Pressure!

One state away a congresswoman is fighting for her life in the hospital. She was the victim of a crazed, and well armed man's delusion.

(Pushing down on me, pressing down on you)

Thanks to his failure, she lives, although just barely. This makes her one of the lucky ones following yesterday's shooting. Six people, including Christina Green (a 9 year old child attending the rally to feed her budding interest in politics)were not so lucky. I hate such violence...

(That burns a building down, splits a family in two, puts people on streets)

More insulting than that innocents pay the price of one man's insanity is that he use something I love-- politics (the polite discourse of ideals and theory) to incite such an atrocity.

(It's the terror of knowing...what this world is about...)

the incited violence, the depths of brute action and simple cruelty that make things unbearable....

(Pray tomorrow takes me higher)

Ten miles from my mother's home, a man is dying. He is a friend of the family, a dear one, and he is dying. Mom is taking it hard. I knew she would break down when his time came, but it's effecting me more than I had anticipated.. In all honesty, I think anything I'm feeling now is due to a kind of empathy for her, but it might be linked to a feeling of much deeper loss.

(Pressure on people...people on streets)

Perhaps it's that I've lost some hope in the promise of a new year, or maybe it's the feeling of powerlessness that accompanies witnessing an injustice done to a friend ...

(Chippin' around..Kick my brains round the floor)...

or the feeling of frustration that results in fighting the urge to demand a fucking answer for it all.

(....These are the days it never rains but it pours!)

.... My Redbull is almost empty, it's my third of the night. I'm almost worried about my caffeine consumption over this break- or I should be.Caffeine is a tame addiction anyway, I rationalize.

pray tomorrow takes me higher (higher!)

Yet still I ask myself why (in the midst of all this loss)others still manage carelessness or cruelty. Who among us is so isolated and cold they can treat their friends and loved ones casually, and discard them? Who can afford to treat his fellow man with irreverence or contempt? Who has that much to lose anymore? The heartless bastards who think that such things are acceptable nauseate me.

I can't even manage neutrality to it.

(Turned away from it all...like a blind man...sat on a fence but it don't work)

I have had to fight for my beliefs against a brutal and at times hideously unfair set of circumstances. Fuck, I'm still fighting, and I will continue to do so until the end of my days. And yet I am convinced to the marrow that at every turn this world is worthy of believing in, and that the Spiritus Mundi is benevolent. I will die believing that-- fighting for it, even. My reasons for this are varied....

(keep coming up with love, but it's so slashed and torn)

I take it to be a validation of my life, and as sure as I breathe I will love this world and its people.

The devil himself couldn't persuade me otherwise.

(........Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking!)


Destruction will never be rewarded with creation, and no amount of misery can create happiness in anyone, even the least miserable among wretches. Sadly, there are many men who can't see this. These are the men who kill, hurt others, and spite those who care about them.

What I'm feeling isn't bitterness; what I'm feeling is tragedy compressed. Will it be enough? The only thing I can return to is hope, and my faith in humanity's potential for good...and love

(...'cause love's such an old fashioned word, and love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night. And love dares you to change our ways of caring about ourselves)

I'm not giving up.

Creation is worth something. Faith is a rewarded leap. These thoughts are spotty and passionate, and probably chemical induced, but I'm not fucking giving up.

(This is our last dance...
This is ourselves....)