You say this city-state is full
of people who are twisted,
deviants of one kind
or another,
afflicted in the mind with
some disorder.
You aren’t wrong.
You claim you are above that.
It’s true that if you crawl
long enough
in the social underbelly of this
culture, you comprehend
how far into the maw you step,
that abyssal space between
idyllic and grotesque.
We step through, willingly,
daring that entity inside us
to come out, and play.
You claim that you are not one.
You’re normal.
But you cannot step through,
and be normal.
Don’t you see this is a respite?
Most of us are running from
loss of loved ones, or
seeking to add something
interesting into their life.
Sometimes this place is home,
drenched with nostalgia,
sentimentality in every trinket
you wear,
and other times it is a foreign land,
interesting, but cold, detached
from memory.
Let me weave you into my tapestry,
displayed above my mantle,
tracing the times our stories
crossed, and what it brought.
You are just as broken
as the rest of us.
Revel in the beauty of
what you won’t say you see.
