Imagine That

Imagine That
by Bryon Slack

Our world is made up of invisible lines,
what’s on that side of the river is yours
and what’s on this side is mine,
but there are no markers on the land;
they exist only in our mind.

Pieces of paper marked with denomination,
the scorekeeping language of domination,
of trade and armies passing between nations,
of empires bragging through inflation;
but it’s all a shared hallucination,
a faith that paper carries weight like stone—
all of it wrought from collective imagination.

So many things that are just in our head,
that men have fought, died for, and bled,
as though the family to which you were born and bred
could make you worth more than the next man instead,
whether born in an alley or some farmer’s shed,
when the truth is that both men will bleed red.
If they go through a windshield or feel a bullet’s lead,
then both alike are given the same new title—
the one we call dead.

And the worship that draws people in by droves,
makes them surrender reason, swear loyalty oaths,
lets others dictate their diets and who they loathe—
there are no adults here, just hateful old oafs.
We’re all just children playing make-believe
in a grown-up’s trench coat,
giving our lives to things as real
as the Emperor’s new clothes.