Ignore Me If You Can

It’s everywhere

At least, its signs are.

On my car, my laptop

            (But I drive to work, check Facebook)

On my philosophy book

            (Which I read in a dealership, sipping Coke©)

Tucked deep in a fold only dry-cleaners see

            (DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW)

Sprawled for the rush hour traffic of Rt. 9

Even in my deepest, most intimate thoughts, I find it

lurking.

It beckons, calls, allures

Sometimes it attempts a complex, multisyllabic approach to seducing me

Or other times, it’s as little as one, tiny

word.

Maybe, once in a while, I’ll catch it as a letter

P, or sometimes G

What’s worse, sometimes it has the audacity

            to approach me as some silly little picture

                        like a fucking assembly of five rings

                        or semicircles reminiscent of the great flock West

            or an incessant jingle, loud only enough to be heard, not acknowledged

                        (their interpretation of Pavlov)

Doesn’t really matter where, or when, or in what form it finds me

because it will.

They’re everywhere, the signs

And when I see them for what they are,

            tears, blood

            subordination beyond the imagination of someone in our

                        Was it second? Fourth world?

            society could ever imagine

they often make me cringe.

Or, if I’m lucky, the window of understanding will crack slightly more open

            (if they let it)

and I might just shed one solitary tear,

            for those people I don’t know. Won’t know.  Can’t know.

But don’t worry. I’ll forget about it.

Because this is what we ask for.