all the followed

imagine if all your heroes,
all your idols, all your
“spiritual leaders,” who
have supposedly written books
(or had books written for them/
by them), whose “lives” have
been depicted as such by those
who never lived when they lived,
who never saw what these
people were supposed to look like,
who tell us that they themselves
never had even an iota of
ulterior motive
in the making of these characters---
imagine if the characters themselves
were all in a room today,
a room somewhere in the middle of
nowhere, surrounded by psychiatrists &
sociologists, psychologists & representatives
of every normative leadership franchise
(full of presidents of nations, CEO’s of
companies, heads of military, heads of
churches, temples, mosques, etc.)---
imagine that they actually let some of
us “common people” into the room as
well & then imagine if those in charge of
the gathering allowed these
supposed heroes & idols to speak.

one after another,
those who have been looked up to for
guidance, those who have been painted on
walls, formed into sculptures, those who
have been killed for, those who have
“inspired” whole nations to kill each
other, those who have been talked to
by the zillions on bended knees with
their eyes closed for century upon
century---they all spoke &
as they did,
those watching who hold power, those
who gear the cultural trends for our
puny existence & all of us “common
people” as well, began to
diagnose these individuals in accordance
with the parlance of our times, whereby soon,
these characters would be found to
have multiple personalities…they’d be manic-
depressive…they’d be schizophrenic…they’d
be writhing with all the imperfections,
chemical imbalances, phobias, flaws &
disorders that are used now to write off every
single aspect of human behavior that
extends even the slightest outside that perfect
little square (like a child coloring hard along
the lines in a coloring book…never venturing
outside them) &
most of all,
all these once followed would be found to be
nothing more than as wretched as the rest of
us---one could go further &
assume that no books would be written about
them, no books would be “written by them” &
in a few years, much less than how long
they presently have all been looked up to for
the ages,
all these followed would disappear &
yet,
without any of them, we would all still get on---

yes we would.