In these challenging times when everything’s gone viral, I’m spinning out an epinephrine spiral. I hit refresh and I cannot look away from the dotard in chief and his latest outrage. Shelter in place and touch the glowing glass. Revel in hot takes and wallow in the past. May it please the troll that we christened our savior, witless rejoinders in the echo chamber. Coordinated inauthentic behavior. A part-time dictator, a narcissistic traitor. Just tap on the screen for a hit of dopamine. Dank is the meme. Compassion fatigue. So much for patriots deplatformed in limbo. Judas Iscariot at Overton’s window. Don’t want to be informed, just want to be assured. An endless terror news cycle means ratings are secured. I can’t turn it off and I can’t stop doomscrolling. Doomscrolling… Doom…

Alone, together, we stand – this diaspora, this legacy of man. Here comes everyone, one and all. We built up Babylon and then saw it fall. We built up Babylon and then made it fall. Don’t talk about politics on the left or the right. We speak of corruption. We speak of the fight. And we expect that we’re given our due. I want what I’ve earned. I’m sure you do too. Said I get what I’m owed. How about you? But hey, you’re preaching again, how you’ll smite the sinner but you don’t mind the sin. Hey, you’re preaching again, how you’ll smite the sinner but you don’t mind the sin. I don’t know about struggle because I don’t have to care. Or social injustice – assimilation is the price of our welfare. What if the truth was we all were uncouth? Sins of omission or sins of youth. Short of compassion but long in the tooth. And hey, you’re preaching again, how you’ll smite the sinner but you don’t mind the sin. Hey, you’re preaching again, how you’ll smite the sinner but we’re all just sinners, ignorant sinners, desperate sinners, or we once had been.

It’s not like I’m unique, or things have got that bad. This is just a fit of pique; my jeremiad. But when offenders act offended, like their dignity’s been bludgeoned, they blame the world or clutch at pearls, kvetch in highest dudgeon. Politicians, pundits, sycophants and shills, mansplaining miscreants who label women shrill, bureaucrats, dingbats, ass hats & clowns, entitled pricks’ politics - always punching down, attack dogs, demagogues, fools who threaten synagogues… Who really needs them? But as for me, from what I see… I can’t even. They come at me, throwing shade, casting their aspersions. The magical-thinking denial brigade of privileged perversion. Objective truth, it takes a bath, whitewashed with assumption. Microaggressive sociopaths peddling dysfunction. Road-rage psychopaths, angry customers, minor celebrities and patronizing hustlers, cancel cultists, dudes with mullets, bullies in the bully pulpit, bad faith, a railing wraith, a basket case, a voter base… Who really needs them? And as for the patriarchy… I can’t even.

Assessing risk, afraid to choose, though there’s nothing left to lose. So chronic substances we use. The flesh that’s sweetest is the bruise. Don’t need to tell me life’s unfair. People hurting everywhere. I should have known how this would end. We look away but can’t pretend the lack of agency portends our inhumanity towards men. Don’t need to tell me life’s unfair. People hurting everywhere. It’s like the rest don’t even care. People dying of despair. Who cares? We’re always stuck here in this churn so distracted we don’t learn. Past the point of no return from this sociocultural burn. This controlled cultural burn. Premeditated cultural burn. Cultural burn.

Not gonna lie, I’m terrified by made-up minds that can’t decide. They’re free of wit and full of spite telling me what’s wrong and right. When I can’t swim against the tide and charity might not survive, you arrive just in time to rescue this heart of mine. Don’t fall into the trap again. Your confidence won’t help you win hearts and minds. And they’ll never compromise because they can't fail if they don’t try. See their faces flush with pride, their sanctimony multiplied. All kindness lost and trust denied. They’re brittle shells, empty inside. I hope that hope can be revived to satisfy these hearts and minds. You’re falling in the trap my friend. You don’t know when to say when. Don’t fall into the trap again. Your confidence won’t help you win hearts and minds.

She’s living extremely online, the titular star of her timeline. A social platform butterfly. A finsta ‘count just standing by. With her stans so parasocial, relationships seem insubstantial. Thirst trap in a soap commercial. Devious licks too controversial. And she does just as she please. Doors swing open with her keys. Because it’s obvious to see her main character energy. Manufactured scarcity. Branded content licensing. Fulfilling all of Maslow's needs with multi-level marketing. Main character energy. Attention economy. Livestream community. Appearance is everything. And she does just as she please. Doors swing open with her keys. Because it’s obvious to see her main character energy. Damn this fear of missing out. Stasis sparks uncertain doubt. Constant change the last redoubt with the squad that has the clout. Decadent prosperity. Mediated reality. Curated authenticity. Transcendental synergy. Meme character entropy. Cost-per-click metonymy. Lookalike society. Appearance is everything. And she does just as she please. Doors swing open with her keys. Because it’s obvious to see her main character energy. Influencers and assistants: a simulacrum of existence. Moral panic in the walled garden. Like, subscribe – I beg your pardon! Product placement as a pretense. Artifice as lived experience. Network effects taking shape: blue check, bourgeois, Bored Ape. Vanity Fair and Condé Nast, solipsists of the digital caste, attention whores and ecdysiasts, remember life comes at you fast! And she does just as she please. Doors swing open with her keys. Because it’s obvious to see her main character energy.

Patriots who follow fools while partisans rewrite the rules. They glorify a maniac – play the victim, then attack. The unaware are who’s preferred – ideology averred. Ignorance they praise, exult, like members of a cargo cult. They condemn the voice of journalists and vote against their own interests. Knowledge has a risk potential but privilege cloaks the influential. Peacekeepers absent without leave. Transmit only; can’t receive absolution for their deeds: a pocketful of sunflower seeds. No safe harbor, no amnesty. The suffering get apathy. There’s devastation on the front: it’s the innocent who bear the brunt. A vestige of the old empire: take by force what you desire, and if you have the jurisprudence, you don’t need the threat of violence. A parting shot, a coup de grâce: when all else fails, there’s Marshall [sic] law. Challenge reason to a draw for propaganda, shock and awe. Colonels absent without leave. Transmit only; can’t receive absolution for their deeds: a pocketful of sunflower seeds.

So we stand accused. Why so confused? Pledge allegiance to the false flag. It’s obvious the audience is desperate to wave the false flag. The sock puppet with the trumpet, concern trolling. False flag! Impossible is plausible deniability. False flag! False witness False start False positive False dichotomy False alarm False memory False pretense False prophet Blame the other side. The Reichstag inflames conspiracy. False flag! A straw man with a gas can – the game plan under a false flag. Crisis actors, school attackers. Pot claims kettle is getting blacker. False flag! The currency of identity. PSYOPS breeds entropy. False flag!

Are these times extraordinary? Is this normal new? When the facts are arbitrary, are you really you? I don’t know anything now except that someone lied, and I’m the victim here somehow. My patience has been tried. My life is just a timeline, compartmentalized – governed by an algorithm that must be monetized. They aggregate and package us, too late to reconsider our existence, bought and sold to the highest bidder. Conspiratopia – where everything is free – a cornucopia of enmity and greed. News and social media are convenient and pervasive while surveillance in utopia is engagingly persuasive. Conspiratopia – where truth is vaporous. In fact, in this dystopia, truth is dangerous. And my life is just a timeline, tagged and itemized – governed by an algorithm that must be monetized. It’s designed to upset us, make us impressionable. An unintended side effect makes everything questionable.

Hey there, would you believe? Tell me, would I deceive? They say it’s all a big lie but they’ll never know why. How can you be so sure? Symptoms preferred to cure. Institutions go bust. Now then, who can you trust? And there’s always “both sides” – words that mean to divide. Obscure wrong and The Right. Give me proof through the night. Big lie. I don’t care what it takes to win this time. I am not responsible for any crime. In the end if there is a reckoning, no earthly court could carry out my sentencing. Unless of course they were deceived, and then they somehow believed the big lie. Always feed the big lie. Insatiable lies…

You need to know who you are and you need to be strong and smart. You can’t control anyone. Just let them be as they are. I really don’t care I really don’t care I really don’t care, do U? I guess you do. Why would I work to change people? I take them the way that they are. What's the point? What's the point? Does there have to be a point? They need to be who they are. I always loved fashion, it’s in my blood and my closet is full of the things I love. I'm very organized, it’s sorted how I like. It's important to know exactly where everything is. I really don’t care I really don’t care I really don’t care, do U? Yes, you do. I'm very political but not in public, only at home. No one controls me. No one tells me where to roam. Your beauty is that you’re rich and you know how to #bebest. New York, Palm Beach, Paris Inauguration, adulation, implication, protestation, accusation, castigation, occupation, denigration, validation, congregation, tribulation, ideation, aggravation, corporation, delegation, nomination, condemnation, violation, exculpation, coronation , vaccination, reservation, escalation, litigation, demonstration, medication, cancellation, legislation, indignation, separation, subjugation, urination, immigration, abdication, foundation, damnation! I really don’t care I really don’t care I really don’t care, do U?

Modern life, it complicates. Inequity accelerates. Things break down beyond repair; the obsolescence plan beware. Waste not, want not, thousand cuts, compromise or make a fuss. But even if you manage change, you’re losing something in exchange. Elitists preen and then applaud their use of us as corporate fodder. How they make their problems yours: offer harm instead of cures. Download our app, and like, subscribe. Type your password a million times. Delete account, why can’t you see you must accept our policy? It’s called the creeping normality, gradual banality, unremitting slow lingchi, transactional brutality, progressive angst and misery, degeneration by degrees, unhappiness continuous, by a thousand little cuts. The new normal is always shit. Just keep calm and hit submit. Nothing works, not even us – out of action clustercuss. Don’t tell me it’s just a phase. Might as well be end-of-days. Face the facts you have no guts – eviscerated, thousand cuts. Hollow folks dehumanized. Our lives co-opted, gamified. Argue over trivia, despondence spawns invidia. Complain, dissemble, pot of crabs. The Occidental up for grabs. Desperate for community – a tribal trap not unity. It’s called the creeping normality, gradual banality, unremitting slow lingchi, transactional brutality, progressive angst and misery, degeneration by degrees, unhappiness continuous, by a thousand little cuts. Broken, multivariate: we’re the fragmentariat. Nothing pure, no bona fide. Instead of praise, it’s hue and cry. The system rules and we’re just cogs. TV dinner: boiled frogs. The world won’t end with whimper bang, but incremental Sturm und Drang. It’s called the creeping normality, gradual banality, unremitting slow lingchi, transactional brutality, progressive angst and misery, degeneration by degrees, unhappiness continuous, by a thousand little cuts.

It’s difficult to get a man to even try to understand if his salary demands that he doesn’t understand or he’s well-off and doesn’t need to worry about a salary. A man of wealth, prosperity, in the lap of luxury. The billionaires are not like me or the rest of humanity. Their large share of everything is testament to wanton greed. Pressure-cook democracy. Fricassee economy. The toast of high society, lacking taste from what I see. That’s why we need regulators to cull the wealth accumulators. An ethical administrator who cares about the now and later. The one percent are so craven, hungry for consolidation. A 501(c)3 foundation is such an appetizing tax haven. Eat the rich and be in good health. Eat the rich, redistribute wealth. Eat the rich, have a sense of humor. Eat the rich, be a good consumer. Late stage capitalism –mythical fiscal conservatism. Pump and dump, out to lunch, crypto off-shore trading slump. They think we’ll eat from their hands of course. You get the torches, I’ll get the pitchforks. Excluded from their profit margin, let’s offer them a simple bargain. Pay your taxes in proportion or you help to feed a person. Those of us on reduced budgets reach into our empty pockets. Suckle from trickle-down hypocrisy: the table scraps of our kleptocracy. Eat the rich and be in good health. Eat the rich, redistribute wealth. Eat the rich, have a sense of humor. Eat the rich, be a good consumer. Swallow your philanthropy, your registered shell company. Cooking books as high finance, the privilege of your circumstance. Beholden to the shareholders, neither state nor national borders. No borders. The upper crust won’t feed that many. We’ve already fed them plenty: all our money, every penny. What’d they leave us? I don’t see any! You may think I’m talking smack. All het up and on attack. I should probably walk it back. Instead of “eat,” I should have said “slag.” Slag the rich, they don’t need our aid. Slag the rich – class war and buffet. Sticks and stones may break bones and words may never hurt. That’s why I think the upper class should get their just dessert. Eat the rich, be in good health. Eat the rich, redistribute wealth. Eat the rich, have a sense of humor. Eat the rich, be a good consumer.

Are we men or are we really sheep? When will we reach herd immunity? Be the change you really want to see. This is just our shared reality. Going viral, rock star, hero, Typhoid Mary, patient zero. Human nature: common vector. Turn into a superspreader. It’s the same on social media: the hive mind gets behind influencers. Leave a mark, disrupt society. This is just our shared reality. But don’t expect to make a difference if you keep your social distance. Monoculture come together. Turn into a superspreader. And you'd think we’d help each other, but thinking’s outsourced to thought leaders. See the change you think you want to be. This is just our shared reality. Few preventions are protective with all this misinformation. Disbelief as disinfectant developing disinformation. An inconvenient collective disengaging as a nation. And our citizens’ perspective: we reap God’s wrath not His salvation. Long on rumors also short on facts; always tracing each of my contacts. Risky optimist exposure. Turn into a superspreader.

Midnight is first strike It’s incandescently bright Everything lost in the glare Doomsday’s bloom quickly flares So much so you can’t see A blinding augury Soundless before the shockwave Everything coruscates Eagerly anticipates The moment that Shiva awakes Now I know the light Everything I will smite Feel the light Burning bright Feel the light Blast away Shadows and gray Darkness decays Night turns into day A dead hand initiation A half life of abrogation The present is illuminated The past has been ablated No more wrong or right No more dark of night Nobody to remember Nothing but burning embers Isotopes’ radiant fission A mutually assured decision Feel the light Burning bright Feel the light Blast away Shadows and gray Darkness decays Night turns into day

Watching me watching you… The big fish eats the medium, eats the small fish. The little guy always was doomed. And everything free is designed so the consumer is also consumed. The multi-cloud is tracking us as our shadow profiles grow, but the data brokerage prospectus forecasts the shortest of sales tomorrow. Was there a breach in the marketing department by hacktivists or rogue corporations? A ransomware attack on the government? This gold rush exploits all nations. When they know what you prefer, they only show you what they infer, and if you can only see what you like, you’re only living but half a life. An algorithmic mirror predicts merely what it reflects. Causation is causality. The ouroboros effect. Watching me watching you… And we’re its fractal fingers. The digits rendered in flesh, who exist in selfsame synchrony, raised in Big Data’s crèche.

Captured people and stolen land built this nation and helped it expand. We now cast our eyes to the next frontier, to abandon this Earth and its atmosphere. Coagulate wealth will never last without circulation by the natural caste. At war with ourselves, with the disenfranchised: capital’s cancer metastasized. The framers, they warned us of tyrants & kings but could they have ever expected these things? An arsenal assured by ideological faith: our absolute right to annihilate. American carnage, habitualized suffering. A flame in the darkness flickering, guttering. What about separation of power? What about balance or checks? What about the INFOSEC PARAMIL industrial complex? What about bureaucracy that cultivates recidivism? What about cultural structures that sustain racism? How come radicalized privilege is the state of affairs? Why is the best we can offer merely thoughts and prayers? American carnage, habitualized suffering. A flame in the darkness flickering, guttering. The others aren’t people, they’re abnormal and weird; exotic desires or thugs to be feared. And when they show pride in their beautiful face, they need to be taught; to be put in their place. Our exceptional precept of Aquinas’s law: the patriot’s doctrine of pure shock and awe. Is all that remains adversity, willful ignorance or uncertainty? Survival depends on struggle & strife. And civil discourse has been weaponized.

Our sources say they’ve discerned some kind of network pattern. Adjust security posture. A possible threat has emerged. Agents and spies agree, after detailed analyses, there is definite activity. This is your advisory that we hear chatter. We watch the news on TV. The radio's on when we sleep. It’s in the telephone lines. It’s on our hard drives. Communication’s suspect. We think that’s their tactic. We cannot intercept all of the busy circuits. Or trace the message to source. Or threaten imminent force. Can't trust ourselves or our friends. Will this war ever end? But we can't risk regret because we all are targets. And we hear chatter.

Across the nation, in your community, our true salvation is our security militarization. Sic semper tyranny. Attention shoppers, be on the lookout for special offers or black choppers. Long time listeners and first-time callers, we need your dollars! See something, say something Call 911. As seen on TV! We make it easy. Just call the number you see on your screen. Accused of sellout? A leveraged buyout? A government bailout? We'll let you come out. Just keep your hands up and weapons down. Report conditions upon the ground. Because we’re living here in these moments, we can’t lose focus on our opponents who walk among us and want to destroy us. So many dangers. So many traitors. See something, say something Call 911. Your call is important. Please hold the line. A representative will soon be assigned. Download our app while you are waiting. Calls are recorded to enhance our training. Please take a survey. Give us a rating. Routine surveillance. User engagement. Citizen, patriot, candidate, chief, partisan, militant, radical, thief. Law and order. Porous borders. Compulsive hoarders. Affective disorders. By listening you agree to our terms and grant permission for diminishing returns. See something, say something Call 911.

Weary driver on a dark highway seeking rest at the end of day. Pilot high in the cloudy sky searches ground for a landing site. The sailor on a blackened sea scans for shore or company. And wanderers in the wilderness of forest, canyon, glass or bricks. Some adventures disappoint. Try to find a starting point. It's not for sale at any price. Can’t step in the same stream twice. You learn again when you arrive: return to places, never times, except within your thoughts alone. You might go back but can’t go home. Awaken from a misty dream, but can’t recapture mise-en-scene. Experience you can’t unsee. Forgotten childhood memories. The aged neighbor, never there, transitioned to assisted care. Sirens sound emergency – the rubicon of uncertainty. The past was never what it seemed. It’s just a trick of memory. But memories echo events: corrupted copies subsequent. Lossy codec paramnesia is nostalgia’s synesthesia. Distracted mind or altered state, anything to lift the weight. Always forward, never back, making plans and keeping track. And faith compels benign neglect. To recall you must forget. Cycling with each dawn and gloam, we are never going home. A promise that you can't redeem. A precious faded hazy dream. A tattered map long out of date. A passport from a foreign state. A gradient that fades away. Another place, another day. Another face, another life. Forever severed by time’s knife. You learn again when you arrive: return to places, never times, except within your thoughts alone. You might go back but can’t go home.

They say no good deed goes unpunished, then they also say you’re better off that way. They say time helps to make things funny. But then sometimes it just flies… Shakespeare’s words mentioned birds. Birds sing songs so they belong in the throng in Central Park; import skylark; thrush and starling would be darling. The starling, a wretched thing, a hundred years of fowl offspring, overrun, spreads, infest the habitat of birds indigenous. Invaders, Shakespeare’s crusaders. Mortimer’s song you hear from the neighbors. Obsidian flocks of nature. Those unintended consequences… They say this is the land of milk and honey – home of the free, manifest destiny. They say everything’s changed by money – invisible hands promote an end that’s not intended but no generosity drives society. Every little thing seems to have a price. And no amount of it will ever suffice our need to be the first, have the most or quench our thirst for more. From the job past the bank to the store, I can’t afford to save anymore. Confuse privilege with liberty. Welcome to the meritocracy. For those not rich, mediocrity. Those unintended consequences… They say from childhood springs identity but it’s not what they say it’s what we do. And today, I raise my children carefully aware they assimilate my every move. I’ve tried to teach them right from wrong, to be aware, assured and strong, but I’ve my insecurities, my failings, immaturity, and I’m afraid somehow over time my motivations not sublime – all the little things I tried to hide – are what they really gather and refine. So deception and lies, apparent gifts that I supply. My just desserts. Those unintended consequences… They say no good deed goes unpunished, then they also say you’re better off that way. They say time helps to make things funny. But then sometimes it just flies… The scientist always knows the danger of action, nature and nurture and reaction; so many instances of unintended consequences. A paradox: intentions don’t always succeed but the reasons we can concede: ignorance, error, or haste, habituation or waste, and prophecy is just a fallacy if you want any measure of accuracy, you’ll get unintended consequences.

The winning moves have all been played, but the status quo stays the same, and what remains is just endgame. The victors leave and take their gains, self-obsessed, immune to shame. The crew’s passed out, but we’re still airborne. The steward’s bleak, her face forlorn. No way to steer, no way to warn, and none of us has time to mourn the last season at last. Abandoned hope long ago. Sealed away a fool’s escrow. A pot of gold but no rainbow. Swept away by derecho. Financiers and demagogues hedge their bets in permafrost. A selfish game, a zero sum. Carbon cycle overcome. This is the last season at last.