Americans, well, at least in the media believe that the way to change behaviors is to punish either criminally, civilly or socially anyone who doesn't fit the societal norm.

Think about that for a minute,

...when someone is emotionally conflicted to the point that their behavior is no longer considered within a range of acceptance and THEN society decides, or any group, movement, political ideology or party to shun or expel, to incarcerate, admonish and thereby torture an, "emotionally conflicted," soul what you have accomplished by society's response is to create permanent anger and hatred.

Permanent anger and hatred.

American society therefore can be said to relish hatred and permanent anger as a way of life for all of it's citizens since every single person whom is inflicted with pain upon suffering will be assured to continue inflicting whatever pain and suffering they can on everyone else the rest of their life. So your only solution is to remove these souls from society permanently.

Was that the intent?

Is that the goal?

Do we need law, rules and fantasy crimes for every single thing a person says or does?

Is the endgame to remove these from society or to reform them?


Imagine now,

America arrests or imprisons one million people per year for using drugs,

...there are forty million felons alive today.

Wow! Lot of bad guys off the streets huh? Let's put that another way shall we?

America ruins a million people a year.
America creates a million 'soon-to-be' violent felons every year.
"Felons," who were nonviolent before being tortured by society and tortured in prison...forty million angry people live around you right now.

Forty million people!

America must want the nation to fail for every year we destroy a million people just because we want to be able to say at least I am not as bad as that person and point your finger while knowing there is no reason, no civil crime, that warrants bankruptcy, imprisonment, violence, ****, abuse, belittling, shame and banishment just because you personally don't like video games.

...or you don't like gambling,
...or you don't enjoy ***.
...or you don't smoke marijuana,
...or you hate Hollywood liberalism.
...you can't stand alcoholics,
...or you're afraid of the mentally ill.
...or your jealous of the *** you perceive someone having,
...angry because you think you work harder than someone else,
...because you deserve a better life so why not destroy others right?

Hatred as a virtue.

I wonder what our economy would be like if the 'fifty-plus' MILLION alleged criminals had jobs instead of listing away producing the smallest amount of productivity possible because YOU THINK they deserve to have a worse life for acting in a manner you do not agree with PERSONALLY.

That is one out of every seven people in The United States.

Hatred perpetuated.

That is American culture and that is why Black Lives Matter.

"Jewel"


Watched it all through the lenses  

of a boy without defenses.            

That’s when the world was ugly,

and I hadn’t developed senses.



Crippled imagination,

built up wisdom with cunctation,

my peers all mocking smugly.

Assent, their single fixation.



I survived adolescence.

Thoughts, a cultural excrescence.

Could everything be broken?

Just a jest of convalescence.



I knew I’d end up finding

how to loosen up the binding.

And when the words were spoken,

swift, the future went unwinding.



“I do.” She said. And I too.

We wed and were reborn anew.

But where would we set our sights

but a happiness overdue?



The life we’d made extended,

though after some life had ended.

She swims through days, sleeps through nights.

Loved as I’d always intended.  



A mystery, pain, torment.

And virtue, we misrepresent.

Fire is hot, and ice is cold.

And naught I can do to prevent.



But love is warm. Courage, cool.

So allow these to be your fuel.

I’ll teach her then, to be bold,

shine in the sun like a jewel.

What’s new about Hipsters? It’s not that they're the first co-opted counter-culture, far from it. The Beats were co-opted. The Sentimentalists, over 200 years ago, were co-opted before capitalism was so industrious. It’s not even new that calling a ***** a ***** is offensive. “Hippies,” “Beatniks,” “Emos;” all insulting labels for youth that thought they were much more.

There it is, or some of it, perhaps. Does the current so-called counter-culture feel like they’re part of something much more? Even without labels, I don’t think they think of themselves as a counter-culture at all. The worst part about it is the Hipsters and  non-Hipsters are really much the same. Falling for a similar niche, but feeling like they ain’t.

We all like flannel, thick glasses, and good beers. We’re all killing Applebee’s. We’re the waitstaff there who laughs at ourselves, cause we’re just so low-down. Not the last, but toward the bottom rung of a ladder that once meant progress beyond our parents’ lives. We stand for nothing and everything, because a secure tomorrow seems unlikely and unwanted. Beget suburban kids like our parents did? Could I buy them as much as I had? A student loan on top of a mortgage, I think I’m better off paying exorbitant rent. Plus, it just feels more temporary, like everything else.

Late twenties, long passed the age my parents conceived, I’m getting old. Lack of full adult independence, still feel floated in embryonic fluid, trying not to give juvenile hopes up.  Qualified for that secure job, but is it open? Maybe I’ll have to move down South. Just like everyone else.

At least there’s always music. Nearly a century of recorded songs. Indie, Scene, and Emo; the last real counter-cultures associated with rock genres, and most practitioners scoffed at these labels. Why didn’t Punks or Metal Heads care?

More pressing, what is the newest rock genre? Emo faded nearly 10 years ago. Some formation of Americana seems sorta fitting now. Not far from that “Indie” umbrella,  it’s what Hipsters seem to like most, at least in the TV commercials. These more choral, sometimes bluesy bands. Some are good, but it’s nothing new.

Now, the algorithms anticipate evolution years in advance. All tastes like Styrofoam, so we spit it out fast. We keep skipping tracks to futility escape the same persistent hum. All the price for our growing clairvoyance. Telescopically, we are flying fast into a wall that ends originality. Too many citations needed. We enter them into software to manage. Our fear of plagiarism makes one uninfluenced instead of inspired. We just make homages. Turn anything creative into a list of allusions.

We forgot to forget
Suspend St. Anselm
patron of using rationality
to explain away one’s faith
in magic and mystery
God exists because
all we can imagine must exist
Your unicorns are but
a mind’s fusion of
horse and narwhal
and your culture is but
a culmination of has-been trends
So it’s all been done
Why try to change a thing?
Why try to be new?

This is the end. Not reflecting and absorbing past cultures with an eye to the future. But judging and consuming past cultures with with a carnal now. There are some niceties to be gained in solely present preoccupations. Yet, no Buddha abounds in these selfish meditations. We are no longer the bodhisattvas, suspending enlightenment to save all beings. “We’re woke, because we know we’re ******” Then we type a symbol for “laugh out loud,” while our mouths stayed closed. We take a morning slug and drive off to work. The complexity of our controllers v. the simple fleeting pleasures. What can I do? Why should I bat an eye at the way the world works?

Neutral lamb beneath the orbit
Takes in multicultural ****
Opinions clothed in a hurry
As we seal the need to worry
Meanwhile, the seconds gallop
Each one faster than its former
Ethereal beauty wonders on
Ponders on why they can't see
Juices that flow within, without

You know it's never fun
To wine and dine alone

He fingerprints my melanin skin
I bleed lust, i trust
Alien tongue playing a seductive touch on my **** lips,
Dropping my guard, gulping every ******..
Hard pacing in and out of me, i let him an inch closer to my heart,
As i pick a scent of city life on his chest,
His skin so smooth it mends my dents and cracks, my perfect match,
My soul dances in the light with the freedom of a mad man,
Dead brain this sweet pain, whispers pleasure......
I chose him and left all behind
The lights of the city held a pride
Which i would bask in beside him

See..... I lost me
Imbeko packed and left me lonely,
Getting high in dark spaces of the street lights,
Yelling die, this was not living was just trying to survive
Gutter life, suffer i, had to sell my body away,
Stained my soul, my conscience couldn't stay,
Mr urban see had hit the cherry got his share of merry and walked away,
Finally unmasking the veil of deceit, i saw the true colours,
But i couldnt go back to ravaged community of round mud houses,
Pride was the bouncer that kept me inside,
Had to die here and i did

But no i am not that young woman
Didn't let go of this culture
Content with these village ethics, nature's majestics,
Completely free from these misguided pledges
I would rather fetch water on earth's edges,
Why try mold into world classes, african being is rare,
And i am that her, who brushes my black hair with pride,
You.. yes you, your african hair is nice,
I rap myself in colours of native love,
Catching the cries of early *****,
Not waking up with a bunch of different strangers in my bed,
You might think i am misguided, i am not driven by philosophers of english communities
In which the music is within us.... In the untamed soils of mother africa

So i keep his fingerprints away from my beautiful skin
Cause i never wanna be where she has been

where is my indian
is it in the way i don't use my palms as a medium to transport rice into the back of my mouth
is it in the way my face turns gloomy at the sight of spice and curry
is it in my skin color that isn't as brown as you need it to be
is it in my eyebrows which aren't as bushy as per your requirements

is it in the way my tongue twists awkwardly as i say happy diwali
is it in the way amma is the most fluent piece of tamil i speak
is it in the way i didn't know how to recite the words at my grandpas funeral
is it in the way i cannot, for the life of me, name you another tamil movie besides chandramukhi?

or

is it in the religious classes i took up until age 12
is it in the ramayana epic that i learnt, age 8
is it in the sanskrit bhajans i was made to sing, not knowing what they meant, age 10
is it in knowing that ganesh is the remover of obstacles,
brahma, vishnu, shiva - the creator, the preserver, the destroyer

is it in the eyeliner drawing a bindi in between my eyes when i
head to the temple, to present myself as indian

where is my indian
is it on a checklist, is there a passing mark?
where is my indian
please tell me,
because i am tired of feeling like a foreigner in my own skin

"How are you today"
"Good, and you?"
"Good, a bit chilly out"
"Ya, at least the sky's blue"
"Well, how can I help?"
"Oh, I'm just looking around."
"If they don't fit, we carry belts."
"I think I'll just take the gown."
"That'll be twenty two, thirty five"
"Can I just swipe my card?"
"Sure, your ID looks nice."
"Thanks don't get too bored."

Rehearsed conversations
Fitted like a mold
Commodity interactions
Just doing what you've been told.