Crowded graveyards

I had a problem with flies

Like everything

There always seemed to be

Too many or

Too few

Too much or

Too little

No one ever seemed to say

“This is just the right amount”

Certainly, they never said that

About flies

There were too many

And because people said that

Other people sold traps

Only ten dollars

Which seemed a fair price to pay

Poison-free

Trapped by gravity

Which somehow seemed

More sinister

I bought the trap

Set it up

Thought nothing more about it

Until

To my surprise

I looked outside

And saw how well it worked

I was captivated

Watching

As a fly teetered

On the brink

Of the one-way tunnel

Facing its own destruction

And suddenly I

The one playing

God

The one paying

For traps

Was the one praying

For it to survive

Not all of them

Just this one

I wanted it to survive

Wanted it to realise

That you could escape

If only you trusted yourself

If you ignored the others

Because what you thought

Was a crowd

Was really just a graveyard

That fly sensed it

On the precipice

But chose to trust

The crowd

The mass

The swarm

The dead

And when the next fly came

I didn’t pray for it