Dear White Rabbit do not scare it’s only me.
I have decided to voice my essence as I am
concerned, I think it’s time, for you to listen
rid yourself, from qualms condemning you
to loneliness, bewilderment and fear.
You seem fatigued, frantically in motion
perennially late, suffering, internal convulsions
driven by market trends, manipulating your will,
turning fake wants into needs, got you chasing gold
relinquishing dreams. Hypnotised by screens
promises of freedom through obedience, safety
through surveillance, happiness through consumption,
rules to relieve you of common sense, boundless
informant to ensure you compel, goods to forget,
you toil to acquire them, holidays to rest, repossess,
your Self, yet you are lost, amidst pretentious verities
nothing is ever enough. You wish to scream,
so you adhere, to causes in vogue, ‘fur is not a fabric’
in your leather boots, rage against the machine,
‘go green’, ‘no more war’, disown genders shoot
the giants believe, you can make a difference daubed
in brands, total impuissance, coherence reduced,
to an abstract concept a trademark, as you feed
on torn down forests, fuel on fossils, turn blind eyes
to the tantalum in your phone killing miners, hungry
people of countries at war, reminiscences of blood
diamonds whilst she the drag queen across the street
to whom you were accustomed has been strangled
for no one deemed it was their place to intervene.
Confusion pervades your being, you quest
enlightenment in old scripts, follow gurus confess
to priests, rely on shamans to heal, reverising
immortality, of identity you try, to reconcile, doctors,
trainers and yogis abusing drugs to quell, the weight
caged in your ribs, an archaic pursuit, for redemption
from an original scene, you do not remember
committing yet you feel, irremediably guilty,
insignificant and small, your life suggesting you do not
deserve it and the world, would be a better place
without you, solely saved by your extinction.
How dare you . . .
[Featured illustration: White Rabbit by Margaret Tarrant]