They say the greatest trick ever pulled— the most egregious deception—
was the Devil’s manipulation of our collective perception
of his very existence.
Cause see, we humans give little persistence to concepts unpleasant.
Just give us an out an excuse
a distraction
and watch us take action, no matter how transparent or lacking in logic,
grab hold and frantically mold into a mental blindfold this
welcome justification for maintaining status quo.
But this isn’t about the devil. Or the Usual Suspects—
though I will interject, by the way, that quote came 126 years
before Keyser Söze.
(but I fear I digress)
See there’s a lie even greater. A trick even more clever:
a deception so deep it may be impossible to sever from our collective reality.
You see, cause this one’s universal. No devil needed.
Just human persistence. Unhindered by atheistic resistance of good
and evil embodied; just facts.
But for the believers of evil incarnate it’s far from discordant,
this lie so entrenched, so perverse so abhorrent that attribution to someone anyone anything
but us is ideal.
Please just don’t peel back the mask, please no grand reveal of our true humane nature.
See, just a subtle sound alteration is all that is needed
for our complete emancipation from any implication in something unkind.
After all this word is derived from our very species:
Humane from human.
We’re the fount of compassion.
Now here’s where the real beauty lies: the real beauty of our lies is that WE humans
dictate what is humane no matter how profane an action may be—
you see it’s our word after all.
So we sing our own praises back and forth to each other
Teach our children about kindness, “now pass the turkey to your brother”
Lessons in sharing carried out over corpses.
Manners in the face of murder are key, gotta teach the kiddies not to question the
grim reality of what’s on the very plate before them, please just ignore them, these
bodies and secretions.
Call it meat and milk and ham and eggs Focus on free-range and cage-free and grass-fed—
because we’re humane.
So we’ve come to it now. The greatest lie ever told.
One so brazen, unapologetically bold in its utter transparency!
Yet so readily hungrily desperately accepted. Clung to. Cared for.
Cradled ever
so cautiously.
A conscience-gnawing uncertain certainty we solidify and smooth over and pass down the
line, telling our kids it’s okay it’s fine
From our generation to the next. Repetition
breeds truth.
We teach what we know which is what we were taught:
the biggest lie ever bought and our own greatest trick,
is the sick conviction that we can kill in a way that is kind—
we can enslave and torture and beat and bind and just don’t look it’s okay close your eyes,
dear, it’s fine.
Don’t pull back the curtain, here, just open wide.
Let me sing you assurances. Let me drown out their screams.
Because being part of the majority certainly means that we’re in the right.
Right?
It’s necessary It has to be
It’s meant to be It’s always been
Our right Our choice
Our tradition Our dominion
over them.
We’re not monsters. We’re humane.
Block out the sheds full of feces Put the blood behind doors.
Don’t look down at the floors slick and pulsing with crimson from still-beating
hearts, full of parts hacked from bodies for our satisfaction
Hold on tight, my dear, to the latest distraction and let the uncertainty pass
You are good. You are kind.
Drink your milk here my dear no thoughts of the child left behind with
no mother or milk of his own It’s our right to take it,
we’re entitled. It’s not unbridled greed.
We’re good people.
We kill kindly It’s not a farce, not a fable
We’re humane. See look!
Here’s the label.
Packaging
is everything.
Because bright and happy words on bright and happy products come from bright and happy
farms with bright and happy animals with bright
and happy
deaths
They don’t feel a thing—
or they do but it’s okay—
it’s meant to be this way, they’re not human!
We’re humane…
Just don’t read the fine print, my dear see that’s where it all fails—
cause you know who they say lies there in the details…
Back to him again.
Now I’m the liar I guess.
I must acquiesce that this was about the devil (after all)
Though please do recall the universality cause it’s not about deity it’s us,
don’t you see?
The harsh reality uttered in 1920 by William Ralph Inge:
if animals could formulate their own religion their most certain decision
would be the most damning to our fragile conviction of humane humanity-
built from their very reality of hell on earth.
No need for ethereal theology, because their depiction of the ultimate trickster
would be the real kicker – a true devil incarnate
the perpetrator of carnage so heinous it renders our blindfolds transparent and
torn, for their devil, rightfully, takes human form.