Panopticon
Social Disservices
1. Resident
Predator and prey.
The wolf grinds its steel teeth.
In a false twilight, the night came so long ago: When children were domesticated and caged in white rooms.
A helpless herd to wringing hands.
His back dented with high-heels, cleaved into the meat of his shoulders.
Breast-fed toxic waste, the umbilical noose.
Born into death, neglected battered and wasting away.
Fight or flight is only in open air.
Fright and flight on the inside.
So many hands eager to hold you down, often until your breathing will cease.
Your cries heard by deaf ears - just as the walls of concrete.
Profit maker. Human livestock. Misery harvest.
Bow to our monetary god, Child servant.
Broken beaten and scarred.
You sleep under the watchful eye of strangers.
Profit off of your tiny back. Paying the bills of philanthropists.
Your wretched reality.
There is no one in whom you believe.
Your god is your own.
Now I will tuck you into sleep.
2. Client
Sobbingly confess of a dark figure in the doorway.
A voice she had known for so long across from her at the dinner table.
Not only would she share this trauma with him, she also shared a birthright and a namesake.
Loss of innocence and dignity. Tell no one.
The tears you cry won't empty the seed from your womb.
The tears you cry won't make your menstrual blood flow.
Sob for your loss: The wolves will drink your tears.
Your misfortune will become their fortune.
Welcome to a home you aren't allowed to leave.
Herded like cattle into walls of concrete.
Sterile like your raped womb.
Therapists wait to pour salt on your wounds, Your insurance pays for it all.
A ghost of a world you could have known.
Surrounded by drugged rage, you will face this horror alone.
3. Subject
I own you: Trapped in a corner, fear in your eyes.
I own you: Alone and terrified, crying in the dark.
I own you: Slave to disorder, forever ensnared.
I own you and no one will ever care.
Listen. Listen. Focus on me. Listen.
Your life means nothing. Listen.
Listen. You'll never be redeemed.
Hear me.
Pray to some distant and silent god that this will all go away.
This is who you are.
You were born to this fate.
You are crowded in an empty room.
A prisoner in your mind.
Your voice remains silent: They're screaming all the time.
How long will this endure?
Is this all of your life?
Is this all of your world?
Or a nightmare to leave behind?
Never give in, never give up.
4. Patient
Alone.
Yet so many voices unceasingly chatter.
I awake behind window bars in a room so white.
Cold like melting frost in this summers night.
There is nothing that can hold my weight.
Nothing to slip around my neck to end this misery.
Not even the dignity of suicide is given to me.
Why can't you all be fucking silent?
So I can think... the blinding light and the sterile smell comes over me.
Take this pill. Worship this god. Wear a smile. Lie to the world.
Everything is alright.
No, you can't leave (Not until our pockets are full).
Scars run so deep.
A ghost of me is all you will see.
The burns from a rope I never tied.
The scars on wrists I never cut: Made by the life I didn't want.
Healed by the life I would one day lead.
There is hope somewhere beneath all this death.
The final exhalation could be a newborn's first breath.
Somewhere in the final resting place of a rotten old tree: Amanitas are growing.
This is where I will be.
A place where scars are beautiful.
Where sanity and insanity meet.
That is where I will be.
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