written by melancholia
Mr. Cockroach
Perhaps I look at things in the wrong light,
MR. COCKROACH
I’m wrong, but you’re so right,
MR. COCKROACH
You live as such a misfit
Crawling around,trying not to get hit
By a flying shoe or maybe a book
I would think it took
Courage to know you’re low,
Loathing for humans so
Perfect their flatulence doesn’t stink,
Yet so superficial, they don’t think
About those so much smaller
And don’t want to be a “baller”
And those who are clever
Enough to try a new endeavor...
But I bet you’re not thinking about this,
MR. COCKROACH
You’re only scared of death’s kiss,
MR. COCKROACH
Like Darwin says
Only the strongest survive,
And I being stronger
Will rob you and others of your lives,
MR. COCKROACH
---
Of late I see
An entrance as grand as a hurricane
Ripping strands of grass out
Like hair on a scratchy wool sweater
*
Rip these people out of their ruts
And place them into cozy little pigeon holes
Divided by dotted lines
Brainwashed into certain roles
But do not color on the outside
Do not try to socialize
Or even worse,
To fraternize
To the other
Two dimensional
Humans on your different plane
Who everyday try to sustain
The status
The fabric
The static
And their 14-free eliminated rights
---
The same founders were vocal about not wanting to pay taxes and owning slaves.....but I could be called a “communist heathen” for that (although I’m not sure how, but yes it has happened in the past.).
---
Why would I be a communist? Well, you must consider where I live and work. In this area, people are so inbred (not I, however) and ill read that anything unpatriotic is practically satanic. I have been called a communist for expressing how limited our freedom is, because some redneck jackass thinks he knows more than I, when he’s nothing but a dirty man.
You wouldn’t think there’s a lot of 1st amendment fodder working at a convenience store...
Lots of situations dujour...
One of my favorites envolves a certain lighter that has a woman’s bikini-clad torso on it. When you push down the little button thingee that lights it (Sorry, I don’t know the names of the lighter parts.) the nipple area and the vaginal area light up and blink for a few seconds. The lighter does not have a woman’s head on it. Instead the flame comes out where the head should be.
This mute little lighter says a lot about my working environment. One thing it caters to is the constant group of drunk and horny men who frequent my store. Without saying a word it communicates what all of the men think they know about women: we are just a body. No head and no feet. No thinking abilities and no way to support ourselves. Only in Texas it said across the torso.
Only in Texas would we still be caught up in the dark ages of women’s liberation.
Everyday, I see ragged housewives walking in, some haggard and afraid to look me in the eye, some in a huge hurry to have the old man’s dinner on the table, and some just reminiscent of days past. I see how they act about certain issues and I know that they aren’t happy. I know what they tell me at times is not what they really think. But my job is to get them in and out with their goods and not meddle in someone else’s affairs, so I refrain from doing so.
I hate that little lighter.
I hate what it symbolizes and what it impies.
I hate it’s cute, little, headless body with the unrealistic proportions disrespectfully decked out in a (god help me) polka dot bikini.
But at the same time, I love that lighter.
You see, the convenience store I work at has chains all over the county and most of southeast Texas. Out of all of these chains, my chain is the one store that is allowed to sell this lighter after the two and a half months it has been on the shelf. Why is this? All of the other chains were solicited by the conservative community so prevalent in this neck of the woods, and they backed down from selling the controversial lighters. It was pulled from the shelves because of the negative portrayal of women. Although I agree with this interpretation of the silent lighter, I disagree with it’s censorship.
Wasn’t this the country founded on the principle of freedom?
Don’t we have a 1st amendment protecting our freedom of speech?
Isn’t taste irrelevant to this whole situation?
So, while I hate the message the lighter sends people, I like the fact that I am free to sell cheap, tasteless crap to the masses. It doesn’t make me the happiest person in the world that people are so disgusting, but at least we are free to be disgusting.
