Yes, of course,
“Just because I’m paranoid
doesn’t mean they’re not
out to get me”.
But beyond those pursued paranoids,
whence cometh this societal cancer,
this belief that there are,
behinds events, machinations,
that unseen manipulation
is the camouflaged cause
of imagined evil,
that smoke always
conceals fire?

What but the fear that we are weak,
unable to self protect against
that which is arrayed before us,
most of which is unsubstantiated,
sneaking around behind us
and we, unseeing but fearfully sensing
await its snake bite strike?
The self-buttressed fear of helplessness
against massive, secret conspiracy,
doomed,

but for our own production
of our own protection,
spiraling into more fear that we
have not lethally armed ourselves enough,
that we must strike first with our
fear birthed fangs against
the “they”, those invisible enemies,
until we fear all,
everything but the thing we ought to fear
the most:
ourselves.