the consequences of treason

and in what kind of world
do i live
if i give in

to these dark urges,
these dark thoughts,

these ideas that i
could deserve
any better than what lot
i have already been given,

the cards i have been given,
the hand i've played
since my earliest days?

the sights i claim not
as my own,

because i know
how unfair
it would be
to every other

who has sight of their own
to suggest that this sight
is superior

in its myopic stumbling,
its incoherence, its lacklustre vision
of something far greater
than the summit
of a fragile ivory tower,

brought down
by the acts
of its youngest denizens –

there are always vulnerabilities,
always those
who will suffer
for the greed of others,

but where lies the danger,
if not in greed caused
by earlier starvation?

and in that early starvation,
and the onset of winter
in bones too fragile

to stand against their weight in steel,

we see the harshest
of light, that comparable
to blackness of soul, and yet,

what bearing
does blackness have
on those things

beyond colour
and light,

beyond all concept of vision?

and yet without some sort
of visual sign,
what can we discern
of these strange things

that uncommon insight
is needed to see?

a curiosity that no one
will ever unravel, for lack
of wit to untie the knots

placed by deft fingers belonging to
a demonic thing, something beyond
our feeble ideas
of justice and peace,

because no matter
how far
this world is filtered

and ground down,

there is
no absolute truth,
no absolute justice,

only what we place there.

so it is so wrong
to suggest that one thing is just
and assume that is right,
even when others rail and fight?

aren't we all doing that,
anyway?

aren't we all doing that, just to survive?