Election Day.

The soul of a nation
falls into the hands of millions
yet the soul of one conflicted man
perfectly fills out the space
of an individualized voting booth.
No love for one side or the other,
no prying eyes watching over his shoulder
should his decision slide in certain directions,
just him, a pen, a paper ballot
and all the excess baggage
burdening his heart.

This is a man who is no longer at peace
and in this private space he doesn’t need
armors of kindness and civility.
Still enwrapped in Foxtail 
and seething at Irresponsible Literature,
he can’t ignore how easy it still is
to be labeled the villain
despite his lived experience
of always seeming to be the one
to take the damage.
He can’t block out years of voices–
en dash ists and phobics,
even if they’re only in the strokes
of broad generalizations.
He can no longer look passed the reality
that all these echoes come
from the same damn side.
This is man who is no longer balanced.

So why not take a shot back at the world
like a sniper who never gets detected?
Why not blacken a box no one else will ever see?
Why not stand for himself
within the arena that affects him most,
his very own spirit?

It’s not like such an act of defiance would swing the results.
He’s looked at the fraction of one out of seventy million–
a pitifully small percentage, a miniscule price to pay.
He knows he can comfortably be a red dot
amidst a blue stronghold surrounded by red country
without sacrificing the world
and none would be the wiser.
So why not seize secret revenge
to level out his angers?
Is it not, in it’s own mathematical way,
the least destructive thing he could do?

For the power of a vote
lies not in affectation to elections
but in the silent declaration of
this is what I myself need for me right now.

Does that make it a sinfully selfish act?
Would that be something he could live with
in his soul?
Is it worth the potential damage to his reputation
if someone were to find out?
Well,
there’s a reason why the voting booth is private.

Thus, this now-resolute man
chooses which box to fill,
the ink solidifying permanence
so that the only thing left
is to surrender the ballot
to be recorded and tallied
along with all the weight
he’s shifted over.