by
Christopher Allan Poe
California is a dark place these days. Most of the world is lately, but unless you've lived here, I don't think you realize just how hollow this place has become. This morning, I woke up before the sunrise to drive out of this state, maybe for the last time.
We're moving back east. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and fight. I wanted to reason with those in charge. To reason with people to treat each other better, but in the end, I lost that battle. The depths of my anger can't be quantified, but as we all know, anger is just a front for fear or sadness. For me, it was a little of both. Mostly just sadness.
It took me 47-years to build something that I would call a home, and that's saying something coming from a piece of dirty white dumpster trash. Our house was beautiful too. My wife and I spent years fixing and upgrading every room in our home.
Last month, before we sold our house, I painted right over the top of several wall smears of my own blood. See, when doing home fixer-upper projects, safety first was never my strong suit.
Need to get to that high spot that's not quite ladder-worthy? Shit, motherfucker, that rickety-ass chair looks just fine.
Using a table saw and realize that you're not wearing goggles? Just squint your eyes real tight and hope for the best.
And where the fuck did that hammer go again? Fuck it, I wonder if I can pound a nail with this staple gun.
Needless to say, that attitude causes injuries.
It also gets shit done.
And that's exactly the attitude my wife and I had when we left this state. By any means necessary. Thank you, Brother Malcolm, for your words of wisdom.
Just to be clear, our choice to leave California had nothing to do with Right vs. Left. It wasn't Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter. It wasn't Defund the Police vs. Militarized Police State.
Those are all false choices that pretend that there are only two ways to think to solve problems in a world of infinite solutions.
Honestly, I didn't think it possible for this country to go lower than Donald Trump. Somehow, Joe Biden is as bad or worse. Yes, his lies are less apparent, and every media outlet and their corporate donors are complicit, but believe me, I have firsthand knowledge that Biden's lies are real. To keep the Truth Censors confused, I'll just leave it at that.
Weak men and women in positions of great power are the most dangerous kind. Just look how fast Justin Trudeau went full-tilt tyranny. Don't get me started on Gavin Newsom.
If I had to choose a world of the Left's you-will-think-as-we-do hivemind bullshit vs. the Right's Yosemite Sam rootinest tootinest shootinest, everyone's-a-varmint-but-me-and-my-kind, I choose neither.
We can surely come together and find better solutions if we stop hating each other. Not everyone who disagrees with you is an existential threat. They've simply led a different life and come to different conclusions. How anyone could think they have all the answers is beyond me.
For instance, a little more than a year ago, my wife and I took our daughter to pick cherries. We got there early. Everyone lined up between a row of parked cars and a super long fence. After a year of being locked in our homes, the energy was kinetic to do something fun for once. Everyone was laughing. It was sunny, and just over the fence the cherry trees were bursting with fruit.
Then a rumble startled me. It shook the earth. Shouting started. I look over. Two reptilian sub-humans—one man and one woman—were hanging out the windows of their Dually truck, revving their engine and screaming spit at an Asian mother and her two young daughters to move. The woman froze. There was nowhere to go. She was literally trapped between the fence and that ridiculous vehicle, which was only a few feet from her.
