those who are privileged
and also empaths
are saddled with a duty and responsibility,
bound to act
bound to a debt to be paid back
passed on perhaps at birth
that they are burdened by
more so than those,
bereft of empathy,
who benefit yet fail
to pay the duty back
in tax or altruistic acts –
for disowned accidents of chance
and if the sense of a debt and respect
for the value of the gift –
remains unaddressed –
a privilege might extend the debt,
to lengthen a part of life
lived equally and just
quietly hedonistically
as a fox on a killing spree,
gutting poultry recklessly-
blind to the insanity
of mining a depleted pit
to fuel a fantasy;
the debtor might drown in the air of a shared
small space, bickering privilege merrily,
exhaling Co2
as sightless eyes watch
land-slides and cliffs fall into seas
of polar ice flowing in floods;
those few, those who turn away
and flee
from their responsibilities to give back
deflect the blame
and lay claim to know
for a fact – that it’s true that:
political parties
or personalities
or twitter feeds
or megan and harry
or anyone else
is spreading the disease
on every day TV – and virally –
spelling the death of you and me
and the whole of humanity –
and they’ll tell you , having no empathy,
‘it’s nothing to do with me, do you see?’
psychopathically.
The privileged few lacking empathy
are gratitude’s greatest adversary.
Cherry Coombe 