A summer morning,
Standing on a
Balcony inhaling
Quiet air.
Headphones on,
Listening to the
Song that makes
Him yearn.
A string of days
Blur into each other,
Slumped on a couch
Without a hope.
He was afraid of
Peace and love
An all it might do
To upend his life,
The time he’d have
To spend looking inward,
Examining his warts,
Why he believed
What he did,
His abiding mistrust of
Others and championing
Of causes that
Damaged others.
Worst of all,
He’d have to spend
Time with himself.
A tepid condemnation
Interwoven with further attacks,
Utter lack of decency.
Craven swindlers
Showing their hands,
Driven by the fear that
People who don’t
Look like them and their peers
Will take over and
Make them pay for their
Transgressions,
The dread that keeps all
Illicit conquerors,
Subjugators,
Awake at night.
I go to darker places
Where people avert
Their gazes and hastily
Usher themselves to
The safety of their
Unexamined existences.
I live on the fringes,
Stoking questions others
Lock away in airtight
Receptacles,
Attempted smothering.
I am difficult to behold,
A gruesome blight on a
Beautiful artificial landscape,
Searing with veracity
Unacknowledged.
Once again,
He does something that
Turns his world completely
Upside down, and not in a
Good way, forcing him to
Do much more work than he
Would have had he paid
Just a little more attention
At the very beginning of
The whole endeavor.
Begrudgingly dropping off
His kids at the summer program,
Only after repeatedly being
Asked to by his wife,
Without consideration of
Arriving too early and forcing
The staff to act as babysitters,
An interruption in a life where
He’s never had to think of
Anything but himself,
Throwing his weight around,
Never asking for permission,
Everyone there to acquiesce to
His every imposition.
Once he had
Dehumanized them
In his mind,
He was able to rationalize
Any abominable act,
False piety
Obscuring any
Remaining misgivings,
A brutal harshness
Familiar to him and
His accessories,
Furthering the cause.
They sit across
From each other,
Neither knowing
What to say, or
When it might be
Appropriate to
Bring it up,
That thing they’ve
Been avoiding,
The one that has
Gotten so big,
Unwieldy,
Unignorable.
