Yes, but Why Is It Like This?

The whole meaning of an event lies

In the search for some meaning in it.

That’s it. You can’t stop searching for it.

It’s interesting when you can’t find it.

Not the meaning, which doesn’t exist

Yet, at least—certainly not the thing

Or event in which you look for it.

Phenomena that resist meaning,

Despite all efforts to imbue them

With same, are staggeringly boring.

What’s interesting, in these cases,

Is you, the person seeking meaning.

You’re irascible, peeved, bored of course.

What’s this? What is the meaning of this!?

It’s meaningless! It’s always the fault

Of the event that you’ve been searching.

You expected the meaning to lie

In the event. The meaninglessness

Must be part of the event as well.

But you’re determined. You make meanings.

Then you compare meanings. You make fun

Of each other’s meanings, of events

In which others find meaning, over

Your shoulders, side-eyed, mocking, searching,

Urgently, for meaning all the while.

Still, somehow, incredibly, sometimes

You can’t find any meaning in things.