The Gods of An Artificial Religion

i. They're watching us, waiting for us to betray ourselves and show them where our hollowness lies so that they might offer us something to fill or cure it. ii. They stalk us from every angle, leaping from folds of our hungry imaginations like fire orphans seeking combustible fosters they burn through our temples learning to play with our subconscious, exploit our most secret desires and our most oppressive fears. iii. Their covetous tongues lick the flavor from our faiths, the color from our flags, the conviction from our aspirations so they might sell us convenient imitations. iv. Their Gods orbit the Earth, channeling pop-scriptures into the sanctuary of our homes and we prostrate before the pseudo-saints, the media-ordained angels that baptize us with shame and flaunt an ideological perfection an illusion we can only aspire to. v. They exploit our differences and our human need to belong so we will quest after a seat in one of their pigeonholes where they pass a chalice filled with their holiest secrets and most unholy sacraments. vi. I’ll not mouth self-depreciating confessions so that I might be a better slave to the desperate rituals that ration what's left of my ego and my morality and I will not feed an impotent faith in bottled miracles and counterfeit personalities. viii. I will not be convinced to kneel before their alters of shame, disgraced by my conscience, embarrassed by my happiness and sadness, humiliated by my fears, or reproached for the placement of my empathy and apathy. I’ll not ignorantly become a witless disciple, a marionette reacting to the tactics of the psychological warfare that breeds dollars in the pockets of perceptive predators.