Freedom Pond

Assume it’s all been a hoax.
Assume everything you know
was cooked up to control you
and stuff you with blindness.
Assume Dad and the teacher
and Mom and the boss
were all indifferent about spreading
well-funded lies as long as they
got their share of the funds.  
Assume this is the way it works.

Once you get this
there will be a sudden urge
to uncover the Real, 
so you will stick your hand
into the nearest pond,
pull out some
of the black rot at the bottom,
and wolf it down.

You’ll get sick enough to think you’re dying. 
You probably won’t die.  Instead
you’ll come back thin.  
You’ll come back grim. 
You’ll come back cynical
and pleased as a leech
with a fat vein to suck,
and you will fall in line, 

unless
you are one of the few who simply
can’t.

You’ll know if you are because
there will be a taste
forever in your mouth
called freedom.  
You will be
sick with it
as long as you live, 
and sometimes you will wish
you had died,

but now and then you’ll pass that pond
and note how pretty the sunrise is
across its water
and be glad you’re still alive.