It’s sad to read all the threads on social media. Everyone arguing over right wings and left nuts, emails and a site that’s readily accessible to public edit, her versus it, why’s and when’s, who’s and what’s, ifs and buts, who’s on first, who’s more popular, who speaks their mind, and who has a mind let alone a brain. We are not staying in the present and find it better to argue over the past all the while neglecting the future.

We have things that are violently happening all over the world and all we are doing is arguing over who can make it better again, announcing that one single person can fix it and at the same time making a country great again. One tarnished by past mistakes is called names and raked through the coals while the western part of the nation is on fire. More fires likely to break out with this meltdown of climate control, but instead of trying to make it better we argue and point fingers, your fault.

We have lives who matter more than others because of the color of their skin. A life is not defined by skin color, your actions are. A color targeted because the life they lead, crying because they are treated wrongly, so fix it, change your life and make something of it don’t retaliate because you’re living your life in the past, it’s 2016 not 1966. We have cops with trigger fingers heavily armed from head to toe going up against a man, with a rap sheet a mile long, ending up in a pool of blood while his family are drowning for answers. And it doesn’t matter if he himself is armed or not, you disrespect, you break the law, you break a sweat, smile wrong, reach for an ID, or just being stupid, you’re going to be seen as just an outline on the pavement. Crying foul, peaceful protests ending in more violence and death, lives don’t matter if they are dead.

We are zombies, each of us. The best part of our pathetic lives happened when we were born within that first year where we were so innocent. Before we became our own person, before we could talk and walk, before our parents started molding us into the paths of love and hate. We were finding out about ourselves on our own, discovering our bodies, the differences between hot and cold, rights and wrongs, we learned it hurts when you fall down and how the joy of a toy made us happy. We sought arms of our loving mothers, warmth from our hairy fathers and spoils from cupboards of grandmother’s kitchens.

Then we went out into the world and were greeted by mean streets, trees that murder kites, parade balloons slipping from our grasp, ice cream cones on the ground, and your once loving mother yelling at you to stop crying or she will give you something to cry about. Hands once gentle now stinging your soft baby bottom. I hate this. But love that. And at this point is where we change. This is when we are lied to, told No you can’t do that, don’t touch, stop making all that racket, be quiet, don’t talk to strangers, grow up and be a man, girls have cooties, and ewww boys.

We are thrown into school to learn more about where we came from, the birds and the bees, girls and periods, boys hands on their pee pees. We learn to read, we learn to write, we make friends and at the same time enemies. We form little groups and we allow only specific others to join. We are the snobs, the jocks, the weirdos, and the geeks. Some are often alone not having groups to fit in, isolated in fear, because they are different. Different because they are fat, poor, dress funny, look strange, or don’t have a mommy or daddy. Different because they arent the same color as me, or speak funny, act odd and we start the taught behavior of hate. No longer are your parents offering sound advice, you’re a big kid now you’re on your own. Thrust into a huge open world where you can get anything you want, for a price. Where nothing is free even though there are documents saying otherwise. The air we breathe even comes with laws and mandates, the water that makes up most of our bodies and the planet comes with a price tag. Nature’s wonderment tainted by corporate greed. Hate growing more fierce.

Then there’s love. Not even free. People die everyday for something or someone they love. Saying I LOVE YOU is supposed to be beautiful but most see it as ugly. That ugly enrages more hate. In that hate, people die or are injured. You can be out with friends and family, and in a moment your life is taken away by a bomb blast, a gun shot, a blade, planes, trains and automobiles, all because you’re hated, because it’s written somewhere that your life doesn’t matter.

And we no longer have that right to defend ourselves because laws want to change that. So we elect people who promise us rainbows, equality, unity and a greater hope for the future, and in these people we entrust our lives. But they can’t always keep us safe, no matter how they try. It doesn’t make a bit of difference who we have running our country because social media will always have an opinion of what’s right and wrong. Then we are back to the arguing and the fighting and more lives that are supposed to matter are lost.