i tend to prefer reality,
and its next of kin,
honesty. but yesterday,
after scouring the head
lines of a news rag that
opened with “woman
dragged to her death
by bart train while
tethered to dog leash
identified,” for just one
single happy headline,
i’m not sure how i feel
about reality after all.
as for honesty, there’s
that subtlety of prefer
ence related to how
you like to take it, say,
on a vector that at one
end lies reticence and
at the other sits straight
forward. or, maybe more
accurately, the two poles
would be ‘tight-lipped’ and
‘balls-out.’ so let’s be really
honest for a second and
offer how we’d prefer our
truth: sure, taken in fell
swoops when it comes
to gossip, fun stuff, how
our leaders are running
things (even this one’s a
bit iffy for me), and maybe
even in a barrage of horrid
ly morbid news headlines,
if that’s your thing. but
what about those
truthy tidbits that are
critical of you, or of
yours truly, let’s say?
or verifiable stuff that
triggers you (or me)?
or bombshells that
come at us direct from
our lovers, our partners,
our compadres for an avow
ed forever (perhaps you
even have this vow inked
upon certified paper),
such as the revelation
of a strong preference
on our dearest’s
part that you were
actually something
else, a something
else which it would
be literally impossible
for you to even be; or
a blurted-out confession
of a very long affair,
that’s perhaps still
transpiring, and that
you’re now being left
for, in order that it
might be pursued to
its fullest, uninhibitedly?
would you then have a
preference for discovering
that you’d been heretofore
un-preferred? or might you
instead resign yourself to
being just fine with a
lousy newspaper full
of morbid headlines?
hypothetically, i mean,
of course. because
surely these aren’t
our only choices?
are they!?
