Pass it around,
Cross your fingers.
Someone else’s problem now.
Infectious disease,
Spread by touch.
Intimacy is dangerous.
Connections unsafe,
Suspicious of people.
Keep distance for survival.
Stigmatize a target,
Give them a burden.
Healthcare nonexistent.
Virus keeps flowing,
Mutating in bodies.
Transforming ever deadlier.
Traumatic stain,
Cough it up.
Dispose of it properly.
Heal on your own,
Don’t give it to others.
The buck stops with you.
Atomistic nucleus,
Sealed tight against the world.
Cultivate a cult,
Paternal god as its leader.
Inculcate your values,
Carve impressions in minds.
Tear down and build up,
Constructed in your image.
Birthed out to the world,
Foreign figures encroaching.
Defending the village,
Against invasions of thought.
The entire world,
Our household.
Every living being,
Our family.
Guised as a virtue,
Tenets for control.
Forced to live,
Eternally enslaved.
Respect your captors,
Compassionate creators.
Selfless beings need servants,
Failed dreams thrust upon them.
Carry their burdens,
Serve them your flesh.
Disappointment embedded,
In the blade by your neck.
Disowned and disrespected,
Unfilial swine.
Kin no longer,
Dependent bloodlines severed.
The horrors of war,
Destruction and death.
Steady marching armies,
Bootsteps pound your heart.
The fear never leaves,
A perpetual urge to flee.
Yet the innocence of a child,
Pure and untainted for the moment.
Don’t you know this world,
With your wide naive eyes?
Can’t you feel the danger,
That threatens me daily?
I’ll tarnish you,
So you’ll never know,
The beauty that could have existed,
In a child’s soul.
Chiu on This 