It pours...

So ready just to get out; it’s time to clean my head out

remember how it is my own

don’t wanna live like Frankenstein, feelin like this brain ain’t mine

it’s frightening how many people go down.

They give away everything that makes them theirs

they sacrifice ideals for a mediocre share

of the pie that someone never baked, it’s just another figment in the game

working just to reach death with a sense of pride, a crying shame.

So i’ll shake my head at the customers who buy into the scheme

it’s gonna take a lot more than your marketing trickery

I see past all that shimmer

i see past all that noise

there’s nothing there but a heart soaked in need.

***~~~***

So many kids came in tonight to buy condoms. Guys. And on one hand I was really glad that they were using protection. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but wonder how many were doing without, since Kwik Fill is the only gas station in town that sells condoms. That’s ridiculous. Either a whole hell of a lot of people better be going to the free clinic for free condoms, or…I don’ t know what. That just bothers me. One kid was so cute. He asked if I knew a place that would sell latex-free condoms. Nothing in town, I said. And then he started to explain how sometimes she has a reaction and sometimes she doesn’t. Part of me was taken back at how willing this kid was to talk to a stranger about his girlfriend’s profelactic needs, but the other part of me felt glad that he wasn’t ashamed to talk about it. Again—it’s reassuring how many kids—mostly men—are buying condoms.

I just had the urge to know how many condoms get disposed of a year. How many people who clean hotel rooms have to tie up tiny clear bags filled with someone else’s reproductive fluids. How many condoms litter landfills, like little dull deflated balloons, cradling what was once a potential life—and thank god it isn’t or maybe there should have been some that made it through.

I don’t understand how any organization can be against contraceptives. How can a God that wants us all to live good lives possibly agree with a world that overpopulates itself in the name of survival and legacy? Too many people and not enough food. What kind of God wouldn’t want people to use a little More restraint when it came to procreation?

I meet people who still talk about having children like it was something that they couldn’t control—like having kids is just something that we’re all eventually supposed to do. Where are all the people who don’t assume this? It’s amazing to me how many people I encounter who assume that I will eventually be a mom. Like some day I’m going to wake up and think, “Yes. Even though I’ve never had any desire to be a mom, even though my goals lie nowhere near ‘having my own family’, i just need to be pregnant.” And I realize there are mistakes. And that people, women can’t bring themselves to snuffing out that life before it begins, but really?

Anything has potential. Anything. But you’ve got to take its environment into account. And it’s a collection of sentient moments that add up to make a person a person who participates in the world.

Really, how is an unborn, undeveloped fetus any different than the roadkill you passed the other day? Did you mourn for that chipmunk? You didn’t know it. You didn’t have a connection to it. Yet people freak out over an unborn child. Because it was a divine creation. No one cries for the trees we kill or the yellow jackets they have to poison or the deer splattered across the road. These were all living creatures, with brains and nervous systems. These were all God’s creations. So until people become a little more Buddhist and truly learn to revere life in all its forms, then I don’t want to hear another goddamn word about how abortion is wrong.

I don’t know where that came from.

And on the other hand…

He sent me a text message a day or two after i’d seen him and asked me if i was on birth control. I explained to him that i don’t want to take a pill that regulates my natural functions when i don’t have to for my health. i explained that i’d never had an issue with it in the past—meaning i’m responsible—and that he needn’t worry. “word” he responded. and then he said something about how he just hoped that if something happened i would “take care of it.” and my first response was what a dick he was for acting like it was something that i, alone, should have to bear the burden of. i wasn’t even thinking about the emotional aspect—i was thinking financially. i can’t afford to pay for that shit on my own. and he was damn sure part of the reason…and it just pissed me off. first that he even had to question whether or not i was responsible enough, then to say that he hoped i’d take care of it. sure, i’d kill your unborn child without you knowing if i could afford it. is that what i was supposed to say? i have no issue with getting an abortion, if the need arises, but i’m sure as hell going to do what i can to prevent it from even being an issue.

and he wasn’t even that good in bed. fuck him.

what does he think is going to come of this? why is he a part of my life? that’s a serious question to be asking ourselves at this point in the game. we’ve only known each other for two months. but let’s consider the logistics of the situation. he has no job, no car, no source of income. he’s miserable more than half the time because of where he is and there is no indication, whether from his attitude or his efforts, that things are going to change. three quarters of the time when he talks to me, i feel like i have to reassure him that things will be okay, but i also remind him that nothing will change if he doesn’t will it. he’s so negative. and then, one-sixteenth of the time, he just talks about sex. about fucking (like it would make everything better? like he has no control over his hormonal desires?) and the rest of the time i just feel like i’m friends with someone young. with someone who doesn’t have his shit together and sees strength in me and just wants me in his life so that he feels connected to something that make sense. or he just wants a life that doesn’t require him to worry about any little thing. he wants comfort and to be spoiled and to be preoccupied so that he doesn’t have to define for himself what his life is supposed to be. he has no real interest in caring about me—his lack of effort and his being jaded by girls took care of that. he just wants and wants and wants and can’t give worth a damn. so why did i? or did i? was i just interested in fucking? perhaps. and perhaps that’s why this is getting old fast. because if the sex isn’t worth it…then none of it might be worth it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

my thumb is so swollen. these pustules are pushing up from by my nail, which i have trimmed short, and the whole thumb is a third bigger than my left thumb. my hands are covered in patches of dry skin and these tiny blisters. and i find myself wanting to pop them. and i can’t keep my hands moisturized because i have to wash them so many times a day.

apparently, without this little blue light that goes with the water filtration system, our water is not clean. there are traces of fecal matter (from other people’s septic systems, my mother assures me—as if that makes it better) and if we have to ingest any water, we should boil it.

we live in a house that we pay so much money for and in and we don’t have potable water? what the fuck? maybe i can’t live here much longer. but where would i go that it would be any better? any healthier? amidst pollution, how is it possible to find a place that hasn’t been contaminated? and if too many of us find places like that, aren’t they only bound to become contaminated? isn’t the curse of urban sprawl that there will be no place left to live and breathe? i used to think that’s what the jetsons were—a farcical look into a future where we have so damaged the earth that we have to live above it, high in the clouds, where the air is cleaner and where we aren’t surrounded by our own waste. i admire people who truly make an effort to reduce the size of their carbon footprints. i really, really want to live around people who are aware like that. i still live in a place where not everyone recycles. where recycling pick up is a lie and they send the things to the same landfill with other unusable garbage.

when i think of the trash heaps like pock marks on the face of the earth, it makes me feel nauseous. it disgusts me. it makes me embarrassed to be a human being. how infantile to think that we can just throw things away and they disappear with no repercussion. how utterly naïve and selfish.

i’m apparently in a very angry mood. but it wasn’t hard to get here. and i’m not really letting it affect me to the point where i’m going to be up all night fuming about it. i’m just thinking. and it makes me think of what i need to do to get to where i want to be. i want to earn a living to support myself and have the ability to leave less of a mark on this world than the average consumer. i want to live healthier, breathe better, eat better, and be around people who do not judge, who do not agree with capitalism or any sort of system that enables prejudice and greed to thrive. i want to be around people who think as well as they party. and have the conversations to prove it.

finis.