Looking For Sanctuary Amongst the Towers of Ruin, Part 2 (The Wretchedness of All Things "Ratchet")

By Barry Michael Cooper

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

Jeremiah 17:9 

Going into eight more years of the Obamian trek known as the Starship Yes We Can, and we have crashed into the forbidden planet known as What The F&^% Happened To Us?

We are murdering our Mom at home, before walking into a classroom full of innocent babies, and massacring  them with high-powered guns, before turning the weapon on ourselves.

We are excoriating our employees without mercy, when they fall for an insensitive prankster's phone call pretending to be royalty, and then left struggling for answers when an employee commits suicide.

We are shooting people dead at point blank range, because the music is too loud.

We are carving pentagrams into the backs of our children, because we foolishly believe the numbers of a particular day will illuminate the dark shadows of our souls.

We are eating each other's faces off.

We are shooting babies and families and soldiers at midnight theater screenings.

We are building collegiate sports powerhouses on the backs of sexually abused children.

We are driven by unknown voices from demonic earpieces that whisper, "Pull the trigger; it's God's will," as we murder unarmed teens wearing hoodies.

We are pushing this country to the brink of economic apocalypse just to get a political nut.

Our Providential GPS is broken.

We have lost our sense of direction.

We are directed by dollars and cents.

There is no more True North; only True Blood. Our fascination with vampires reflects our undead desire of wanting more and still not having enough.

We laugh at our superheroes who are stuck inside the phone booth, while capturing that image on our iPhone/Androids and upload it as the trending topic #Duh?Losing.

We have lost our authenticity as individuals in a maze of reality shows, which are just waiting to murder someone on camera; fraudulent reality shows that reveal the wretchedness of all things ratchet in us.

We are dub-stepping to a Mephisto Waltz that is too loud, out of tune, and out of time.

We are looking for the "Like" icon on the mirror for the image staring back at us, but we can't find it.

We are losing our joy. And there is no app for that.

We are looking for sanctuary amongst the towers of ruin.

GOD Help us all.

Be sure to order Barry Michael Cooper's debut anthology of street journalism from the 1980s (from his award winning reporting in The Village Voice, Spin Magazine, in addition to his more current essays on the Huffington Post), titled "Hooked On The American Dream-Vol.1: New Jack City Eats Its Young," which is now available on Kindle/Amazon. Don't have a Kindle? No problem; Amazon has a free app available for download, to read "Hooked On The American Dream-Vol.1: New Jack City Eats Its Young," on your PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. Only $1.99! Click here to go to the Amazon site.