comparatively speaking

if you’re reading this piece
right now,
you’ve got the world at your
fingertips---
might not feel like it, might
feel like your own life is gonna
come crashing down upon your
head, might have a thousand
skeletons in your closet just
trying to get out & do you in
(or so you think), but yeah,
you’re in the driver’s seat here,
at the top of the evolutionary
food chain.

yup, if you’re reading this right
now, it means you aren’t under
water, means you aren’t under
ground, means you aren’t reduced
to ash & sitting on your loved
one’s mantelpiece---probably means
you’re not laying half-dead in a
hospital bed drinking your food
through a straw, probably means
that the man hasn’t decided to
royally screw with you & box
you up inside one of its societal
garbage cans for a stretch until
you might gain their approval,
getting out on “good behavior.”

if you’re reading this right now,
you have a roof over your head
(hasn’t been blown away, or burnt
down), you aren’t being tortured
by a rebel army in the middle of a
land that nobody cares about because
there’s no oil there, you’re not being
tortured, molested, beat, etc. by
any of the unfortunate miscreants
already found “unworthy” of life
by a society that let them fall through
the cracks to begin with &
yes, if you’re reading this right now,
you’re not living on the street, searching for
a soup kitchen & a place to rest while the
night passes over.

in fact, if you are reading this right now,
someone cared about you long enough to
raise you or support your existence financially,
emotionally, etc. long enough so that
you could learn how to read, so that you
could learn how to type, so that you
could learn how to use the internet &
of course, so that you had access to it,
however it is that this came to be---
somebody has kept you fed & breathing
until you could do it yourself.

might be willing to bet that
if you’re reading this right now
you aren’t alone (in the sense that if you
die before finishing the end of this
piece, absolutely no one will know
or care)---for you may very well be
an integral part of a network of
relationships that on the best of days,
brings a mutual good feeling to all
those involved & on the worst,
bring support to those who have
it comparatively bad, so as to keep
the network thriving & afloat,
continuing to survive successfully &
continuing to bring sustenance,
making it easier for each one of us
to make it,
in this big big world of
chaos, destruction & death,
which up until now, we’ve escaped
somehow, as a direct result
of one another.