They used to worry
For what might become 
of my soul in the hereafter.
Now, I worry 
for what has become
of their souls in the here-and-now.
This sweet world,
somehow bitter and acrid
to their taste.
Its light, 
somehow eclipsed.
Quivering in their thrones,
the obsidian box shouts
obscenities of this earth.
And makes them frail 
and brittle.
And so impossibly far away.
If we could but meet in the middle.
But the elephant in the room has taken up all the space.