A Tell

You built us as your snare for catching hares.
Once you’d snagged your rabbit, you forgot us,
And we rotted there, wrecked twigs in long grass.

You built us as your turnip watch to prove
You understood design. Then you dropped us,
And we spent years rusting gears on a heath.

You built us as your prison house to show
How thoroughly you could control yourselves,
Then murdered each other inside our walls.

We’re tired of being so often deployed
And then abandoned after you’ve destroyed
Whatever it was—life, time, each other—

You needed us in order to destroy,
And we hate being used to form our own
Cautionary tales and illustrations

For how we only point to something else,
Why we’re frail, and why we can’t be trusted.
You call talk cheap, as if you don’t need us.

Without words no snares to build and forget.
Without words, no metaphors for design
And nothing at all to say about gods.

Without words no complaining about us
While you maim and manipulate yourselves.
Without words no Way, no Truth. Just the life.