Question to the Caller of the Void

Intrusive thoughts and the incessant ringing from a phone I can't see.

Photo by Yaopey Yong on Unsplash

May we be frank? 
From one lacerated heart 
to another? As one person 
who's been flooded with grief? 
Up to the gills in the shit.
To the point where it's endemic.
Where even a breath of fresh air feels 
like jumping across an abyss 
with the diameter of a light-year 
while in a wheel chair.
 
Laughing feels illegal. 
Where as before the cost of it was a tax 
of being witness to cruelty 
and doing nothing about it. 
Soon smiling will follow.
I won't be able to do either 
because that tax has been hiked 
to standing over a corpse 
with its blood on your hands.
And my biggest fear 
is that you'll pay it in spades,
give me a look of bewilderment 
when I ask when did we get like this, 
and say it was before we could distinguish
between the ripples in the water 
and the oscillating figure 
staring back at us.

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