A Useful Reminder

There are no useless people.
There are parasites, of course.
There are hideous people.

There are people who torture,
Murder, rape, and demolish.
Such people are not useless,

Much less those who do simply
Little. Usefulness depends
On defining a telos,

Then determining which things
Fail to contribute to it.
We rarely agree on ends.

We don’t understand which things
Contribute to which until
We eliminate something

(Wolves from an ecosystem,
Kulaks from the peasantry)
And watch our dreams self destruct.

We are the unintended
Consequences we unleash.
Cui bono? The very words,

The language of usefulness,
Had no meaning before us,
Purpose no purpose but us,

But the future of these words
May not need us. Still, for now,
For words, no one is useless.