Nursery Rhyme Politics

‘He’s a strong man, a great leader and one heck of a bareback rider. Nearly as good as me in all three departments. I’m a little better of course, but wow. Even I’m a little sore after all the riding we did,’ exclaimed Trump, describing his trip to Russia. - David Marrs, The Daily Squat

Nursery Rhyme Politics
Donald and Putin sittin’ in a tree.
K – I – S – S – I – N – G 
First comes love, then comes hate
We’re all gonna make America Great!

Build that wall, make that call
Put up another shopping mall.
It’s no worry, we’re not in trouble
Let’s all live in a giant bubble.

Donald likes peeing, Putin likes eating
Our economy’s gonna take a beating.
You’re not worried, I’m not scared
I’d just rather be eatin by a bear.

But have no fear, our president is…… is…… 
is…… is…… is…… is…… is…… is…… is……
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is…… is…… is…… is…… is…… is…… is………………..


Original post at https://theprose.com/post/127475/nursery-rhyme-politics
Photo courtesy of http://www.dailysquat.com/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-enjoy-riding-bareback-together/ 

Distanced by Time

I looked up and met your eyes, falling deeply into the abyss. My spirit reached out, and for only a second, I knew you, all of you. 

Sorry, I muttered as I moved out of the way for you to enter and bowed my head, soaking in the chocolate scent of your eyes. The dark brown I’d always known, but would never meet. What’s your name, I thought, but never uttered. As I checked my phone and ran to my next meeting, your essence evaporated into nothingness. I could feel, as I began to drift back into this reality, that our parallel existences would never collide again. I wondered who you were and what your voice sounded like – Did it sound as beautiful as your coy smile? 

You would never return to my reality and I wasn’t even sure that you existed. Why were you here, my perfect stranger? Why had you come to our realm? I learned in that instance of your knowledge and power. I learned in that moment of my minute and unimportant self. I realized that ours was not the only lifetime. I discovered that time travel was happening and you were on your way home. 


Written for a theprose.com challenge for week 55. If you like it, please follow the link below to give me a like there and repost my entry!

Original Post:
https://theprose.com/post/127558/distanced-by-time

#theprose #ProseChallenge #getlit #itslit

Tragically Beautiful

“I can´t handle your kindness.” The words fell out, one piece at a time, as if being chopped up into chewable parts.

He didn't know what to say, or to do. She was crying uncontrollably and through sobbing, real deep silent sobs, there was a pain and sorrow that couldn't be expressed in words that lingered.

What did they do to you? He so desperately wanted to help her, to understand the tears so that he could stop them, but he dared not to ask. He feared it would literally break her, she was so frail in that moment. No one was so tragically beautiful.

He sat down on the bed next to her, and pulled her into his arms and out of her vacant fortress. He could feel that she was gone, emotionally somewhere else. He felt like he was losing her, she was cold and stiff, as if the fear and sadness were sucking the life out of her, and he panicked.

“Hey…. Hey!” he shook her. 

“Come back to me,” he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her.

She couldn't come back. She looked down from her dark empty room and stared at her body in his arms. She had never been happier. And because she knew she'd never be able to handle losing that, she turned, and continued walking into the chamber of darkness she had created so long ago.

She died happy in his arms as he shed his first tear.

Día 1 - Miedo

Tengo miedo de que vengan por mi cerebro, mis brains.

No es que soy muy especial, ni nada, solo que tienen un apetito feroz, y a ellos les gusta romper el cráneo y chupar el cerebro humano. Ni es una exquisitez - es su plato principal. 

We are no longer the hunters, but the hunted. 

Ahora pienso convertirme en vegetariano, ya que los entiendo más a los pobres animales que matamos para comer. Los pobres animales que comemos nosotros, ni se dan cuenta de que sus días están contados. Por lo menos, entiendo que vengan por mí. 

Quizá... lo tienen mejor, porque no saben lo que va a venir y pueden vivir tranquilos. Yo no vivo tranquilo. 

Lo más horroroso es que esos cabrones se parecen a nosotros. 

En nadie se puede confiar, ni en los amigos, ni en tu hermano, ni en tu mamá. Los vi chupando el cerebro de la madre de mi mejor amigo, no quiero que lo hagan a mi mamá. 

Mi mamá es una santa, la vi matar algunos de estos cabrones que vienen a comer a su propia gente. Los vi desde cerca. Chequeé de que ya no se levantarían nunca más, y que ella, la madre de Ricky, no se estaba convirtiendo también en una rabiosa zombie. Sus ojos son rojos, como si no duermen. Sus manos son grises, como si no se sienten el calor ni el frío. Sus cuerpos están deformados, y sus dientes... sus dientes... todavía con trozos del cerebro de la señora Guadalupe Flores... 

Quiero pensar que lo invento. 

Quiero volver a los días de Netflix an' chill. 

Quiero estar tranquilo. 

No puedo estar tranquilo...

Day 1: The Alarms Sound.

Today was the beginning of a dark and haunting time. I woke up to the sound of the alarms going off, this wasn’t a drill, it was the real thing. We’d been preparing for this moment for the past two years, reinforcing the walls of the house with steel plates, buying weapons, jogging – I hate jogging. We had to build up stamina if we were going to survive. We even bought equipment for underground gardening, but only finished setting it up yesterday. The bunker is full of every type of canned food, rice, beans, pasta and dried produce you can imagine. No one knows how long we’ll last. No one knows if we will survive. And no one knows if this will ever pass, if we’ll ever succeed, if we’ll ever find a cure, if we’ll ever stop this madness. The only thing I know is that we’re ready, the best we can be. How much can you really prepare for the end of the world anyway?

At least we knew it was coming. At least our city has been preparing us. A lot of places called it a hoax, refused to prepare. Others fled, as if leaving this country would protect them. As if there weren’t similar outbreaks elsewhere. As if the accidental leak of information to the press was a group of conspiracy nerds who’d watched too many movies and read too many comic books.

But this wasn’t a joke. I saw it, I saw it with my own eyes.

My uncle had been taken. He had volunteered for the vaccine. He was trying to be a hero. My dad told me we don’t need any heroes, just fighters. He was into that sort of thing, telling me cliché advice. Maybe he was right though, because my uncle wasn’t a hero – He was dead. They allowed us to tell him goodbye, through Plexiglas, wearing a hazmat suit. He saw us and I thought he recognized us and I wanted to cry, tell them they’d made a mistake, that he was fine, that he just needed time to recover.  But then he started walking toward the glass, staring at us, as if we were animals, prey. He moved quicker than I expected and when he was right next to the glass I could see the boils forming on his skin. A few of them had ruptured and the skin was red and raw. His clothes were bloody. No one bothered to clean him up before we came to visit. He breathed deeply, wheezing, and put his hand on the glass. Thud. I will never forget that sound, and when I hear my older brother in the attic above us, and his boots thud across the floor, I see my uncle’s hand on the Plexiglass. I see his stare. It was like staring into a void, a void of emotion, a void of life. That image, that thud, it haunts my dreams. It motivates me. It keeps me jogging.

And today… today it begins. 

Down with Hillary! Down with Trump! - Election Rant

I want to yell STOP! STOP this madness.

Don’t try to overthrow your president elect because the vote didn’t go your way. 

STOP calling Hillary and Trump voters stupid, idiots, etc.

ENGAGE. TALK. DISCUSS.

17 years ago I was a little girl who didn’t know foreign languages existed. My lovely aunt Jo organized a family trip and we all went to Mexico. A whole 40 of us went together, friends, family, friends of family, and it was great. Many of those people are democrats or republicans, I’m sure a few voted for Hillary, and I’m sure some voted for Trump, and a few crazy ones actually voted third party or wrote in Bernie Sanders as a final hope for true democracy and a cry that both candidates are awful.

But I want to talk about something more important.

On this trip I learned that there were other people in the world who spoke a different language than mine. I saw that entire populations had a different skin tone than mine, not just a few random kids at my school.

I learned that their lives were different than mine. I learned that they worked and had families and friends - just like me.

Some people have asked me why I spent my life learning languages and not going into law or medicine or physics. A friend of mine, Edouard, asked me once “Why are you learning Spanish or French, you already speak English, you don’t need to learn other languages.”

I didn’t have a clear answer for him then. I simply, ignorantly answered – “Because I like to talk and get to know people.”

And that’s just it. I like to get to know people. I want to understand people. And I know that it is important to speak someone's language in order to fully understand them. 

It is easier to SEE a difference, when you look at physical characteristics. It is harder to SEE ideological ones, impossible actually. You have to HEAR ideological differences and people have to CHOOSE to tell them to you.

It is easy to hide behind what you see. It is easy to judge what you see.

I’m tired of people being so shocked by all the RED that they see. The electoral map of the country.

I’m tired of people judging my friends and family by what COLOR their STATE is.

I’m tired of hatred, and closemindedness.

Perhaps we can all learn a valuable lesson about this campaign, one similar to what I learned as a young child.

People are different. Democracy is a privilege. And everyone has a right to their opinion.

You cannot call entire groups of people stupid, ignorant, or dumb. That’s what the fight against racism, sexism, etc is all about. NOT generalizing and JUDGING based on stereotypes and small bits of information.

Remember that some people, many people, hated BOTH candidates. They've been disappointed all year.

Remember that a lot of people HATE Hillary.

Remember that a lot of people HATE Trump.

Just because you strongly dislike a candidate, does not make the other one better.

This campaign was disgusting. There were no debates, no real issues and solutions discussed. Mere slander.

The aftereffects are being seen, and this hate is spreading.

The country is dividing, because WE liberals are RIGHT, and WE conservatives are RIGHT, because EVERYONE is RIGHT, and assumes OTHERS are WRONG.

No one discusses.

No one wants to learn the language of the other.

No one wants to admit that Trump was elected fairly in our democratic system. That some intelligent, liberal, educated people voted for Trump. That some ignorant and uneducated people supported Hillary. No one wants to think that they could have been “betrayed” by one of their own. One of their friends. One of their family members.

Our country is lucky to have democracy, and it doesn’t always play out the way we want it to. We need to accept what happened, reevaluate what politics is and means in our country. 

We need to ENGAGE.

ENGAGE with the OTHER.

Learn their language.

Do not shout at them louder, it doesn’t teach anyone anything.

Listen, learn, and love.

La Communauté

La Communauté

-        Ya no se debería llamar a esto una communauté.

-        ¿Pero por qué?

-        Porque solo quedamos tú y yo.

-        ¿Y qué?

-        No sé, me parece ridículo que nos llamemos “una communauté”.

-        Sí, pero si cambiamos el nombre, a lo mejor podrían entender la pequeñez de nuestra communauté 

–

-        ¡Arrête! ¡Deja de llamar a ESTO una communauté!

(pausa exasperada)

-        Si se dan cuenta de que no somos una communauté, a lo mejor, van a venir por nosotros también. Sólo por la suerte, todavía piensan que somos numerosos.

-        ¿Y qué hacemos? ¿Esperamos a que estén listos llegar con una fuerza de 20 mil soldados para llevarnos a los dos? ¡Estás loca!

-        ¿Y tú… tienes una idea mejor?

-        ¡Que salgamos de esta puta communauté!

-        ¡Aha! Entonces, ¡¿Es una communauté?!

-        Era, era una communauté, pero tú ya comiste el último pitufo que nos quedó…

Y los dos continuaron discutiendo y el tiempo del mundo se terminó sin que se enteraran de que tenían todo lo necesario para salvar a su especie. 

**La communauté - es francés por comunidad/sociedad

**Arrête! - es francéss por Stop! o Para!

Hasta la próxima,

Raelynne