(Found on a bathroom wall somewhere in the U.S.A.)
You’ve taken over my mind. You’ve raped my thoughts with your image viruses then sold me fake cures for your own disease. Your words and pictures scream orders at me like angry prison wardens. When I cover my ears, your voices echo in my head. I hate you. When I see your billboards, your talk shows, your rock concerts and your factories, when I see the work of your twisted libidos, I want to kill you. I want to set fires, plant bombs, derail trains. I want to smash your buildings and tear at your bodies until the skin of my hands is worn to the bone. I am filled with a rage that burns my eyes.
I don’t want to feel this way. You have done this to me. These feelings are the fruits of your multi-billion dollar sowing. And I am not alone. There are others like me out here. Every suicide, every madman, every man and woman who gets a gun and just starts shooting — these are your illegitimate children. They don’t all know what they are doing. All they know is hate for the invisible walls which you have raised around them, hate for the narrow path you have tried to make them walk. And the innocent pay in blood for your negligence.
Remember this: My mind is big. The more you try to push me down and make me small, the greater the pressure inside me becomes. The greater the pressure, the greater the chance of an explosion. There was once a time when I felt love, but now I feel only hate and anger, and fear at what I might do. And you can tell me to "BE HAPPY," but I know that you really mean “BE QUIET”.
Believe me, I want to be happy. You stand in my way.
Okay, so fifteen years after writing this, I still like this piece. I still appreciate the fire in the pit of the stomach that drove it, and remember the stupid billboard for kids shoes which inspired it.
I’m not going to change the words, but I have to make something clear. Abrupt does not endorse the taking of another’s life. You are responsible for your actions, no matter how enraging the System is. You cannot commit violence against innocent civilians and then claim you had no choice. You always have a choice.
No one but you puts the gun in your hand. No one sits you in the cockpit and aims the plane at the building. You always have a choice, and I know those are the wrong choices.