"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then." -Thomas Jefferson
I want to clarify my comments about the DC bureau chief of The Econo-Marxist: Shawshank StarGeek or whatever.
I absolutely think he is a civilization destroying hack and I will stand by that statement until my dying breath.
If I am somehow plucked from the fabric of this existence, I will believe it beyond the veil as well.
Thank you for your attention to this matter
I remember thinking it odd my grandfather listened to tapes of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and other songs clearly older than even he was (WWII era). Now I'm listening to modern recordings of Civil War-era songs and I get it now.
Failure |
by: E.M. Burlingame
It hits the way a house settles—quiet as fuck at first.
Then the whole goddamn foundation cracks wide open in one sickening snap.
You hear it in her voice before your brain catches up: the girl you taught to stand tall is breaking right in front of you.
You reach for the kid who used to dance on your boots, and your calloused hands close on nothing but empty air that smells like smoke and the slow poison the world has been feeding her.
No matter what the fuck you do, you’re going to get it wrong.
I built her a fortress of warnings—be safe, come home early, trust your family—laid every brick with sleepless nights and every scar this life beat into me. But the walls faced inward, and she locked the goddamn door from the inside. Against me. Against the one man who would truly kill for her.
No matter what you do, you’re going to hurt someone you’d bleed out for.
First time the shadow slides across her eyes she swears it’s nothing. Second time you believe her because you need to. Third time you stop asking—because every question has become another blade driving her further away.
Strange goddamn math of fatherhood: every question subtracts another piece of her. The mad world convinced her that the father who'd take a bullet for her is the real enemy.
No matter what you do, you’ll fail.
I raged at the rot that got inside her. Raged at the sick world that taught her to swallow broken glass and call it sugar. Raged at a silent God while the sickness chewed her hollow from the inside out.
But the rage is just grief wearing body armor. Eventually the armor gets too heavy to wear.
No matter what you do, you’re going to collapse.
There’s a room inside my chest that stays sealed shut now. Her childhood's still in there—preserved like crime scene evidence: gap-toothed grin, macaroni necklace, that small fierce voice yelling, “Daddy, catch me.” I caught her. Every single goddamn time. I’d give anything to catch her again.
No matter what you do, you’ll lose her.
Pain doesn’t visit. It moves in permanent, unpacks its shit, rearranges the furniture of your ribcage, and hangs heavy black curtains behind your eyes. You learn to make coffee every morning with its cold hands locked tight around your throat.
No matter what you do, you’ll never be the same.
Some nights I sit in the garage with the engine running. Not because I want to check out, but because I need to feel like I can still turn something off when the whole world feels out of control. The exhaust tastes like the silence after she walked are pissed out that door and never really came back.
No matter what you do, you’ll be hated for trying.
That afternoon still loops in my head like a worn-out battle tape—her and her friends, chin high and proud in her furiosity, me the great fixer saying, “If you walk out that door…” She walked. The echo finished the sentence and it’s been killing me ever since.
No matter what the fuck you do, you go on.
So I go on.
All the power I have left in this world is to keep waking up every single fucking morning. Even when my chest feels like it’s been caved in with a sledgehammer. Even when the silence in her room screams louder than any fight we ever had. I drag my ass out of bed because one day—God, please, one day—she might claw her way back to sanity. She might need her old man again. And I’ll be here. Broken. Waiting.
I feed her cats.
I make the car payment.
I nod at neighbors whose names I can’t remember anymore because my head’s turned into a mausoleum for the daughter may’ve already been lost.
The world doesn’t pause for your failure. It just keeps spinning—loud, bright, and heartless—while you stand in the ashes of everything you couldn’t save, breathing in, breathing out through the smoke.
A father made of cinders.
Still burning.
Still in it.
Still showing up.
@DaleStarkA10@NGorhamA4S4 That’s exactly what happened to this Shark gunship.
Warhead detonated right out of the tube.
Pilot was wounded but not severely.🚁🦈