1/18/12

Sometimes I wonder why we keep fighting. Sometimes I want to quit my life and leave it behind. I want to leave some of the things I’ve seen and heard in a very deep grave somewhere, but I know I can’t... and even greater than that, I shouldn’t. I remember then-- I’d been taught that everything happens for a reason, that’s some grander scheme to things. Reality, however, has seemed to prove me otherwise. I see no reason for injustice. I see no reason for great people to be oppressed for the qualities that make them great. I see no reason for corruption. 

I hope for justice. I hope for peace. Glimpses of these two ideals may be all I ever see. And even still, I think that might be enough.

Pendulum

i hate the way that my back feels bare against the world without someone there. i hate that i depend on people like that at all. i hate that people want to see my new haircut. i hate that i don't have the guts to tell people on facebook that they're stupid. i hate that i have been listening to the same thirty songs since semester started last year. i hate that i don't look like i belong in the criminal justice department. i hate that i'm fat. i hate that i love love songs. i hate that i'm alone. i hate the confines of this house.

i love the way that my back feels bare against the world without someone there. i love that i depend on people like that. i love that people want to see my new haircut. i love that i don't have the guts to tell people on facebook that they're stupid. i love that i have been listening to the same thirty songs since semester started last year. i love that i don't look like i belong in the criminal justice department. i love that i'm fat.  i love that i love love songs. i love that i'm alone. i love the confines of this house. 

In a Supermarket in Wisconsin

His face was eerily intent as his hand, long and lean and waiting, hovered over the pizzas frozen deep within the caverns of the supermarket’s ice chest. The frozen white metal faded away and he was poised over a river, fish swimming under his hands as he waited for the perfect one. He was no longer dressed in old jeans and camouflage, but in the skins and furs of a hunter, a warrior. The world became simpler- I prayed we’d fall away, that the whole damn store would fall away and become nothing more than forest, uncomplicated trees and streams and rocks and plants. I wanted to know what the world was like when things were simpler -- when people worked for what they had and were content. I prayed to see fathers pass on wisdom to their sons and mothers tell their daughters of their heritage, for them to have pride in themselves and the places they came from. I prayed for a world where enemies have faces, where we could know where the evil men lurked and we could prepare for their attacks, where their faces could be known.

The supermarket fell back into place and I followed him around, wondering when Walt Whitman was going to appear, if I was going to get to ask him what America was like when he wrote, and if he ever prayed for his enemies to have faces. 

Deutschland

dear Germany-

you may not remember me 

the private with shrapnel in his arm 

i never meant to cause your boys any harm

remember the Indian doing the rain dance?

your bullets came so close, i nearly pissed my pants

hiding under the rubble of a city hall

since your boys had already killed them all.

trudging through bodies in the red ocean

pushing through a limb forest with every motion

you might still be asking “Who, who?” 

but Germany, I remember you