And this was the difference between me and them.  If I didn’t have that one thing to keep me in check, it would be like this all the time.  The truth was I just didn’t see the point in any other way.  Eating breakfast, getting on the train, off the train, sitting in a lecture hall.  Getting on a bus, getting off a bus, going to work for eight hours, going home.  Sleep.  Sure it could be nice.  I could feel productive, accepted, empowered.  But only until a point.  Then, all of that disintigrated, the shiny exterior slowly slid off and I removed my rose-coloured glasses.  And what the fuck was the point?  Somewhere there were people being blown up by “smart bombs”.  Somewhere I had taken a walk in the middle of the night, looked up at the moon reflecting through the clouds, and saw a beach.  Somewhere this had all started, part accident, part fate, and now there’s nothing we can do about it.

It truly amazed me.  We arrived here, alone, to an empty apartment with the word “home” lazily taped to the front door, begging someone to rip it off and reveal the mess that lay beneath.  Flimsy, removable.  And I am no longer convinced.  But they are.  I watch, as one frantically cleans the place, sweeping the dirt into the corners, pretending it’s gone for good now, pretending it’s okay.  While the other hides in her room for days at a time, treating it like a sanctuary, the bed is her altar, and as long as she does not emerge, nothing can hurt her.  What a joke, what a farce.  Just like everything.  This war, this education, this middle class life.  Routine is the only thing we have, the sweeping, the hiding, the pretending.  While bombs are being dropped and the sky is bleeding.

And I thought about it, that one thing I believed I still had, that one thing that seemed fathomably sacred in a world that no longer made sense.  I would be sitting in class, listening to stories about men forced to castrate other men, and women raped by ten proud soldiers (the ultimate sacrifice) before being shot in the head, and children who watched while their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers were slaughtered in their houses.  That was when everything else disappeared.  Two wet streaks began to creep down my cheeks and everything I had ever learned, all the reasons that I was here, turned to dust.

So I hadn’t been to psychology class in two months.  And I wouldn’t attempt to learn what I had missed, although I probably could if I tried.  What use was it?  If the human mind was capable of creating the destruction that now defines my generation, what sense is there in studying its depths, its secret passages.  Knowledge is not evil, nor is it power. It is only useless, in a world that is capable of healing itself, but would rather blow itself up.  The politicians will not give up, not until this is achieved.  The protestors won’t give up either, and I admire their energy, their untiring voices echoing against the walls of a kingdom that died long ago.  But I will give up.  I will give up seeking that edge.  The last word.  The prettiest dress at the ball.  And I will sit here instead.  Staring at walls instead of a television screen, waiting, just the same, for another bomb to drop.

Love.  It was the only word that meant anything to me anymore as hate flew through the skies.  My freshman year at college, my first year as an adult, and this is what it’s made of.  So I stopped trying.  I watched them go through the motions and I sat motionless on the couch.  Soon it would all be over, and I could go home.  I wasn’t sure why I craved it so bad, but suddenly, it was all I had, and all I wanted.  I wanted my childhood.  Familiarity.  Safety.  I needed ignorance, and I needed to be held.

I let the liquid sit in my mouth for an instant before swallowing.  It tastes like pain.

Someday soon I’ll board a ship, these memories I’ll bring.  Slowly, I’ll let go my grip.  They never meant a thing.