Main Street USA

I feel like I'm the only one walking down main street who sees the long line of flags flying proudly from each street pole stretching off into convergence as the sharp, metallic teeth of an enormous, monstrous machine in the process of devouring our humanity at this very moment. I know that if I were to share this perspective with any one of the people around me, I would be rebuffed as insane or worse, beaten as blasphemous. I do not possess an ounce of this much vaunted patriotism.

This no longer makes me feel some pride as it used to when I was younger - that self righteousness in seeing the truth that others either cannot or will not see; that strength of youth burning with an iconoclastic passion. I no longer feel any anger or any desire to rebel nor do I feel any fear for the future. I am hollowed out. Empty. Weary and alone. Hit me and I will ring like a bell. I feel some shame that I no longer have the will or the strength to shake my tiny, human fist at this gargantuan, inhuman machine that we have made of ourselves. I feel utterly and completely defeated.

God, I pray silently, help us all – and that's the only fight I have left.