Crapitali$m

“Isnt this just heaven?” asked the lady pushing the stroller through the middle of the farmers market,
as she looked at all the affluent well-dressed white people around her,
& smiled in the lambent sunlight

The night before, the police swept away
all the homeless people who had built
a peaceful tent city beneath the overpass
over the course of the preceding weeks,
setting them back, once again, to zero;
perpetuating the harassment of the indigent at which they’ve grown adept, at the behest of the real thieves & criminals

Capitalism, the worlds cheesiest religion,
sells us things we dont need,
tries every dirty, sly trick to squeeze more money out of us,
steals the world’s resources & sells them
back to the people (sometimes even at a discount!),
constantly breaks up community, continually renews
things that were just fine, tears down houses
that could have stood,
values profit over public welfare,
builds fences & little boxes around everything
in a universe where all is connected

–Tony LongShanks LeTigre

The Ticking Bomb

For my whole life, my dad was the strongest, smartest man I ever knew. He stood at an average height of 5’8″ and his hair is pin straight and thin , except for the bald, shiny spot at the top of his aging head. He wore vibrant, multicolored button down dress shirts, accompanied with old tattered navy blue jeans and steel-toed boots everyday. I can still hear his deep, scratchy voice as he walks in the room and says, “Mac, I’m home!” My dad never cried except at my grandfather’s funeral, where I promised him I would never lay a hand on a cigarette for as long as I live. His words are forever embedded in my mind like a megaphone blaring in an ear each time temptation is around me. He started working at the age of nine as a paperboy in Knoxville, Tennessee and since that day, never stopped.

He was fine. He told me that when his frail body limped up the stairs to his queen size bed. He walked at a slow pace, than descended into the bed like his limbs had decided to all break at once. That was the last time I saw my dad as my dad.

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The Lonely Apparition

Once upon a time. 

There lived a man who wanted to find someone to love. 

He kept waiting, and anticipating . 

It never happened. 

 The man eventually died of a broken heart. 

A year later, a strange occurrence took place:

A young man and woman approached the scene where the man had died. 

All of a sudden, it got deathly quiet. 

Then a male figure formed in a pale, white, ghostly mist. 

The ghost appeared to be someone that the woman had rejected from somewhere back in time. 

So, with a sorrowful moan, and the face of rejection, he stared at the woman. 

Suddenly,

he vanished. 

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