Start with yourself and learn how to live.

Then to your child, 

     teach her to forgive.

Teach her your kindness, 

     compassion and love.

Teach her that she can always rise above.

Show your little boy that it's okay to lose.

Losing can mean winning 

    if that's what we choose.

Every time we lose we learn just a bit.

Next time around it will 

   be a better fit.

That brings us to the next 

     lesson to teach.

If you don't keep trying

     your dream's hard to reach.

Teach him not to give up and to try.

This way he won't have to 

     mourn life gone by.

Let them know not to 

     raise up their hand

            to strike out, causing 

     pain when it lands.

If you show mercy 

     to the child you raise.

She will show mercy 

     for all of her days.

Citizens of the United States of America have access to an astounding amount of information. Almost anything we want to know is literally in the palm of our hand. We are a country full of smart folks. Aren't we?

But what do we as a people really get accomplished? I'm not saying we don't accomplish anything. We have done some wonderful things in our history as a nation.

And yet we have only accomplished a fraction of what we should have as a people. Perhaps the main reason is that we are an intentionally divided nation. We like it that way. It seems to a politician's advantage to preside over a divided people. Black against White against Brown against...

We in America are kept so busy arguing and fighting, each group with its own agenda, that very little gets accomplished. If united, the amazing things we would accomplish would increase by an order of magnitude in a relatively short amount of time.

We won't do that. We would have to start caring about each other as a people instead of as a white man, a black woman, a Hispanic woman, or a gay man. Our leaders won't allow that to happen as a united people would pose a significant threat to their hold on power. Divided people don't get much done and are much easier to control. A united people is the shepard. A divided people are the sheep.

That's just the way it is.

What in the hell has the U.S. become?

A country overrun by liberal scum

The "president" is an anti-American bum

"Progressive" politicians promoting their slum

Beating their false narrative drum

Perpetuating a completely misguided scrum

Sleeping with the enemy to pad their income

The parts no better than the whole sum

Lies and corruption dictating the outcome

Millions of sheep, blind, deaf, and dumb

An ignorant populace willing to succumb

Completely oblivious to what's about to come

So launch the nukes, I'm completely numb

I walk up to the mike and everyone stares. Japanese, Venzuelan, Egyptian, Russian, Senalgese, everyone watchs, ear buds assisting with the transmission. There is only static as the translators wait for me to speak. I take a deep breath and they lean in, waiting for an earth-shattering revelation.

"You're all fucking insane."

I walk off as seven billion people stare at my back in horror. 

So, you feel alienated.   You feel alone.   No one understands you.   Everyone is judging you.   You never feel like you are living up to your potential.   You wonder if there's any point at all to what we do.

Well, I've been wondering the same thing.   I've spent every day for years just sitting in my house, and just feeling the pointlessness of it all.   There are some days when I wonder if it's even worth getting out of bed in the morning.

Today I came to a realization.   After months just contemplating life, the universe, and everything, I finally decided something.   There might not be any point.   We might be wasting our time, worthless cogs in some cosmic poker game that only ends by being thrown head first out of the casino.   Nothing we ever do might matter in the long run.

That doesn't mean we give up, or surrender to our fears, our doubts and our uncertainties.   Great people throughout history have had their fears, and their doubts, but did they give up?   No.   As Thomas Edison said, he didn't fail.   He just found a thousand ways not to make a light bulb.   From his discovery came another, and another, gradually making the world a better place.   Great things don't come from inaction, from sitting on our asses and waiting for the world to crush us down.   Great things come from getting up, from bandaging our wounds, from forging on and never, ever tell ourselves we aren't worth it.

I'm here to offend you. To take your words and turn them against you. To trouble your morals, to help you jump to conclusions without a safety net. 

But I was not born, I merely showed up here. 

Bids are on. Give me what you have. I'm here to listen to your feelings, tour through your emotions and picture them in your intentions. I'm here for your imagination. 

Dream me, so I can fade away. Your goals are your fears of delusion. 

Hear ye! Hear ye! 

Enough! Enough! Enough! 

Listen up, the world is rough

enough as it is. 

You don't need to make it rougher 

With your hatred and your racism. 

The earthquakes in California shake my heart 

And that's fine. 

It's fine. I will cry with the children whose homes fell down 

like cards 

but i will not cry with those who are shot 

in clubs, in schools, in churches, 

for being black, for being queer, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time 

I will scream with them 

Scream with me

Scream at the populace and at yourselves 

to stop, please for the love of god, stop

put down your torches and pitchforks 

and for the love of god give Flint Michigan some goddamn water 

and let boys wear skirts 

Cry with me when volcanoes erupt and swallow the land beneath them

Cry with me when buildings topple

Cry with me when the little boy trapped in the rubble takes his last dusty breath 

but don't you dare cry with the family whose sun took his last breath with a bullet 

scream for them. 

scream with me and make it stop 

it works for toddlers doesn't it? 

and since being a fucking toddler seems to be the only way to make it

scream with me

scream 

enough. enough. enough. 

I deserve

to shove "disgusting" food down my "gaping maws"

after months of despising the hills of my flesh,

after I became the closest of confidants with Ana,

after resisting the black stars clouding my vision as though they were

storm clouds--

rain included.

I deserve

to be loud,

following the years of clamping my

stone teeth

on fragile cheeks

until they bled

the words I couldn't say;

following the liquid knives you forced down my throat--

they weren't alcohol,

but burnt just as badly

as they settled in my belly.

It taught me that

sticks and stones

will not break your bones,

but they will break the soul of your calves and feet and thighs

so that you may not stand.

I deserve to be confrontational

after tying my tongue into bunny ears like shoe laces,

refusing to stand up for myself--

for others--

spending my months tethered to a post

as a light-up keychain

in a gift shop--

depersonalized,

in a constant "what if".

In the hurdles I've lept

and nicked my ankles

and toes on,

I deserve nothing less than 

to be

loved

and unique to myself--

thank you very much.