you don't have to love

you don't have to labour 

a robot will do it 

you don't have to suffer 

you can eat up your pillow

you don't have to love 

that's the job of the man 

with a moustache and two candles 

you don’t have to think 

that's for geniuses 

you don’t have to feel anything 

you can do that tomorrow 

you don’t have to strive

that's for the devoted

you must have an opinion

but be sure you're outvoted

you don’t have to be vulnerable 

just make yourself comfortable 

you don’t have to be honest 

just tell us what you think we want to hear

you don’t have to lie 

just tell us what you think we want to hear

you don’t have to believe 

that's for the sick and the dead

you don’t have to be intimate 

it just gets sticky 

you don’t have to communicate

send an electronic message instead

you don’t have to create

that's to deny Plato

you do have to play though

but only if you're immature

you don’t have to care

that's for psychologists and documentary makers

you can jolly well equivocate

don’t they know who you are?

you don’t have to forage mate

of course we deliver 

you don’t have to wake 

shushie shushie shweep shweep 

get back in your crate

and don’t you dare peek

under your mattress 

where the monsters all lay 

they won’t eat you darling 

so long as you obey 

their grumbling voices

who wants to be free

when there are so many choices!

written about 08/2003 - revised 4/05/2016 - Moscow 

thank you katie fletcher for the photograph