When the conversation begins
alignment itself has been
set the solitary goal.
The rest renders phrases,
placeholders, interchangeable
name-drops and everyday life posts.
Expressions of a feeling,
narrations to a state
of loneliness and helplessness
and fearful unknowingness of
what is to come.

With them, I
participate in a game
that has been designed
to never be actually played.
Sole existence baring
the glaring flag of defeat.

To them the conversation itself
nails the coffin they
were secretly building –
unknowingly constructing their doom.
Breathless they watch
as they are processed to die.

Ignorance feeds as long as it can.
Its resources fatally limited,
by definition made to belie.
Hoping that someone takes pity,
having exhausted all personal options
the "victims" stand
by their own execution
hoping for someone
to fill in for their heads.

To them
salvation has become
the eternal eye-for-an-eye.
The disease giving
peace to
the ultimate army of the diseased.

Exasperated I watch,
or listen to their tales
of equal retribution and
collective surrender –
all the while compelled
to distance what’s left
of my self
from their infectious
lonely hell.