In Comes the Inferno

By Andrew R. Duckworth

Paradise lost.
I remember being a young child,
Not a care in the world,
Because the world had not found me yet,
And the only world I knew
Was thirty square miles.
But in comes the Inferno,
“Progress,”
My attention to the goings on,
My noticing of blatant hypocrisy,
Where the Right is always right
And the Left leaves everyone behind,
And the Center is vilified.
In comes the Inferno,
Where Washington D.C.
Is the Devil’s own Pandemonium,
Demons itching to sell the soul of a nation,
And the devastation?
Unseen until final desolation.
In comes the Inferno,
30 somethings acting like children,
And an entire generation raised on tech,
As if it solves all of the world’s problems.
I guess it sure did at the dinner table.
In comes the Inferno,
Self-censoring voices
Because the Weak can’t handle
Diversity of ideas.
God forbid disagreements take place.
God forbid people have discussions.
No, words are just too dangerous
For the generations
Who don’t know how to share the sandbox.
In comes the Inferno,
Because Paradise was an old idea,
And “progress” means “new” these days.
Paradise.
That was a long time ago,
When the world had not found me yet.
But the world has found me.
True Anger found me,
Made me realize I had no idea
What anger was before,
Just a drop of oil in a frying pan,
Sizzling, but only sizzling.
Anger found me
Asking questions of the world,
Having those questions squashed
By Right and Left,
When all I wanted to do was walk
In a straight line.
I am Center,
The very thing both fear,
The very thing both demons demonize.
In comes the Inferno,
But I have no plans to add rooms
To Pandemonium.