Parallel Selves Poem by David Welch

Like the author, my name is David Welch,
I write this poem as a warning to you,
from a universe that was like your own,
so identical that it would confuse.

An infinite number of realities,
yes, the multiverse really does exist,
I see you are going down our same path,
and I am begging you, do not persist.

You see my own Earth has built up the tech
to look at parallel worlds not our own,
even pushed it to the point that people
could have this technology in their home.

We couldn't move between realities,
but we could take a peek, see what's going on,
endless universes that we could watch…
of course, very quick, it started going wrong.

One of the first things that the people did
was look in upon their parallel selves,
and when they saw versions more successful
it unleashed on our world a new type of hell.

See, with infinite versions of yourself,
it's inevitable you will find some
where you're a movie-star or sports hero,
and adored by nearly everyone.

Universes where you're a billionaire,
where you're happy, with a smoking-hot spouse,
universes where you have three such partners
if that is what the laws there will allow.

Universes where you are a true genius
and you inventions have saved all mankind,
universes where your daughter didn't die…
where you had the good sense to make time.

At first it was just described as depression,
but then more troubling symptoms emerged,
more and more stories of people ending it,
suicides that first occurred in small spurts.

They started reporting spikes in the stats,
and very soon the truth became quite clear,
more and more people were killing themselves,
something terrible was happening here.

It had something to do with the multiverse,
that was what all the scientists thought,
some after-effect they had not predicted,
and they all talked this theory up a lot.

I guess, in a way, the egg-heads were right,
though it was no monster or virus mean,
no scifi monster was needed, sadly,
folks were reacting to what they had seen.

The people had seen what they could have been,
saw the potential that lurked deep inside,
then looked sadly upon their current state,
and were finally forced to realize

That there short-comings, all their failures,
were not something that had been done to them,
they'd seen their own ‘selves' work hard and succeed,
they had watched it all, again and again.

No longer could they blame it on others,
or chock it all up to society,
their losses, their failings, due to their choices,
a hard truth, and many were not ready.

Some would see what parallel selves had done,
then find a gun, take a handful of pills,
others would set out to remake their lives,
convinced it was all a question of will.

Most of those too would eventually fail,
and join the others in departing this world,
people found loved ones lying in their homes,
deprived forever of their precious pearls.

I myself lost an aunt who had seen
a parallel self was a CEO.
She was a stock clerk, the sight hurt so much
that from this life, by her hand, she did go.

A cousin of mine is, somehow, still alive,
though so depressed he might as well be dead,
after seeing a life with the little boy
his ex-girlfriend in college aborted.

I guess I am one of those people too,
as I struggle with it every day,
versions of me, successful and happy,
writing best-sellers, blazing my own way.

In the end so many people had died
that the technology was seen as bad,
government banned it to stop the bleeding,
but that cat can't be put back in the bag.

It's estimated twenty-two percent
of my Earth's populations is deceased,
nearly two billion, dead by their own hands,
thanks to the ‘wonders' of technology.

The dyings have slowed, but they still occur,
it proliferates though black-market tech.
Hell, I am breaking those very same laws,
warning you about how our world was wrecked!

But seeing where you are in your research,
I feared that you were running out of time,
and even a small glimpse of the multiverse
is more than enough to destroy your mind.

Don't do it.