Rat Race

We sit on steps,
Surveying the chaos all around us,
Fresh vomit on one side,
A streak of dried-up piss on the other.

Harcourt Street has descended into a disaster zone of drunkards,
Some fighting,
Some crying,
Some swaying from the inability to hold themselves upright,
And some on the ground,
Thinking the concrete is their mattress,
Having succumb to the dizzy spells that can seem so freeing,
Yet are misleading.

Every action is made to move ahead in the Rat Race,
Forever victorless.
And we look at each other,
While thinking the same thing:
What is the point of it all?

A veil of silence comes between us,
As the noise of this newfound, well-worn battle ground attracts our attention;
Screeches of women in utter dismay over the advances of groping men,
Whose laughter is tinged with the subtly of what they really want,
Masking their anger and their resentment as they await their failure.

Bottles smash and fists are raised,
As blood spills in the name of something no one knows of.
Confused astonishment strikes us,
As we wonder how society still stands,
When it falls apart so spectacularly on nights like this,
Dropping to its scarred knees.

And we briefly become embroiled in this showcase of Ireland’s Got Talent,
When a woman and a man encroach upon our front row seats,
Her seeking a reprieve from his forward courting,
While his confidence never shakes.
Despite her hostility to his loud and proud profession,
That he “wants to be on you.”

When he finally admits defeat,
Her appreciation is shocking,
But changes nothing about the grain of truth that we have just witnessed.

The Rat Race is not the work we do,
But the means to an end,
So we can sate the self-destructive tendencies we love to embrace.

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