Hell is Empty

Won’t you 

cosy up

to the burning trash barrel

with me 

won’t you join this astonishing parade

of destruction 

we’ve been invited to

the gods have set us down

into a world of dust 

and someone has tagged

the wall beside us 

with the words of the bard,

“Hell is empty 

and all the devils are here”.

This explains a lot

this explains why 

some of us have 

tiny fires in our pupils

this explains why our 

hair gel is full of microplastics 

and my mom is 

telling me stories

of PFAS in the hospital IV bags

because we haven’t been safe

all this time

we haven’t been safe. 

Watching all of you 

around me suffering

the rage in me is burning up

often it has nowhere to go

and so I’m the one that is

burning on the inside

but you had better 

pity those poor bastards

when I figure out 

how to direct my anger 

to the right targets.

Photo courtesy of Karl Rawstron

“Hell is empty, And all the devils are here.” - The Tempest, Act I, Scene II, William Shakespeare