All of Us Sliding On By

We are all in this together whether we like it or not

We want to be good,

to be the white knight or the righteous queen,

to make everything right for the world.

But the world is not right.

Outside of the fact

we crush each other’s hopes and dreams

in our hands

as often as we help make them real,

tsunamis and the latest virus

take out the innocent and the damned,

mudslides capture lives

as a matter of course.

It’s only a slender matter of time

before it's someone else’s turn.

I want to take you aside,

look in your eyes,

tell you it will all go away

if enough of us just think positive,

act bravely,

work for compassion,

except I have my own darkness,

daily must refrain

from fragging the weak,

hurdling the dead on my way

to wherever it is

I think I have to go,

so who am I to say a damn thing?

I want what I want with elemental force,

feel it curling around my nerves

like a spring coiling.

Any minute now it will propel me up

and I think I know where but

in the end, I get what I didn’t expect

as often as not.

I am as random and predictable

as the plates of India

and Asia sliding past each other

on Earth’s ocean of magma.

So are you, and you, and all the billions of us living here

together,

adding up to

all the ways we hurt and help

the Universe,

the planet,

each other

in spite of ourselves.

c. 2005 TDHawkes