Challenging Poetry

the sane ones

I can imagine a place—
a universe away in time and space,
where catastrophe involves
planning and teamwork
and nobody panic buying toilet
paper in vast quantities which then
get resold at enormous profit,

and calm reigns, because friends
and neighbors help each other,
and the pandemic fails,
and everybody lives.

but immediately, my cynic mind
questions. a catastrophe is chaos,
and such careful, smooth planning
implies foreknowledge (paranoia
saying that it was engineered) or perhaps
lack of independent thought.

am I willing to imagine aliens who are so
alien that they fail to worry
and gossip and run the rumor mill into
the death? if our world runs true,
surely there are panicking alien runs on
toilet paper and water, and bug eyed
monsters who care to profit
by their neighbors misfortunes.
who is to say that they would be
more rational than us?

on the other hand,
I'm not sure I want to live
in a universe where we
are the sane ones.

line count: 31

Round 7 Prompt ▼

Written for "Philosophical Musings" 
For the seventh round, let's ponder other worlds.

Questions you might consider: Some philosophers and scientists believe that there are other worlds, other dimensions where different versions of us exist. Versions that made different choices; who went down different paths. What do you think those versions are like? Will they be better off? Worse off? Do you think you'd like to swap worlds with one of them?

You are free to explore this subject in whatever way you like.