to be empty

and not care

like a starving man

standing

outside the library

with a forecast

of nuclear bombs

in the morning.

There is nobody there

except two employees

discussing

their schedules.

He pulls Babbitt off the shelf

and reads.

The message is meaningful,

but the words aren’t there.

It’s a classic.

The starving man, pulls other classics off the shelf.

The message is lost in the first paragraph.

He doesn’t have time to read.

His mind is blown to hell.

He thought about blowing up the city two years ago

but it was too much work. “Society will take-care of that, all by itself,” he said to himself.

He researched

how to mix chemicals,

but couldn’t decide where to place the bombs

City Hall? But there were good people there

Local Watering Holes? Those guys were just trying to get drunk

The Community Center? Retired folks

The Catholic Church? Maybe.

The modern world was confusing

It was too hard to find the heart

to know

where to stick the knife.

The starving man had stopped eating

Food made him sick

People made him sick

Church made him sick

He couldn’t kill society

Society was killing him, slowly.

He waited, but it took too long.

When a man wants to die, he rarely gets his way

and when he least expects it

a bus driver

drops their road-kill sandwich

by the brake

and

smashes him

in the street

so the birds, bugs, and undertaker

have something to eat.

Society lives off the starving man–

it eats him

alive.