Optimism

we are good. 

we ignore the screams of children and the mentally ill the same way we butter our toast-

systematically.

our eyes and the streetlights become the same.

all moist orange, all weird silence.

malleable men move, each one in time with the rest.

all magnanimous at first instinct.

the screams though, push it back. 

we are good.

everything, all things, make(s) us bad.

we are good when we are puffy and clean, sticky and easily hurt-

like white rice. 

soon though, we are the subway's screech or the hand's smack.

we are turgid and slippery as we live more and more.

we become thin and oily like the hairs of a mean old pervert. 

and we like to sneer at misfortune and sniff out kindness to blow our nose in and defile.

we like to defile.

take and eat and imbibe and pluck the hairs of society until we are grossly obese. 

our eyes and the streetlights become the same, stumbling with our nails too long and scratching each other and bleeding and spotting our streets brown.

we are good?