convenience of perception

we who do not perceive, cold as if we could mail you a passing chill. air that is cool & conditional, an unsealed chamber knows when to coffin its lid. only those allowed to breathe. too warm, too loud, their need too audible. failed to activate. and we will not wait for them who do not to catch up, and thus, remain where they stand, sit, or illegally lie, catching down again. catching down too loud to breathe where its cool. unrecognized their moments, receiptless, phantom limbs waving in front of our dull blinking sensors. blurred them, blobbed, they must bob as we pass as if they could not purchase solid ground as we carefully steer past distinguishing, in a hurry to avoid empathy, testing wells with a glance, marching masks untempted by the maskless eyes that fill, that drill, people as objects that fail to be useful, who fail to participate in our story, who fail to fulfill our narrative demands. our bias confirmed, yet again. not recognized as human to humans. if we do not recognize the humanity in other humans, are we really human? isn't that a failure of our own humanity? aren't we less at home then? haven't we failed to activate our humanity? failing among the fallen, adjacent to the living. encountered as need, encountered as mouth. hypothesized howevers. around them our brains remain dimmed, lost in a neural dark. more like objects, such as tables, the scientists said. a place to place our indifference. hastily scrawled signs that can not possibly describe the cost of asking. faces beaten by fists of no. what it costs to accost you there. fishing for empathy in a sea of sharks who must keep moving or else feel. need siphons warmth, drains them as they stand there, dehumanized at a basic neural level. brains that refuse to congress. how the brain chases the human out of its soft shell. apparently, misery does not love company, or perhaps, misery loves company too much to be shared.

https://www.portlandoregon.gov/phb/article/451470