What Happened? - Poem
Updated: 2 days ago
A reflective poem about the moment something familiar loses its place. In “What Happened?,” Greg Luti turns toward a once-beloved thing that has quietly faded, and asks how people notice the change only after they have already begun to move on.
They’ll all ask what happened.
What changed?
Why is it not like how it was?
The question won’t come from hate or even love, but curiosity.
As though the question came up to them out of nowhere, like a salesman pitching a new product.
“Hey buddy.” The salesman says charmingly. “See this. I got this for you.”
“Wait. Why do I need that?” You ask.
“Why don’t you?” The salesman winks.
You then wonder about an item that up until that point had no place in your mind.
You were thinking about your work schedule, and if you could get off on Monday.
You were wondering about dinner and if you wanted tacos again.
You were worrying about picking up your daughter from school, and if the traffic would be as bad as the last time.
You weren’t thinking about the item of the salesman, just like you were not thinking about the question of what happened.
Sure, there are many who will give opinions.
The people moved on. What was new is now old, and the audience wised for new.
What happened, I ask, I say.
What happened to this thing today?
Did it get old, washed up and sore?
Is that why no one wants to see it anymore?
They asked for new, and that is what they got.
What about the thing? They simply forgot.
The quality dipped. What was great is now not even good.
What happened? Why does this suck?
Is it because no one gives a duck?
It got so bad. How can this be?
Perhaps my eyes are deceiving me.
No. It's bad. I’m not confused.
I guess I’ll go watch the news.
Or perhaps it was something else.
No. No. No.
I’m not rhyming for this part.
The rhymes above were enough.
Seriously, why does it now suck?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I know I cheated there.
It looks like the quality dipped in two places, to be fair.
No matter the answer, things change after the question is posed.
Nobody talks about it like they used to.
It is a question workers bring up at an office party, before they get back to invoices.
“That is still a thing?”
“Apparently…”
Family members ask the question in the middle of a dinner, before Grandpa’s rant, and the aunt’s joke no one gets.
“That thing ended years ago,” Grandma says.
“No. It is still going.” The one youth in the room who still knows about it says.
“No! It is over with!” One side of the table says.
“Wait, is it still on?” The other side asks.
“I don’t even know what it is.” One family member quietly mutters.
The question is posed.
The room finds an answer, and then moves on.
No one fights for it.
No one is upset about it.
It just is.
The workers go back to work fine with the new way.
Family members all forget about their interest in the topic by the time dessert comes out.
It is accepted.
Just as you know that asking off for Monday on a Saturday is too late.
Or three days of taco dinners is not good for your stomach.
Or you will be late getting back from picking up your daughter, since there is always traffic.
It is accepted.
As the sky is blue, or the fact that you need air to breathe.
The next time you go outside and look up at the sky and take a long deep breath of the cool fall air, you may even convince yourself that life without that thing is better.
The people moved on.
The quality dipped.
Or perhaps there is another reason you can’t think of at that moment.
Either way, you are fine with it.
At that point, what is there to do for that thing?
Something died, something real and noticeable, and yet no one mourned for it.
A thing rose, changed lives.
But then those whose lives were changed left that thing.
Until that thing, that which the world loved at one point, is gone.
“What happened?” They’ll ask.
And once that happens, it is already too late.
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