Justice

My idea of justice is righting of a wrong. Justice is an ethical view of the world defined in the individual. Therefore, my ethical view of the world is defined by an individual. I did not learn right and wrong from myself. Right and wrong is a perverse euphemsism for self improvement. We act selfishly literally all the time. Every single act in our lives is done to make us feel good in some way. Humans are beings blessed with the torture of emotion and sensitivity. Love is the only gray area. It appears to transcend and is as far for conscious selfishness as any act can be when one does something for the express purpose of advancement of love. But is it not comforting? Is comfort not preferrable to discomfort? Does this not indicate an imperative for the individual to maintain love?
Justice in the sense of punishment for a crime does make us feel better. Revenge is an electric feeling that imbibes our mind in a sense of morality. We cheer for the hero to kill the villian, not reform him, nor understand him. For allegory's sake, we love old western tales of good vs. evil. A problem arises when the sense of stark contrasts between misunderstood polarities permeates the social justice sphere. When the law acts with the brash confidence of a gunslinger, the victim is society's moral core.
"A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser." Poe said it. This is true punishment for a sick mind. Someone incapable of reform, a method we rarely try nowadays, should be taken out of society. A sick mind is confused and when alone it can sort through the confusion. It is a sad fate. Pity the psychopath, but understand him-- at least to the point of discovery of an impossibly depraved mental state.

I love America

I am blessed to be an American. I live in a nation where an identity crisis is expected. The transition from boy to man is not complete without a questioning of everything one believes. I don't know what makes me an American, and in that way I become an American. A nation of the individual, that is America. I feel no great ties to this nation because my love for it comes in the acceptance of its values. Yes, the individual. Yes, the good of the many. Yes, the power to decide. These truths I hold self-evident. This love is latent, but there. I love this country. What could be better? A lack of opportunity? An inability to change my standing? God is on our side here.
America is the greatest country on Earth because we give everyone the idea of the possibility to fix its incredibly fucked-up problems.

accidental symbolism

The inertia of opportunity
Left hanging by the possibilities
Screaming at a wall of love for anything I do
Feel the warmth of coddling
By the work of those before me
Make it easy
Make me complacent
Give me an obstacle
Overcome the odds, encumbered American
But the fallacies
the lies of our problems
the lies inherent
the lies surmountable, but daunting nonetheless
So leave me be familial love
My parents' work
My middle-class mindset
Lies of affluence, lies of promise, lies of problems
We pick and choose our problems because we subsist, but never thrive
Thrive we do not
But we still think we should
So the pain comes
Objects in motion tend to stay
In
Motion
But objects sitting still in a pool of tepid water
Will never know

Self-love

Love yourself, my boy. It'll all be better if you take yourself as righteous. Stop the questioning, stop the worry, do what you want. Examine the past if you must, but dwell not in the shadows. Rather see the sun in front of you. When you look at the shadow, you turn your back to the sun, the opportunity, the classic metaphor. Know that the shadow exists, but do not measure it's contours or look for shading. The shadow is uniform, it is pain. The sun is uniform and it is happiness. Don't Icarize yourself, for you need not get any closer. The presence alone matters.

Brave the complexity

"Yes you may have everything you ever wanted. Here it is."
He lays it all out in fron tof me. The house, the cars, the wife, the kids, the damnation, the boredom, the perfection, the partnership, the degree, the finish, the end, the security, the fear of not knowing fear, the pain, the joy, the blissful ignorance.
"Who are you?"
"I'm a metaphor for your ambition. Or lack thereof depending on your economic standing. Tell me, are you disinclined to work for what you want? Do you even know what you want? Hint: that is a trick question."
"I'm confused. I work for what I want right now. Everything else I just figure will come at some point."
"Very good!" He takes boredom and damnation off the table.
"And I guess that once I find something I'm passionate about i'll go for it."
"Great!" He takes blissful ignorance off the table.
"And I... I'm not sure what..." I trail off.
"Excellent!"
He takes it all away. He tells me to leave and I do. He tells me to walk home on a different path than I did last time. I take my first steps and remember that I did this last time. I take steps in the other direction and feel the pit of my stomach well up in disagreement. I push through and turn right ending up on the same street as last time. I make my way home trying to change things, but every street looks the same. He told me to do it and I did it. I still ended up at home. My mom still badgers me about college. I still say I'm not sure. Nothing is more clear. Only my ambition dwindles. The more anyone tells me, the less I want to have a reason to be told. Brave the comlexity.

Slow build

Ground up. Build me prairie style then put the extra levels. Make me well-covered, well-read, well-deceived.
We see the big city as a big place where God is a little closer. A suburb can go on forever. It can be fine, bland, perfect.
I've built the foundation for my building. I even have materials, too many in fact. The construction workers are all looking at women.
Let my eyes wander and they'll fall on the path of least resistance. the path I was born on, kept in, and buried under.
It's a slow build back, up, and into. Into the fray, the beautiful mass of uncertainty that swallows me up and kills me.
I hope I come out so I can know that the stomach acid has done its job. I will be produced by a change of environment. Raw materials are nothing from something when you put them next to each other. Creating nothing.

Deeper

Taking it deeper
My ambition
Trenches
Inside the warzone
Too cliche.

Let it be said for me, by me, about me
That it came easy.
It was laid out in front
But ambition takes the brunt
Of the suburban mindset blow.

American simplicity of decisions
Makes thought an escape
From routine for the man who has stopped trying
Ambition dwindles when thought is secondary
The self first
But the mind last.