No, the real world made me this way.
Numb to the sadness, numb to the madness.
It surrounds me wherever I seem to roam.
There’s moments of peace.
Like the silence in between a long gun battle.
But the trauma is all prevailing.
Someone’s poking and pushing.
Antagonizing and strategizing.
Looking for ways to make me fail.
To defeat me and make me lose my cool.
And I do.
Every now and then.
But I can’t even get that mad anymore.
Not at the junkies, or the hookers,
Or the hoodlums on my street.
Too normal of a sight to let it under my skin.
But then the gunshots and sirens sound.
The helicopters and the hounds.
The harassment,
The surveillance,
The state sanctioned violence.
It rattles me awake.
How many more lives will they take?
How many more souls will they burn?
But I’m not supposed to be sensitive to this.
I’m not supposed to get pissed.
My anger’s supposed to be directed at the the thug.
The gangster, the crook, the immigrant,
Or some foreign government.
But how in the hell can it?
When the reality is right in front of me.
Staring me in the face.
Calm down!
Get in control!
Stay numb . . .
All of sudden the people give a fuck.
So I breathe in.
Breathe out.
Just numb myself down.
No, it’s not the media that made me this way.
It’s the real world.
The one I live day to day.