Us V.S. You

Not Me v.s. Everything

Would you have been a threat

to me before?

When media wasn't the core

generator of people's opinions,

perspectives and laws;

when a selfie camera couldn't

show me all my flaws;

when I couldn't click

and have diet pills sent to the door,

would you have been a threat?

But would I have survivied

you back then?

When my thoughts were undefined

so I couldn't defend;

when I was labelled as hysterical-

something to mend.

The thought of treatment is enough to send

my blood cold.

Each denial of insanity;

plea for humanity

hitting a dead end.

I wouldn't have survived.

You know how to wriggle 

into our increasingly egotistical world.

How to invade, infect, imprison

and sit back watching it in peril.

But you would have been a threat before.

You will be a threat later.

No matter what society is

you know how to take advantage.

You create a trap. Wedge

us between freedoms:

perfection and death.

There's no quick solution.

There's no-one to burden with blame.

We have a problem.

It isn't our problem.

But it is our problem to solve.

We started by giving it a name.

A faceless enemy we can contain.

Now treatment is more than a waiting game;

its fighting for lives we intend to reclaim

We are far from winning,

but we are further from the beginning.

Author's Note

Thanks for everyone who read or reviewed. Especially thanks to emipoemi for the great critical feedback I'm definitely prouder of this and I hope you like it.
Partially inspired by the yellow wallpaper-which is a incredible story-highly recommend.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

This is from a couple years ago, but is interesting in how it parallels the trials and tribulations we are all going through now, fighting this deadly virus.
now the instantaneous communication....news moves faster than ever...would we even have paid attention to this threat back when I was a kid in the fifties?
hard to tell, but it is here and now...and poetry is really good when it can be "motionless in time/ as the moon climbs" as Macleish put it in "Ars Poetica."

[Suhd]

A beautiful form of expression combined with the subtlety of thought process.

[Levi Levin]

You told a story with a great poem. You did a great job! Best wishes!

[emipoemi]

.....I don't recall how this was before, but it's indeed so much better now! I love it! The message is clear, it's powerful, and the ending is killer. The first "survived" has an extra "i" (that shouldn't be there), and I would put "wedge" together with the rest of its thought (so...." wedge us between freedoms"). there's no reason why it should be written any way else (the musicality still flows). This is otherwise fantastic! You should definitely be prouder if this version. This is a keeper! Well done!