"Impactful"
is a word I hate. Money word,
boardroom word, a white-
guy-in-a-suit-making-difficult-cuts-
to-school-lunches-school-band-school-art word,
carving up wetlands with roads.
Impactful leadership, impactful
new products and strategies
and synergies, there’s another one.
Strip-mall words that make
plastics and prisons, clear cut
woods. Words made to fuck us,
friends, and in the fucking
burn much fuel. When I was in school,
impact meant something you felt,
none of this slow erosion. Impact
of a fist on a face, impact of the car crash
that killed your friend at prom. Halfback
flattened and concussed. Something you said
when you finally got your breath back, hunched over
in tears in glittering wreckage, trying
to make sense of what hit. You didn’t just
hear about it, you stood inside of it
and lived it. Lead in the gasoline
and air in those days. Violence and hot
fucking red-faced fighting and love. We had
to stand in the same room to see
each other. Impact, yes, the world
was full of it. I made a lot
of loud music. I’m not even old yet.