Crushing
These days, it’s hardest simply to say “No”
simply because we’ve run out of reasons to.
Why not? someone will say, and when you get down to it
there’s no such thing as a good answer.
Surrendering is easy, doing what’s easy is easy
and it gets you the same place as doing what’s hard
so what’s the point?
Temperance just makes us boring --
it’s much more exciting to live on the extremes
just because the view at the apex of the pendulum is so enthralling.
Who wants to wear brown when orange and purple
are always in season?
Who wants to be quiet when it’s become so easy
to be loud?
Who wants to work so hard when it’s better
to be friends with who you work with?
We’ve let ourselves grow soft with indulgence
until we barely notice the pressure of our desires
and the way it immobilizes us.
Suddenly, one day, we can’t move
because we’ve never learned to resist
the winds blowing all around us
saying “Why not? Consume.”
Why I Wear Gloves
There’s an entire unseen world out there that wants to do me harm.
Unseen animals are crawling on every surface all the time,
and you’re an entire world to them. Why wouldn’t they exploit you as a resource?
I can imagine them, strip-mining the minerals out of your skin
for their own use, taking your hard-earned fuel and using it for their own.
They’re relentless, and they won’t stop simply because
they’ve never learned how. They’ll keep on multiplying
until they’ve covered every inch of you with their filth,
until you’re wasting away with disease. The fight against their kind
ages you, you know, and me, I’m going to live forever
as long as I protect myself from their assault.
These gloves are my bid for immortality, you see;
I’ve suffocated everything that touched me
and I’m refusing access to anything else.
This is what I’ve learned from my time on Earth,
that the only way to truly live is to be lonely
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