Requiem For Democracy
By Rafaella Stefani
The darkness rolls across the Earth like a spool of film unwinding
In the distance streetlights flicker
A child wails
A lonely St. George’s flag dances in the wind.
Are you sorry for what you have done?
Do you even care?
A cockroach scurries up the metal hood above the stove where a pot is bubbling
Steam pressing against the lid, fit to burst any second
It’s fragile legs scramble to find purchase on the smooth metal surface
It can feel the heat
Tendrils of steam like sins trying to pull it down.
Did you know it would happen this way?
Did you want it to?
The cockroach slips, sliding down, down, down toward the hob
It catches itself on the ledge and its journey begins again, up, up, up
Towards what?
Where are you going?
Is there anywhere left to go?
I am filled with an insane dread
My mind is no longer my own.
I belong to you
Every layer of me
Even the deep, secret one buried beneath red-lipsticked lies
Held close as a promise.
You pulled it all out because I let you
Because that is what we are supposed to do
Down, down, down the cockroach slides
Up, up, up again it climbs.
The lies I spit like acid have nothing on yours
Sitting proud as a crown atop your head.
Wrapping around us like an embrace
Making us feel safe
It is all going according to plan.
According to what plan?
No one ever thought to ask.
You are all the same,
Cut like a paper doll chain.
You caught me and caged me and you were clever
I didn’t even know I was caught.
And you decorated the cage and made it comfortable
And I forgot there was a world outside.
What gives you the right to decide what is right?
I am spilled ink on a blank page
Flip me but the mark bleeds through.
Rip me out, crumple me up, set me alight.
I am useless now I am no longer pure.
I consume TV like a starving man at a buffet
Dead eyes fixed on a window that shows a view I want to see
A distraction from the inevitable
Idling away the hours, passive, paralysed
As you take the planet and turn it to profit.
If we tore our eyes away from the screen long enough to see,
Would we try and stop you?
No.
It is all going according to plan.
I don’t want to be your plaything anymore
But what can I do?
So, I smoke a joint, write a poem, stare out the window at nothing
Filling myself with thought and feeling
So that I know I’m still here
I am not a robot
Though I have been programmed
I blindly follow a plan you let me believe was my own
And when I open my eyes, I see the set you have built
And I think it is the truth.
Down, down, down the cockroach falls
Over the ledge.
It sizzles as it hits the hob
I can smell its flesh burning
Mixing with the smell of smoke and sweat and deceit.
Homo sapiens.
We think we are so special
We think we are so smart.
But we are the wise men who volunteered for a cultural lobotomy
What use is a brain when we don’t think for ourselves?
What use is a brain when all we can know is what they want us to?
What use is a brain when all it can do is rot?