Issue
#8 

a poem by Trevor Mitchell (1 of 2)

Parasites

Sometimes, when you're feeling
low, people will tell you to
keep your chin up,
that you ought to
keep up the fight and even,
on occasion, inform you
that what doesn’t kill you
makes you stronger.
Of course all this
only makes you
feel worse
but the people
who say these things
believe they are imparting
a hard-won
and dazzling insight.

You will hear these phrases
wherever you go; on the street,
on the bus
or in the supermarket or
even
at a BBQ on a shimmering late
summer afternoon where
your permanent frown,
slumped shoulders and
defeated aspect
draw those parasites
of misery
down upon you,
eyes shining
with
genteel bloodlust
they work you
into a corner
with their cheery prattle
and then murder you
with their children, their cars, their
flat screen televisions and
their jobs, their thin
successful voices and their
department store clothes,
department store lives
until you come
to understand at last
that this fight
is a fight
to the death,
a fight
that you can never win
because it's gotten late, much
too late,
and as the blood
drains slowly
from the evening sky
a dark shadow
crawls across
the lawn.

© by Trevor Mitchell
 
Gutter Eloquence Magazine ~ Issue #8 ~ March 2010    next poem     return to top