Target Audience
Target Audience
Pluto was a planet
when I was in school,
where following the rules
was a white cotton polo shirt
and young women
in plaid uniform skirts,
looking back
I see an 11 year old me
and a doorway
to a cage.
“We forgot to feed it,”
said the teacher
whose responsibility it was
to homeroom us
on our way to
a 6 hour structured day:
English,
Math,
Science,
and History,
church on Friday
meant the religious sacrifice
of a hamster
who had died
over Christmas break.
Galileo
saw through a telescope
to prove what he already knew,
a sun-centered theory
in which 8 planets
(no Pluto)
orbited around a third grade project
scaling down the solar system
to create a universe
of my own understanding.
Earth seems kinda small
when you take into account
that 1,300 me’s
are sitting
on their own
perspective balconies
this very morning
in front of keyboards typing,
Jupiter so big
that all the other writers
could fit inside of it,
Saturn makes the Netflix top 10 list
and the reality crowd shouts,
“Look at the size of those rings!”
They tell me that life takes place in steps,
but mine occurs on a non-linear timeline,
like yesterday
in a 48 foot truck
when I spent a half day
in a rain soaked LA
and when the sun
finally did break through
I saw that Wienerschnitzel
had merged with Tastee-Freez,
but I had gotten that ice cream
at Dairy Queen,
where at seventeen
it was a chicken strip basket and french fries
across from a blonde with a view;
and now
after I’ve learned to finish what I begin
I’m left with a new question,
“Who is your target audience?”
The cursor blinks
on a blank screen.
“What do you mean?”
“Like,” and I pause here
for dramatic affect
as if a form
was actually capable of dialogue.
“Who are you making this for?”
“I don’t know,” I respond.
“A question just comes to me
and I like to see them through.”
“You do realize that
we’re in this to make money?”
I look back to that old classroom
seeing that the door
to the cage is still open and say,
“What do you mean we?”