Dogshit

Here I am a 29-year-old, microbiologist, wanted for abuse by the whole universe.  As predictable as it is, things go from bad to worse.  A simple action of paying a bill online, just a few minutes, a few clicks, and electronic digits that represent real money, my account, my financial worth, transfer from one column to another, and it is paid, futuristic and unreal.  Except the incision cut into my eyelids, my brain, my meninges, my hope, my fears, when the numbers were not what I expected.  I suppose it is okay for banks to misestimate taxes so the word most ugly, horrific, and frightening appears...shortage.  I tried not to cry at work or in the bank, on the phone with the town tax assessor.  I don't understand.  I wanted to call up my real estate agent, my mortgage agent, my husband, and run them all over with the damned SUV he made me buy, which was a supreme fuck-up on my part.  Dogshit, gas attack, grave wisdom, you name, this shit blows.  That is about as poetic as I can be about that.

I am scared to death and angry, angry enough to think I could actually smash his drunken face in with a brick if he were in my presence.  It wouldn't matter if the brick wasn't, I'd go look for it.  I guess I'm supposed to be graceful about it all.  I am supposed to accept it, be optimistic, dig in, cut the fat, hope for the best.  I am supposed to say things like "oooh I made a mistake, but it will eventually work out for the best."  It probably won't.  I will probably crash and burn, while he rises from my ashes, the lucky phoenix he is.  From childhood, they feed us stories that we gladly swallow...hard working Americans, making their own, triumphing oe'r evil and the corporate world.  But it ain't true.  It's Americans burnt to black bits, bloody, blistered, aching, smashed down to the concrete pavement, slaves of capitalism, slaves of human desire, no Jesus in ruddy robes or angels in sack cloth, just a pile of steaming DOGSHIT.

My son pulled a new toy out of the plastic packaging...no tools, nothing, just figured it out.  He did not manage to detach one of those wires that holds the toy in it's shiny cellophane for display, but ultimately he did alright.  His father cut his hand to ribbons, half a pint of blood puddling on the living room hardwood in front of a leather chair, the steak knife no match for that plastic wire -- my son, a miracle that came from such primordial filth and dogshit.  I wish I hadn't drown in that pool of blood, that choked my mucous membranes and stiffled my breath.  I wish he had.  Some days, I wish he still would...and maybe that's why I'm still stepping in and scrapping from my shoe this...