It used to be at a wedding

Or a graduation party

Your quirky uncle sitting next to your friend

Dogs weaving about underfoot

Holding precariously thin paper plates which droop under the weight of pistachio pudding and hot dogs, early summer’s kind light a balm for the awkwardness

Of world’s colliding

School World ran headlong into Family World, and Extended Family World

And it was as odd as pistachio pudding smeared on the hot dog bun

Separate both were fine, together…

Hmm.

Every sign in now

We pull up to the All Worlds

And now we know how cousin A votes

And that neighbor B got a new wife

And high school friend C wants us to sell products on her downline

And acquaintance D is a racist after all

And the person E we once respected posts nonsense

And there’s no pistachio pudding

And all the awkwardness

And lately

Savagery

Disagree with me?  LEAVE MY COUNTRY

Disagree with me?  GROW A BRAIN

Disagree with me?  (insert insults of choice)

It is a forum

It is where people “are”

But why have they brought swords and shields and napalm and vitriol

Forums are for discourse

Not violence

Not hatred

Not

This.