J’Accuse

It’s not fair
that you’re alive.

What desire
is under your foot
to be stepped on
and muddied
beyond recognition,
what stern longing
will not leave you
despite your flight 
from it,
what fatal question
will you refuse to answer
if you do what you think
you must do
and never consider 
what is present
and screaming for you
before you
and inside you
and in your path?
Can you be any less
of a man whether you
are spitting or slipping
along?  When you stop
how do you dare
to move again?

It’s not fair that you are
alive.

There’s no justice in you
for all those who died unfulfilled.
When they look at you,
what betrayals they see
that you are nonetheless
comfortable
carrying!  

Are you
even breathing right now?
Can you call yourself
and dare to answer
to the name you were given?
Do you even exist, or are you
a ghost, a broken spoke,
a derailment?   It’s not fair
that you’re even alive
when better men
are not.