When I was young, I had a neighbor with a Midwest, above ground pool. It was amazing, not one like it to be found, and huge, “very bigley,” as our oppressor says. Perhaps I was small, and the world and everything in it felt large. I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that there was a big deck built around it to encompass it. I thought that that was cool, it gave me my idea for my own pool when I went to Indiana. The summer heat was frequent there then.
Although the owners daughter Ally was our little sister’s friend, she would invite us even if they didn’t wanna go. Until we decided no. Her mother seemed perturbed by these two black boys swimming in the pool with her white daughter. She made it clear in her looks. Her glare was so intense, you could sense it. She never said it aloud, but I thought I heard it once or thrice: “fucking nigger boys.” Maybe I felt it. Perhaps that’s why my sisters stopped going over there.
They did always say Ally was mean to them. It was probably her imitating her racist adult.
But the summers were hot then. Apparently so. (I couldn’t swim.) Not like today, the summers felt right, and they gave way to autumn breeze, seamlessly transitioning to fall. I remember sensing the seasons change. I could tell by the smell of rain, how sweaty I would get on a summer day. I could anticipate if it was light jacket or heavy coat day. I remember seeing the leaves grow flush with embarrassment as they prepared to fall. No need to feel embarrassed, I thought, you’re beautiful the way you are. Every way you are from spring time, to fall, and bare in the cold winter air, you glitter there too.
It was always so picturesque to me, walking down the street. On the right street on a dark day, a fall breeze would send leaves down in the street, whipping past your knees, you felt a sense of peace or calm, like you were in a meadow and not a hungry cold street with an appetite. It sure could eat. Beautiful, it seemed to me. Maybe just to me, as I sure did walk these streets a lot.
Winter always snowed. Plenty too, not little flurries, giving way to huge downpours unexpectedly. I always knew that there would be snow on Christmas. I knew I’d play in it as I shoveled the driveway for everyone I could for a few dollars. Some adults were NEVER satisfied with my work. It was strange; they’d withhold five bucks for me to go back and scrape every last crack or move a pile of snow further out. Adults were cruel. When neighborhood kids came to shovel my driveway or cut the grass or take my trash, I’d give them twenty bucks no matter what. Upfront. Usually I’d never even look to see if it was done.
There was this homeless guy, crackhead once, who would come cut my lawn weekly like clockwork. He knew when I’d be home from work. Sometimes he’d just cut it, then come back when I was back, and I’d hand the money over. Once, he stole a chainsaw and offered to clear some trees from in the way of my fence. Sounded great to me.
At some point, though, the winters got colder and longer, and it snowed less frequently, more unexpectedly. The summers were brutally hot, as bodies dropped and the murder rates grew higher and higher like frequent flyer miles up to the good sky. I was hurt and surprised. Seasons changed on a dime, the weather was unpredictable, erratic.
I thought, well, I gotta get outta Chicago. I need a place with more reliable weather. Mostly snow. So I thought, New York! Then on my travel, I grew up. Part of growing up is learning that life isn’t what it seems. Not an ocean of dreams teeming with possibilities, it’s just as soul crushing as when you were a child, it’s a lecherous, life sucking vulture. Picking at the husk of you that barely made it out. Traveling the boulevard of broken dreams, lost and alone.
Growing up means you know: everywhere sucks. People, neighbors, “leaders.” The weather. Mother Earth is dying. She’s fucking sick, lying on her deathbed, hacking spit. Fevers at 200 degrees and colds minus 109. She’s trying to express it, fight off her sickness. Us, we’re the cancerous, lecherous, life sucking vultures. Ruining and exploiting lives and culture, for what? Profit.
I bet that money keeps you warm as fuck. I bet the titans of industry, the masters of the universe are already jutting the course for the next planet Earth. Some people are so hypnotized with working and consuming that they do not realize WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE. Our only home that we, and everyone across time, have EVER known is dying. Those dead, buried and gone, lie here. Those tossed away in concrete graves lie here.
Those of us who know, that are painfully aware that the end is looming near, cry, beg, and plead like Greta on her knees, saying PLEASE. The elite just tease the masses, laugh and convince them to buy more to ease their mind and feed their appetite. But those who KNOW can see this isn’t some funny joke, and if it is, it’s dry humor, and we’re the punchline. The butt that will be kicked and beaten into nonexistence like Taylor Swift’s ass, yes, that joke falls that flat. Not funny.
What happens to us? The youth? Our youth, theirs? Will there even be a THEIRS by the time capitalists are through? We’re crying and calling out, we don’t know what to do. Our “leaders” are the ones causing this shit to happen to us. Its criminal. Mass genocide. They should all be brought to the Hague and tried, for crimes against EVERYTHING, ’cause it’s not just humanity that resides here. Plants and animals are beings too. Nature is breathing. The worst crime against humanity is destroying our home. They’re murdering a planet! And every species on it.
Yet they’re more concerned with the lives of unborn, unconscious fetuses. Things that won’t even live or get a chance to because they’re KILLING our home. If abortion is murder, then what is killing an entire species? Ecosystem? Planet? Is it just the cost of doing “business”? If saving an unconscious, unborn, unthinking, NOT alive being is so fucking detrimental, if giving IT a “chance” at life is so important, why not give the parents a shot, too? Or what about AFTER they come out of the womb? Housing, healthcare, childcare, food, clothing. Give them a chance to LIVE if that’s so important. Not just exist till they’ve reaped the planet of all its resources.
Life and the future are bleak and dismal for anyone with eyes to see. Anyone besides wealthy elite, white hetero males, it seems. Or white hetero males. The only beings who can just wake up and go, “Life is swell!”
“Oh sorry officer, was I speeding? No! I WON’T roll my window down for you, I’M an American. Give me my ticket so I can learn, I have WHITE places to be good sir!”
“Uh, excuse me? I’ve been waiting exactly 147 seconds since I placed my McDonalds order, let me speak to a manager. What are you doing back there, huh? Can’t flip a burger? Get a real job. Fucking peasants. No don’t serve someone else first. Don’t you see my white privilege ID?”
“I ordered medium well. This isn’t it. Take it back, make me a new one, and I’m not paying. Don’t you DARE expect a tip either. I only tip for good service.”
“Ah, good morning trees. Good morning cars with no lease. Good morning job where I take it easy. Good morning secretary I sexually harass for fun cuz I just know you really wanna fuck, otherwise, be a prude bitch and tighten up your blouse AND your lips. Good morning news. Huh, the DOW jumped 6pts today! (Headline: Gaza death toll 50 thousand) You know, I should invest in some real estate in Gaza next May.”
Yes, Josh, that sounds quite white!
For everyone else though, traffic stops or stop and frisks can mean the end of your existence, food service like sex work and EVERY other “demeaning” job is undervalued yet integral to keep the global for profit machine running. Tipping is an OBLIGATION, not a “courtesy.” If you go out to eat, tip your fucking server, you cheap fuck. I don’t care if your server spits in your face before they walk away. You say “THANK YOU. I hope you have a better day.” Then you fucking tip them anyway. Trust me, if a server fucks with you, it’s YOU, not them.
If you wake up and see the trees and feel at peace rather than a somber quiet for their struggle to survive, you MAY be a white guy. If you own a new 2025 with 0 down payment lease and a mortgage with ease, not having to write a bad check, you may have a white dick between your legs. If you think every woman at work wants to fuck you, fuck you, white guy. If you think a woman is a prude for covering up and a slut for wearing less, you may be white. If you don’t feel fear and foreboding, self hatred and loathing, leaving your house. Fear of oppression, state sanctioned violence and persecution from the right. If you’ve never known what it’s like to hate the skin you’re living in, with whiteness set as the standard by the right.
If you’re not white, you’re LEFT, behind in class, or hated by society, disowned, dejected, and exploited. Those of you who are ever conscious of the dying planet and disgusted with your own role in it, however reluctantly, you wanna rage and scream! Stop fracking! And emitting! And driving! Mining and exploiting! But you drive to work in your shit car or take shit public transit, doing little things to feel better about your own footprint because you personalize the weight of the world on yourself. But nothing helps at the end of the day, you wanna punch a wall or politician, but you settle for crying, hugging a tree, and a stiff fucking drink, or a cocktail of weed.
But maybe you’re someone who can live on in ease, knowing where your ancestors came from, can track them to the Mayflower, got a family crest you brag about for an hour every time you can. Maybe you never wear lotion and blister in the sun, maybe you get up and run, feeling life is just grand! Or, that it would be, if “we” got rid of all the “rodents” and “pests,” the undesirables of society, like poof, escape into thin air, or, suspended in the air. From a tree. Secluded to their own “territory,” something like a reserve? A forest preserved? A reservation — if you think women should all wear 6 inch stilettos with cocktail dresses, slut for fun, but speak and act like nuns, using their mouths only for prayer to you and their lord and nothing else. If more than two genders makes you uncomfortable, or you just wish men would be with ONLY women (except on Sunday with your buddy Jeff), if genocides and incarceration rates don’t catch your eyes, but the DOW Jones rise and the prospect of real estate markets opening up because of settler colonial Zionism does, then wellllllllll… it MAY be microscopic in size, but with the right angle and telescope, we can see your soft, white privileged penis.
What that means is, for everyone else concerned about the world, feeling dismal and depressed is the norm. Being told we’re over-medicated ’cause we’re anxious and concerned about things our “leaders” tell us NOT to be anxious and concerned about, so we’re manipulated AND gaslighted too, then scrutinized for tryna feel just “alright” (not white) not “grand” but some sort of contentment.
If we felt like you cared about us, about human beings, animals, ecosystems, LIFE, we MIGHT have more babies. At this point, it’s gross negligence, possibly negligent homicide, to bore a child in this world and condemn it to this daily grind. They don’t let you hold your baby in prison, they give it to the state. A far worse fate. But the argument they make is the hellish environment, and “kids are innocent.”
So if you bear children in this state of the world, where our nuclear arsenals are frequently used to posture threatening global extraction, and our “leaders,” as “fearless” as they are, don’t let a silly thing like total extinction annihilate their dream of showcasing they have a MUCH larger penis, they’re more concerned with the weather report AFTERWARD. “What are some bombs to us? ‘Cause, like, we’ve got bunkers. What’s the weather gonna be like? Not too cold, I hope.” To know that our lives could be forfeited by the push of a button by some megalomaniac maniacs, our planet’s dying, we’re killing it even if we don’t personally want to, WELL, it’s kinda like “abortion,” “MURDER,” right?
I said a lot, most already know, possibly some try to forget. But, I remember. I remember everything. How the grass smelled in the spring, how the flowers blossomed in the evening. How the summer heat comforted me. When bugs were fascinating, not “pests.” When we watched the clouds of May or the leaves change in autumn and fell in love with fall, and made snow angels in winter.
I remember simpler times, better days. I unfortunately know they’re miles away.