How do you get past the past?

It was so bad but not as bad as some. I walked to school in the ditch in the snow because if I walked on the street that was clear I would get beat. By the time I got to school my canvas shoes and thin pants were soaking wet and no teacher thought to redress me and put my clothes in the dryer. I can't blame them as the rule of the thumb in my day meant a man could not beat his wife and kids with anything bigger around than his thumb. That is a true law in the United States of America. Where are my reparations? Where is my grace?

Why can't I drink in public when billboards advertise it? Why can't I walk down the street with a beer? What kind of message am I sending that all the commercials are not? Since when did open container become walking down the street in public? I thought it was only in a car. Who passed that law since I don't believe anyone is really in favor of having to work all day every day to put Vietnam Veterans in jail over drinking or anyone else for that matter. It is legal to drink. Who are these people who make us feel bad about drinking? Oh, yeah, they are called hypocritical Christians!

The Vietnam Veterans who were forced to slice babies' throats are not even allowed to drink the beer they defended in the Constitution because our government has made it illegal to drink in public when everyone has been drinking in public since we were created. There are Vietnam Veterans today who are so traumatized by the atrocities they committed condoned and taught by the United States Government during many wars and corrupt events since the inception of the United States Government that they can no longer work a job that supports them. To tell them they cannot drink or sit down in the down town areas is disgusting!

They tell those of us who were traumatized by rapes, beatings, molestation, and other horrible events that we will have problems for the rest of our lives but as soon as we get old enough to take care of ourselves they tell us we are suppose to suck it up. Pull ourselves up by our boot straps.  That we are playing the victim card way too long. So we rebel and get angry. We act out by screaming and yelling. We use something to make us feel better and then all we get is prison time for disorderly conduct, drinking in public, drug use, and terroristic behavior because we are now out of control drug addicts who need to be understood, accepted, and loved. Once we become adults there really is no grace or mercy. It's all about punishment. You go through hell and then you get punished because you don't act the way they think you ought. Go to school, go to church, go to work, pay your education bill, try to pay your health care bill, dental bill, house payment, rent, utilities, clothes, and any other myriad of perceived necessities like tampons.

People walk around all high and mighty saying bad things about drug addicts and dealers when all along the very people saying bad things are the ones guilty of creating the drug addicts, dealers, thieves, and murderers. They are people going back and forth to work and church judging and condemning others while raping the earth of it's natural resources creating things that cause cancer like cars. They go to church and then talk about what people are wearing and what they sound like on stage.

I want to stop living like rich white religious people and start living like the Natives, Mexicans, and Africans used to. I want to have a drum circle on mushrooms or LSD or Peyote. We wouldn't have to work the same if we would just stop living the English way and start living the Garden of Eden way. No more clothes!!