Why should we write, anyway?
The world isn’t listening
to discourse about anything
that makes people rise up
out of their home theaters
and scratch their heads
or open their minds,
snapping them out of the
media anesthesia where there are skins
burning off of children in Syria
but so and so was a first round draft pick
and there’s a sale at Target
on the beer that everyone likes
because bravery is forged
behind auto glass and a horn
when people go too slow
on the commute to that safe suburb
where the brown people are moving in,
but they’re not like the Indians in the call
center because they have money enough
to buy the stucco palace
with the manicured lawn
that looks just like all the others.
a sea of spanish tile
and satellite dishes. Camelot.
And it’s only good to get angry
at the tv and the people
on it because talking about
anything except what’s out on netflix
might mean there would need to be
an expense of actual energy
or understanding of how this entire world works
or even, goddess forbid,
some idea of what has happened before
from the lore tellers of history
and literature.
Ignored, unprioritized,
turning to ashes in the libraries.
So what’s the point of writing?
Is it now reduced to the ceaseless optimism,
like the Arecibo message,
hoping that another being
with at least one small urge to fight
the culture of rampant, ignorant
consumerism and try to
make one thing better for someone?
someone we might never meet?
Or should I just toss the journals in the landfill
on my way to the sale
at Target for the next
Hallmark Holiday?