Fireworks.

     I'm from the country. Now I live in the city. It's weird. I'm a country girl. If need be, I'll fight a bear at a moments notice but I cannot deal with crowds. The city is filled with crowds. I won't fight a crowd. They scare me. Spiders, ticks, hicks, trees, fleas, rising rivers and falling economies will not be able to scare me away. However, a mob trying to attain the newest assassin video game will have me running for my life.  Why are we this way?
      Turmoil, strife, crime, grime, terror, fear, gunshots, hopelessness, jail time, neglect, lovelessness. paralysis, poverty, racism, what do you expect from us, from them, from us? I've been held up at gun point, knife point and, oddly enough, pipe point. And did I ever back down? Oh, hell yeah! You don't argue with a 45. I wish I didn't know what a 45 was.
      I wish I didn't know what most of what I just said was. I wish I was naive. I wish I was a dumbass. But I'm smarter now because of what I've been exposed to. I'm a country girl who moved to the city. And if I know anything I know this: We can do so much better for each other. It's easy to explain away the reasons why poverty exists, but try sitting in the bar next to someone who just lost their job and explain it to them. Do you have the guts and ability to explain to them why they can't feed their kids? Maybe it's cause they're drinking. But why are they drinking?
     Try to explain why their lesbian daughter can't get married because despite this man's South Philly upbringing that taught him hate for fags and dykes, for Godsakes he loves his daughter and she loves her girlfriend and they can't get married and that's hideous. His daughter cannot be married because of hate. Love cannot be because of hate. It doesn't make sense.
      There's a whole lot of things we don't talk about. Us middle-class. We have to start talking. Otherwise we will disintegrate. We will lose everything our parents and grandparents have taught us. We will lose everything our grandparents died for. And yes, yes indeed, with the most sorrow and bravery I can muster from my heart, both my grandfathers died for something bigger than bigotry. They died for liberty, but the most important thing is....they lived for love. I only really knew one of them, but I know in my heart what they both lived for, and it was for the people they loved.
      So here we are, and we don't know what to do. At least I don't. I don't want to be a part of a bandwagon that I wouldn't run face first into. I don't feel that there's anything out there for me right now. I don't feel that there's anyone who voices a similar opinion or walks the same path as me, there's no one I feel I can truly believe in. So let's talk. Let's share and be honest with each other, else, I don't know what to do.