They will never see the full picture
they’ve already reduced you
to little more than a vessel to pour their slack self-worth into.
They just see just the negative as proof
you’re ready to reel into the predatory pantomime of illusory superiority.

In their minds that will never stretch to encompassed yours,
they’re the catch
in ours,
they’re the bait we don’t want to take
because we know that catch
is the spring of a mousetrap,
the hook on a line,
the cage waiting to close around us,
the expectation of something more from someone less.
You get what you pay for,
and what you never invited to come creeping in
from behind blue light
that depicts your portrait in grainy resolution
and dumbs you down
til your own knuckles are causing friction in fetid minds.