Intel War.

Your second life has in many ways become more interesting than your first. In any moment you can have any girl you want naked, you can pretend to be whoever you want, in whatever community you aspire to be a part of. In a moment you can buy whatever you desire without leaving the home or combing through market shelves. You can work from home, sell from home, find transportation, create art, all from the comfort of a desktop. 

Computers have brought a technological revolution, there is now doubt, but for infrastructures, secret documents and private information to be so freely passed around and stored, make no mistake, this revolution could be crippled by Contras. In less than a generation we have plugged ourselves in, put everything at stake, for an alternate reality. A smokescreen.

I remember all too well how devastated I was when my first laptop melted down. All of my music, writings, pictures, everything I worked so hard on, gone without warning. Not only did I lose my documents forever, but I lost an expensive machine, one hard to replace. I felt cut off from society in so many ways until I bought a new computer, for the price of a low-end used car. A fragile piece of plastic, filled with manipulated sands and tiny slivers of weak materials, all carefully fused together to project a false reality and sense of comfort or power. 

Last night at the pub I discussed how "I could not imagine college without the internet", and today I woke up understanding how most people in first world countries, could not imagine life without the internet. The notion is somewhat terrifying.

As a society we are in a cyber war. The powers that be understand how empowering the internet can be from an informational perspective, and it seems they do anything in their power to give credit to horrible articles posted by borderline illiterate writers. In other countries, the internet is sparking revolutions and sparking free thought, but not in America, at least not on as large of a scale. Half of the material on major network sites like CNN are just quick disinformation blurbs with poor editing and worse reasoning, and unfortunately FOX and the likes have managed through their age to establish credibility. The middle aged are using the internet as a fast way to ruin their marriages, and young adults for the most part are finding themselves at the pinnacle of entertainment via the wondrous net. Countless, pointless hours on Candy Crush or Farmville, Facebook or other fruitless software. But it is the youth that is truly at risk. I worked for a while at a local YMCA after-school program, and currently work in a restaurant, and see what large parts of this next generation is becoming...mush.

The kids I tried to mentor didn't want to go on the bike path, they didn't want to play basketball or ping-pong, they didn't want to do anything physical. We had X-box's, Playstations, Wii, Nintendo 64, and about any other console you could think of...but they didn't want to enjoy the laziness of social gaming with others. The kids sat by themselves, ignoring any attempt I made to speak with them about life, their future, school, their teachers, anything attached to reality. I'll never forget the strange feeling of seeing young kids so plugged in to personal devices, bright screens never further than a foot from their faces.

Apologists can say "kids will be kids" or "they will grow out of it", and to them I say, you are just as ignorant of reality as these mindless children. This tech is new in the scope of things, I'm still considered young at twenty-eight, and the internet wasn't widely accessible until I was in my early teens. I experienced a real childhood, I met kids from the neighborhood, played games, rode bikes, broke things, caused trouble, played in the woods, partook in all the typical American adolescent endeavors. These kids aren't going to grow out of this phase, they have grown into it.

I judge my peers who play video games for countless hours, it's a waste of time in this short-lived life, and while you may have a "top-100 kill count" on your favorite device, you have actually produced nothing real in the physical, just bragging rights to who is best at diverting  attention from real problems. This gaming culture is so wide, that isn't considered nerdy anymore, grown men who do nothing but game are getting laid, in fact, they are a majority of males in their mid-twenties to thirties at this point.

There is a war taking place for the human mind, an assault on all fronts, sensory overload for most us. We are unable to produce thoughts, find words or obtain information, because we rely so heavily on videos to instruct us, Google to guide us, and Wikipedia to tell us. Imagine if our "laptop" shut down for the first time. An EMP, perhaps a real attack from one of the international enemies our Government has created since we've been sleeping, out in reality, with real guns, plans, economic strife, and political philosophy. We have been warned over and over by top ranking officials about how weak our infrastructure is, how fragile our power grid.

There is a large, worthless population in the United States, they don't formulate their own opinions, they are oblivious to what is going on around them, they are empathetic, they are pathetic. We have an obesity outbreak unseen in human History. It isn't genetic, it hasn't been a part of our DNA for thousands of years of existence. There are people who can't even wipe their own asses, let alone survive without the grid. Building a fire, hunting, building shelter, any of the skills needed to survive out in the real world of nature, are known by few. A lot of Americans would rather die than try to survive, out of shear laziness.

Some of us are on the front-lines of existence, learning Historical truths we were lied to about in school, staying up to date instantaneously on world events, being aware of our surroundings like never before. We are learning how to fix engines, build fires in multiple variations, create food, decipher what we can and can't eat. We are learning how to fight, how to assemble weapons, how make things, how to share. We are paying attention to which legislators are passing which bills, what these bills mean, how they affect us. We are using the internet to empower us, as it should, and how to survive without it if we must. 

In your second life you are constantly spied on, you voluntarily give up all of your privacy without any cares. Your credit, bank accounts, social security numbers are all floating somewhere; waiting to be plucked by any criminal with knowledge of computers. You willingly profile yourself on social media, you tell everyone where you are and who with, your phone and random applications ask if they can access your location and you agree. Youtube wants to link to Facebook and Twitter, with your email and Netflix. The NSA knows who you are, where you are, who you speak to, what you texted, what music you listen to, what your political ideologies are, what videos you watch, what you've learned, what you believe, and who you aspire to be. This kind of intel gathering makes tyrants and generals alike salivate. 

A few years ago, talking about domestic spying made you a "conspiracy theorist", doesn't matter how deep you dug into the facts, how well you understood the laws, how the government spelled out exactly what it was going to do. It didn't matter that protesters were constantly photographed and filmed for facial recognition databases by the police, didn't matter that more and more cameras appeared above traffic lights and on street corners without public consent. It's been the elephant in the room for some of us since The Patriot Act arrived during Bush's reign. We knew exactly what would happen. Wartime surveillance, wartime restrictions on personal freedom. They told us then, these things would be implemented, because we were at war. Our President told us the war could be one-hundred years long, or for their rest of our lives. But still, just speaking about these laws meant you were steeped in conspiracy, or potentially had a mental illness, or potentially were going off the deep end, or potentially a domestic terrorist...just for listening and remembering what you were told.

Enter Edward Snowden. Suddenly the claims of many become legitimate, years after programs were already implemented, and the ignorant continued to play ignorant. "We didn't know". Snowden didn't tell "We The People" anything dangerous, he told us we have no privacy, that we are constantly monitored by the NSA and CIA, he only told us what The Patriot Act already told those who read it, the difference now is media outlets decided to report on Snowden. Oddly enough it was print journalism (a business that is dying) which broke the story. Not our worthless 24 hour news stations, or their illiterate bloggers, that make livings from disinformation or no information. But it makes sense doesn't it? That the historically most honest form of media is dying during the War on Terror, during a war that has held the notion of peace on Earth hostage.

Our Government didn't come forward and have a discussion with America after the media finally did it's job and reported news, they hunted Snowden, called him a traitor and told any country that harbored him it would strain relations with the U.S. The government once again did the wrong thing, like an abusive boyfriend who beats you then says he loves you, right before a stiff right-cross. Our government constantly reminds us they are here to protect us, and then they smack us in the mouth. Occupy Wall Street got disciplined pretty well, the backhand of suppressed speech. 

Bradley Manning released documents about the War in Iraq, and is still imprisoned indefinitely, one can assume, he's been beaten and tortured by some of his captors. Manning, like Snowden, believed he was doing the right thing, informing the American public about the wrongs of it's government. In order for a Democracy to operate properly, should it not be informed?

Manning, has been, like Snowden, seen as a traitor.  A young life IS over because he released a video entitled "Collateral Murder". The video shows the true face of our War in Iraq, or war in general. Innocents being killed by air-fire, bodies desecrated by tanks. This isn't new. Once upon a time when television news mattered, reporters were on the ground in Vietnam, and viewers got to witness what war looked like, they didn't like it, and mass protests ensued. Since then, the government has never made the mistake of letting the true face of war be televised. 

To the average American, they only believe what they see, once again, they are fucking lazy, and rely heavily on video, possibly the easiest medium to contort truth through. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis haven't died out of the blue since 2004, it's been brutal. Bush and company sold us the war, told us we had to defeat terrorists, that we had to stop them from getting weapons of mass destruction, that Hussein was direct threat, but then they hid the truth, and managed to even hide a war. The private contractors, the Halliburton profits, the civilians death toll, the lack of a real military strategy, goal, or plan after the invasion. Just like the massive surveillance of American citizens, it was all hidden. Maybe on Facebook or Twitter these actions were reprimanded, in our second life, but in reality...there has been no accountability these traitorous deceptions. 

Snowden and Manning didn't give up locations or war strategy, they didn't release highly classified materials, they tried to tell us what is really happening in these wars and surveillance programs we are paying for, we are part of them, we are executioners and participants in the death of freedom we once had, freedom of privacy. Manning, once again was a Private, he didn't have access to much in regards to ground-breaking information, he's as low as you can get on the wire. Our government and President told us these were serious breaches of National Security, and vilified men moved by their moral code, men who only showed loyalty to their countrymen. They sacrificed themselves just to whisper truth in the ear of a Nation where truth is being stamped out. Get back to your second life America, we have reality under control. Plug back in, It's for your own good.

It's hard to believe anything we are told anymore, in the real or second life. That's the nature of war. Soldiers don't know if they are good or bad, or what side of History they will fall on. Anonymous was championed by many for uncovering truths and battling corporate entities around the world in their second lives, and the thirteen members who have been arrested will be punished no doubt to the full extent of the law in their first lives. Our Global War on Terror has turned inside out, or maybe it's just finally exposed what it really is, a war with ourselves, a war with our own identity. A war between our first and second lives.

Steam of Unconsciousness.

Beyond the annoyances of flies, and the constant buzzing of their LCD wings, little motors turning and sparking silicone chips force fed into belly of the fat-man, pissing all over the wretched masses of confusion and arguments, there is the wink of a goddess, or the beat of a snare, striking the right tone at the right moment for the skies to light ablaze and for fireflies to dance, fluttering long enough to breed again and meet the barrel of a mischievous kid's plastic ball bat.

Splattered glow crashes into a dull mass, igniting all that is life before it sprays into something bright and wonderful for a dragging moment, before it's wiped away for the next Sun to be consumed. 

Beyond the wind and the cries of triumph, and the Goddamned flies, where carcasses piled have been ground into dirt, colliding with mercury and rusted into iron, there is the perfection of silence.

What's eternal turns into a second, tears and scream are drowned by the beauty of reality, and there we die, or live, or sleep, wandering or travelling, in wonderment of what is beyond books or theory. 

8AM, take a shower, ride into the day, divine as a grain of sand, read the paper, press the gas, rush to tomorrow. Bathe in the glory, the paper of excellence, and the comfort of society's breast. Here you will be found and will be lost, depositing and quarreling, bickering and budgeting, judging peers and celebrating the simplest things you have conquered. Somewhere a lush is congratulating and an angel is crying, as another who has fallen knocks on your door.

Conquer the world from the inside of your four-door, and become enraged from the rudeness of a random nobody, who may die tomorrow as you wished, for changing lanes at the most inopportune time. Look for the emotion that makes you feel alive, and if you conquer it you may be the only person on Earth who has settled down and taken the bank, insured your mediocrity with a few cheap laughs and a cardboard box holding a fiberglass tomb. 

Twenty-something. Twenty something cigarettes, twenty-something years, twenty something hours and twenty-something beers, whatever it takes to forget the hours wasted or the nights, a bashful grin to wash away the moment realized it could have been spent better, or said better, or better done with more time in bed, or less.

Chess, a part of the game, crumble like a hopeless pawn or hang on, long enough to trap yourself and become a sacrifice who held on too long. Bodies lay at the feet of the King and Queen, hoping they fell for the ultimate win, but the next game begins, and you are nothing more than a lost face in the crowd, mixed onto another square, though the King and Queen, on only two sides, in only two colors, stand again above you, and you take only one step forward, toeing the line of uncertainty.

Flip the board, let the pieces fall and roll, onto the floor and into the vent, a dog may wander by and sniff at your parts, then devour the King and piss on the rest. Laugh, stop playing, stop trying to play, Chess is redundant, and only the seasoned win. The world's most genius player could be buried by the street's pettiest groveler. Kid's can play, but shouldn't, as every move is another battle lost. Nobody wins, nobody loses. Life is a gift, dying is an honor, everything else is a broken heart, hard road, or blind guess, luck will strike and so will squalor. 

Outburst.

I want to pound my fist into the day until their is nothing left but screams and gasps, the terrified glare of "what if" and every bleeding moment that could have been a different reaction.

I want to kill your idols and make peers cry, rage beyond the destruction, reset it all, a pile of rubble and a glistened tear swallowed by dusted and broken blocks, of cement and brick, clearing out just in time for the morning coffee and the no pulp OJ.

Break the bones of annoyances, assault, assault, assault. I want to take the rudest mouth and fish hook it's cheek so everyone can see it. A certain way will be established, and it's mine, and it's right, and in all the arrogance and the glory, and the war, the dust will clear and things will be normal again.

After the bodies are cleaned.

Puzzle Prose.

Matter matters, time matters, space matters. Put under the microscope this can drive a man mad but what's the matter? Behind the confines and padded walls of safety, white picket fences, and the two and a half kids (unfortunately the youngest had been sawed in half at birth) there are things of importance and grandeur. School matters...of coarse the courses matter, and the courts and laws or lobbies for tests and honors of recognition, the regurgitation of the instructor matters, it shows great importance and legitimacy. When Mr. Reaper knocks lightly on your door, recitation of Shakespeare matters, and will resuscitate your life.

Looking down on another matters, because what is unequal is not square, and for the sake of the obvious, there doesn't need to be an explanation of why one man's fortune gives him more worth than another. Liters of blood and sagging flesh bags of bone in man, are measured by worth, unlike every other pile of slaughtered meat rotting on the shelves of the market. To flatter matters, and the Mad Hatter can make the daintiest daisy blush as the babbling spits from his flushed face, and brushed persona. Some green here, a little red there, and all is explained within itself simply by looking, for men in hat's don't need to explain themselves. Not because of assumptive imported ideas, transgressions to be or debates and haggling for the sake of haggling debate are covered beneath wool, or cotton, or style over everything, and this is not worth explaining, because early on, nobody will listen. 

It's boring, it's repetitive, questions answered with riddles are for children, and directions into labyrinths are moves made by pranksters with no sense or respect for time, and being at a certain place at a certain hour, when you are supposed to. That matters.

When you wake up in the morning and everything is seen behind a grid, you must go back to sleep. Layers of squared stitching, overlapped threads make sheets, and bindings, and paper...but they also make vision, all vision, wormholes and dimensions. The finite, fine and infinite matters, each string brought through the eye of a needles, twisted to some maker's liking and speared through the plain, again and again, until sowing grows into lumps and deformity, all to mend things apart, for no reason but to do. Time matters, and must be filled with something, because if not, it's just a waste, of time, and matter. 

Take something from this, take nothing, it doesn't matter to the wide-eyed traveler, so few things can be brought along upon departure, unfortunately for most, what is carried, held on to, and suspended above high waters doesn't matter, for more than a momentary flicker foolish assumptions, aspirations, to achieve, something, so it may all be spent relinquishing, in nothing. 

The Jester Courts.

I can hear myself grinning, the stretched lips of a careless fool with a heavy heart, caring too much for it all, and left on a paper airplane, malfunctioned in its first fold, for the wonder and amazement of the anticipated flight before the swirling joke of it's pathetic route softly lands on a cold wooden floor.

Paper-cuts and splinters, the best case scenario for a crash landing, pick it up and use some loft, and always keep this meal's fortune tossed or tucked somewhere where it can be found again, when the message really sticks to your gut.

Somewhere between shame and joy, let go of the wheel and let the pavement guide you through it's grit, but do not meet it head on, swerve and dance, loosen before the blow, and laugh the whole time.

Life is hard, loving is easy. You are the easiest thing I've found in this world, and the simplest wonder, and I'll wait patiently, fluttering like a clown in stupor, smearing my paint on every corner and rug, stumbling through every door on my way to you. God dammit...a life without you is blasphemy, and so yes, I'll curse and jump and lose myself in the moment, and know my idiot well, because I am a fool with good intent, and I will not relent, in the race to hold you smile.

Beneath The Rib's Eye and a Cake of Crab.

He left at a time in the morning where his drunken nights usually ended, a coffee and GPS system geared to swoon, a mentality shifting past morning traffic and an accomplishment made to find the mountains of Appalachia after a well rested night forced before the Sunset.

His car was too beaten, too rusted to drive, so he took the newer model of his girl's, who took a newer model of a man in her bed as he sped to the interview. He made it to the capitol where forefathers bled and wrote and read, the History of their origin turned a small town into a clustered metropolis.

His accomplishment of the day was making it to a small diner just off the shore, next to an Amish market, outside the heart of America, in the middle of nowhere. He ate two crab cakes and drank some more coffee as it helped him conquer a ten hour drive in only eight, he was ahead of his own time and his own interview. He found his destination as he sat amongst locals and listened in on their conversations, similar to ones he knew in Ohio, supplemented with real crab cakes instead of real bad catfish from his local lake.

She told him to be careful with the car, to not drive like an idiot, and he was in total control at one-hundred and twenty miles an hour through the mountains, as unmarked State Patrolmen paced beside him, making eye contact long enough to know not to bother, that he had somewhere he needed to be, and so did they.

He had a glimpse of the memorials, and sat on a bench waiting for another man to tell him what would happen with his life. The man asked him if he could "suit up" and made a poke at his newsboy cap, wrinkled slacks, and messy half-Windsor, tucked beneath a gray and grained vest.

"This isn't laid back Ohio, you need to dress accordingly" He said, expecting the young man to wear a suit in a car for fifteen hours. In ten short words he was delegated the job, the man just wanted to see if he was crazy enough to make the drive, so he presented the next challenge.

"Be in New York in three days, you can live on my couch if you need, and you will get paid."

He sped like a demon against traffic, and broke a dozen traffic laws in every school zone in his battle to escape D.C. He was told by a friend who lived in the city it was impossible to commute past four, and his interview ended at three-thirty.

"I'll be out of not just the city, but the state of Maryland by four" He thought to himself, as he knew he succeeded at everything else on that day, and somehow did, without arrest, though he knew he should have seen flashing lights hours before.

Just as illegally as he arrived in Maryland ahead of time he arrived back home, for a celebratory shot at the wood-laden steakhouse he worked for meager means, just after a mutual friend picked up his girl's car at a neutral lot, as she lay beside a new man.

"I made it" he exclaimed, and bragged about the adventure he would soon embark on to anyone who would listen, and his friends cheered his victory and wished him the best.

He went out that night, and every drink coupled another memory of each one dear he knew for years. They talked about where they'd been, where they would go, and passed the bong around one last time before the world changed. The celebration went long into the night, and every girl at the same dank bar wanted to hear about his trip, and the man he would become. He was on top of the world, for just one night, someone had won.

The young man woke up the next morning, and looked at his rust-bucket vehicle, then looked at his dog, and suddenly New York sounded dumb, and so did the couch, and the money. He didn't make the drive, he didn't return the calls. He thought to himself, "fuck you, and your suiting up" then he returned to his meager means and serving tables in the wooden steakhouse, but every time he bit into a bloody ribeye he thought about the taste of fresh crabcakes, and the place he stopped for a moment to reflect on it all, the place he only arrived with time to kill, and how through the steam of burnt coffee he felt at home, next to the Amish market, in who cares Maryland, population: A Handful.
 

So You Want to Die?

There was a time in life when you were in control of it all, you were a promising young man, with the world in front of you. You commanded reality, and joy seeped through your pours, at a time where poor didn't matter, because you guided reality and steered it to your liking. Poor and potential, only temporary words to kickstart greatness to be unveiled.

You were in the driver's seat of endless potential, the word itself was a badge of honor, measured by the lazy description of "so much" by those who witnessed the flame you carried. The embers of control boiled your blood, everything was such a rush, every minute a celebration of what YOU would become, the promise of YOU rushing to blossom. How stupid we are in our youth, when we know it all.

One day colors became obscure, and potential became a dream of the past, a reflection of the days of youth, everything was a blur, or an enslaved thought, to what could have been and what never will be, and in these days you clutched to thy endless knowledge, and thy fire, and THY sense of worth.

You learned about the world, and how dark it could be, how wrong things were, and how you would change it all. You always wanted to put the pain on your back, to carry the burden so others never felt the pressure of sorrow and madness. At times, you prayed to any God who would listen, to let you, and all your strength carry the load, too proud and too strong to succumb to weakness and the like.

And when you fall short of your dreams and aspirations, the fairy tale of a child phenom who shakes mankind and resets the scale of right and wrong, you want to die, to put the empty and worthless to rest.

"Well I should kill myself?" You'll say, because the world is bitter, steeped in commercialism and "Pop", and all of the people, wasting space and wasting minds will not listen, and will not bow, to the prodigy of you, and the greatness you bestow. The mediocrity will sicken you, because in the land of legends, people fall short, and you realize you live in times of dullards and pawns, those begging to be slaughtered without any knowledge of self or the power of the mind.

And whoa is you, and all of your misery, dealing with the terrible nights in heated rooms and endless feasts. And pity yourself for the horrible nights you spend smoking pot or drinking away all the pain. How merciless this God must be for you to suffer intellectual nights describing the mentality of man the the music that perks his ears. What a miserable existence it is, driving cars and chasing girls, sparking nuanced religion and debating the economic fundamentals only the rich knew how to spell only a few generations ago.

And whoa is you poor soul, in your ability to connect to a stranger across the world in the blink of an eye, and the terrible moment when you realize you can learn an alien culture overnight, or teach yourself a language, or learn thousands of years of History through your ancestors eyes, and find any answer at the tip of your tongue with the click of a mouse.

So die, and die you should, because the world will not recognize you as a great thinker, as a Shepard among the aimless flocks, same in the flesh but empty in their souls. Who could bear a life where you are the only one who is right about everything and has seen it all? Oh misery! Medicate and die, die slowly, kill the pain and let it all turn black in a romantic and perfect moment.

Race to the place where the is no God, because he has been dis-proven, abandon free will for the comfort of darkness and the infinite knowledge you hold. Oh you will live on, because your mind is so great and the world to small, you are infinite, and you know it, but nobody else does, so walk in eternity and perfection through the welcoming of a bullet, or a rope, or the thin slit up the arm's river.

What a terrible life, and it must end. The soldiers and the sick, helpless rape victims and the children without parents or food, who have spent every day thirsting or hungering for a day to live and not slowly die, how easy they have it, and how hypocritical they are to stay alive. Prisoners of war who hold on the face of a girl or the promise of a fresh breath, how wickedly they deserve to live and you to die. How harsh this life has been to you, modern bastard.

The stories and the adventure, it is all so fake, it's all so unreal, and all that exists is pain then death, so face it, because you know this is right, because you know it to be true.

And they will all weep, and wonder what could be done. Thy father will never forgive himself and thy brother will live the rest of life in misery. How they deserve to wonder for their rest of their being what they could have done to change thy path and to better thy world. The aching heart of a mother decades later, crying for days and days, she will get over your death, until she doesn't, ever.

How important you must be to ruin the lives of those who love you, because you are so un-worshiped, by them. By God, how they deserve the live every day in the pain you feel, and question themselves like you question yourself. God dammit they deserve it don't they? They deserve the burden you created and the mess you leave, God dammit they deserve it all, because they cared for you the whole time, even though you didn't care for yourself.

So die, and die you should, you selfish lump, because you are afraid of trying to live, and taking the chance to be what you are, and what you were always meant to. We all die soon enough, but don't take your time, because if you do, you might be convinced life isn't so bad after all.