Being inclined to the over active mind
makes you vulnerable
in ways unimaginable
to folk who’ve never been waifs or strays.
Every step on the back foot,
drawing predatory thoughts and hungry looks
to scurrying attempts at connection.
This world seems so simple,
to those who find it simple.
The stacked deck favours the dealer.
Beg, borrow, steal
mimic, mask. Never reveal
the hollow homunculus you feel,
or worse! Intensely solipsistic;
the only real person in a sea holographic
and loneliness becomes it's own sad satisfaction.
A “rebellion is better than tears” reaction
that eats at your happiness and interactions
until you're accustomed to numb.
You watch others’ battles won,
disaffected, trying to work out how it's done
or at least avoid pitfalls in the future.
And with time an illusory feature
of other people's lives, who can plan anyway?
Why strive to do more than survive
when that's all you can manage most days?
And that's pushing it.
The path out of the shit is too well disguised
and buried behind the sharks’ smiling lies.
Societal standards seem illogically unwise
and they play the games with loaded dice
and rules they won't explain.
Every minute gain is minimised
by mistaken intentions. Subtle knives
and not so subtle, wasted time
of trauma born. Mistrustful eyes
turn away from the world.
and back to the half life of disconnection.
That way is safer.
This world is simple
to those who find it simple.
By all means, take advantage of your advantages,
but notice the disadvantaged are taken advantage of
by systems they can't get a purchase on,
and people they dared to rely upon.
And every dismissive assumption you hold
in hands that have never been burned by the cold
is a nail on the bed you told
us we made on our own.
So we'd better lie in it.
I'm not buying it.
This dance of the butterflies
is so despised despite it's beauty.
Our average age on day of death is only 12 plus 40.
Disparities so distant instances of juxtaposition jarr intensely out of rhythm and with lyrical precision present suffering as noble when it's not.
It's not.
Applauding us for overcoming obstacles you placed
as if adjudicators in some Ninja Warrior race
feels disingenuous at best.
Gladiators, ready?!
Potential lost is our Roman empire.
No one here dreams of paradise.
This world is simple
to those who find it simple.
Not the ones you label simple.
They're the most complex of all.
