Cruel and Callous

A trap door of opinions lays hidden

under heavy rusted handles,

flaking and creaking under the weight 

of their pompous superiority,

groaning as it opens to reveal a pit.

Polite conversation 

covered it like a worn carpet,

barely concealing the large hinges

poking through the space

between colorful tufting.

A dark basement of the mind,

not readily accessible, yet overflowing 

with oozing pitch and gunk,

masked as harmless opinion,

burning every surface like boiling sugar.

Hatred sits beneath the rickety stairs 

waiting for a chance to drag you down

by your exposed and vulnerable ankles

to its endless pit of bigoted reasoning. 

It aims to consume every last drop of empathy. 

It waits like a viper, aiming to sink its teeth into you, 

and devour compassion, spitting out the bones 

of your fragile corpse like a bovine's cud. 

A chimera of prejudice, white supremacy, and infallibility

aiming to convince anyone of its everlasting power.

Yet, the coward hides beneath stairs

in the darkest corner at the back of the mind.

Some are encouraged to leave their hiding spot,

egged on by the other monsters it engages with

after conversation turns to conspiring. 

A single ray of truth and reason 

singes it back into hiding, but once it has escaped confinement, facts bear the same effects as fiction, and rationale has left the room.  Only the god complex remains, guzzling down sanity.