The Realist

 

I have never sought raw pessimism.

I have always wanted to be a realist,

one who understands the world as it really is.

 

As fortune would have it, when one who searches

diligently for the truth, opens every door,

success is a blast of dry disappointment.

 

The real universe is composed of secrets and

disinformation, a tangled mesh of nets and traps,

endless tunnels and magic boxes that lead

back to one's beginning or to a point of

frozen uncertainty and a deadly fear of

the ultimate loss: the loss of mind.

 

Here we have the reality after the dreamtime,

the truth where possible and impossible are equals

in a society of stories and songs and lonely grief.

We no longer worry about the truth.

Truth is an ancient artifact, hidden in the

middle of nowhere by the indigenous people

who live in mud huts and eat tortillas

baked on hot stones with hot peppers.

 

We do not fear that the old people will

suddenly break the law and release

the truth that they know,

because they are discredited by the employers,

discredited because they dwell at the bottom

of an ocean of lies.

 

The truth is an eel.

A realist is one who tries to hold the eel,

or the truth, and never forgets the experience.

I do not remember knowing,

but I do fondly remember my desire to know.

 

Copyright 2026, John M. Medeiros