WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

If we asked each other what we search for on the internet, sought in each other what we seek online...

Would we be closer? If I knew how riddled you are with worry about that thing on your body... how far down your ex’s feed you abseil and how deep that hurts...

Know myself better? If I knew that kink you crave, those links you click, and how late you stay up enjoying them... The hate you stake out or the bait you chase and how ashamed you are it's exciting...

Be more wise? To know your envy, and how much you make that “thing that they have that you don’t” mean about you? Knew intimately your anxiety about death and just how you fear you’ll go...

Could I even go with you if I knew the direction you take when you go looking for some other place to feel safe, seen, or known? Sit beside you in your questions...

Maybe we ask the internet because we know it won’t ask us why we have these wonderings. The search engine lets you ask anything, gives answers if it’s got them, and lets you know if it doesn’t. To sit with your questions without guaranteed answers is to accept the beauty of your doubt and see through my need to feel safe by ending your uncertainty.

No coincidence that humans made a thing they can endlessly search on. To be found is so much harder, and maybe we don’t want to be found?

Instead, to be allowed to search. To seek out answers on our terms. To go down rabbit holes, stir up old wounds, and suffer the consequences, because they are ours, and within them what we need.

To fix our perceived lack, with endless looking, until our eyes grow tired enough to see through our illusion. Numb instead of heal, and honour the wisdom of delay. Ask endless questions because we’re not ready for answers, solutions or true connection at this time.

Maybe we could ask each other what we ask the internet? Even not ask why.

Picture: Duck Feet On Snow, Canal Path, Hanley, December 2020