(no subject)
the thing is, you don't even know. you watch the news, and read a newspaper and think that you can read between its lines. and you've seen it in a movie, in the back of your head where you bury these things, in a dream, in your worst nightmare, but you don't ever know until you see it happen right in front of you. and you can scream and bury your face in your hands and squeeze your eyes closed and hope to god you'll never have to look out of your window ever again. but the truth is that even with eyes shut you're still seeing it, and probably always will.
we've never been afraid of this town, and we aren't by any means ignorant of what happens here. but it never really occurred to me before how much other people have to worry for us; our parents and friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, brothers and sisters... even some people you would never expect. yet we still live and we drink and eat and fuck and laugh in this city, and we can be happy most of the time regardless. but i swear to you, sometimes i drive and look out the window and i fall apart completely. my heart stops. i can't even catch my breath. because on the corner is a man with no legs with a dunkin donuts cup punctured through one of the hooks he has for hands, begging for the change that we just bury in the bottoms of our purses and pockets and think nothing of. there's a woman laying in the middle of the street, crying in the pouring down rain. there are girls that should be in braids and velcro sneakers holding cigarettes and babies, people who live in buildings that look like they've just barely survived a nuclear attack, fast food joints that have more bullet proofing than the car that the god damn pope rides around in, tranny hookers, drug dealers, crack heads, gun store, liquor store, bail bonds, gun store, liquor store, bail bonds. everyone is dead, and i don't even know the half of it. because this time, i'm lucky to be in the car just driving by.
and this isn't just about the ghetto. what i'm talking about isn't a rich or poor thing, a black and white thing. because even here, in the nicest neighborhood in this city, i still live across the street from a rapist and next door to a girl who's been raped. but this is so much bigger than any of that; bigger than anything else in this world. i'm talking about life and death. having breath in your lungs one second and not having it the other. above anything else, regardless of who you are or where you live, it's the one thing you should ever have to concern yourself with. and at the same time its the one thing you'll completely ignore. i believe that the world around you is always speaking to you. its always trying to tell you something. sometimes its just a whisper. other times, like friday night, its a scream so loud it would make your ears bleed. but its always communicating. and i can feel it in my guts. i always take notice of my instincts, and to the signs i see everywhere. i'm not saying i'm a psychic or that i have some supernatural ability because just paying attention to this shit is inherent to every human being. but i have dreams of a terrible storm and the next day a hurricane kills thousands. i get a bad feeling in my stomach, in my heart, and five minutes later i crash my car. i have strange thoughts about animals starving to death and then my cat dies. i have dreams of being in a taxi going a hundred miles an hour right into a man on a bike and a few weeks later the car directly in front of me hits a man who walked into the road, throws him six feet into the air, and leaves his crumpled pile of a body for dead without stopping, without even so much as tapping the brakes. and to say that this makes me sick to my stomach is such an enormous understatement. it makes me sick to the core of my being. with every inch of my body and soul i am wrenched with utter disgust. to end a human life, to cause the breath in his lungs to stop, to spill the blood of his veins over the pavement, and to drive away like nothing even fucking happened.... i can't even find the words. i don't think the right ones exist in this case. i just pray to whatever force is out there to right the wrong it has allowed to happen. i hope to fucking god, to jesus, to anything that's listening to me right now, that the person in that silver car in front of us that night gets what they fucking deserve.
i have now lost complete faith in the human race. this isn't just ignorance. this isn't refusing to put change into the armless man's coffee cup anymore. i now realize that there is absolutely no existence of compassion towards other lives in this world. to reduce a life to a pile of flesh and scraps of clothing strewn about a highway in the pouring down rain, to not even give a person the tiniest sliver of dignity of stopping for one fucking moment to realize that you've just killed them... god fucking save you. and you can say, oh that guy was probably just some crack head who wandered into the road, that maybe he had enough and walked out onto 295 on purpose, but you cannot tell me that there is ANY excuse for that person to just drive away. because i don't care what he was or what you assumed he might have been, that man had a life and you hit the brakes for another human being. jesus, i never thought i would ever see such an abomination, something so depraved and hideous, outside of my dreams and my fears.
but i have seen it. and the thing is, now i know.
we've never been afraid of this town, and we aren't by any means ignorant of what happens here. but it never really occurred to me before how much other people have to worry for us; our parents and friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, brothers and sisters... even some people you would never expect. yet we still live and we drink and eat and fuck and laugh in this city, and we can be happy most of the time regardless. but i swear to you, sometimes i drive and look out the window and i fall apart completely. my heart stops. i can't even catch my breath. because on the corner is a man with no legs with a dunkin donuts cup punctured through one of the hooks he has for hands, begging for the change that we just bury in the bottoms of our purses and pockets and think nothing of. there's a woman laying in the middle of the street, crying in the pouring down rain. there are girls that should be in braids and velcro sneakers holding cigarettes and babies, people who live in buildings that look like they've just barely survived a nuclear attack, fast food joints that have more bullet proofing than the car that the god damn pope rides around in, tranny hookers, drug dealers, crack heads, gun store, liquor store, bail bonds, gun store, liquor store, bail bonds. everyone is dead, and i don't even know the half of it. because this time, i'm lucky to be in the car just driving by.
and this isn't just about the ghetto. what i'm talking about isn't a rich or poor thing, a black and white thing. because even here, in the nicest neighborhood in this city, i still live across the street from a rapist and next door to a girl who's been raped. but this is so much bigger than any of that; bigger than anything else in this world. i'm talking about life and death. having breath in your lungs one second and not having it the other. above anything else, regardless of who you are or where you live, it's the one thing you should ever have to concern yourself with. and at the same time its the one thing you'll completely ignore. i believe that the world around you is always speaking to you. its always trying to tell you something. sometimes its just a whisper. other times, like friday night, its a scream so loud it would make your ears bleed. but its always communicating. and i can feel it in my guts. i always take notice of my instincts, and to the signs i see everywhere. i'm not saying i'm a psychic or that i have some supernatural ability because just paying attention to this shit is inherent to every human being. but i have dreams of a terrible storm and the next day a hurricane kills thousands. i get a bad feeling in my stomach, in my heart, and five minutes later i crash my car. i have strange thoughts about animals starving to death and then my cat dies. i have dreams of being in a taxi going a hundred miles an hour right into a man on a bike and a few weeks later the car directly in front of me hits a man who walked into the road, throws him six feet into the air, and leaves his crumpled pile of a body for dead without stopping, without even so much as tapping the brakes. and to say that this makes me sick to my stomach is such an enormous understatement. it makes me sick to the core of my being. with every inch of my body and soul i am wrenched with utter disgust. to end a human life, to cause the breath in his lungs to stop, to spill the blood of his veins over the pavement, and to drive away like nothing even fucking happened.... i can't even find the words. i don't think the right ones exist in this case. i just pray to whatever force is out there to right the wrong it has allowed to happen. i hope to fucking god, to jesus, to anything that's listening to me right now, that the person in that silver car in front of us that night gets what they fucking deserve.
i have now lost complete faith in the human race. this isn't just ignorance. this isn't refusing to put change into the armless man's coffee cup anymore. i now realize that there is absolutely no existence of compassion towards other lives in this world. to reduce a life to a pile of flesh and scraps of clothing strewn about a highway in the pouring down rain, to not even give a person the tiniest sliver of dignity of stopping for one fucking moment to realize that you've just killed them... god fucking save you. and you can say, oh that guy was probably just some crack head who wandered into the road, that maybe he had enough and walked out onto 295 on purpose, but you cannot tell me that there is ANY excuse for that person to just drive away. because i don't care what he was or what you assumed he might have been, that man had a life and you hit the brakes for another human being. jesus, i never thought i would ever see such an abomination, something so depraved and hideous, outside of my dreams and my fears.
but i have seen it. and the thing is, now i know.