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Part 1 of Backstabber Extracts

Part 1 has been posted.
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The Return of the Backstabber Extracts

I know that the only good thing I've ever written is the Backstabber Extracts, and so due to feelings of inadequacy I'm going to bring it back.

However, I will do it differently. I am going to open a new blog dedicated to the Backstabber Extracts, but I will release each part separately, and of course, edited into something better.

Thanks to all the fans, I hope you will stay tuned for the rest of the Backstabbers!

It isn't that open-minded here either.

I've been contemplating some things. First I need to blatantly make some things clear.
I am a "citizen of the world." I've lived in many many many countries. I've met many people, and many cultures, and many philosophies.
I am, in a non-traditional sense, a widow. I have loved and been blissfully, ignorantly, truly happy, and then been crushed down and felt like not living.

I am now living in a small sub-town right outside of Rotterdam, a place with a couple bars, shops, and plenty of people. I've noticed that even though the Dutch are considered open minded and free spirited, very few actually are. Over here, I get looked down on every single day because I speak English, I drink on week days and/or before 5 o clock, because I have fun and sing and dance, because I randomly help people who seem to not know what they're doing...
I don't mind it, in fact I could not care less. They're missing out.
But I'm also missing out. I'm missing out the people who join you when you have a drink. I miss the people who see you dance and dance too, or sing along when you sing. I miss "thank you" and "you're welcome."

I don't mind people staring at me because they finally see me dance or hug or kiss someone new. But I mind when they mind.

I only have this one life, and it may end tomorrow or the day after. I won't waste today thinking if the woman next to me is judging me as an immigrant because she heard me say "thank you" in English. Or if that girl is looking at me dirty because my dancing may be a bit out there.

So why do the rest of them have time to think about those things?
Why do they let it bother them?

Why do you?

To my generation of poets

It's so normal to hear a poem called beautiful. You read of such great trees, and of true love, and misery. You read of world hunger and wars ruining our lives. But your rhymes, what do they mean? It's all just aesthetics, some makeup to look nice, some guilt-driven faux-concern for the environment and the being.

We weren't born into this age, we're here to create it. We're not here to be told what to do, we're here to make a choice. We're not here to expand the boundaries, we're here to blow them up.

We're not here to think inside or outside the box, we're here to burn it down. We're here to take it outside the lines, to create shock waves so tremendous they'll be talked about decades from now.

We're falling into an age of no meaning. Let's dig down deep into the black ocean floor where they'll tell us it's too much, it's too profound.

It's not too deep. Take up a torch and shine it down below and you'll see the details, you'll see where we come from. You just have to get up and find that light that penetrates the darkness.

So take charge my fellow poets, writers, singers, painters, and forget the rules. Don't be confined by grammar, spelling, rules of colour or what's appropriate. We're past appropriate, we're past bad taste. We need to deliver our message by any means we can. Don't get stuck on topics that aren't yours just to get ahead. If that's the life then I'm not looking to live it. I won't write of popular themes that lead to empty oohs and aahs, my guilt would kill me before anything else would get the chance.

Write of love, of war, of hunger, of violence. Write of strawberries, of hats, of cigarettes, of dentist trips. But when you do, mean it.

Take the reigns and make your way through the woods, step past rock and stick and walk around the trees until you get to where you need to be. Until you can say what you need to say.

Then say it so it's respected.