Baudrillard

He seemed to be saying that rape by culture was inevitable

We should all simply lie back and enjoy it.

If we did this often enough we'd soon believe it, anyway.

Nothing is real, he said.

Reality is impossible, life's just a game.

So let's play let's pretend.

We can be whoever we want to be, he laughed

It's oh so easy.

Just buy into different disguises, there's plenty to choose from

Plastic or fake fur,

Even better - fake fake fur!

We can lose our selves between the play of images.

If we make our mirrors tall and wide enough

We can avoid the void beyond, the emptiness of existence.

Think of the fun we simply must have! He grinned.

We can become substitutions, avatars, in an infinity of simulation

Of a reality that can't possibly exist, anyway.

And the beauty of this death of no-thing, he whispered

Is its painlessness.

Euthanasia.

And I was so tired of fighting

That his voice seduced me for a while, seemed like balm

And I didn't notice how his words were merely echoes

Or how stretched was his joker's smile, shiny like skin covering a bruised and swollen joint.

Until your mirror cracked

Your carnival make-up face fragmented

And I noticed that your eye-bright lights

Were flickering madly in your hall.

It was then I realized the danger

Then when I could see right through his sad investments

To where he was cowering, curled up

Knot tight,

Bound and gagged

And very, very thin.

And I saw he was just a black silhouette behind his screen

Exploited by his own fear of ever being seen for real.