Jury Duty Poem

The contradictions seem endless. Not a part of this square nine-to-five world. And yet, here I am, without paper or pen, jarred from my insular reverie. Excised from the vain comforts of my thoughts, my room. The usual simple ways of writing, smoking & sleeping. Alone alone alone. Forever alone in the confused & distracted crowd. The others, the necessary others. The ones familiar & foreign. The ones who resonate, the ones who evoke. The perceived takers. The given victims, the trapped citizens. Hopeful or hopeless, we wait in the shadow of shared illusion. Whispering or remaining silent. Complying with necessity. Forced together under bad lighting & in dirty, stale air. Our civic duty the tired video says. My eyes hurt. My stomach hurts. My civic duty. Hurting, but surviving. Survival, through all means necessary. To not just survive, but to flow copiously. To become a well spring, or at least, a tributary. To generate & flow with positivity. To share with these others, unknown, but still necessary. I feel so removed from them, outside my circles, concentric or otherwise. We sit and wait together, to see if we're chosen. Our own civic duty. Fifteen dollars a day for the illusion of justice. A mantle so worn. Shuttled like cattle, we wait & we huddle. Massive & silent. This room full of strangers. We are called. We are summoned. Alone we arrive, together we huddle. Some would say rabble. These strange & unfamiliar citizens. These unknown quotients & remainders. These necessary others. These people I'm judging. Without even knowing. Necessary & other.