formed the large loopy letters
countless times
on blanks sheets of paper.
My little sister
will never know the pleasure
of filling a pure white paper
with her name.
Because she doesn't write by hand.

She prefers the bendable plastic keys of a computer
or the hard glass of her touch screen phone
to the supple wood of a pencil
or the smooth ink of a pen.

She will never know the thrill
of finding a torn of piece of paper
on her desk
penned by a secret admirer.
Every word written with love
and trepidation.
She will never know the thrill of writing back.
She will only know the shrill sound of her computer pinging
as it alerts her of a new email
and the sharp vibrations of her phone
as she receives a text.
She will never write a valentine by hand.
She will never fill out invitations.
Just send an e-card instead.

What a pity
that the only words she will ever form
with  the large loopy scrawl of cursive
will be her name
at the bottom of a check
or receipt.
But even those are done on computers now.