Mirage

If men became monsters,
And preyed on those they loved,
Would you still care for them,
And their soft hands, however gloved?

Their caress, would it still dwell within?
Is this flesh, nothing more than red flesh?
Are our bodies but fine, and paper thin?
Mere bonds against for our souls to thresh?

And if a monster grew so tame,
That it loved you as a son,
Would you still laugh to see its pain,
And broil it with your gun?

If a man becomes a monster,
Or a monster to a man,
Do their true selves seek to conquer?
To escape this, if it can?

What are we then, but cogs?
In a spinning whirling plan?
Are we wandering through fog?
Ending as ignorant as we began?

Mirages flicker before us,
As we wander through the desert.

We call them time.
And life.
And death.
And hope.
And despair.
And beginnings.
And ends.
And monsters.
And lovers.
And mothers and fathers.
The greatest of these illusions,
The strange idea,
That we are all seeing the same things.
And that any of them are different, to the sand of the desert.