Ander Monson
I wish I could say the boring things go first
but apparently they don't. While I can't be sure
the good stuff disappears before the rest:
the Christmas flickers, the liquors, the baubles,
the hottest search results, both seams and seems,
it seems. Everyone's pants fell off, it looked like,
because they did. Soon everything
that looked like something was and nothing fuzzy
lasted before resolving. One-pieces became
an increasing thing. We got back into cloaks and belts.
Without our errors we weren't less sure but more.
It wasn't good. No would, no should: all was. All our
human dramas got less dramatic. No more foolin,
no more funnin, no more runnin around on each other
secretly. Gone was plausible deniability. That wasn't bad
but lies got a lot less white and white guys had to own
their various bullshitteries. No one would deny
it meant improvement on a larger level, but still
we had to fill the silences that resulted somehow.
Without them talking, pantsless, it took a while
before someone else began to speak. We read less.
Stopped reproducing. Everything was getting thinner anyway
—at last. It was hard at first: you get used to a certain tone
of voice, my boy, a Foghorn Leghorn modus operandi.
Some could not adjust. You could see them in their telling stances
assuming something into the distance. It was funny, then sad,
funny, sad, and then it just stayed sad. We called our dads
to make sure they enjoyed their newly flowy clothes, their new gender roles,
and understood literalism. Some wandered off or died.
Even I got lonely then. I started getting into fights.
The thing I like the most about the lights is that they go out.