Humans are Assholes

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Yep. That’s where I’m going today. I know this blog is primarily about writing, but it’s also a blog about living. And in the course of living this past week I’ve come to the ultimate conclusion that humans, by and large, are assholes. You can argue the point. I admit there are some good ones out there…but as our society ‘progresses’ I swear I’m witnessing an overturn of kindness and compassion into a collective settling of “me-first” assholeness.

From people honking behind you if you pause too long at an intersection, to those that sprain your wrist in karate class because you threatened their fragile ego. To those judgmental mothers who raise judgmental daughters who body shame other girls, in the same nasty way it has always been since long before I was born, because we’re so caught up in tearing each other down that we don’t realize how much powerful we’d be if we built each other up.

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To those spewing venom on the internet, raging in hateful and hurtful ways without stopping to listen to their own disgusting thought-vomit long enough to ask if it’s truthful. To the creators of those social media worlds that know the beast they’ve created is addictive and harmful, a veritable cesspool of useless and divisive vitriol that has been proven to be suicide-inducing, yet charge ahead anyway because the pay is sweet and the power sweeter.

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To the world that’s declining around us, fires and drought, floods and monsoons, dead coral reefs and decimated animal populations, the earth itself dying a little more every day, racing headlong into environmental destruction.

To the countries that slaughter and enslave women. To our own that treats women as if they were only good for being incubators and objects of desire (really only a step up from the aforementioned countries).

To the drug epidemic, our addiction to technology, poverty, wars we shouldn’t fight, battles we can’t win, politicians (career assholes) who care more about being reelected than they do about what they accomplish towards the common good…

Man, with this slew of examples, what subset of assholery does one even pick to write about? Humans have so many veins of douchery to tap into, I just don’t think I can choose one. All of this has settled like heavy sediment inside my skull and I have little room to breathe in any creativity. I have little room to breathe at all. It’s no wonder people purposefully walk away from it all, permanently or otherwise.

Who wants to live with a bunch of assholes?

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Poetry 7-8-2021

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you an older work of mine for this week, refurbished and reworked. The process of poetry is one of constant motion. If you’re bored (as my children often claim they are in the hot months of summer) I encourage you to find an old work of your own and give it a refresh.

I will only be accepting submissions for a couple more months for The Beautiful Stuff’s 2021 Poetry Anthology. Send me your stuff and we’ll have an awesome little email chat.

Enjoy this little trip up a trail with a broken heart.

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Exhale

Who knew? 
	(breathe in)
This sickening depth of damage you’d leave?
         (blow it out slow)
The hole so deep and wide
an ache so subtly gnawing
	(don’t forget to breathe again…)

Good riddance, I’d said
	(force air in)
Don’t let the fucking door hit you
        (fake bravado exhale)

I’m better off.

I don’t 
	(Gasp)
Need
        (Pant)
You

I don’t need you…

Air bounces around 
frantically looks for an exit,
erupts from the empty cavern of my chest
bursting its way out of my lungs. 

I don’t need…you
	(ragged breath) 
		
Hold still now.

Listen.

To the sound of hollowness inside,
Was it like this before?

Was my heart always a black hole?
it beats with the scrape of metal on glass,
leaves dry water rings in the bottom of a heat-baked pot.

Where is the air?


Dizzy
     Trees
 	whirl

The rumble of thunder but no relief of rain
The one shoe drop.

Your end of the phone
dead, weighted silence.

Good
	(shiver)

Finally, you’re gone!
	(breathe, damn it)

Finally…
Tears trace down dusty length of my neck

you’re
(Gasp, Gulp, Cough)

Gone.

Darkness drops and nothing but space grows
 	in the garden of a heart once so carefully tended.

I don’t need you.

(exhale)