They can be an army of highly-
trained surveillance specialists
                      or
a series of pointed coughs at random
intervals in the centre of town

They can be cops or robbers, teachers,
dealers, meal-on-wheelers, the cashier,
clerk and CEO

They can even be animals

but my They is not the same as your They

the life experiences of each
in-divi-dual
is their 
basic training, chemicals
their diploma, 
trauma their masters
and They learn you darkly,
deeper by the day they plot,
out of time, out of view, out
of their fucking minds

Out of time: you’re meditating
trying to find a reason for the
heinous chaos and quickly the television
bellows a documentary about
psychopaths and their mindless
violence, vicious inflictions 
and sadistic acts carried
out without reason

Out of view: when once it was cameras
in your retinas now
the technology of the delusion has evolved
with the accumulation of
scientific facts

Out of their fucking minds: for reference see reality.

They were here before we were born
and will travel to the stars long
after we’re dead, spreading 
their brutal plots across
gulfs of lightless years

there is nowhere They cannot go.
there is nothing They cannot do.

They might even be Us.