“Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Locking in uniforming, book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a votive.
Step down, step down.”

It’s The End Of the World As We Know It – REM

Ever seen one of those fiber optic cables spliced open? Millions upon millions of tiny wires jam-packed with data all wrapped into a single casing, moving forward to some unknown destination down the line.

All that data competing for attention, fighting to get to it’s final stop. Packets dropping and getting picked back up later; some of it good, some of it bad, all of it wrapped in the same package — my package, my body, my wires with all of their accompanying ideas struggling for attention. So much information filtering through, the volume gets turned up to 11 rather frequently. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn.

Fuck me, I really wish it would just. Be. Quiet. Just a for few minutes.

When one thing is off in your world, especially when it’s a big thing – the job, the living situation, the personal affairs – it magnifies, to grossly inaccurate proportions, the small problems in every other aspect of your life. And the volume keeps getting turned up … louder and louder. The mark of frustration is being able to see yourself slipping off the edge and not being able to stop yourself. And let’s be clear, it’s not due to lack of effort. To be screaming at the top of your lungs, “STOP!” and yet there you go … right off the fucking precipice.

There’s no outlet.

To feel the walls around you shutting down.

The lights going out.

To not be heard or misunderstood. False equations and inaccurate comparisons. Friends and loved ones that you would turn to not hearing you or too busy with their own shit. And jesus fuck, in this day and age of economic woes and everybody just barely hanging on for dear life, we’ve all got enough of our own shit to deal. World serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.

Being taken advantage of by people you love and complete strangers alike. The systems you helped support, you paid in to, you worked your ass for being an abject failures with no recourse. The daily stresses, the legal parking becoming illegal because some business owner paid off the right people to make it so when an event is going on. Gotta get that last buck after all.

Not everyone, but you can only unload on the same person so often before it just becomes too much. You pray to anything out there those who know, those with whom words and actions were intended, get the point. And more importantly, when those same words and actions have nothing to do know …

And every day the frustrations compound upon themselves like some loan sharking banker collecting on a debt. Before you realize what the hell even happened you’re getting your knees capped thanks to the business end of a Louisville Slugger handled by some goon you’ve never even seen.

Ah melodrama … when one thing is off…

Benjamin Cossel

A working journalist, Benjamin currently serves as a combat photojournalist and is the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in southeastern Wyoming. He’s worked as a reporter in Ohio, Arizona and done several deployments in the military crossing the globe. Recently, his series, "From the Songbook" was awarded second place in the 2009 Wyoming Press Association contest.

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