This But Unironically

This, but unironically.

This thing we do,
where we are people who do not understand what’s happening
because we were raised by children and we are still children,
and we are falling toward death with damaged minds
in a universe made of awkward silence
and we don’t know how to be cool about it.

This place where we clawed our way up the food chain
to become the apex predator
and now we’re all afraid
because we are surrounded by apex predators.

This place where powerful men spend fortunes on confusing us,
where we walk with Prozac faces among the ghosts of the indigenous,
where we ache for a forgotten culture like a fresh amputee for a missing limb,
where modern medicine makes us outlive our own neurons and skeletons
but not our exuberance,
where brains make people so miserable that they blow them out their skulls,
where you can become rich just by pretending you know how to live
or pretending you know what’s going on.

This.
This whole mess.
But, unironically.
Just the way it is.
No hiding behind furtive coolness.
No stepping a click backwards or above
to avoid the uncomfortable intimacy of this disaster.
Let’s just sit here a minute in the family dinner weirdness of it all
and be here with it.

This is where we meet.
Not in detached imperviousness
or behind some pleasant reframing,
but here.
In this.
In this life-sized life,
in this universe-shaped universe,
in this reality-flavored reality,
in all its awkward awesomeness,
in all its courageous carnage,
in all its holy hideousness.

We do not fear the sloppiness,
the fleshiness,
the clumsiness,
the chaos.
We make like Bowie.
We turn and face the strange.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/this-but-unironically-37025cc2c2d2

____________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics onTwitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal,