Look Not Upon the Sun

Bleach barren and hollow we are withering
in locked stares of unregistered concord
like chemo patients tied in stalls of a communal barn.
Tube to machine in recliners
wrapped in the benevolent warmth of smallpox blankets
carrying antiseptic plagues.

In the silence we hear our internal workings
being gnawed away, and the clicking of tiny teeth
breaking into bone and eroding
the foundations that made our shape.

A house rotting from the inside by the burrowing of termites.
Little hives of pupae spreading in gelatinous mass
where there was once hard wood and structure.
A sickness that is felt like bile bitterness,
cold in the pit of the stomach waiting to be purged.

We would feel better if we could vomit,
but the medication has made us numb.
We need to dig our fingers into our throats
to taste the sick, and hover over porcelain bowls
to retch the pestilence that has befallen us.

But there is the nagging chime of Outlook,
and the red-numbered badge count of fealty
tethering us to lords for food and shelter
when we can no longer find it on our own.
There is no hunting or gathering in barren lands
hollowed out and clear cut.
A wasteland of dependency to earn our daily bread.

Thank you corporation for what we are about to receive.
Forgive us our false sense of free will
and self-deception of self-determination,
and forgive those who would have us believe otherwise.
Let us not look upon the sun,
but upon the blue light glow
of our distracted mollusk mucus trails to salvation.