There’s a difference between how the word is used—apathy in the personal sense, indifference, or lack of caring, where you refuse to act, or do the right thing, when that thing is so obvious, even a cockroach could figure out doing nothing is criminal intent— and apathy in clinical terms, symptom of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, perhaps other conditions where nerve endings step down from duty, a symptom clearly absent in me, because it would seem I’m far beyond too stubborn for that— or let us say tenacious, a word you probably had to look up and were likely shocked to find my face in Webster’s. Alas, I digress (you know how we “old people are”) because what I wanted to say was something someone else once said, or maybe it was the coffee mug in my kitchen: “When your heart speaks, take good notes,” and see, that’s what I’ve been doing, what I’ve always done, how I’ve always done it— reviewing stock, inventory counting, making lists, paper trails—my process that does not change. And you might think by now my fingers would be worn to nubs from hitting this chunky keyboard, tips and letters softer, smoothed over as monarch wings, blending into the idles of spring, having learned to fly. You’d think I’d become my own version of apathetic, no longer caring about any of it, but when I left, I abandoned that white cocoon of stagnation, of silence, because what honesty deserves is better than your overpriced steak and sushi, your craft beer and bourbon, your designer hoodies and socks, the swag and swagger and faked friendships odoriferous with platitudes, and if risk is your excuse for nothing doing, having become your sole role model of success, then I cannot help you, and you have brought tenacity, not apathy, crashing down on you and your own. So sorry, not sorry. Ok? Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright April 13, 2024, all rights reserved
Posted in Poetry Month 2024
