Everyone is reading books
with empty pages.
This is what we’ve been given
to work with.

Everyone is speaking
in What-They’ve-Heard-Before,
and, although I am fluent too,
I do not think it
a very beautiful language.

Everyone is standing hip-deep
in two dozen queues
waiting to hear the next installment
of the news.

Not everyone, but close enough
that it might as well be.

Everyone is angry
because they don’t know
who they should be angriest at.

Everyone accepts that the best way
is to deny almost everything.
This is what we have been given
to work on.

Everyone stands holding hope
in one hand and shit in the other
saying Believe in yourself,
Believe in love.

Even I, who know better
than to know better,
who fill a thousand dozen pages
that no one is reading,
am angry, am waiting, neck-deep,
though I prefer to speak whenever possible
in What-I-Haven’t-Said-Yet.

This is the work I’ve been given.