Nice to Know You

How nice not to know

Not to go through the ritual 

Reading this, hearing that

Informed, am I, able to recite 

Figures and policies

Showing intricate understanding of people 

I don’t know

Showing learned satisfaction from folded press

Atlantic, BBC, Economist, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Guardian, New York Times, New Yorker, NPR, Paris Review, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

Snippets and stabs in ordered media channels

Click vids of outrage,

Fiolded press, folded minds, ribbons and yarn, edifice set at the center of self, of ephemeral links to not much at all except ritual and outrage.

OUTRAGE. Outrageous. OUTRAGE. Outrageous. OUTRAGE. Outrageous. OUTRAGE.

Being informed is not being formed

It certainly is not remotely related to forming anything at all.

If I turn it off?

If I avert my eyes?

If I paint and play instead of pry and preen?

Am I less interesting?

Am I less relevant?

It is just a habit, damn it, dangling syringes from outlet tentacles, turn it off, move to the woods. Make a candle. Outrage. Outrageous.

Or turn it up?

Scream at pitch, with colored jerseys and flags, with disputed penalties and scoreboards,  whose up, whose down, on whose side am I. I need a side. I need side.

Scramble across artificial pitch, painted lines and spongy decay beneath plastic green sheathes.

Pump my arms on high, ooh and ahh, and go back home through the detritus of all those like me but whose names escape me. They are like me, are they not? All of us purple pygmies just trying to have a go on a blue planet. We are the same. Outrage. Outrageous. We are not the same. You are not the same. We are all different colours, special crystals, sparkle and spray, snowflakes snowflakes. Ah, but we are, the press says it is so.

Slump in my chair, tangle my hair, eat pasta and drink wine, comment upon the vintage, the terroir, the colour, the tannins, the stained teeth, the morning grog, the dishes and glasses, delicate crystal and  sink rings unwashed.

Did I know ? Yes, of course I knew. I knew it all! I knew it all! I knew it all!

I

Knew 

It 

All.

Dorian LaGuardia
2021