What Fresh Hell is This?

I'm OBSESSED... 💁🏾‍♀️

I don’t know which came first: my obsession with justice or my obsession with hell. I’ve imagined hell being the composite of two of my biggest fears by 7 years old (at least this is as far back as I can remember remembering): I am submerged in mayonnaise from the neck down, treading my body weight as flies buzz around my head. The cylindrical and metallic torture chamber is dark enough to conceal its size— it is both claustrophobic and insurmountable. It is customized. But I have no time to coordinate. No ability to process echolocation, or the gravity of my sins, or the shape of this vessel— the flies are all I hear, an invasive and constant onslaught.

Have you imagined hell? How does it feel? Sound? Look? What are the elements? Mine is not described by Dante, nor the King James Version of the Bible, nor by some fiery Baptist— with a wicked descriptive creativity, inviting hell’s illustration, draping himself with snakes like a fur stole, or luxurious jewelry (and equal pretense). A taste of Hell on Earth is rattle snakes among the boulders. Hell is a woman like Medusa. A taste of Hell on Earth is a woman’s anger after she has been raped. I’ve tasted of Hell on Earth, as I eat into the sandwich of life, to find a layer of mayo that was neither foreclosed, nor consented to as I studied the menu and its ingredients. And Lord knows that in Los Angeles’ current insect bloom, there’s hardly a day that goes by where I am not in a desperate battle with a feisty and noisy fly.

I wasn’t raised religious. Why have I been imagining hell? What prompted me to do so? Do we all have personal hells? I’m curious. As for my behavior, though, I think sensing ways to make hell has bound me to honest explorations of self and standards. I’d prefer to do the excoriation here, rather than be subjected to something(?) else’s in an eternity. I don’t know what I believe about where we come from and where we go when we die. I have some ideas that feel righter than others, but I lack commitments.

For better or worse, here’s 10 new personal images of hell:

1.) The Questions and Negotiations of Insomnia

2.) Inflation - social/economic/disinformation/gut health

3.) Greed (marketed as Inflation)