Fuck Society, Man

Society is just an abstraction
invented by English graduate students
to disrupt family events during holidays.
As in, “I’m not gonna sell
my soul to Citibank
just because SOCIETY tells me to.”
As in, “I am using
my overpriced education not just to incur
debts I can never pay, but also to pretend
this poem has something to do
with politics and not just
my weird subconscious desire
to remain 25 forever.”

This guy I knew once, when I was
in college, had a theory
that everyone went through a phase
of hating their parents. But he also used to drink
NyQuil straight from the bottle
during philosophy exams, so he might be
what we like to refer to
as an “unreliable narrator.”

Speaking of which, I have changed my name
to Connor Oberst. In fact, I am
also that postmodern author he sings about
or, rather, I sing about in that song. I do not exist.
I do however know a lot
about mythology. Certain symbols & tropes
cut universally across all known human cultures.
When I think about this, I dream
about writing the ultimate poem
& starting a new religion. This is,
of course, not
the ultimate poem. Though I do expect it will
get hipster girls to fall in love with me, now
that I’ve got a much more emo-sounding name.

Things get way less interesting
when you lay them out like that, I know,
but I’m not exactly quivering
with fear from offending the MFA mafia.
For god’s sake, one of my teachers translated
“Cosa Nostra” as “tennis elbow”
in a recent magazine no one read,
which shows you the concerns
& general ethical commitment
of tenure-track faculty across the nation.

Yet I also dream of being
one such professor. I mean,
the vacations are just ridiculous.