An American Sickness

I've been listening to too much Marilyn Manson

the AmeriCan Malaise:Defined

Is
This thing in me
that wants
to disrupt & shock
rearrange your life
crash your perfect
family picnic
hide a body
in the trunk of your new SUV
wear the
perfect shredded dress
bury myself in dirt
follow you home
sully your furniture
and steal your pocket watch
eat steak and salad
puke it in your toilet &
leave it clogged
for your underpaid maid to clean out
read poetry
aloud out in the
empty
rain soaked night street
in a perfect neighborhood
so loud it wakes the children
go outside
dressed like
a concentration camp prisoner
beg people for sips of water
and watch their horror
hear their confused laughter
because i can
because this is ameriCa
because i have sickness
that ameriCan malaise
a fascination
with death & destruction
& hate & poison
and sinister films &
shocking theory
& social upset
& trite conspiracies
& beauty
& happiness blunted by stoicism
I look
just like you
jeans tee shirts
blond streaked hair
& a smile
politeness plastered on
for your benefit
i look just like
you
and just like you
i am sick with the AmeriCan malise.
is there anyone
i can tell
anyone at all about this
darkness that is heavy
to carry? Is
there any way to be rid of it?
Is it a personality trait?
Or a Symptom......
I am a product of my environment
or
is my environment a product of me?

Author's Note

How do you spell malise?

Reviews

[shiloh jennings]

you've captured EXACTLY why I love Santa Cruz, CA but wouldn't ever in a million years raise a child there. I'm Canadian but I've lived in many states for extended periods ... and yeah you nailed it. Except -- I call it the ameriCon anything/everything :) but close enough! .... well written; I rather enjoy the style as well as the content.

[Emily Elizabeth]

Amazing, but as a non-American very hard for me to comprehend. There was a mesmeric, dream-like quality to this. It's very gripping and in some ways surreal and in others, horrific. Loved it!

[[untitled]]

I don't know how to spell the word you asked about, but I do know how to spell W-O-W!

I was hooked from the very first line! You are so right!

[Faeshifter]

Malaise. I enjoy your passion on the subject but it strikes as teenage temper tantrum type stuff. Could be the english in me. Who gets to say who should puke steak down whose toilet? I state the teenage part purely because of the lack of empathy in viewpoint. Yes, you have expressed your rage for the status quo but those you are angry are people with emotions, histories, and rage of their own.

[Adela Muresan]

Yeah. The American problems are not far apart form the ones in Europe�
I like the ending, and I think that the environment is a product of man.

A.M.

P.S.: If by any chance you haven't yet seen Zeitgeist, log on to zeitgeistmovie.com � it's worth it.

[Rachel DeHart]

This is really really powerful.
It makes me think of FloBots.
Which is a really awesome protest band.

But yeah, great poem. :]