The violence is in the lying.

A violence begun and bred in childhood.

The pretending

I watched with precision

as the unnerving

mind reader

in

their

midst.

A child who never was innocent.

Who said it like it is.

This poem is an ode to Scapegoats

The Truth Tellers

The Honests

The Fair Minds

We don’t play around and pretend

with conspiracies, religions, relationships, careers, money,

our health, and the internet.

We have ancestors among us who avoid us.

We won’t save them – we won’t pass on their legacy of lies

they traditionally told us.

Those now dead feeling insulted, triggered and angry enough,

over being revealed as liars,

reach out from their DNA

and instruct the living liars among us to shut us up,

and they try to.

We who are scapegoats

feel significant enough, strengthened enough, invincible enough

to live long enough

for as long as our lives life out,

without adding on embellishments.

Our refusal to decorate life, for appearances

trying to make it more attractive, fanciful, desirable,

is what is going to save us.

©️ July 2025 Much Love, Deb Poems