Good Empathy

There is a lie whimpering on your lips,

Caught between the flickering lights

Of an autocorrect too authoritarian

To allow any sort of breathing room.

.

Do you want your words to breathe?

Or are you more interesting in

Choking down the ice of this blizzard

Because it soothes your burning soul?

.

I want to know if it's hellfire that runs

Through your superhighways of blood.

If it is, would you mind lending me

A little tiny taste of that ugly horror?

.

I've been sheltered in my own calm,

Bobbing lazily on the surface of a sea

So egregiously violent that I just can't

Fathom how deep the malevolence goes.

.

It is unnatural to assume the worst

But I have been trained by bloodshed

To believe that my good empathy is

Nothing more than a fluke in the system.