Mar 2019
I spend
Fictional money on fictional things
Because I am more fictional than I am real.
Because I feel alien, like I am not of this world.
And I make
Digital purchases in digital worlds
because I've been living in one since I was three.
At least my cage had a dusty old computer.
So often I wished that I could climb inside
to be with the sparkling gifs, and neon dogs
and people whose names I did not know.
They too, were aliens, not of this world.
Maybe we all live in a poorly written fanfiction
or a comic littered with jpeg artifacts
posted on deviantart in 2007
and abandoned to rot by our god.
Maybe someday, she will pick me up and dust me off
and protect me from all those who cringe
at the juvenile creation of just another moody artist
of just another sad internet poet.
Fictional money on fictional things
Because I am more fictional than I am real.
Because I feel alien, like I am not of this world.
And I make
Digital purchases in digital worlds
because I've been living in one since I was three.
At least my cage had a dusty old computer.
So often I wished that I could climb inside
to be with the sparkling gifs, and neon dogs
and people whose names I did not know.
They too, were aliens, not of this world.
Maybe we all live in a poorly written fanfiction
or a comic littered with jpeg artifacts
posted on deviantart in 2007
and abandoned to rot by our god.
Maybe someday, she will pick me up and dust me off
and protect me from all those who cringe
at the juvenile creation of just another moody artist
of just another sad internet poet.
I've been thinking a lot about the old internet lately. More so than real life, it was where I grew up. I am sad to see it die and be infiltrated by the sort of people who we tried to escape by being online. I wonder how many young and vulnerable artists have already been discouraged or chased away by the obsession with perfection and the development of "cringe culture". I think the weird kids out there should invent something even better than the internet and keep it away from the prying hands of corporations and boring people.
