strings attached

and it wasn't the obvious, you know - that reining in to some spot you rather not be in, compulsion, addiction, coercion, strong armed, forced, manipulated, duped, to some path you would not choose if the options were better. this is where it gets gray, hairy, nuanced, debatable when defense, prosecutor and judge sit by the table, drinking coffee, slicing up a bacon, finishing up the dessert, a table that is cold, empty, void of passion for conflict is a spring under tension ready to snap back at a rustle in a bush, never mind that it is just rabbits playing hide and seek. the gavel bangs on the courtroom, verdict made! verdict squashed by a higher power, the mind turns judge, prosecutor and defendant to smoke when symbols serve the i. crossroads, decision points, a running train heading out of a tunnel - smashing, crushing traffic lights no longer needed. a maze of sorts, the trickster hops off the damaged plain, makes his way around the nooks, knots, crevices in the labyrinth of synapses, neurons, axons, dendrites where reality bends to imagination. the devil came as an angel of light, why suffer? red lights flashed in a non existent road, already creation has evolved, rebuilding traffic stops - no need to wander in a maze said the kindly old lady helping the i across a street. the villain whispered that the world out there is a lie, he is only leveling the playing field while the hero has become old, drunk and smelly. a villain who shines like the sun, a hero that stinks like a bad pipe that has burst, and all the while coercion came as a trojan horse. it all depends on how you tell it, the story teller smoked another pipe, whispers fell on a drunkard who no longer cared to fight - i was a hero once, he wheezed. the sun brings warmth, is illuminating, gives life and the trojan horse slipped in. i am aware, i am careful, i am the predator. they all more or less told themselves the same lines, each embraced the poison lining, unwrapping christmas gifts fit for a king. defenses fell, guards fall asleep, heckles not present, it is a lullaby. when violence does not break, honey almost always does the trick. the war would be won either way, then the reining in halted, on hindsight - it was quite evident how it all started.