the evil, evil Domtotrain offered the words: xenophobia, perplexive, existential

he really should be punished for this.

luckily, i promise only a poem in exchange for three words --- i very carefully do not promise a good poem.

XPE
from whence
comes this fear?
from whence
this perplexive constant,
this absurdly ubiquitous.
all but universal,
hallowed construct
among the would-be unique?

how terrifying
it must be
that we are
so different
so alien
so unknowable
that we must ourselves
embrace xenophobia
in a desperate bid for self-defense?

and, in doing so, condemn
the rest of the world perforce
to spend their days
playing the dreaded 'them'
to our virtuous 'us'?
'vanilla' to our 'kink'?
'mundane' to our 'fen'?
'weird' to our 'normal'?

or vice versa
it matters not

we are all so painfully, pridefully unrivaled
in our prickly existential superiority
yet
in this one thing
are we all the same.

~~ elyse