When I was a little kid,
I believed that everyone loved
the way I loved.
I believed there was an inherent goodness inside people.
I was naive,
Believing all bunnies shat eggs of chocolate and all squirrels wanted to be my friend.
As I grew up, I learned my lessons.
I discovered new traits:
Spiteful and selfish.

Some people believe
the devil will “come and getcha”
when your back is turned,
But y’all don’t want to accept that
the devil lives within.
I’ve accepted it.

You can camouflage your horns
under pastries and “good deeds”
Or
you can be me.

We’re all selfish.
That’s how evolution works
“Survival of the fittest” they call it
But sometimes
we like to trick ourselves
into thinking we’ve evolved
from the evolved.
We haven’t.
You can lie to yourselves,
but you can’t lie to him.

The first time I witnessed it
I was seven.
A businessman

Waiting at the bus stop
In a cheap suit

With a pleather briefcase
A too small umbrella
And torrential rain.
I always thought
They should make sidewalks
Higher
but they didn’t. They don’t.
Never have. Never will.

Our car zoomed by
We hit that puddle,
Wheels spinning,
And soaked the lowly businessman.
We drenched his pleather.

We didn’t stop the car.
We didn’t turn back
to check on the Pleather-Man
To offer a blanket
Or a Shamwow.

More rain fell that night
And the night after
Thinking about his soggy bus ride
The squishy suit
The pungent faux satchel.

That’s when I realized
I’ve always been this way.
Empathetic.
The “go-to person”
For the people I’d never go to.
I sponge the sorrows.
We should have turned back …
It must have been our devil driving.