Tinted Glasses

You perceive of me only what you wish to see,

but I’m a human with flaws, like you.

Like him, you’re quick to say, “It’s not me;

it’s you, you’re wrong,” but I can see through

it now; things will play how they must be.

At the end of the day, see, I have my crew.

How many close relationships does he keep?

Tones would change if you knew what I knew.

But you could never be wrong.

I recognize when I’m wrong, I write it down,

take note to make the needed change

and work on it every single day, through the frowns

that come when I’m feeling a little strange.

I’m learning every single day, yet like a clown

you recognize nothing of import, set a stage

to paint me as a villain all the way around.

To think I’d wanted to chalk ignorance up to age.

But you could never be wrong.

If this were a movie, we could flip; we could switch

perspectives, and maybe then you would see

the truth instead of calling me a rude bitch.

 Unfortunately, I can tell when it comes to me,

there’s nothing you want to see but that which

makes you pretty and helps you feel free.

So, then, like a disease, you pull at every last stitch

on my heart, doing your best to unravel me.

But you could never be wrong.

The meaning behind your words is so devoid,

I can practically feel your desperation

to control everything and monitor the noise

coming out of every radio station.

Your eyes glaze over, all you care for are coins,

ears plugged while you make accusations.

Your masks are so thin, it’s no wonder your boys

are so easily discovered, peeled like crustaceans.

But you could never be wrong.

Heaven forbid you see things through the eyes

of any person other than yourself,

but I won’t join in your pity-party or lies

or enable the bullshit to come back off the shelf.

I’m done with you and your slithering spies.

But you could never be wrong.

A Letter to A Self-Victimizing Braggart

Dear AJ,

                There are many things you said while under my roof that will never be forgotten, and others that may never be forgiven. Before your behavior took a nosedive, you were happy-go-lucky and social. You didn’t have a problem with any of us… but you couldn’t stop talking about your dick.

                Every woman knows that a man who never shuts up about his penis clearly doesn’t know how to use it and this was finally confirmed about you today, when my friend, who used to also be your friend, admitted to me that she slept with you once… and you lasted all of 30 seconds, tops. You useless, pathetic fuck. When you’re in a good mood, you sit around and brag about this and that—how you can last hours in bed (where are the hours? You couldn’t last a whole minute), how you learned all of these martial arts and you can kick anyone’s ass, how you’re a master swordsman… Oh, and then I find out you’ve tried telling some chick you have a fucking degree in psychology when you’ve never taken college courses to earn any kind of credit. Then, when I put you on blast, you tried to defend your lies by saying, “Oh, I never said it was a legit degree.” You are fucking stupid.

                You deserve to be put on blast for every lie you tell and every shitty thing you’ve done. So, I’ll put you on blast, here.

                Boy, let me tell you, it made me euphoric as hell to watch you approach every friend I introduced you to—and then approach a friend I didn’t introduce you to—and try to slander me to the people with whom I surround myself. Do you honestly think I’d have introduced you to two-faced bitches? Do you think that just because I let you into my home, I make it a habit of forming relationships with psychic vampires or people who will turn on me at the drop of a hat—or the unwelcome knock on their door as you beg them to let you move into their home?

                Oh, yeah, bitch, Dusty told me what you did. You slunk your pathetic, lying, two-faced little ass over to my neighbor Dusty’s house, across the street from my house, and you proceeded to say bad things to him about Randy and me, even though he had told you previously that Randy and I are his friends and he didn’t want to hear you fucking slandering us. He also told us that even if you weren’t a steaming pile of bird shit, he would never have let you move in because he likes to walk around the house naked and you would have ruined that for him. That was amusing, but not as heartwarming as knowing for a fact that you will never turn any of my friends against me. My friends are loyal. That’s why they’re my friends.

                Now, I’ve started school and I’m waiting for February to roll around so I can see those nice, fat housing checks appear in my account each month, while you bum around on the streets, hooking up to library WiFi, continuously spewing your lackluster sob story to whatever poor sap takes two minutes to pay attention to your sorry ass.

                I don’t believe in holding grudges, but nor do I believe in forgetting how someone has treated me and you, dumbass, have treated me exceptionally poorly. You were fucking lucky that Randy wanted to play nice with you because I would have had you out of my home the minute you started throwing your belongings down my stairs. That’s right, bitch. You may have been staying in the upstairs space in my home, but that space is still mine. The house is still mine. I am the lease holder, along with Randy, and it is only Randy’s name on the lease that allowed him to have any say in how long you were allowed under my roof, you sorry sack of unapologetic sewage.

                Your mother tried defending you. I’m not sure if you saw it since you blocked Pat and probably can’t see his status anymore. She came along trying to claim that I let you and Pat move in so I’d have a couple of fresh dicks to ride on. What a fucking joke. I messaged her promptly to correct her on that point and even managed to have a decent back-and-forth with her for a few messages, despite her horrendous grammar and spelling. Where did she learn English? Because that place clearly doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing. At any rate, your mother may never turn her back on you, since she is your mother, but she isn’t one to make fucking excuses for you, either. I told her all about how you would sit in my house, talking about all of these alleged problems you have, and yet you never once made an effort to go out and get the medication you said you so desperately needed. Not until after you blew up, mocked, and disrespected me in my own home.

                Fuck you. Rot in the streets with hardly your mother to love you as she withers away with her sickness.

(I wish no ill will on his mother. She seems like a perfectly nice person. She is legitimately ill and "AJ" has a habit of making it sound like she's going to die.)

I Want Justice

I am beyond angry.

            There are many reasons for my anger, chief among them some obvious choices, such as the cops murdering black people in my country.

            One black man was pinned to the ground, unarmed, by police and shot point-blank in the chest. WHY?! For what POSSIBLE reason could these cops have done something so heinous?!

            Fear.

            It’s out of fear, just like it was out of fear that they shot a fucking gun into a car with a CHILD in the back seat! They shot and killed a law-abiding citizen after pulling him over for having a busted tail light. He had his girlfriend and their child in the car with him and these cops shot and killed him.

            I want justice. I want to see these cops stripped of their uniforms and dragged through the streets by their feet, tied to the back of a Hummer going about 10 mph. I want to see these murderers placed before a judge and stripped of the ability to ever again serve in the capacity of public service. I want their firearms taken from them and used to shoot every limb on their bodies, multiple times.

            I want justice.

            What would justice be? Clearly, taking these policemen off the force would be the first step. But they have MURDERED people. In cold blood. Do they not deserve pain in retribution?

            I imagine the families of the men who were killed. I imagine the child in the back seat of that car, witnessing her mom’s boyfriend shot by police and killed in the driver’s seat for reaching for his driver’s license as ordered. Then, I imagine all the women who experience fear for their lives on a daily basis, as well, because of the men who exist who want nothing more than to harm. I think of my female friends who have walked down the street to unsolicited sexual harassment, and that is the least severe thing I can imagine because I have friends who have been raped and beaten. I, myself, have been sexually abused.

            Many things go through my mind when I think of these things. I think of the #YesAllWomen movement on social media and I think about how it doesn’t apply to me, even though I’m a woman, because I walk down the street without fear… or so I think. I can’t stand to go anywhere alone. Is that a result of social conditioning?

            I think of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and how white people everywhere try to dilute the problem and separate themselves by saying #AllLivesMatter. Now it’s #NotAllCops.

            Well, it may be that not all men are rapists and murderers and it may be that not all cops are murdering sacs of scum that need to be eradicated from the face of the planet. But it is true that all women and all minorities are afraid. Every year. Every month. Every week. Every day. Filled, at least in some capacity, with fear. Fear of those who are supposed to be our peers and our protectors.

            I don’t want to live in America anymore. I want my family to move to Canada and live out the rest of our days in a peaceful country that has very little violent crime, even if it means I will not be allowed to own a firearm. After all, with the new laws coming to fruition in my own country, I can’t own a gun anyway because I suffer from mental illness.

            If I can’t fix it, I want to get away from it.