the people upstairs

a journal entry, more than anything

The people upstairs are always fighting. I have been in tense situations like that before where you are stuck living with someone that you don't get along with. My entire childhood was like that, stuck under tyrannical reign of an adult who thought of me as property rather than a person. People don't respect each others boundaries or eccentricities and it almost always leads to confrontation. Im thankful that I don't have to live like that anymore.
  The people upstairs are a black family, a young mother and her teenage son. They don't get along and i always hear screaming and the ceiling squeaks under their shuffling. It's a constant reminder to me that people are hard to get along with, hard to coexist with. It's in our nature to draw lines and defend them to the death. The sooner we all except this, the faster we can get on with our lives and eventual deaths.
  I would like to believe that we are all connected and are capable of peace and living under one consciousness. If it ever happens it will be well after I am dead. Its easy to judge and make assumptions about peace when you don't live inside of the areas where people are oppressed and thrown away. Here in the city, you see that everywhere you look. Cities are filing cabinets for the old and disenchanted, the simple and the crazy. They come here to get away from rich, smug a******s who want to provoke a reaction and put them in prison. They come here because of cheap housing and solidarity. People who want to change the world only end up distorting themselves in the process.