duty to challenge

WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 - Police on Duty

fulfillment hidden by withdrawal symptoms
addiction gradually becomes
cumbersome, extreme irrelevance

emotion exceeds zero, then,
divides into work, sleep, play
only on instinctive levels

positive thinking circuits destroyed
new themes reluctantly assumed
obligation to care withheld

poison bubbles in the gullet
personality collapses
sense of duty doesn’t last long

as the brain suspends in a game world
of uncomfortable losses
failure cannot be forgiven

duty to one’s depressions
resurrects thick intermediate layers
in the transition barrel

arguments cause least of all irritation
frustration-burnout abandons in self-consciousness
for the sake of neutrality, challenge the government

*****************************

Written for:

Poetics: Duty Calls!

Prompt, by ManicDDaily, was to write a poem about duty or obligation.

Photo credit: The Boston Phoenix