Diaries of the Disillusioned

Just minding your own business

On a mundane day, at a terrible time

Your mind will make the orthogonal move

You will be quietly falling into line, again

Waiting to get somewhere you would rather not go

Words, or images, or some interesting combination of the two

I don't know exactly how you roll, but we're headed the same way

Will coalesce between your ears

A question will arise

The anatomical locus may not be specific

Your gut, your heart, your elbows or your knees, whatever

You will ask

If the conditions are awful

Perhaps not literal flames and wailing

But if, at every level, from your home, to your city, to your state

To the world entire

Times seem not just out of joint, but dislocated

Such that you wonder

If only an idiot or an incorrigible masochist

Would volunteer to stick around

Then, you are in danger

For you are content, or so thoroughly disillusioned

So sure that it is all exhausting, embarrassing nonsense

That you have entirely abandoned your plans to escape

Hell has, for you, become home

But unlike the denizens of the demon haunted dark

You do a job you detest

For money that is spent before it is earned

To pay the rent for a rotten life

You know, the interest on a loan you only signed

Because you lacked the courage to starve

Or sleep rough, worried about knives

There is a great deal of pearl clutching and pious prattling

About poverty

So few understand what poverty means

If you are not sure if you can continue

To hold on to the meager basics

Of which you are not very fond

You are paying for goods of laughable quality

With your sweat and tears

The cost of living

Is not the cost of living well

Realistic, immersive, fascinating games

Are still just games

And they differ from reality

In two, crucial respects

As many lives as you like

And the possibility of victory

Not just winning

But an adventure that culminates

In gleaming, abiding triumph

Over the smirking, sinister adversary

A world laundered and pressed and smart

Once and for all

Everyone getting exactly what they deserve

Measured out with granular precision

Perfect justice

Only in games and dreams and songs

About the wine dark sea, or how she digs me

Can such a world draw breath

Here, the end of the line is a funeral

Just one

And the monsters respawn

Before you can catch your breath

Here, you will sacrifice what you love

To win the approval of others

The better to discover

That you traded food for hunger

Here, you will vote for your humiliation

By those who vowed to serve and protect you

Simply because believing a liar

Is not as bleak as believing no one

The shelter that provides stinks

What's at right angles to the line?

After your father

Shows up dead to ask for your help

Act like you've lost the plot

It will reveal itself