The Connoisseur

I stan normcore and curate cringe
Ill-worded signs, lame dudes on Hinge
A boomer based, a schizo wise,
Sam Altman’s orb that scans your eyes.

Day in, day out, I rise and mine
the zeitgeist for a deep-fried line.
The right-wing apps, the Bushwick zines,
The neolib content machine.

A leaked DM, a shitcoin drop,
Denny’s, Dick’s, the Bass Pro Shop.
A LessWrong post on how to flirt,
A bad translation on a shirt.

How You Can Help girls, Reddit guys
Randos in a brand’s replies.
Knowledge workers gone on strike
The list of films Obama liked.

Financial news and TikTok trends
on Yahoo News and MSN.
Wearing clothing that says DARE
to the premiere of Cocaine Bear.

The brainworms gnawed.. the blackpills hit…..my head became a churning pit….of discourse.. callbacks.. namedrops.. memes….Until
it ruptured at the seams.

	Bright light
	soft hum
	warm breeze
	soothed

	white glow
	slow time
	no place
	smooth.

Then I awakened from my daze,
blinked, and all around me gazed.

The ground below. the clouds up high. A few conversing passersby.
A text. some emails. one missed call. A piece of trash. a dog. a ball.
An ant. a band. a kid. a drone.
some guy, some girl. a tree. my phone.          Quoth a strange new part of me:

“This, but unironically.”