Insidious (poem)

 

Insidious

Negativity is not always overtly depressive,

Positivity is not always overtly happy.

Negativity eats away, piece by piece.

It hides in the banal.

Its disguised by layers of colour,

Noise, applause.

Negativity is drip fed, unnoticed.

The bland

The ordinary

The acceptable

Even the comfortable.

Negativity keeps you in your place,

Convinces you

How good you’ve got it,

Fosters no hope,

Breeds joy in superficiality.

Negativity is not a natural state of mind.

No one wants it, yet

Its continually perpetuated by those

Who are blind to it.

Negativity tells you that Positivity is frivolous and childish,

Happy-clappy psycho-babble,

Is an immense effort, an uphill struggle,

A dream, stupid, deluded, unobtainable…

Well, it would, wouldn’t it? Its Negative.

Negativity sets you unattainable goals,

Holds up a false mirror,

Tells you that you need to be

What you can’t be…

But still you ache, drive, strive

To get there,

Concentrating all energy on it,

To the detriment of all else.