Dear World, P.S.

I still hate you.

You cause so much pain, even for those who care about you.


One of my friends told me of psychology experiment she had done in school in which a pair of voles were separated for 14 days and given access to alcohol. Voles mate for life and are normally separated from their partner for only minutes at a time.
14 days must have been an eternity. The experiment was to see how the voles would respond to their isolated situation and the availability of alcohol.
They took it.

After 14 days when they were reunited,
they were individually scrambled and completely dysfunctional together.
I don't know what was gained from the experiment.

World,
what horrible experiment are you conducting with us,
... are we conducting on ourselves?



This drunkenness began in another tavern

I want out of this box.







How are we supposed to help each other when we are isolated voles?


I am sorry.
I have learned to live well in confinement.
I thought it was the best way to live. I practiced.
It is good, but it is not all.
It will be hard to learn otherwise, but I don't want to stay dysfunctional.
I have made much progress.
Help me break out of this prison for drunks.

...screamed the dust speck

Edited from 3.07.07, Notebook 2.12.07
Abridged and Censored version

Some thoughts considered
and transcribed immediately after returning to my dorm from listening to some of a presentation about nonviolent protest in Palestine.


I was just thinking about how I have spent a large amount of my life waking up into a world in which I've lost my best friend, and feel helpless to regain them. I can only wait and do my best, but there are no guarantees and sometimes my best is not good enough.

I hate it.

This is nothing new, nothing different,
nothing worse than anyone else in the world has experienced.

My friends have never been killed in wars...

Some people spend each day wondering whether the family that leaves home in the morning will ever return,

and when they don't return, wondering if they're alive and if there is anything to be done.

Some peoples' friends are really dead. Many are more alone than I.
but I still hate it. I hate it.

I stay here because I refuse to give up on the world.
My suffering has been insignificantly small in comparison,
but even it is too much for my idea of how this world could be.

Even here
where there is not war
there is too much loss
How can we live like this?

My consideration of how much of my life this has gone on for
...becomes a quiet rage.

I will fight this.
Oh, but how?

How can I love?
That's not the question. I do.
How
do I love in a way that can be understood? In a way that unites?


World,

I hate you for taking my friends every day for years.

I hate you for doing worse to others.


Others,

I love you for your endurance. Ours is the same fight.
We are all alone together, but that is not enough.

World, I hate this. I hate your systems and my helplessness.
I will fight this all my life.
By my loss, I am your enemy.