Competition

Do we not speak with each other

in these anonymous cities

nor recognize each other's presence

except as moving obstacles

as we wait at the bus stop

as we walk the same sidewalk

as we queue at the grocery store

as we share the train home

as we meet on the hallways

because we see each other as competition?

as opponents, as adversaries

in an endless race to gather resources

we think we crave?

competing for space

competing for priority

competing for food

competing for sex

competing for attention

competing for acceptance

competing for money

competing for jobs

competing to prove we are worthy

or whatever it may mean,

that we are better or best?

competing to achieve milestones

like in some perennial Bingo card?

competing for that famed Ever-Happiness

so often revealed as mirage?

Do we treat each other like schoolchildren

whose parents warn them not to mingle

with some because they're poor, rich, or "racial",

too rough, too dandy, or too strange?

Do we still hold our outreach to others

at the limits of others' tolerances

though they may well now feel like our own?

Can we see through our limits of understanding

into these humans we've thought of as outsiders

and realize the source of our fragmentation

is not how different they are, but us?

just us.

it is us.