How Long is a Lifetime?

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I don’t think I want to do this anymore.

I want to move away where necks are not so red, heads are not buried in sand, where gossip is against the law and the punishment for lying is wearing a long nose in public.

Who cares the gender of the earing wearer?

I feel like screaming, "Just let it go, people. Just let it go. Take your time and extra energy and build a house or something. Go help out at a homeless shelter, an orphanage, a children’s hospital. How will it help the world if you point fingers, teach maliciousness or condone absurdities? What is your contribution to society anyway? Is it your goal to cause discontent? Who the hell are you anyway to judge another human being? Repeat after me, "There but for the Grace of God go I. Where is your compassion, your understanding, your love?"

I have to get away.

I need to be where people care and do not judge. Where the air is clear and babies aren’t crying. Where hunger is just a word in the dictionary and nobody hits anyone. Where a child is the result of love and not an unwanted nuisance who pays for his parents unwillingness to use protection. I’ve never figured out why a child is beaten for the sins of their fathers. Sad, very sad. Why so much fighting? Why is there a need for someone to inflict pain on another using either words or hands. Pain is pain and sometimes on the inside pain is more intense, more devastating, more damaging and sometimes that pain lasts a lifetime.

How long is a lifetime?

I want to move where I can climb a mountain or smell the ocean, see the wild flowers, lie in the shade and listen to the birds sing as the breeze rustles through the trees and cotton clouds form pictures in my mind.

And nobody hates.

© vrd8/15/2001


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