(Gods) Stained Glass
The Internet is a small chapel, and within it, a constant urge to consume. To bite the very flesh of invisibility, where celestial figures exist in white dollies on social screens. Their own gentleness meant for you. In between the internet is the fabrics of time, and those we wish to lick. The velvets, silks, cottons and linens. A light presses them, and beneath you are shrouded by a hand of intense, tight cornered aumbries. Where the sun sneaks around corners, fancying tree limb and leaf. You are circling in yourself, creating a sphere of all the niches you slide between. There is you and something you want to eat. Then there is someone else crouched, eating. You, in this gravity, them in their ecstasy of gluttony. A room not quite here nor there, but you know the lush green hills outside. Constantly rolling, folding themselves to no rhyme. Together you will eat the other. In this little place of worship, the flesh will split. Wings will almost birth themselves from your small backs, (The internet lets these things happen). We bend ourselves into sweeter rinds of fruit, hoping to find the center. We are close enough to the end (to god) so I can tell you, that I have eaten too. I have skinned these things. There is no center. The internet is just there begging us to eat bones. Little angels do not sing, they crack and crack. Break and break. You can crawl to the pews, lay there a while, unbroken, starving. You will return, hungry. We are left no choice but to eat and pray and those who do not, find themselves thinning and silent. I have done this too, for my own self preservation. I wanted to mummify myself against the odds. I came back hungry and relentless. When the doors open, and you see the hills and the drained grass, you will feel some humanistic urge to run. To go and lay in the grass, though it is itchy. You will want to arch yourself to the world, make yourself vulnerable, though you used to always cover your breast. There is nothing here that is permanent besides desire. The chapel will one day fall into itself and we will go down with it. Why should we not eat? We are cannibals to a shunning God, looking for forgiveness and shame. We will never go out the door. Our guilt weighs us heavy like glittered balloons. We hope, when this is all said and done, the sun will find us again.
Tranquil, and prepared to take away our filth like a mother.
A lovely metaphor here. The wording and style help create a great idea for the internet and what it means for us. It is certainly true that we use the internet for self-indulgence and this metaphor paints a grim picture of it! The image provided also helps. This description shows how isolating the internet can be, despite others being present, and I love it!
ReplyDeleteI took this metaphor personally. What a lovely work of art to relate to. I feel seen, perhaps in my own weird way. The internet fuels desire while exposing vulnerability. Without the proper care, using the internet can end horribly. I am reminded of my first cell-phone (I was ten years old). I found Facebook and then Pinterest. I stumbled across a few social media pages dedicated to encouraging a "community" of skinnier people who ate less. At the time, I hadn't known how impressionable I was. Thankfully, the internet no longer holds this sort of body-image power over me anymore.
ReplyDeleteYou know that I love a good consumption/hunger rant! Using the idea of gluttony and this insatiate movement of starvation is wonderful when considering the all-consuming and "all-knowing" landscape that the Internet makes itself out to be. This reminds me of how we search and search for things that we already understand and things we want to understand through these windows of opportunity presented via the Internet. You wrote this poetically, a true Mercedes classic. (:
ReplyDeleteAs with everything you do, this blog is exceedingly poetic, as is your metaphor. Your website is also GORGEOUS. It is so beautiful, but also perfectly illustrates how harmful and treacherous the internet can be. There are so many horrible things easily accessible to all of us. You also allude to the death of the internet alongside humanity so well.
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