Is This Why the World Won't Fight Back?

Have you dealt with the ‘no offense’ beginners? The ones who have the nerve to duck behind that fragile phrase, believing it to be an excuse, because -- excuse me, I need to vent  -- I have. I've seen the class crows deal out more backhanded cards than blink, begin more sentences with iron remarks than think, I know the ones who can’t work into their thick skulls that ‘no offense’ is an offense in itself, and the insult that follows is not constructive criticism. It’s simply a Comment, right? This is not a question of right or wrong, but if it were, it would be wrong.

Who are they to choose the right from the wrong? The grey from the silver? Who are we to tell them what, and who, and how and when and where, who are people but walking mistakes…? But the failed capacity for memory is imagination, which just goes to show that mistakes can be beautiful. But does that make us beautiful? The implication of can does not create is. Could, should, would, complain and cry for past mistakes, not pausing to see if they are beauty, but run. They run from their mistakes, and from is, are, did, does, do, the becoming. Do the parties of becoming see mistakes as beautiful? Surely not all mistakes, though they have the potential. Or are all mistakes beautiful? Does all really have a hidden lining of precious buried behind the thick layers of view? If mistakes are considered ugly, but are actually beautiful, does that make perfection--?

...There are the ‘to-the-point’ types of peoples, with their simple Comments of “No offense, but that sucks.” I know you've dealt with the more ‘refined’, with their veiled “No offense, but it doesn't really look” or “it doesn’t really sound” and while I will admit that perhaps I have been harsh, am being harsh, I will not stoop to the level of writing 'no offense' in thick black sharpie over the title, because maybe I want it to be harsh. Maybe I want it to hurt, to smart, to sting, to offend because perhaps through this prescription something can finally reach the corrupted immune system through which senseless remarks stem. Maybe this can stop the flow of your volcanic fumes that promise nature's fury but only deliver rain that chokes. Maybe the rain is nature's fury, whatever's upstairs does seem to like answering queries in ways we do and did not want, but it remains beside the point of wrongness and right enough, triangled at the tip of insecurity and confidence.

We know the context of 'no offense, but' and 'I love her, but' means that the following text will be offensive and ringing with the dagger's sharp side. Here we were, thinking that holding the dagger was being given the handle, but instead we must let it stand in our chests until we do one of three things: (1) bleed dry and die for a cause none will rise on the flagpole, (2) rip out the offender and spray weedkiller in your wounds for hope of being rid of poison, or (3) there is no three, I lied and that is wrong but so are they. Or perhaps I am too afraid to share the secret of 3 because it is a path a someone took  whom was once a good friend of mine and I don't want to give you the option of embarking on that.

However, I will give you the third answer to the test because I will not be so lonely then and you won't be alone to start. Now then, the third path which remains mostly untrodden would be the path of letting go of pretty, petty emotion, and letting the rupture of seams bulge until it is your heart of pubs and needles; from here let it burst and shatter like a bladder on laxatives, no, not pretty imagery but it gets the point across. Breaking is never pretty.

Nor is the no offense defense. They are the demolition crew, and they are not permitted inside a family's home, however fractured, or school facilities, but--

Too late!

-- they've already made their way inside, through pockets and lollipops, through Children.

Yes, this is why the world won't fight back, yes, this is what we should fear and why be afraid but discussion took this topic from us earlier,

Yes, this is why we are afraid and we do fear and we doubt the monster, yes this is exactly what we need to fix, but what we refuse to see, yes.

Children are born of mistakes from mistakes to a generation of failures and mistakes but we  are still so blind that we will admit that we are mistakes but not our children. Good Lord, not the children! Not our babies! Yes our children. Yes,  our babies, yes, can't you see or are you as blind as the rest? This is how they get across the ashen clouds that wait for magma. This is how they work.

This is why I am afraid, this is why I fear.

This is how they work.

Oh.

How clever they must think they are.