Kill the idea that naivety is an unforgivable flaw but cynicism is just wisdom, murder it, chop it up and serve it for dinner, I don’t care, just end this bullshit idea that it’s better to hate than to love and better to rot in miserable bitter resignation than to hope for the best.
Anti-Mom: You shouldn’t not-complain because there’re always people who have it better.
Anti-Mom: It’s okay if you don’t finish your plate because you’re only human and the vast majority of food waste comes from corporations and government organizations throwing it away, and not households.
Anti-Dad: As long as you live under my roof, we will communicate and negotiate the terms and rules together to make it the most pleasant living experience for the both of us.
“For months after my assault, I had to stop myself before saying (what seemed accurate at the time), ‘I was murdered in France last summer’”
—-Susan J. Brison, Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self, xii
“I am not the same person who set off, singing, on that sunny Fourth of July in the French countryside. I left her in a rocky creek bed at the bottom of a ravine. I had to in order to survive.”
—ibid, 21
Lately,
I’ve been waking up
and putting on claws and fangs
and calling it survival,
not war.
At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself,
survival not war
survival not war
survival not war.