Tonight's Poet Corner: Meta-Discourse

Meta-Discourse
by Belinda Roddie

when the shit goes high
over arched ceilings and the
coffee runs dark and dank
under superficially scarred skin,
you find yourself discussing
philosophizing randomosity with a
total stranger who cut you in line
to get a macchiato whipped cream handjob.
he doesn't know who Nietzsche is
or even how to spell his name,
but he tries to stick blatant nihilism on his
baseball cap with a logo of a sports team
no one roots for, no one cares for,
who the fuck cares about sports?
you abhor him, the way he talks,
the way he sips from his styrofoam chalice,
tossing his shaggy hair back and forth
like a windswept teddy bear
left out in the steeped tea rain. he tries to
educate you about Camus, who was not a
fucking nihilist, the Frenchie was called absurd,
existential, everything he didn't like, but
the meaning is lost in the print you were
trying to read in a backhanded
volume of honesty while enjoying time to
yourself to just think and not talk about
nonsensical struggles for identity over
brewed American Gothic.