So this is it, huh? This is what I get for being a good citizen. This is what I have to show for my hard work and patriotic pride; for paying my bills, taxes, children’s education, and helping those less fortunate than me. This is what, I, a lucky one, gets for so far surviving the bloodfest, which we now call home. Well, Viva fucking Mexico.

You see, I try really hard to remain positive. I know all about fair weather friends. I’ve never been one to run when the going gets tough. In my eyes, families stick together, through good and bad, forever and always. I guess I’ve been running on blind hope because after so many years of fighting the fight, I’m starting to wear thin. I’ve lost my proud, assertive, positive self. The unknown being who stares back at me from the mirror is scared, bitter, weak, and hollowed. Where is the justice?

My old self loved to sit in our quaint little town’s park at night. My children would be playing and my wife and I would talk and watch the world in action. I can no longer go to the park with my children, it has been taken over by street vendors selling cocaine packed roses. When I stop at the stoplight, I no longer receive flyers for a carwash or a pizza for my family. Unknown faces now bombard me in the streets with government issued pamphlets to teach me how to avoid violence, kidnapping, and death. How about giving me a pamphlet to teach me how to continue living with the violence, kidnapping, and death. I don’t want to see people, I don’t want to know anymore. Let God return me to ignorant bliss.

I don’t want to see young couples holding hands, planning their wedding. Why fall in love, why get married, there’s no need to plan a future that will never exist. I no longer find joy in seeing a woman gently touch her pregnancy swelled belly. Instead when I see these women, I catch myself quickly trying to remember our Mexican penal code. I wonder exactly how many years of prison are given for the premeditated murder of one’s own child? How many years should she get?

The angels have cried for they have seen our shameful, filthy truth. They have turned their backs on us, while God watches us die, one by one. This is the penance for our country’s evil and greed.

You. You make me angry. What right do you have to continue living your happy, carefree life. Why the hell do you smile? Why are you allowed to laugh, when I am left alone to cry? Can’t you see my fate, don’t you care? Should my final number be called tomorrow, would you notice? I’ve lived a lifetime watching people console eachother. Gentle hands and kind hearts whisper “You’ll pull through this, everything’s going to be alright.” Why has the world become deafeningly silent?

Maybe, psychologically, I just need time to adapt and adjust. God knows there have been and continue to be countries with more tragedy than mine. The world can’t stop for ones personal agony. Maybe it’s my own guilty conscious creating the bitterness which now inhabits my soul. I feel the need to grieve the loss of my country, but at the same time feel ashamed and unworthy. I am shamed by my country’s corrupt government and greed. I am more ashamed of the fact that Mexico’s faithful citizens, including myself, are to be blamed. It was by our living decades of cowardly, conforming, indifference that allowed our government the power needed to lead us on this path straight to hell.