Instagram is the Anti-Hero In My Life

I suppose this teeters on the brink of poetry and prose.
Maybe an essay, a memoir, a love letter, a declaration of war
This is a pin-pointed jab at the core of the scorching insecurities curling in my gut
you, I point a laser at you, omniscient god that watches over me
i n s t a g r a m 
I'm semi-jealous, semi-zealous
starting at your pink and purple eyes
as if you were my God himself
manifested onto earth as a hub of opportunity and soul-sucking
creative cracking pressure. 

You graced me with one thousand gracious followers
feeding me spoonfuls of what I thought what sugar to appease my sweet tooth
oh, how mistaken I was.
You fed me white powder drizzled in glass and with 
a small gram raising me to heaven,
I became addicted, wanting more, more, more
a monster where writing felt like a task not worth my attention
No, I must amass, grow the platform for when I publish
idiot, you must write to publish
My life is garbage and Instagram is the bin
I keep dropping in, getting buried among st the millions of others
drowning in a swamp of crumpled paper

Instagram has given me the depths of my hearts desires
indulged me in the wildest fantasy
and I grew, a balloon, inflating until my eyes imploded 
and I could no longer see.
It blinded me, then guided me through the haze
I indulged and consumed and mulled over my stagnant feelings
neglecting most literally all of worth in my life
hoping this invisible god would save me. 

Instagram is the grand anti-hero of my life
good intentions, bad consequences
I drown and drown and drown
in the dwindling pacific sea
or connected to the dirt
and you bury me
and I become
everything
I always
feared
 I'd
be

-instagram is the anti-hero of my life and I'm done letting it ruin me

Riya M. Cyriac