Poetry

Abe Said, “Eh Ryan, Your Wifi Is Slow”

An abecedarian

Abe fought in the war alongside butch and brazen men who loved to chant hearty military songs and drink whiskey by the gallon every opportunity they had for an activity that wasn’t gathering to sing solemn hymns or crouching all night in thick-splat mud dodging and jumping from missiles that kept appearing from across enemy lines. These lads knew how to make hell seem like home but when a new recruit named Ryan dropped by out the blue, Abe couldn’t grasp his peculiar way with words — it wasn’t quite right that a man should be able to roll his ‘R’s with such panache while squatting in some trench in the middle of nowhere in a terrible war… how can language bring unbridled joy when you’re surrounded by victims and death and misery and the weary bodies of thousands of human xenolith? Ahh, those days so far away, you only miss the community, that sense of belonging no Zoom-obsessed society could dream of replicating now.

Times change. There’s no going back.

Dance a jig if that makes you happy.

Or spend a lifetime papering over the cracks.

It’s a familiarly unfamiliar feeling.

But nothing always lasts.

Whatever you do, don’t diddle the dregs of destiny.