herd immunity in poetry

Mistakenly thinking they’re protecting their own
damn the shared societal consequences,
they put themselves at more risk too.
Anti-vaxxers.

Mistakenly thinking they’re protecting their own
damn the shared societal consequences,
they put themselves at more risk too.
Gun nuts.

Once we had a herd immunity
to a culture of easy deadly force in our society
but people were allowed to opt out
because the NRA found it aided in profitability
and now we have these… flare-ups.
Of mass murder.
Of measles, whooping cough or polio.
Whatever fattens the portfolio
of homeopathic new-age quacks
of gun-industry press flack hacks.
And we die.
A lot.

But it’s the same mentality being exploited
the same self-defeating selfishness that can be avoided
if we can just make people see the forest for the trees
and realize
they’re just putting themselves at greater long-term risk
with what they’ve been sold as a short-term fix
that sometimes the shared work of society
is what’s also best for individual humanity.

Mistakenly thinking they’re protecting their own
damn the shared societal consequences,
they put themselves at more risk too.
But we have the power to fix it
yes, we do
if we talk about it
and never stop talking about it.