A POEM

MONUMENT TO THE VICTIMS OF A CERTAIN KIND OF TREADMILL

Any description of the problem starts this way
I was always at the right place but at the wrong time
I’d move on from a desert to see a garden bloom there later
What carried me aloft was responsibility, survival, duty which found their own tidal currents and pushed me onwards
There is no honor in those words I wrote above – responsibility, survival, duty
Slick sick spread of pressure’s pollution in the tidal currents that challenged me

I couldn’t care less was the caption they removed
It was replaced with a weakly worded acknowledgement of what society forced on me
All the others whose chests burst and bodies shut down due to the everyday disruption of a life they did not want
Where is their monument with its contained accusations against capitalism?

But in my time I laid low, crept in deceit
Open smile that walled in secret plans
I did not finish your thought
Your directive stuck, held fast by excuses
Thorns embedded in clothes, flesh, conformity