They hang out in groups
Because that’s all they know,
Parading around,
Talking endlessly but saying nothing,
One-upping each other,
Rough-housing,
Jostling for position,
Establishing dominance,
An all-too-common gathering of
Shameless insecurity,
Best of all,
There’s always someone there
To enable their behavior.
Unplanned encounter
In a store parking lot,
She averts her eyes,
Changes direction,
Intentional shunning,
Everything she heard
Recited in her family
Reverberating inside,
Programming complete,
Total indoctrination,
Unquestioning allegiance,
Accepting lies as truth,
Poisoned.
After the crusade ends
In carnage and devastation,
They recede into their lairs,
Pretending it never happened,
That they were always
Upright citizens.
Years pass,
They remain the same.
Self-appointed self-help guru
Shouting platitudes at an eager crowd,
Dripping with sweat and money
From all the hard work it takes
To convince people to
Part with their money,
Making them poorer and him richer.
He peddles superficial dross
Consumed by millions
Who really aren’t interested
In looking deeper,
Just some quick answer that
Will get them through the day,
So they can pretend
They did something more
Than enable a con man.
One part doesn’t talk to the other,
A complete disconnect,
Habitual compartmentalization,
Say one thing, do another,
Pretend it isn’t happening when
Someone points out the inconsistencies.
Disintegrated,
Unwhole,
Ripped apart by someone trusted,
Believing the unbelievable,
Unhealthy contradiction
Shrugged off as normal.
As long as he can
Buy a third house,
Seventh car,
Fourth wife,
He doesn’t care
How much his business
Destroys the planet,
All that matters is
Satisfying his overwhelming
Need to silence the voices
Deep inside that remind him of
Where he came from and
What he’s become.
She makes retrograde statements
That set her and her fellow
Human beings back
A hundred years,
Advocating for things
That keep her down,
Reflexively, thoughtlessly
Limiting her own success
On a daily basis.
She’s done well but
Could do much better.
Making sure to use
As much jargon as possible,
He inundates the interaction
With unnecessary effluent,
Ensuring that no one
Understands anything
Or is able to question him.
At the end of the day
He’s happy that he didn’t
Have to appear weak
And goes home to
An empty apartment.
Willing to do anything,
Including destroying people,
To plug the gaping holes
Inside their rotting chests,
The ones that never
Heal, that they try
So hard not to acknowledge,
But that drive them to
Ghastly extremes just to
Satisfy, for a brief moment,
The unmanageable lust for
Complete dominion,
Humanity sacrificed for
Soiled supremacy.
