Poetry for Engineers: Safe Distance

How do I touch you
across the ocean,
across cold depths
where light travels through glass.
Not copper—fibers. Optical.
Through liquid glass, through flickering light
that carries you in fragments. Light broken into pulses.
You say: it’s easier this way. What are we missing like this? You smile.
Safe distance.
I say: network.
Signals slide beneath the sea, through cables thinner than trust, faster than touch,
slower than longing.
We stand alone, together. Synchronous, yet apart. Icons replace skin, latency replaces breath.
This distance protects us. Silence that feels intentional.
Everything is under control as long as nothing truly hurts.
And we choose it
because it shields us
from what we might become if we actually met.
You are my counterpoint. My response.
My reflection
at a safe distance.
Beneath the ocean, nodes remember paths.
Packets shake hands without bodies.
If we get lost,
we resend everything, with error,
with noise,
with hope.
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Danica Radovanović is a writer and digital society expert based in Germany. Her work engages global policy and digital inclusion projects across the Global North and South, including service as an expert on Child Online Protection for the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union. She is Senior Researcher at the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and a former scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Oxford Internet Institute. She is the editor and contributing author of Digital Literacy and Inclusion: Stories, Platforms, Communities (Springer, 2024), and her work bridges scholarship, policy, and public writing at the intersection of technology and society.
Beyond policy and research, Radovanović writes fiction and poetry. Her short stories have appeared in literary anthologies. She is the author of the short story collection Divertimento for Four Seasons and is completing her first novel, Counterpoint.
For more, visit https://danicar.info or her Substack, Digital Serendipities: https://digitalserendipities.substack.com

* Communication occurs across the ocean via optical fibers, not copper.
* The transmission involves light traveling through glass.
* Information is broken into pulses of light.
* Signals travel through cables described as thinner than trust and faster than touch.
* The relationship is characterized by synchronous separation.
* Packets exchange information without bodies.
* Error and noise are introduced when information is resent if lost.

Communication across vast distances occurs through optical networks, utilizing light broken into pulses rather than traditional copper fibers. This method involves transmitting signals through mediums like "liquid glass" and flickering light, which fragments information as it travels. The interaction described emphasizes a relationship defined by managed distance, where connection is achieved via a network of signals that are faster than physical touch but slower than emotional longing. The dynamic suggests a state of synchronous separation, where presence is maintained not by direct physical contact but through data exchange. The text posits that this mediated existence creates a protective silence and control, shielding participants from the potential risks associated with actual physical meeting, establishing a relationship as a reflection or counterpoint across space.

The narrative explores the tension between physical intimacy and mediated connection, framing technological distance as a form of protective autonomy. The core implication lies in the trade-off: tangible presence versus controlled absence. The mechanism described—data transmission replacing sensory input ("icons replace skin," "latency replaces breath")—suggests that the structure of digital reality imposes a specific set of boundaries that are deliberately chosen for self-preservation. This speaks to a contemporary negotiation of human vulnerability in an interconnected world, where control over information flow becomes equated with safety from potential pain associated with unmediated presence. The concept of nodes remembering paths and packets shaking hands highlights a system where relationships operate on abstract, quantifiable layers, raising questions about the authenticity of emotional resonance when mediated entirely through latency and error. What is being analyzed is the inherent paradox in modern relationality: achieving closeness through systemic separation.

Poetry for Engineers: Safe Distance

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Executive Summary

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Poetry for Engineers: Safe Distance

Facts Only

Executive Summary

Full Take