Filling A Vacuum

I spoke with the ancestors this morning before getting out of bed
and they told me I was doing exactly as well as expected

which would have been comforting if I did not know for a fact
that they were a pack of inveterate liars while they were alive

and the stats on the prophecies and opinions they’d made since their deaths
were ragged and imprecise and full of as much fable as before

But it felt good for a moment to think I was fulfilling a destiny
even if that may or may not be true

as perhaps my destiny is to be lied to by authorities living or dead
and wander and stumble over foundational untruths till I fall

and end up prostrate and wounded under the thumb of the dead
until they lift me up and stand me upright supported by more lies

They shall raise me up and give me a sword and point me
at other suckers who have been betrayed into infantry

and we will charge and gut and kill and be killed
thus taking our place among the exalted company

of liars grown fat upon the rewards gained by winking at the lied-to
becoming someone else’s revered ancestors full of untruth

Tomorrow morning I swear I will look them in the eyes
when they come before dawn whispering of my destiny

and I will say
I don’t believe you

and when they turn from me I will be adrift and lost
which some will say should be cause for joy at my freedom

but I will say nothing of joy as I will be straining into the silence
listening in vain for something else

which will ring of better truth even if it is not better truth
and which offers a path to a destiny I can live up to

no matter how small or venal
that fate might be