Edges of the Head
In ancient days,
we lifted our eyes to the heavens,
seeking gods who could bridge the distance
between one voice and another.
We carved prayers into stone,
we sent smoke into the skies,
hoping to be heard.
Now,
in our small, illuminated screens,
we have become the gods
of our own spaces.
With a touch,
a whisper travels across oceans.
With a signal,
the absent become present,
the far become near.
No temple stands between us.
No priest must translate our words.
Each of us carries
a tower of invisible threads,
an unseen altar
that collapses distance into immediacy.
And yet,
for all this power,
what do we create?
Conversations without faces,
intimacies without touch,
a chorus of voices
that sometimes sing together
and sometimes drown each other out.
We are gods—
but minor ones,
bounded by batteries,
by networks,
by the very devices
that grant us divinity.
Still, there is wonder here.
For in this age of intervention,
we can speak into the void
and know someone hears.
We can exist in another’s world
without leaving our own.
Perhaps this is what it means
to be human today:
to hold the power once reserved for myths,
to bend space and time with our words,
and to remember, even as gods,
that all we seek—
all we have ever sought—
is connection.