I have so many missing assignments in school. Mental breakdown ensues, but that’s ok because I have soup in the fridge. Mmmmm.

Next day, Band is awful, I screwed up my parts and ruined my music. It’s alright, I have some leftover soup waiting for me in the fridge once I get home. Mmmmmm, soup.

I wake up the next day, greeting my mother in the kitchen while I whip up some cereal - wait, could that be considered soup? Oh well. Mother smiles at me.

“I went shopping last night because we were out of milk and decided to get that soup you like.”

I am grateful. Soup is good. Especially with bread. Mmmmm, soup.

Later that same night, I throw some soup in the microwave and slice off a piece of bread to dip in the soup. I spread butter on it to make the flavour even smoother. Mmmmm, soup is good.

Everyday is soup. What is life? Soup? It’s a loop. Every day I look in the fridge to see more soup. I eat it, and there’s even more. I’m going insane, it’s a soup loop. The letters in soup are looking foreign to me. I eat this, every day, and I will continue to eat it for the rest of my miserable life. Soup is good. Soup is good. Soup, soup, soup. Soup. Broccoli cheese, french onion, it changes every day. Soup is versatile. Is cereal a soup? With a milk base and the main cereal accents, I think cereal is a soup. Another part of my miserable soup diet. I wake up and eat soup. I pull out a thermos at lunch and eat alphabet soup. I heat some soup up in the microwave for dinner. Soup. Life is soup, soup is all I need. Soup.

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

No. The sword and the pen have their own uses. They have their own strengths as well. You cannot have a sword fight with a pen (unless it’s riptide from the Percy Jackson series) and you cannot write a novel with a sword.

While I am at it, brains does not beat brawn. True, someone who is clever could easily outsmart someone strong. But just because someone has a lot of brawns doesn’t mean they aren’t smart. Then what happens when you try to outsmart your brawny opponent and get tricked and flattened like a pancake? You’re doomed. Brains and brawns have their strengths. If you have brains, you could think quick and may do well academically. If you have brawns, you can defend yourself and others easily. In a fight, brains will not always beat brawns and brawns won’t always beat brains.

So why do we compare these and say one is stronger than the other when clearly, it depends on the situation?

Too many things I fear,

But the worst must be failure,

Driving me mad, knowing that the smallest thing wrong

Will ruin the project - miss one comma and the whole meaning changes.

The slightest mistake and it will be no longer perfect,

And it must be perfect,

Or it is nothing at all.

Perfection, they say, is the enemy of good.

But I can't stop, no matter how I've tried,

Something's wrong, uneven, slightly amiss

And I panic and overcompensate,

I repeat and repeat until it's perfect.

To my demise.

So failure is the worst, the raging need for perfection,

The habit I just can't seem to break.

Everything must be perfect,

Or it is nothing at all.

The end of life as I have known it.

In recent years, my life has become one where people no longer return my ever-present smile with a smile, but rather respond with a barely disguised look of disgust; where a seemingly growing number of people feel it is acceptable to express - and act upon - racial, ethnic, and religious – even political party - hatred freely, giving no thought to the rights of their fellow citizens to live peacefully.

I have a growing fear that I will have to leave the home I love to live elsewhere, if such a place exists, where I will not have to worry about my husband’s safety, simply because he was not born American but rather proudly chose to become a citizen; or my own, simply because of the color of my skin.

I fear that the term “law and order” is being twisted to mean something very alien to having principles, following rules, acting in a civil manner, protecting our country’s citizens…each and every one of them, regardless of ethnicity, race or religion. Indeed, the catchphrase, as it is invoked by some, seems to have turned into its opposite. For some, “law and order” has become the encouragement of violence and anarchy. It is an example of what Orwell called, “newspeak” in his prescient novel, 1984.

I fear that the words spoken by Abraham Lincoln some 150 years ago are becoming a sad truth:

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."

The danger has sprung, but it hails not from Russia, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, or China. No, it is domestic. National. American.

surrounded by

oblivion

sharp, twisting knives

the never-ending darkness

the abyss that's hidden inside my mind

spiders crawling across my lips

glowing eyes at night

needles piercing my pale skin

the hidden danger of heights

the grey of the unknown

looking into your bright eyes

driving down a busy road

telling myself that i'll be fine

while all my fears abound

jumping at the slightest sound

i turn around

no one's here

to save me

oblivion

surrounds

See you in another timeline, by then I would have cleanse my sins and maybe you would forgive me...

08.07.20

~Characidal_kid/Evie