The Cycle

I don’t get people.

How they hang around, wasting their lives,
Shunning themselves, chasing after precious lies,
Yet they are content
Not bothering to ask why,
Just killing time till their certain demise.

Do people actually think this way?
Can they not notice? It boggles my mind.
Or are they simply faking it?
To fake live?
And fake smile?

Yet maybe this is truth
And it’s just me, a screw loose.
Perhaps I am weird, foolish, depressed,
Caught up in myself, a squandered gem,
A cause lost in lines and tales divine, drowned
Within waves of sacred illusion
And never to be found.

I still don’t get how people are not depressed.

As I don’t know why they cannot embrace
Or kiss or stare, or breathe freely
With nature’s air, through each other’s lungs,
If only for love,
Or to not feel so lonely, in a lonesome world
Of subjugation and strange
Separation.
For contact is beautiful, and we are utterly repulsed
By beauty unfiltered—all virgins to it,
All ugly without it.

And I don’t get the people so cruel
To those others, when they gaze into their eyes.
Can they not see? Are they not spellbound?
The light that shines within, and the music that plays without,
Our being lies infinitely deeper, and the light never goes out,
For the melody too lives on in harmonious vibration, finely tuned
To the miracles of life, hidden in plain view.
We play every string—an unending croon,
A symphony forgotten.

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Because They Matter Too: A Question on the Value of Animal Lives

“The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.”

-Jeremy Bentham,  Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)

An innocent gorilla was killed last Saturday. His name was Harambe.

By now you should have heard the news.

The incident was sparked when a 4-year-old boy managed to fall into the “Gorilla World” enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, only to have the enormous animal rush over to the child, drag him around like a toy, and proceed to stand guard over him for several minutes. All while onlookers gasped with fright, and parents pleaded for divine intervention.

Ruling out the use of tranquilizers, the zoo opted for the abhorrent—the unthinkable—and shot down the beautiful beast, depriving him of precious spirit, rendering his 450lb frame cold and lifeless. His family will likely grieve uncontrollably. The zoo will forever be marred with darkness. And all because some damn humans couldn’t keep an eye on their child!

This was nothing short of a tragedy.

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