"Nihilism" - stantheman

The highlighter slides over my every sin.

Desensitized to the pain they hold,

the word “humanity” is getting old.

I’m more than strategic,

more than just there.

I’m engaging, pondering, yet still nowhere,

near the realization that “shit is fucked”.

“I abide by a higher moral compass”,

I so often say.

This refusal to empathize,

could I really do it, looking in their eyes?

Could I stand with my laptop in hand,

above a smile so genuine, humble and true-

then say, in cold blood, “I won’t help you”?

I refuse to take the self- calculative step

and see that I have no idea.

I refuse to let my eyes pour out with pain,

to admit that I am nowhere near worth the same.

As the lives that are so often vexed,

waiting while dying and trying to get to the next,

day, hour, second, or week.

Each “one to a million” forces me to ask myself

if I could be the one.

In a second my utilitarian calculation is done.

The sad truth is I could never

let go of what I call value,

and give it to those who deserve,

and not live another day,

surrounded by the gluttony,

of a house, education and “the American way”.