ALT + F4

I need a break.

Not sleep.

Not a few minutes of naptime after my afternoon snack.

I need a real break.

A break from the constant buzzing speakers and the tiny glowing screens,

feeding us senseless bullshit from the empty talking heads;

A break from the everlasting egotistical masturbation that is social media.

A break from the activists and antivists,

protesters and contesters,

from the placebo-pumping corporations being fueled by the organized chaos that is the "new tomorrow".

A break from the mind-numbing droll of political clusterfucks,

and the resulting uproars of the disenfranchised poor,

too busy juggling three kids, two jobs, and an abusive spouse to go out and vote.

A break from the pretentious propaganda of religion,

portraying and perpetuating the notion that mortality isn't inescapable,

promising possible peace in paradise after a most certain death.

A break from sugar-coating the fact that we all die;

Flesh and blood to dust and bone,

never any different, from now until the last human gasps their final breath of air.

A break from useless moral guilt, forced upon me by the colors worn by my father, his father, and his father before him.

There is no guarantee in this game of life. No promise made is a promise kept.

Governments and kingdoms, all futile in their existence - each specks of dust in the cosmic wind of time.

Laws set in place to bind the flesh and bend the will.

I propose that man does as man pleases, until there is nothing left but ashes in the wake of our self-destruction

A break from love - not real love.

No, real love can stay.

Not the love between a man and his estranged, eccentric,

unapologetically flamboyant starving artist of a husband.

Not the love between a woman and her paraplegic wife,

who lost her legs in Afghanistan.

No, no, those are all fine and dandy.

It's the perfect sitcom family with a dog and a cat

and a veil of dreamy, rose-colored haze, shrouding any possibility of flaws.

The Bundies, the Tanners, the Bradies - to hell with them.

To hell with their blood-red roses with thorns of sugar and petals of heterosexual, G-rated romance.

Put the phone down.

Flip off the television.

Cut off that fucking radio,

because, dammit, you need a break.

Not a commercial break.

Not an interlude.

You need a real break.