SCARLET
- Apr 24
- 1 min read
By Marc Brightside
One could call it darkness, you or I,
that which churns below the plume,
irradiated, lingering and unrelenting,
bodies shimmering with textured sin,
the fear that burns beneath your skin.
Scarlet, electronic eyes close in.
The eyes know if you walk, or drive,
what you drink and where you buy,
what medicines keep you alive.
Who you think of, late at night,
as your hands creep below the sheets.
How to hit you. How to make it bleed.
How many times you’ve tried this week.
What got you through the moment.
There will be no war, no declaration.
We let them in, accepted their transfusion,
slipped into their hardened carapace
and suckled from their cold secretions,
allowed the unpressed cyanide of modern life
to permeate our festering internals,
our purple, fat, decrepit cell-walls,
stained with apathy and Pepto Bismol.
We saw the cameras, read the T&Cs,
clicked agree and went on with our day.
In time, it became just like the rain;
something we are not to blame for.