MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)

paranoico

published: 1-28-2018

what do you think of when you think of paranoia?
constantly looking over one’s shoulder, like in an action movie
or never able to leave one’s room for fear of assassins
or a repulsion to the human touch

paranoia can also be learning how to tell people apart
not by the ridges in their faces
and the cracks in their voices
but in the way they manhandle doorknobs
and how their steps thunder down the staircase
and how they unapologetically belch the worst of their germs into the shared air
without a single thought for the people around them

paranoia was a white room at my old house, soon bleeding green
with the computer screen facing the door
always afraid that, at any moment, a certain pair of eyes would come wandering in
and make up some infraction to punish me for

paranoia is the ever-friendly Kubuntu installer
at the start of yet another reinstallation
ignorance should never be a defense
but a black curtain is one part of staying out of the school’s sweaty, meaty, unwashed claws
and the bear trap always swinging over my head

paranoia is a tolerable vegetable
constantly questioning my humanity
and in return, it gives me the assurance
that I might as well have been a robot all along

and I continue to listen to the stairs
a pair of white socks and crow’s feet
a lumbering, a miscalculation