anxious
surgery

waiting room
tic tac toe
winning
losing

waiting

can't
help
but
notice
not one
but
two

"Top Rated Doctor"
magazine covers
hanging
right
in
front
of
my face

waiting
still
…
called
back

disinterested
nurse

*****
-yet brisk-
cavalier
surgeon

cutting
sewing
apologizing
plainly
unemp­athetic

couldn't
help
the
tears
that
followed


and
for
taking
the
*******
time

to write
about
this
****

I asked a vegetarian
“why are you a vegetarian?”
and he said:
In an ideal
joy-and-happiness society
would we foster
empathy, caring and compassion
between all people?
If people are unempathetic, uncaring and uncompassionate
to animals
would people also be
unempathetic, uncaring and uncompassionate
to the human-animal?
Thereby destroying
joy-and-happiness society?
And if so,
should we be
empathetic, caring and compassionate
to all animals?

If farm animals
feel pain and suffering,
should we be empathetic, caring and compassionate
to them too?
And stop slaughtering them!

the putrid smell of cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey breath feels like home.
           His arms felt like home, too.
      I knew him as the boy who’d party all night and make plans with me the next day only to sleep the whole time.
              I knew him as ****** noses from ******* and the young emphysemic cough that would **** a small part of me every time I heard it.
     I knew him as that big, stupid ******* smile.
I knew him as the boy who’d ride his bike to my house but would always be too worn out to ride his bike with me.
          I knew him as far too charming for his own good.
I knew him as perfectly imperfect.
       I know him as cold and unempathetic.
I know him as the boy who refused to get on the phone with me for closure.
     I know him as unstable.
I know him as manipulative.
      I know myself as someone who will never be more important than *******.
I know myself as someone who will never be more important than cigarettes.
     I know myself as just another doll who was tossed to the side by a child who got bored.
     The fetor of a coffin nail and the acidic aroma of Highlands Red still reminds me of him—
                 but only the version of him that I knew.

Please, Mrs. front row goer,
You needn't explain yourself to me
good deeds don't replace the creed,
and excuses fall dead on my ears

mother of a mother
needed or needing to be needed?
RSV, stay away, OK, but
recognized servitude?

unempathetic to your need
for validated humility,
leaving the listener unsettled
sit and be sermonized

There's a way to be good again
Look to the rugged cross,
the empty tomb,
our Risen King

Every day that I'm here I feel like going home and killing myself
But when I'm home I'm fine again
Every day that I'm here I feel like going home and killing myself
But when I'm home I'm fine again

Every day I awake to the endless feeling of emptiness
And then I go to a place where there are walls without windows
People without souls
And money is everything
It's kind of hard to breathe here between the endless clouds of smoke and the kindness and integrity in which the people lack
In an environment where everyone blends as one
I stand out
It's not because I'm neither a smoker nor an unempathetic ****
But it's a little something called individuality
Individuality so transparent that people try to verbally, emotionally attack me, break me down
It seems to be working
Because when I'm in this place I'm like a zombie, I try to drain my emotions to blend in
But I still stand out even with my undeniable anger, presumable sarcasm, and ****** up hair
And I walk in a straight line when I walk, waiting to bump anyone, so tired of people invading my space walking by
Sick of people after greeting them not saying hi
Is it so ******* hard to have manners
What's a matter
Speak, nod, say something
I'm under the assumption
That I'm the only one in here
That is aware
Of what's going on around here
In this place
These people are of ******* waste
No manners, morals, or integrity
I better depart while I still possess mine
Though it's the manners I lack
But who needs that when you're always under attack

Every day that I'm here I feel like going home and killing myself
But when I'm home I'm fine again

The annals of Peter Pertuity
so dense complex with impunity one
headed unempathetic saying
how WE feel
and what WE need. One
eyed
blind
genetically disposed
a natural propensity
kindly, we say,
exposing us and you to
raincoats on corners and ladies we think get a
thrill.

I remember being a child, going to the circus,
With my little sister and my mother
We rode a yellow taxi into Manhattan
My mother tried to get me to walk up to the elephant
But I adamantly refused, which I later regretted

I was spellbound by the tigers
And told my mother that I was going to train tigers and lions in the circus to jump through hoops when I grow up,
Just one of the many careers I considered in my early life

And what a surprise,
To grow up and incur so many wounds
I never saw my family's dysfunction when I was younger,
I was probably one of the happiest kids ever,
But aren't most kids blissful? Because they don't know
They don't yet fully comprehend the perverse world they have been born into

What a surprise to have my dreams ripped so stealthily from me
To see this jubilant child transformed into a gasping fish on the floor,
Gasping for it's life,
To no avail,
As passerby become bystanders
Looking indifferently at the suffering,
Not being able to feel
Refusing to help

I remember being in my hometown,
Third grade,
Standing at the bus stop with my mother and my younger sister
The sun was setting, dusk
A tattered, leathery old man
Who was extremely drunk,
Tried desperately to get across a wide and busy street
I anxiously looked up to my mother
And begged her to help him, or let me help him
She refused, a scowl on her face,
She excused herself just like everyone else around her,
Like all the people in cars that almost hit him
As he was helplessly on his knees
Fists deep in hot rubble
A drunken daze of anguish on his face,
Paralyzed in this position
And I cried
Letting out little screams
Everytime this poor man
Fell on the ground in front of a car
And I thought I was going to witness the end
Of this helpless man

Another time
I was in Las Vegas
With my pregnant mother, and my sister and my grandparents and my mother's soon to be husband
We took a plane to Las Vegas, I was eight
Because my mother was going to marry my stepfather there, a shot gun wedding,
But something went wrong, and they didn't get married in Las Vegas, but ended up getting married back at home
One night in Las Vegas,
Me and my family were sitting outside in the evening, at a strip mall
I think we were waiting for someone to pick us up,
The only other person there was an overweight man sitting on a bench by himself a few yards away from where my family was sitting
I was walking around, exploring my surroundings,
When I noticed this man sitting by himself
I thought that he looked lonely,
So I sat next to him and started talking to him, asking him how he was,
My mom saw me and yelled at me,
Pulling me away and reprimanding me for talking to strangers
I didn't understand why she couldn't see that I was just trying to be kind to a man that appeared to be lonely

I remember another time,
In 12th grade, I went to a concert with my boyfriend back then,
I was high on a hallucinogenic
It was a Nero concert in Manhattan
I went to the bathroom, waited on a long line,
When I finally got in I saw that there was a side room in the bathroom with plether couches covered in endless puke
A woman who looked a lot older than the majority of people at the concert,
Probably in her 30s
Fell on the floor and hit her skull so hard I heard it hit the ground
While the girls in front of me, white girls who were probably sorority girls, pointed their fingers at her, laughing to themselves
Took out a digital camera and started to record her
I got off the line to the bathroom to help her up,
Of course, right when I did this, those girls came to their senses and got in touch with their rarely used empathy
I took her to the room with puke covered couches to tend to this tall, sad woman
I asked her what she was on,
Shrooms
And probably tons of liquor
I asked her if she was okay, how did she feel?
I walked out of the bathroom with her,
Where my boyfriend was waiting for me
Next to him was this blonde ****
She walked to him
I asked him who the hell he was
He was so smug it made me sick
He looked way too young to be with her,
But this woman reassured me that she was with him
My boyfriend discouraged me from starting a fight with this smug loser
I just wanted to punch all of the haughtiness out of him
But all I could do was I look sadly on
As I saw this strange tall woman,
Too inebriated to stand
Walked away with this evil hearted man

The whole world is a circus
We're told to spend all our money on college,
That that will make us good humans
We judge people by so much criteria that isn't even important
We waste all our money on college degrees and then end up working minimum wage jobs anyway
We overlook the poor and suffering,
Because it doesn't advance us in our self progression in any way
We are such a ******* self centered nation,
It makes me ******* sick,
We're so disrespectful, unempathetic, uncaring, unloving, cruel
We don't have God
We rely only on ourselves
God is love
But who are we, without God?
Savage, cruel, hungry souls
Ready to devour any helpless soul that appears to be weaker than us
So we can pummel them
And destroy them,
In an attempt to steal the little life they have left in them to revive our hearts of coal
This is the world I live in,
I'm not going to try to pretend cruelty isn't real and prevalent
I am in this world, but not from it
And oneday I will go home,
To Love, to God,
Away from all this craziness of the world that brings pulls at my heart and brings tears to my eyes.

You're so much like our father
With the careless gaze you have
Your unempathetic, selfish ways
Your golden, bright blond hair.

Perhaps it is why you coloured it brown
So you'd look more like me instead
You must not have noticed yet, dear brother
I look so much like our dad.

I can sing an empty tune
Air in perfect pitch
A silent temptress
Moaning inadvertently
Who should I become?
Now that I've ridden the wave of these vibrations?
And laid in the sweat
That I pored from ancient temptations
Romance is simplicity
But how I quake in the pupil of complexity
And sometimes your over composition
Gives offense and is blind.
    Along with my five feelings a minute
But it works because you bore easy
The flaw lies in our trained disposition
    Of unempathetic nervous systems
Placing bets
Because assupmtion feeds more mouths than a herd of cattle ever could

Uncle Alan, Why are you so serious?
Every time, over the phone,
You always talk like something’s wrong,
Just your voice alone
It fills my head with anxiety, fear
Why so stressed?

Sure, life’s stressful
But it’s much more than just that
You’ll just be drowning in it
If you don’t stop seeing it that way

Cousin Amy, why so sad?
All the time, your eyes look dead
Careworn, Tired, Frustrated even,
One look and I feel
Like despair is filling my lungs

Sure, some things are depressing
But only if you think of it that way
It’d be like a wet sponge
Taking the life out of you

Deluding you from what everything
Is really like

Johnson, Hank, why so restless?
You talk like you’re carefree
Doing what you want
It a thought of the consequences
Inconsiderate, Unempathetic,

Can’t you see what’s really happening?
How you’re breaking yourself
Shattering all your conscience
Is this really what you think
All life is?

Sister Madison, why so euphoric?
It’s like you’re intoxicated
With happiness
But that’s not a good thing
Not any more than despair or anger is

You just live in an imaginary world
Like some Barbie
A zombie more like,
Everyone thinks you’re perfect
You do to
But then realization hit you
Like a truckload of broken bars
Is it really?

All your emotions
Controlling you
Shading your life
Illusional

Uncle, Cousin, Brother, Sis!
You should never flow with the emotions
They’re too much, of you allow them,
They’d lead you off on a
Heavenly waterfall
Just to crash on the demon rocks below

You must get a grip and balance
Your thoughts and emotions
Reasoning and logical thinking
Mind and Heart
Heart and Mind
Balance

Keep them steady
That way
You can safely lead off
To the warmth of the sea

And meet the angelfishes
And the beautiful corals
And learn to beware the shark
And the jellyfish

Not too much
Not too little

Life’s about balance
Having just enough on both sides
To remain upright
Even with a few close calls,
But Upright.

(Governor Greg Abbott of Texas)

Greg Abbott is on a roll.
The man just couldn't wait until
He signed into law the nation's most
Restrictive anti-abortion bill.

When asked about abortions and ****,
Abbott's answer was pompous and smug.
We will eliminate ****, he said.
What does he have? A wonder drug?

He also signed a bill into law
That demonstrates a recent obsession.
He calls it a voter integrity law--
A euphemism for voter suppression.

(Senator Ted Cruz "Antoinette" of Texas)

Regarding COVID unemployment
Benefits, Cruz spoke to the mobs.
If people are struggling to make ends meet,
Well, he said, let them get jobs.

Easy to say for a man whose pay
Is 174,000 a year--
In dollars, that is--and whose manner
Is unempathetic and cavalier.

(Larry Elder, candidate for governor of CA)

Talk show nitwit Larry Elder,
Is recently pushing Trump's Big Lie.
He says if he loses the recall election,
Then voter fraud is the reason why.

…

Just imagine: these three stooges
Have or seek high positions.
What a shame that we are stuck
With such moronic politicians!

-by Bob B (9-8-21)