I think that umm, if you truly wanna
“Stop the Violence”
Uhh, you look at someone who’s violent,
you pick up a baseball bat,
and you beat his [BEEEEP]![1]

i can’t keep pretending
there’s something magnificent or
magic
in the way a new day begins
it happens every day
like marvel superhero movies
the scale of the collateral damage may vary
slightly
but if you’ve seen one
you’ve seen them all
each one feeds you your own shit in the same basic way
there’s no reason to get there early because you’re not missing anything
important and
the previews go on forever
anyway

i was getting away from it all
this morning
i saw a dog who limped
licking ants off the sidewalk
while his master held a plastic bag filled with his shit

making conversation with a neighbor
they were calculating website traffic,
trying to reach the demographic,
revising anthems on the fly,
reifying appreciation,
brainstorming new ways to try to make it seem like war isn’t fucking cool as hell
woop woop wamp wamp beep beep
(that’s the cops)[2]
some kind of shit

these guys
i swear
they were almost too perfect
been lost they souls, they just waitin on the fire[3]
they looked exactly like everyone i’ve
ever met
and i spent
the whole rest of the day trying to decide who

i should tell
                                                                                                      get the motherfucker on the phone
the phone[4]

and then
it was dusk
practically dark
i was speeding back
going as fast as i could
deer on the side of the road
calm
like idiots
i gripped the steering wheel
tight
foot hovering over the break
i wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend[5]
we’re out here
going as fast as we can, and
we’re not noticing you
we’re not paying attention
we’re trying to run into whatever we can
hit it hard and make it
explode
turn it from a solid into a mist
we like to make stuff into other stuff that it wasn’t before
because we’re bored
we’ll make you
dead
and we’ll be upset because of how much it costs to make our car look perfect
again
we won’t even bother to make up stories about why
we killed you
i wish you would step back from that ledge,                                                                               my friend[6]

and then
it ends the way it always ends
like my dad coming home so drunk he can barely see straight
he’s done it for so many years
night after night
it stops being surprising
you realize that worrying accomplishes                                 nothing
sure
he might need to use your rear bumper to help stop his truck, but
so what?
you still have to acknowledge the effort
appreciate
that he’s doing his best
that he hasn’t been defeated yet
that he’s going to get up tomorrow
on time like he always does
that he’s going to do it all again
there’s something to be said for consistency
even if consistency smashes your shit
right?
but i can’t imagine it in better terms
than naked, half awake, about to shave and go to work[7]
every day

you and me have
never been better than him
and we’ll never be better than we
are right now so
get the fuck up[8]
but

if i could give up dreaming that i could be
that i’m
the star of some lost, mythic test footage
some boundary-smashing, genre-obliterating pilot that
never got ordered to series by
narrow-minded suits and timid fuck-boi bean-counters
then      fuck;
wouldn’t it be some shit then?

now—obviously then the violence will stop.[9]

[1] KRS-One, unkown origin (sampled in Sean Price, “STFU Pt. 2”)

[2] Cam’ron, “Crunk Muzik”

[3] Pusha T, “Raid”

[4] Faith No More, “Motherfucker”

[5] Third Eye Blind, “Jumper”

[6] Ibid.

[7] Liz Phair, “Nashville”

[8] Pharaohe Monch, “Simon Says”

[9] KRS-One, unknown origin (sampled in Sean Price, “STFU Pt. 2”)