Conquered

Looking at the results of the election my mind saw a picture of a nation in submission.

Ironically, I’d just finished a long trip to a farmland while having a long conversation about how I’d been fighting my entire life with no clue of how it would end. In deep thought, I told my friend why I preferred being left alone. All my life I’d had white friends and black friends and sadly would often have flashbacks of my mother never teaching me about racism. While leaving the former territory of Dr. King once again I’d hit a brick wall when it came to social issues. Vowing to be a peacemaker I’d left the military convinced that I would never have to pick up a gun again. Let me remind you that all my life I’ve had to live in a jungle. Fighting to escape, I’d come to realize that even while eating there was no escape. In this state of mind, my dad gave me a box of food before my trip and I’d come to learn that even while working to the bone I still needed to stay hungry. In the middle of the night I’d come across some civil rights leader’s videos and vocal African American leaders from back in the day; Dr. King and Malcom X. In a casual conversation with my sister after leaving King’s hometown I couldn’t help but notice that my ethnicity was still angry. They felt as though they were still living in the 60s fighting to vote. Feeling the weight of the world, my sister informed me that she preferred X’s philosophy over King’s. I’d heard talk like this my entire life. Stripped bare naked in the jungle I found myself alone again. No way out. The more I read, the more I felt separated in a fight with a world that maybe doesn’t want peace. In a country that maybe is blinded by their own hatred, their own selfish interests. Blinded by their own ego, willing to devour everything and everyone to satisfy a craving for more. After each historical trip I couldn’t help but see a still divided nation. Lonely Americans navigating a world owned and ruled by socialist and communist. In the distance I couldn’t help but notice a man kneeling at the feet of a woman and on the other corner I saw religious people still fighting. Sitting in a room fearful of a blue wave I couldn’t help but have a flashback of my mother sitting in her hospital bed alone waiting for me to take her home. Sadly, she’d been medicated into a condition that we all must face someday. Never to see her again on earth I dreaded the visions of an orphan kneeling at an altar waiting for Jesus to come and save him. At that moment I’d snapped. In a field of weed smokers, drug addicts and drunks, I could feel a beast inside of me eager to clean up a filthy world. Cleaning off my fist and putting a bookmark in the next chapter of my book I began to think about my tenth grade English teacher. Her voice echoed in my head, “In this world, you will either think optimistically or pessimistically.” This fight that I’d been battling with was not about politics or who was running the country. The fight wasn’t even about how much money there was to spend. In the end I had to figure out how I perceived the world. The truth is that in every battle all I’ve really ever wanted was peace and no one would ever see things from my point of view but me. All my life I’d saw unhappy people fighting their own demons. At age 44, everyday I had a decision to make. I could surrender to their way of living or keep building a tower with calloused hands never to surrender. Never to be conquered.

Soaking in my mother’s last words to never give up. I couldn’t help but see my entire family fighting to get out of a jungle. Bruised and beaten, standing on the edge of the world looking down in space I had nothing to lose so I fought to the death only to face a God of peace. A force sitting at the end of the universe telling me that with him guiding me that it was a win-win situation. The light at the end of the tunnel and as the weak kneeled, I stood tall facing the next beast never to surrender, never to be conquered and as the world surrendered I kept fighting. As the world was conquered, in the end I saw myself standing on top of it holding the head of the evil beast. Holding the head of the devil. With God, I won. In the end I began independent and ended as an independent.

The Race

 It’s like running for office…

It’s like running a marathon…

Is it life?

When you’re young you’re filled with energy.

Hormones raging.

When you’re old you’re a bit weak.

Tired, searching for some meaning to keep going as you witness loved ones fading into the next life.

You can feel the aches and pains as you reminisce about the past and what you should be or used to be.

Tired and weary, you don’t know when it could end.

At times it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and it can feel like everyone is watching but you have to keep pushing.

Even in a new age the old school still has to keep the pace just to show the new school that it can be done.

Last lap, breathe, focus, stay in stride.

Keep running to the finish line.

I guess that’s why they call it “The Race.”

Record time.

The America Equation

To comprehend this equation first we must understand that there are a number of sides to the problem. First let’s go to the foundation which evolves to create a balanced equilibrium expanding the square footage from all sides. Some physicists believe in a God particle meaning that something divine governs all living matter. Some physicists believe that everything happens by chance and that each decision creates a string of possibilities. Now let’s get to this amazing equation called America. The natives lost everything that resulted in settlements on their war riddled territories. Another group of people were taken from their land, forced to work, they were raped, tortured, beaten into submission while the people in charge made huge gains and profits off of their cheap slave labor. In the meantime large amounts of people migrated fleeing their native countries in search of a better living standard. Til this day people are risking everything to get to America. Headed into another election the place once known as turtle Island to the natives, the place washed in the blood of so many people, one might wonder if the equation has finally reached its equilibrium or tipping point. It’s a wild problem that so many have died trying to solve. A time in history when the dreams from the past create branches of reality that shape a future where only gravity holds the secret. A time when bombs once dropped by survivors fighting the world’s problems still sit in the fields where they exploded. No one thought this to be possible but the people learned how to destroy themselves with the same particles that made them. The only answer to this equation is embedded in a name outside of the walls of oppression, a force that somehow gives normal people the ability to join hands and fight for the freedom to be unified, all as the land nurtures itself with the bodies of those passing by, running from a past filled with unfortunate memories migrating for opportunity. Flowers growing in fields once drowned in blood. To conclude, there really is no fathomable solution to so many issues trickling in from the past but one key multiple to balance and calm the storm is unity. After all, it does say “United” in the name, so in the end one might ask, how does this happen with so many endless possibilities and schools of thought? What solution do you have to a problem that’s rooted in the source of power providing unlimited access to intellectual thoughts owned by delusions that in reality can only be passed down to the next generation. The math to this problem went from a cotton field to a cotton gin which came from minds now riddled in regulation and debt. Who are the people in we the people? Who are the natives who stood in tribes fighting for their territory? Who are the people voicing changes to civility but most of all how will the offspring of these people finally resolve their differences and submit to peace?

To sum this solution to the American Equation up seems impossible, but to those joining hands in unity there is a field of endless possibilities.

Their dream is something that they have the power to reach for while getting others to believe that there is a logical answer in the imagination of so many trying to solve “The American Equation.” 

The Supreme Beings

 “Susan, why do you feel?” Darnell kept asking his subject over and over again.

“I said, why do you feel?” He said again noticing her straightening up.

“I don’t know, Sir,” at this moment Susan began to cry.

“Look at you, you are a disgrace. My robots have far exceeded your quota.” 

“I have a question Sir,” Susan replied.

“What?” 

Darnell got in her face nose to nose.

“What is your question?”

“Does electricity have a limit?” Susan said.

“In time, everything has an end and everything has a beginning. Where are you going with this?”

Susan pointed to one of his robots running low on energy.

“Is electricity infinite, Sir?” Susan said, as she noticed Darnell backing away slowly.

“That thing has no emotions, it has no feelings, and it can’t do anything without a human mind controlling it by putting in commands. If you get rid of me and my team you will find this out the hard way. That thing is going to suck up so much energy that it’s going to drain all of our resources. Now I need you to make a decision. It’s either us or them,” Susan said as the robot fell to the ground needing a recharge.

Darnell couldn’t believe her logic but she had a point. In his push to save money by using AI he did recall the lake going dry and the farm land now overrun with data centers. 

“Have you noticed the storms and strange weather patterns, Sir?”Susan said.

“That is your hypothesis, where is your proof?” Darnell replied.

“Sir, artificial intelligence will eventually drain reality, it rust and has waste just like everything else. Our eyes are going numb without the weight of an old book. Our brains our going in circles because we’re losing our sense of purpose. It’s convenient but it’s making us all useless and lazy.”

“That’s not true,” Darnell said.

“Why does a dog crave meat even after he’s eaten dog food?”

“Because he’s an animal. A dog is an animal.”

“And we’re all humans, coded by a creator. That’s why I feel, Sir. Eventually, all of this artificial radiation is going to cause our cells and body chemistry to go out of wack.”

Darnell took Susan by the hand, “I’m sorry. You’re right. We’re all intellectually made. We feel, we bleed, we’re human. Supreme beings with the power to shape our own destiny.”

He then took his investments and slashed the AI budget and called everyone back to work. While soaking in all of the nature and natural feeling of human life back on the work room floor he felt alive again. He felt human.

Supreme beings.

Mr. Owl

 After a long night watching the moon, Mr. Owl decided to sit in his room by the fireplace and drink tea. It was fall now and the weather was cooler. He’d sat on his tree branch for hours watching the kids trick or treating playing in the freshly fallen autumn leaves. Relaxing by the fireplace he figured maybe it was time to live a simple life. His days of dreaming about flying to the moon were over. It was now time to watch the next generation do the things that he’d once dreamed of doing.

Mr. Owl

The Spider in the Sink

 I had a conversation with an older man that probably didn’t like me.

I spoke to a woman that probably hated my guts.

After the conversations I saw a spider in the sink.

Frustrated, I thought about killing the spider.

Ironically, I heard a voice in my head.

“Where are the gnats?” the voice said.

After hearing the voice, I noticed that the spider left his spot in the sink. He or she got rid of the gnats for me.

Throughout the entire situation the spider said nothing, it just did what it was made to do, so I let him live.

He or she did me a favor.

The Spider in the sink.

The Scent of a Woman

In a combat zone I lost one of my five senses and I spent fourteen years alone. I lost my sense of smell and I hadn’t been in the presence of a female for 14 long years. 

It was a cold night, bitterness filled my drafty room as the furnace kicked on. Looking through my second floor window I noticed my neighbors arguing, soon after I heard my doorbell ring. It was her.

“Why are you here?” I said, noticing something strange happening to my nose.

I could smell her but nothing else.

“I’ve been watching you do your yard,” she said.

At this moment I’d become speechless as she began to take her clothes off.

This was my neighbor and I knew something was wrong so I did the right thing and I backed away.

“I want to feel good,” she said, rubbing up against me. At this moment I couldn’t help but notice her husband out of the corner of my eye. 

As he grabbed her they continued arguing on my property so I kindly told them to go and closed the door.

Standing on the other side of the door I felt my heart beating fast. It was like being put next to a magnet, the attraction was there but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t allow myself to be forced upon by another man’s wife. My thoughts were racing. My body wanted what she had to offer but morally it would have destroyed me. Tempted, I came to understand the laws of attraction, I used the built up energy to finish building my shed only to be haunted by the scent of a woman. I survived one battle, but how many more were coming before I fell deep into temptation.

The Scent of a Woman