MANUAL FOR SPOTTING A KNIFE

Manual for Spotting the Knife

There’s enough rot in a regular person
to fuel a thousand comment sections
and still have leftovers for Sunday.

You don’t need monsters.
You just need people
with slogans
and something to protect.

The loudest about mercy
keep their hands clean
by pointing.

The loudest about love
need an audience
or it spoils.

The loudest about peace
sleep with one eye open
and a thumb on the trigger
they swear they don’t own.

God-talkers rent God.
They don’t live with Him.
Peace-talkers rehearse it
like a line they keep forgetting.
Love-talkers mean approval
and charge interest.

Watch the ones with microphones.
Watch the ones with certainty.
Watch the ones who underline books
but never bleed on the page.

Watch the ones who romanticize hunger
or mock it—
both are tourists.

Watch the fast clappers.
They clap to hear themselves.

Watch the ones who police language—
they’re terrified
something feral might get loose
and name them.

Watch the ones who need crowds.
Alone, they evaporate.

The average man isn’t harmless.
The average woman isn’t gentle.
Their love wants a receipt.
Their love wants witnesses.
Their love wants to be normal
so it doesn’t have to be brave.

And here’s the part nobody says out loud:

There’s brilliance in their resentment.
A precision.
A teamwork.
A choreography.

They can’t stand silence
because silence asks questions.
They can’t stand solitude
because it doesn’t applaud.

They can’t make anything
that didn’t already exist,
so when they fail
they blame the room,
the time,
the culture,
the weather,
you.

They don’t understand art
because art doesn’t ask permission.
They don’t understand love
because love doesn’t negotiate.

So they’ll tell you
you’re doing it wrong.
That your grief is excessive.
That your joy is suspicious.
That your freedom is offensive.

Then they’ll come for you
not messy,
not emotional—
but clean.

Their hatred is efficient.
It shines.
It passes inspections.
It wears credentials.

It doesn’t rage.zwzwq
It executes.

And that—
that is the only masterpiece
most of them will ever finish.