A whirlpool at a point in intersection. 

Not only did they share the same circle, 

But their tribe absorbed the cancerous souls among them, 

As if there were no distinction between each other.

The morally passable stood next to the degenerate, 

As if oblivious,

Bestowing a facade of normalcy where none existed.

The perverse, the using, the underhanded, the soul-less, 

All held hands as if their minds were one, 

Men of means, trust funds, possessions, and sick psyches. 

The stench of it was horrendous. 

And the well-meaning provided access to the trusting, 

Access by the demons among them, who wore the guise of friends, 

But whose proclivities were depraved. 

And she had trusted them, 

Bringing the foul into her life and into her bed, 

Never with an outcome that was not damaging. 

In love, the tribe was her death trap, 

But she could not or would not allow herself to see it, 

And allowed those with ulterior motive into her mind, 

Into her heart, while she rejected and slew any outsider. 

She should have run, walled off any offer from that faction, 

But she could only obey the silent command to take them.

It was tragedy at its most self-abasing …

They’d repressed her common sense and twisted her heart.

She traipsed along the doorway to hell without knowing, 

Had slipped in more than once but regained her footing, 

Though burned, 

And, yet, she still could not smell the sulfur, 

Yearning to be like the others and taking the hand of the grotesque, 

Gloved in silk.