Oh you…
Don’t you know we all have passions in life?
Jeremy plays the bass;
Oscar plays the guitar;
Lily loves cycle rides
into horizons afar,

What passion does your soul provide?
What strikes your heart and boldens your stride?
What captures your will in aching pride,
Spurs it forward like a fishing line
Skipping along the fragile waters
Until all that’s left is but one soul at the end of time?

What captures you so?
What enhances the day but takes enough effort,
That nothing won’t yield to the endless pressure,
The zone that is created, the “flow state’s” way
Of just sinking your teeth in and in and in
Until there is nothing but you and the task at hand?

What?
Don’t you have anything?

If all you want to do is sit on the wooden chairs
At the rustic tables next to the stoked fires
And the music and the dancing and the smiles,
And the fleeting feeling that this may all end soon
But at least this time is worth your while,
You will never earn my respect.
I will force your hand, I will steal your smile,
I will use your will, I will use your soul,
I will grind your gears like a dictator, relentless,
I will sand you down like Pol Pot hopped up on meth,
I will make sure that it is imperative that you
Grovel at the feet of the ones who chose death.

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Aaron Du Plessis is a poet from Bournemouth, UK. This is his first publication and he hopes you enjoyed.