I hate optimists

a. fleury

I hate optimists.

With their endless prattle of goodness

Their cheery mantras of hope.

They like to hand out blindfolds.

But I'm not taking. Haven't been taken in.

I can't stand the burden on my mind

The constant thinking. Every day

Thinking of some atrocity or another.

I can't stop it. It just comes.

Every day, I feel like a child who has just stepped

Outside the boundaries of naivety and safety. Out into

The cold, blood-streaked streets of the true world.

Every day, I feel my soul shattered like

That child's. the breaking of hope, the grief of truth.

It's excruciating.

I hate optimists, who go on and on about the

Inherent goodness of mankind. How to find beauty

In simple things. How the good outweighs the bad.

Good, outweigh? Good is anorexic, bulimic. Good starves

Itself in the minority. Good is but a thin stretched shadow

Of the towering mountain of evil.

Everyday, I feel maybe, I could go back to the child

And I could see hope and beauty in the world again.

Everyday, I find a little of that haven again,

Every day it's raped away by another new horror revealed,

Another story on the news, another remembrance

Of crimes gone by.

I hate optimists. They like to tighten the blindfolds. It's easy to live in denial. Easier, anyway.

They turn away from humanity's ugly face, because they can't accept something like that.

They can't see it without crying. They can't see it without drowning in shame. They can't live with it.

Just like I can't.

I wish I could go back, I wish I could be the child again.

I wish I could believe.

But once you've opened your eyes, you can't go back. Ever.