Hope As Placebo Poem by Noah Smits

Sick souls, six billion of them,
stand pat
with a like mindset
of a coal-black gnat
in a swarm like a storm-cloud:
menacing, fat
with a flurry of members,
this way, that.

I sneak my way outside the swarm
which moves
like a raving drunk
to a funk-rock groove.
I align with Aquinas,
seeking to prove
that to kick off existence,
someone moved.

I'm wrong. Eventually my
lights fade
and in tenscore years,
my remains, decayed,
cannot feel, cannot love, but
back when they could,
they had Hope as Placebo:
false but good.

Sick souls, six billion of them,
despair
in concurrent dread
of the mortal fare.
My solution was futile
(as was my prayer)
but I reckon my carcass
does not care.