At This Distance It’s Hard to Say for Sure

Fraud and suspicion will persistently
Parasitize any society
Dependent on trust. A robust system
Can carry a heavy infectious load,

But once the chains become too tenuous,
The trust-maintaining mechanisms fail,
The chains connecting beginnings to ends,
Conspiracy-corroded, fray and snap.

It’s happened before, will happen again,
A lot of misery, but nothing like
An absolute end. The deaths of systems,
Like the deaths of organisms, leave germs

Scattered to make the best of things. The dark
Times aren’t really the eras right after—
Just a lot of smaller systems, then. Dark
Ages fall during dying and before—

Angry, cancerous, distrustful weathers
When that black cloud that’s roaring down your road
Could be the storm coming for your world, or
Just one more spiteful asshole rolling coal.