Avoid it like the plague
For before you contract it
You’d surely endure a fascinating collection of symptoms
And then die not too promptly later.
Suffering is important
in the complex decision making process—to avoid or not to avoid..
Creeping (hardly) into the bodies of empty humans
Lost to the malady long before their small minds were aware
It is fierce and ruthless
At least in the literal, grueling physical world
There really is nothing quite like avoiding the plague
Nothing so evocative of paranoia and doubt
of irrational inducing madness to stay tied to life
of the massive influence it can extend from earth to sky
Avoidance becomes an art.
And art is something near universally exalted
as some elite practice, beyond lowly clichés
Like avoiding the plague
in but a metaphorical sense.
But when you see friends
burning each other alive to kill a deathless epidemic,
the muse might be especially inspired
darting from corner to corner while holding its lifeline
hoping to capture a reality in all its metaphorical glory
only to die of fever before putting anything into words.
Lucy Zhang 