Cold War
Feb 27 2023
The cold war
vacillated
between warm and cool,
simmering between us
like tepid soup
left too long on the stove.
Some might have called it a civil war.
But those are the worst wars,
and anyway
ours was hardly civil.
Although there was nothing more lethal
than weaponized words.
We provoked
but not openly,
firing-off innuendos
launching little digs.
Practised tactical silences
wielded withering looks.
Targeted the soft underbelly
as only we could know it,
haphazardly scattered mines
like dirty socks on the floor.
Felt good, saying our piece,
but never really listened.
Somewhere, there must have been a hotline,
hard-wired
to be private and direct.
A red phone
with an urgently blinking light
we both left in its cradle.
How love
can turn into this
seems inexplicable,
the same two people
who were once unconditional
becoming implacable foes.
As if a DMZ
or Chinese wall
had come between us,
an Iron Curtain descended.
As if we were Berlin,
East and West.
And when it turned hot
escalated to scalding;
the world as we knew it
up in smoke,
incinerated
simply out of spite.
Like a neutron bomb
that leaves all the assets intact;
fairly divided
but empty of life.
This isn't autobiographical (if I even need to say that anymore!) It's just that I skimmed a piece about a new cold war (the liberal West vs a loose coalition of interests between Russia, China, and other autocracies) and was taken with the idea of cold war as domestic drama.
Cold wars tip into hot because of miscommunication, mutual escalation, and bad faith. Interpersonal relationships, the same.
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