So what now?
the lonely hurt is so heavy like a pack of wild dogs on the shoulder thigh gut of an otherwise happy and free grazing creature that is now crashing down down down into the dusty savanna ground
i can’t stop the evil
and i’m tired
and i’m lonely
and i’m sick of this stressful and pointless dayjob

how to proceed?
you can’t let the give-up win
but
so many years of failing wear one down

the hurt never leaves
it just hides or it doesn’t
it is worse when it hides; it hurts more when it doesn’t hide
this tiresome battle
this boring struggle
while real problems panhandle and scold me i’m privileged
so tired by the noises everywhere
thought to say something somewhere
but every phrase i found a lie
somehow off
not quite fair
so tiring

John Stewart singer songwriter from California
where are you?
these alliances and allegiances
us smushed together in our sheep fold
my greatgrandfather kept a few livestock so the old sheephound would have something to do
i’ve never worked from 5AM to nightfall on the farm
i’ve never forgiven the British everything after they saved the world from Hitler in my eyes
i’ve never been a barber with a limp in a drydust town
where racism’s still a given
there’s a spitoon in every room and in the back we gamble, drink and argue politics and religion
who where these people?
i’ll never find them
my last grandparent is now dead
my parents look old
i am not 25 anymore
it makes no sense
maybe if i had kids
i’d see the continuity
the way it all flows from generation to the next
and it would seem reasonable and clear
although i doubt it
anyway, who can handle the stress of having kids?
the world’s so dangerous
every moment you feel sick with worry
the commingling of responsibility and affection confuse your morality
you’d do anything for a few
while the many fall by the wayside, crushed by the rolling stone
that killed some badguy in Red Sonja
that you watched over and over again with Jason Amen
that year you were friends — the one after he stopped beating you up and before he disappeared into adulthood, his arm around some girl and a cigarette between them
friends, i can’t beat the evil
maybe together we can
but i’m worried we won’t