heat

i wonder

at moments

if

even with all the right eating and exercise

the cause of much turmoil of health

turns out to be

a dishevelment of the inside spirit

in a world of overheated ambitions

that conspire to pull us apart

to fragment us

and then to turn those fragment factions
against each other

into a state of blistering civil war 

making the inside of our skin

a hot battleground

invisible skirmishes

little explosions

implosions

firefights and turf wars

can be dramatic and ravaging

in the troubled human soul

of those who present

even the coolest
smoothest persona

how does all that silent warfare

fit in the space of a human head?

or even a body? 

a bloodstream? 

does it register to the outside world

as an uncharacteristic

twitch in the eyelid

perhaps a furrow in the brow

a letting slip of a caustic word

an ill-advised phrase
a burst of hot rage

or maybe only detectable
as a distracted glance the other way

perhaps this is how

the hot conflagration of a human soul

betrays itself

to the alert observer

or

if painstakingly concealed

in favor of a perfect outward image

it turns inward

going on a rampage

and visiting havoc on the human infrastructure 

until it smolders like Gettysburg

or Normandy the day after the battle

ah friends we must
release

pray for peace

declare a truce

on the inside