I Am Tired (Of WASPs)

I am tired.

I am fucking tired.

I am tired of living in a constant state of war. We are in a war on drugs—but it’s not really a war against drugs. It’s a war against poor people. It’s a war against minorities. It’s a war against blacks. And you know what? I’m tired of it. I’m tired of upper-class white men using it as a pretense to incarcerate the poor. I know that we poor people are lazy and selfish—as you have told us time and again—but why don’t you just come out and say that you want to imprison us?

I am tired of living in a society that is institutionally racist. A society, run by rich, white racists, who think that people who are not white are inferior. They think that “non-white” people are lazy, and that they are violent. They think they are not worthy of the same rights that are afforded to normal people. It is this mentality that allows for black churches to be burned, for black men and women to be beaten by the police—and far too often, killed. Lynching is not a bygone practice, it is still done all over America by those people who are supposed to be defending us. And you know what? I am tired of it. I am tired of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants—of WASPs—running every aspect of my life, and I am tired of being told that being one is what I should strive for. I don’t want to be like them.

It is these same rich, white men who wage war against women, time and time again. They tell them what they can wear, and how they must care—care for the life that is clearly and utterly present, in a small cluster of cells in their body. They say that abortion is a sin, and then, when the child is born, call it and the parents freeloaders for wanting support. I am tired of these same rich, white men legislating a women’s body.


I am tired of the war against terror. We send our brothers and our sisters, our sons and our daughters, our neighbors and our friends—we send them all overseas to fight against people who don’t know we exist. We send them to countries to oppress, to suppress and to support dictatorships that support our strategic interests. We send our troops to fight terrorism, while supporting the House of Saud, the lead sponsor of it. Yet, we wonder why so many people are angry with us. And when our soldiers return home, they are not justly rewarded for their sacrifice. We don’t care about their health, nor their well-being. We would rather spend our money fueling the military-industrial complex than paying for the healthcare of our veterans. I am tired of it.


I am tired of the rich white men who run our country. I am tired of reactionaries. I am tired of feeling ashamed for being a white man. I am tired. I am so very fucking tired of it all.

Insomnia

You are a crippling master.

You demand too much of me.

Every night you make me preform rituals to you.

You demand I position myself this way, and then you command me to reposition that way.

Never are you pleased.

You need the light to be a certain way. It can not be too bright for you, oh Great One.

You demand of me so much--too much.

And when I do not fulfill your demands, you withhold from me a thing most vital--my sleep.

Finally, I'll be fed up, and I will vow to outlast you, and you give me a false hope.

But soon thereafter, you giveth to me what you withheld,

Thus devastating me.

How do I say what I want to say?

How do I say it?

How do I force myself to say the one thing that is central in my mind, the one thing that is nagging at me regardless of what I am doing?

How do I say that I like you?

How do I tell you that I like you?

Should I be direct, taking the frank and candid route? They say honesty is the best policy, but what if you reject me? Rejection by anyone hurts, but by you the hurt would not in just a temporary, superficial hurt--but in a deep, lasting one. It would be like a stab in the heart and a blow to the gut. It would feel like I had all the air sucked out of my chest and like my legs disappeared out from under me. I would want to cry, to run away, filled with the shame of thinking that someone as great as you would ever want to be anything more than a passing acquaintance with someone like me.

I could be subtle. I could be sly.  I could drop hints here and there, and take the safe route for my own feelings. But what if you don't pick up my hints? And is that fair to you? What If I mislead you? Then I'd be the one hurting you, and I couldn't live with that.

Maybe I'll take a hybrid approach. Maybe I'll write you a poem, like this one. But maybe you'll think that is cheesy. A poem? How original. Now I am just stalling, because I am afraid to say it, but here it goes.

Look, I like you.

I like you.

I like you.

But...do you like me?

You Are Yogurt

You are yogurt.

You take a scoop of the parfait, full of oats and raisins, and quickly shove it into your mouth as you continue your frantic work to finish a paper due in less than four hours on a book that you have never read. All the while, you are yogurt.

You see, when you eat something, your body absorbs it. It takes the good stuff in that yogurt, and it puts it inside of you. These yogurt goodies then replace the older coffee goodies from earlier today. You now have yogurt stuff flowing through you. You are yogurt.

So while you are worrying about a paper that is due, on a subject you know nothing of, find some solace in the fact that you are, in some small way, yogurt.

The Twentieth of January

It happened on the Twentieth of January, a Tuesday afternoon. As James Bain would soon find out, this was not going to be any typical Tuesday. James worked for the Postal Service, delivering packages to a suburb of Washington, and Tuesday was his day off. James always liked Tuesdays for this reason. Not only did he not have to sit in his van all day, but he was also able to pick his nine year-old daughter Olivia up from school.

James pulled his Honda into the elementary school parking lot, and made his way through the front doors, and into the cafeteria. He sat there with the other parents who were there to pick their students up--waiting for them to be dismissed.

When Olivia's third grade class came into the cafeteria, she ran over to her father, and gave him a big hug around his legs. They both smiled and laughed, and made their way to the car.

They pulled out of the school parking lot, and James began the twenty minute drive home. As he was crossing the intersection of 18th and Potomac, a large SUV crashed into their car.

James woke up several days later from a coma. His wife Abby was at his side. Immediatly, James asked where Olivia was. Tears streamed down Abby's face, as she told him what happened.

After a few days more in the hospital, James was allowed to go home. There, he and Abby arranged for the funeral of their daughter. She was buried on Sunday, with all of their family and friends in attendance.

Once the funeral was finished, and their friends were gone, Abby and James' marriage began to degrade. James turned to the bottle and cocaine in an attempt to console himself. One day, during their third fight about nothing of consequence, Abby yelled at him, saying that she wished he had died that day, and not Olivia.

Drunk, and high on cocaine, James became violent. He began to hit Abby with his beer bottle--beating her. After a while, she stopped screaming, stopped fighting back, stopped everything.

The police arrived the next morning to find James still standing over Abby's body, a blank expression on his face. He was arrested, and convicted of voluntary manslaughter. The jury was unsypathetic, and gave him the maximum sentence of ten years.

Finally, just over ten years after he killed his wife, James was released from prison. He had nothing. He had no money left, and no job. The bank had taken his home, and none of his friends or family were willing to talk to him. Many men would have given up hope, but not James. James felt guilty for what he had done. He felt guilty for killing Abby, and for surviving the accident that claimed his daughter's life. So James decided that he had to suffer--living with the knowledge of what he had done. He lived on the streets for nearly a year, but eventually, he found a job. After a while, he was able to move into an appartment. Every day though, no matter what the weather was, or what was going on, James always went to the cemetary where his wife and daughter were buried. Every day, he would go, pray, and beg forgiveness from God, and from them.

It was on the Twentieth of January--a Tuesday afternoon--when it happened. James had just gotten off work, and he made his way to the cemetary. Walking up to Abby and Olivia's graves, he saw that something had damaged Olivia's, causing a break in the marble that cut her name in two. Upon seeing this, James ran. He ran right past his car, and down the street. He ran and ran and ran, until he could run no more, stopping on a bridge to catch his breathe. After composing himself, James glanced over the railing.

The police came too late, arriving to find his body broken below the bridge.

The World is Remarkable

I was on the trampoline with two kids that I was watching for some friends today, and I fully realized what Einstein was talking about with spacetime, and how gravity works. It hit me that some of the most remarkable things in this life are surprisingly simple. A trampoline tells us the secrets of space time. A ramp and a ball tell us laws of motion. An arrow fired from a bow, or a bullet from a gun tell us of gravity and aerodynamics.

The simple, everyday things in this world that we all take for granted are spectacular. As some of you sit and watch a game of baseball, and a pitch is given, and hit, you sitting in your home hear the crack of the bat before someone sitting in the high grandstands. That is amazing.

The light that everyone sees everyday is moving faster than anything can. It moves at the speed-limit of the universe, light speed. At this speed, time does not exist...it does not apply to the photons that are moving this fast. What this means is that a photon could travel from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago, and it would not notice the difference between that passage of time and the time it takes to read this sentence.

The world is full of remarkable things, things that I realized today we should pay more attention to. Not just me, but you too.

Between Two Worlds

I woke up today, and I realized that this is the end.
This life—the life I have known for the last seventeen years—
It's over.
It was a good show—so people say.
I did a good job.
I passed my classes,
I'm graduating, with honors.
But I can't help but look back from the top of the hill at my old life.
The life that will end tomorrow.
I can't help but feel nostalgic.
The entire experience colored by rose-tinted glasses.

I look back and I see all of the good times,
I see myself winning soccer games,
I see myself onstage—dressed in drag, and in suits,
I see myself singing my heart out in choir,
And I see myself becming friends with all of you.

I look back, and I see all of the struggles.
I see myself running for student government for the first time.
I see myself taking test after test, taking SATs and ACTs and applying for colleges.
I see myself cutting my head open and brusing my ribs.
I see myself stuggling with Pacifica,
And I see myself saying goodbye to all of you, my friends.

Who knows what the world has in store for us all?
I certainly don't.
I do know that life will go on—
It won't be like this one.
It will be different, but that's alright.
I know that it will be full of surprises,
And full of adventure,
And that it is up to us to seize the day.