The Legacy


Do you see?
Can you see?
All these beautiful and warm places
    that we frequented together,
       often with our friends,
       that we could have, one day,
                        populated with our children
                                            and grandchildren,
do you see,
can you see,
        how easily, how in virtually no time at all,
           they have proven as equally hospitable
                                   to the mongrels of hate and tradition
                                                                        as they had been
                                                                                                 to us?
Do you see,
can you see,
       what a simple lack of resolve on our part
                    did accomplish?
(Or did we just resolve to do the wrong
                thing, to begin with,
                              for all the right reasons? – To give up our dream,
           so that others,
       others that we love,
                               can go on,
                                      can feel comfortable
                                                          not dreaming,
                                        forgetting that there are no lines between
                                               dreamlessness and nightmares).
Do you see,
can you see
    what sort of a world
                     we are bequeathing to
                                      the future generations?
                       (Notice that I can no longer say our children).
       What havoc “personal” and “private”
                         decisions
                   can wreck upon
                                        the world?
           How easily love can be murdered.
                  How
                         fallen
                                    we
                                          have
                                                truly
                                                         become.
Do you see all that?
Can you see all that?
We did not simply turn our backs
             on each other,
                  you
                 and
                   I,
        we turned our backs
                   on
                 the
               world,
                  on all things beautiful
                            in
                           the
                         world,
                            on hope,
                                   on love,
                                         on happiness,
                                                      on peace.
Our hands are all covered with blood now.
And our hearts are dead.
We have become murderers, you and I.

Murderers.

Do you remember the days
                   when we were still decent?
Does your memory extend that far still?
Do you miss those days?
Do you miss me?
Do you still care?
Do you?

         I don’t anymore.
         I am a killer now.
         I am, therefore, numb.

         I am, therefore, dead.



May 1998