Is life worth living or should I blast myself?

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Is Life Worth Living or Should I Blast Myself? This week’s piece Is Life Worth Living or Should I Blast Myself?, first appeared in the blog Poe Man’s Dreams which narrates some of the miseries and experiences of everyday life for people with few resources. This particular story is an account of being a juvenile delinquent and having to live with a family who had a multitude of issues. Check it out below. (In case you’ve missed it, we also posted Exhibit A from the same author a few weeks ago.)   Trigger warning: Accounts or discussion of suicide, sexual assault, self-harm, drug abuse and physical abuse Read More

Exhibit A

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Exhibit A   This week’s piece Exhibit A, first appeared in the relatively new blog called Poe Man’s Dreams which narrates the miseries and experiences of everyday life for people with few resources. Check out the story below. Introduction to Poe Man’s Dreams, a blog about experiencing ‘the struggle‘ in the American Midwest. It’s like I’m trapped in a maze walk around in a daze I won’t rest ’til I’m paid or I’m down in my grave I wanna look tough, but my sneakers is scuffed Everyday pants in the week is enough I had a little money, but it came and it went Now its either pay the rent or stay in a tent And it don’t make sense how the shit is intense And all you got up in your pocket is lint, you get the hint? I had a cigarette for breakfast, just for beginners Pride for my lunch and sleep for dinner I tried to go to church, priest called me a sinner He called me everything, except for a winner I’m walking in the rain wishing things would change It ain’t a game, man I pawned all the rings and chains Emotionally scarred from losing my job Pass the nod nigga, times is hard –G. Dep “Everyday” (featuring Faith Evans & Meelah) Read More

The Bell Tolls for Thee, Motherfucker

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Sketch contribution by Monica Kostas   Get ready to never see bus drivers the same way again. This week we feature a story by John O’Reilly who takes us through the route of his daily tribulations as a city bus driver in Minneapolis.   Ding. You’re just driving along, keeping your eyes open, checking side streets and blind alleys, and it happens. No warning. It jolts you, and you instinctively look down the road for the next blue reflective bus stop sign. If you know the route well, you can visualize exactly where the sign is. If it’s a route you don’t drive often, you push your eyes as far as you can see to find the next one in the thicket of poles on the side of the road. It’s not until you’re a bus driver that you realize exactly how many signs crowd the boulevards of our cities. Only one among them is the one that your passenger has signaled for you to stop at, and you have the short time between registering the sound in your brain and where the sign sits to apply the full weight of your brakes, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of air pressure, to slow a half a million dollar vehicle to a stop without taking out a side mirror, hitting a biker or crushing a car, and maneuver it smoothly to the side of the road at exactly the spot where the passenger intends to alight. Every time, hundreds of times a day, it takes all your concentration to accomplish this simple, single task. Read More

A Worthless Piece of Plastic

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Surprise – by Monica Kostas This week’s piece comes to us by a regular Recomposition contributor, Invisible Man. In the face of fierce debates on racism, profiling, protests, and riots, his anecdote detailing an altercation with cops in Alberta feels painfully relevant. A Worthless Piece of Plastic by Invisible Man There’s nothing to do on a Saturday night in Lacombe. We want to see a movie. In the fall of 1999, the nearest theatre is half an hour’s drive away in Red Deer, Alberta. So, as usual, we drive into town with a borrowed ride – Terry at the wheel. (He’s white, you have to think of these things.) We turn into the theatre parking lot to read the lighted billboard on the north side of the building. As usual, there is nothing worth seeing. “Let’s go to the cheap theatre. At least we won’t be wasting our money on a crappy movie.” “You wanna walk?” “Yeah, let’s walk.” Read More

We Carry Our Failures

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Vicious Care – sketch by Monica Kostas   This week’s piece comes to us from fellow editor Scott Nappalos, a healthcare worker in Miami. He writes about the challenges of salvaging human interactions and compassion while working in a profiteering healthcare system that renders impotent patients and healthcare workers alike. We Carry Our Failures: Working With People in a Dehumanizing System My patient would come back to the hospital just as soon as he left. We’ll call him Mr. Jones. His arm was mangled by a rare cancer that took his digit and much of his sensation and movement. He wore a hat over his thinning hair that read ‘Vietnam Veteran’. Rare cancer, God only knows what he was exposed to there. He took to me and would greet me and discuss his condition even when I wasn’t assigned to him, “it’s miserable” looking to his hand “living like this”. Everyone took him to be a problem. They accused him of being a drug addict and using the hospital like a hotel for room and board, as he would sneak off the unit to smoke, talk to vets, buy junk food, and tool around outside in his wheelchair. Doctors would discharge him and he’d come right back. No one believed the stories he gave that were enough to get him readmitted, essentially living in the hospital for months despite discharges. Read More