"Delete, Delete, Delete"

 

More deaths

More excuses

More status updates

More comments

         I’m right

                  You’re wrong

         It is the weapon

                  Fuck you

         Punching keys

         Angry

         Frustrated   

         Viciously vomiting vile

                           DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

         I understand

         Your fears bind your logic

         It is the weapon—and more

         Let’s find common ground

         Pausing at each letter

         Appeasing

         Calmer

         Weighing wary words

More deaths

More excuses

More status updates

More comments

         I’m right

                  You’re wrong

         Lives matter

                  Fuck you baby killer

         Gnashing teeth

         Pissed

         Wordless

         Shredding senseless shit

                           DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

         I understand

         Your reasoning rambles

         It is the weapon—and more

         Set aside the diversion—for another time

         Carefully staying focused

         Sensible

         Cogent

         Decisively data driven

More deaths

More excuses

More status updates

More comments

         I’m right

                  You’re wrong

         More guns? No way!

                  Fuck you BITCH!

         Away from keyboard

         Pulling hair

         Livid

         Annihilating aggravating assholes

                           DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

 Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 

         

        

                

"Wants VS Needs"

 

         I’ve read some pretty mean comments on social media recently. Insulting words lashing out, sometimes with no obvious reason for the inflammatory temper tantrums. Suddenly, a conversational steam turns ugly. I sit dumbfounded as I read through cruel, malicious responses from people I thought to be reasonable—and nice.

         Most of the time, I try to understand both sides of the issue. If I weigh in (many times I bite my tongue and keep away from my keyboard), I attempt to find factual support for the issue at hand. Sometimes I balance myself onto a middle ground. Occasionally, I respond with well thought out deliberation. Fortunately, I have a blog wherein I can pull together longer reflections.

         In my dream-state last night, I mulled through this-n-that in an effort to distill recent events into some kind of cohesive theory that applies to a bigger picture, and I tossed-n-turned myself into a dichotomy of wants versus needs.

         Many people state belief systems as though they are needs. They need to follow their religious doctrines.  They need to spank their children—and everyone else’s, too. They need to defund programs like education and welfare. They need to take care of their own—even if that means making decisions that harm others. They need to own guns. They need to stop abortion. They need to segregate themselves way from minorities. They need to prepare for Armageddon.

          Whenever these people speak out, they truly feel that these things are essential requirements for their safety and happiness—for their duty to family, or church, or country. Their insistence that things are needs lends a level of urgency and unreasonable panic to their daily lives. When they feel that these needs are threatened, they respond with illogical anger and boiling hostility. They view their world as always threatened by someone else encroaching upon or diminishing their basic needs and rights. It must be rough living with so much distress and disharmony.

         I wish I could wave a magic wand over these people and shift their mindset to the fact that all of these things are wants, and not needs, because the urgency and fear shifts dramatically with this worldview.

Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Unsafe States of America”

CaliforniaTexasFloridaColoradoWashingtonPennsylvaniaWisconsin IlliniosNewYorkMarylandOhio  VirginaMichiganNevadaKentuckyNorthCarolinaGeorgiaTennesee ConnecticutMissouriMinosota  SouthCarolinaOregonIndianaOklahomaKansasMississippiIowa NebraskaNewJerseyAlabamaNewMexicoMaineLouisianaUtah  MassachusettsHawaiiDCArizona

ConcertsCollegesClubsChurches

RestaurantsStoresMovies

BowlingAlleyPostOfficePoliticalRally

SchoolSchoolSchoolSchoolSchoolSchoolSchoolSchoolSchool

SchoolSchoolSchoolSchoolSchoolSchool

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"DELETE, DELETE, DELETE"

More deaths

More excuses

More status updates

More comments

         I’m right

                  You’re wrong

         It is the weapon

                  Fuck you

         Punching keys

         Angry

         Frustrated   

         Viciously vomiting vile

                           DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

         I understand

         Your fears bind your logic

         It is the weapon—and more

         Let’s find common ground

         Pausing at each letter

         Appeasing

         Calmer

         Weighing wary words

More deaths

More excuses

More status updates

More comments

         I’m right

                  You’re wrong

         Lives matter

                  Fuck you baby killer

         Gnashing teeth

         Pissed

         Wordless

         Shredding senseless shit

                           DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

         I understand

         Your reasoning rambles

         It is the weapon—and more

         Set aside the diversion—for another time

         Carefully staying focused

         Sensible

         Cogent

         Decisively data driven

More deaths

More excuses

More status updates

More comments

         I’m right

                  You’re wrong

         More guns? No way!

                  Fuck you BITCH!

         Away from keyboard

         Pulling hair

         Livid

         Annihilating aggravating assholes

                           DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

 Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 

         

        

                

"Our Children Kill Each Other"

tears well in our eyes   

indignation puffs us full   

of righteousness   

at children carrying weapons   

we cry in dismay   

at cold-hearted killers   

living desperate lives in disparate lands   

far from our safe homes   

children as soldiers with an arsenal of death   

not ours   

not our responsibility   

tears well in our eyes   

as we cling to the Second Amendment   

our right to arm our children   

with hatred   

camouflaged in mistrust      

we cultivate our subtext of fear   

creating cold-hearted killers   

within our own homes   

children as soldiers with an arsenal of death   

yet not ours   

nor our responsibility   

tears well in our eyes   

disbelief sucker punches us again   

as our children kill each other   

questions, finger pointing,  and the blame game resumes   

but nothing changes   

while the new order of horror   

nurtures cold-hearted killers   

within our own homes   

children as soldiers with an arsenal of death   

ours   

our responsibility  

   

Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

“Unsafe”

 

            My husband’s family epitomizes every aspect of our American culture that makes me feel unsafe whenever we interact. Their narcissistic personalities mean they lack empathy. In their narrow worldview, you are either with them or against them. Alcoholism adds into their dysfunction and layers on an element of unpredictability. For many years, I struggled to find common ground with them. We turned up for the weekly dinners and most of the holidays. If we spent a holiday with my family, I received a stern reprimand from my mother-in-law about ruining her Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Fourth of July . . . because we didn’t obey her commands. I tried visiting with them more, babysitting the million nieces and nephews, and cleaning up on my own after huge family gatherings. I stopped asking for inclusion in the girls weekends away (or even a trip to the wineries north of town). My mother-in-law announced on one recent visit that she has access to the banking accounts of all of her adult children and a handful of her adult married grandchildren, but not our accounts. Although I’m on one of my single brother’s accounts and my single son’s account in case of emergencies, I’ll drop access once someone else is in their lives. The point with my in-laws is their need to control everyone and everything around them.

            A difference in beliefs, religions, lifestyles, and thinking brings an immediate and visceral response from people like my in-laws. Physical intimidation becomes a go-to response if you stray too far from their bold coloring book lines. My mother-in-law slammed me against the wall and choked me when I stated every woman has a right to safe abortions. One brother-in-law tried to pull me from the car window because I didn’t follow his commands. After those attacks, I limited in person contact. However, in a family that operates on gossip word comes through on a different brother-in-law’s drunken fight with his first wife with him threatening her at gunpoint. The family does suicide watches for him every time his relationships explode. Guns play a role throughout the family with all of them having a mixture of handguns and hunting rifles. Imagine my shock, though, when a nephew posted on Facebook a few years ago a picture of his awesome Nene with an AR-15 strapped onto her.

            My in-laws don’t reflect a fringe part of today’s world. Their “Us VS Them” life philosophy means they’ve closed themselves off into in incest-type cycle that feeds off of a closed system. They all vacation together. They watch the same news. They eat at the same places. The listen to the same music. They marry the same women or men. They foster the same fears.

            They buy the same guns.

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

  

“The American Tragedy”

 

            Another day of death in the US. As of this morning, more than three-thousand American citizens have died from gun violence within the last twenty-five days. No one speaks about the 1,716 suicides already in CDC record books. Forty mass shootings along with six mass murders skyrockets our death rate to unspeakable levels. Gun violence since the beginning of 2023 has left another 2,250 injured.

            But we’ve got fucking “thoughts and prayers” to speed us through the stages of grief that dog our lives daily. We race, as a nation, though Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance within hours of the latest killings. One scene reporters offer proper indignation as law enforcement representatives recount another atrocity that should propel us into anger and action, but doesn’t.  Memorials spring up within hours. Maybe if we rush through to Acceptance we can avoid the tremendous losses each family faces—injuries that may require lifelong medical needs. The death of your friends, your brothers and sisters, your parents, your spouses, your children wrapped up and tucked away within a news cycle because it repeats again tomorrow.     

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

 

Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman