Sometimes I think all anybody wants is a villain.
Somebody to blame,
Some dark entity without name,
Something we can all claim
Is the source of our every woe.

We rip ourselves to shreds,
To make someone else guilty.
Cement our torment,
Laid out for all to see.

No one wants to be saved.
We’re all addicted to the pain,
Everyone’s life a little worse than yours:
A life of treatments, but never cures.

Every heartbreak, fear, illness, injury…
Just another footnote in the ‘Mythology of Us’.
Where people create their own tragedy,
Focused exclusively on anguish, insanity, and lust.

The darker side of human nature.
Our desire to suffer; to be tortured.
All so we can say:
“It’s out of my control,
I’m not to blame.”

We rip ourselves to shreds,
To make someone else guilty.
Cement our torment,
Laid out for all to see.

“It’s out of my control,
I’m not to blame.”

Jessie Gutierrez

Author’s Note: This is not the first Chuck Palahnuik book to inspire a poem out of me… Oh wait, yes it is, because I’m a giant weirdo and I thought posting these letters out of order was a good idea. Thus, you folks were able to read Rant, my second poem about one of Palahnuik’s novels, first. Kudos to confusion? Thank the Powers That Be that I numbered these…