Remember, You Asked for This

I’m not like you.

I never have been.

It’s why I sit in here in the back

And listen. Just listen.

You have so much to say.

So much fervor. Should I call it angst?


I’ve never seen someone so sure.

Except. Maybe. The preacher.

But, I am not like him either.

I was one, once.

But not like that.

At least, I hope not like that.

You share his certainty.

And I wonder at it.

You yell more than he does and…

He’s a yeller

You guys point the same way. Use the same finger.

Same gritting teeth.

Same wild eyes.

You know what’s right though.

Know it down in your bones.

The grit of your soul.

Don’t have no god

but your claim is staked

Just like the preacher

You own goodness.

And, it’s yours

And I guess that’s how you divine what’s evil

You been telling me every goddamn chance

The terrifying thing is

It’s me

precisely

The one in the back.

The one in the quiet.

The one listening.

I voted T, you voted K

I had my reasons.

They just sound different coming out your mouth.

Like the reasons themselves were in need of some gentrification

You summed me as a total of irrational phobias

An idiot like McCarthy’s fool and no less evil than his judge

It’s one thing to be the devil. Another to be a fool.

But to be both…

The terminus of all justified hate.

You’ll never need virtue again. Not with a villain like that.

Those few erudite among your cohort

Wax a corpus of eloquence

And it moves me.

I wonder in such moments as I peer

Inward to what has been fathomed an abyss

But is my soul, the heart of me, my being

“Am I this thing you say?”

I raise my gaze. Set it upon

Your mighty vanguard,

Searching for its champion

For those esteemable and princely things

namely:

Goodness. Kindness.

Charity. Self control.

But, in the vast multitude, not one untouched by malice

not one who does not reek of petulance

You call every one a liar and lie without end.

You made a business of lying about me

I watched you make villains of good people

I watched you make martyrs of villains

Your kindness is cruel

And I’m satisfied now to be quiet and alone

Let my caricature stand, you need him more than I do