I woke up this morning with a pit in my stomach. I knew it was coming. The pundits tell me that I've been waiting for this for twenty months. But the pundits are wrong. I've been waiting for this for 7 years. I gave a year of freebie. A year to do right by me. That was utter failure. Even with me wanting to be on your side you could not capture me. You are not eloquent enough. You are not humane enough. Frankly, you are not smart enough. So I bit my tongue. And did what I could to bid my time and when I thought it was finally here you stole it form me. Just as you had done before. Yanked it out from underneath me. Tore it out of my hands. It was mine to have but perhaps I was not cautious enough. Or too cautious. I did not read enough. Did not protest enough. Did not debate, or wail, or gnash enough. Until it was too late. And this black that had begun to develop grew like a virus. Exponential. I learned more to hate you more. And it worked. And you kept fucking up. And fucking people over. And fucking around with your damn "Now watch this drive," and your "I looked into his eyes and saw his soul," and your "decider deciding."
And now it is here. Your glorious dethroning. You have left a very meager castle. But hopefully we will fill it. Hope. Change. It has become our chant. Our battle cry. In the face of all odds we bitterly cling. To hope and change.
And my stomach is knots. And it's hard to taste food, although I know I should eat. I can't sit still, I'm terrible impatient, and indecisive, and moody, and opinionated, and silenced. Waiting. It is the sound of aspiration.
I'm so nervous. I feel like shit. I'm an absolute wreck of a man. Near tears at the very toughts. What if you lose? What if he wins? Your poor dear Grandmother. Bless her. What will we do? Where will we go? Am I really going to move? Make good on this promise? Will I emmigrate?
Let's not think on it. Let's have a moment of peace.
This morning I picked up my blank absentee ballot. I held it close to my heart. Then smelled it. Then kissed it. It didn't kiss back. I don't know what I was expecting.
I poured over my ballot and the voter's guide. Reading, reading, reading. Searching for answers. Searching for the chinks. Searching for my men and women. Hoping to find secrets.
I didn't want to mail my ballot so I drop it in a ballot box downtown. I want it counted. Tonight. I want my number on CNN and ABC and MSNBC and NPR and CBS and FOX. And fucking FOX. I want FOX to report my number. My hand in the air. My aye. My lever pulled. My chad totally and completely absent.
I told my boss at work as we left "The world will be different tomorrow." I meant it. He told me something innocuous about his life and we parted ways.
I thought dropping it there would make me feel better. It didn't. Nothing changed. I just threw an envelope into a metal box with a lock on it. I looked at the man washing windows. He smiled at me but it was a "I'm-just-doing-my-job smile." Not a thanks for doing your civic duty, buddy. Thanks brother in democracy.
I started walking by my car and I saw someone else walking their ballot to the box. I tried to make eye contact. So I could smile and seem to say "Me too! Me too! I just did it too! Look at us! We comrades, we." He did not see me. He waived his ballot up and down thinking of something else altogether. Oh, the disrespect!
Who am I kidding?
Fuck me. My eyes hurt. My stomach hurts. I'm sore all over. My friend said it best, "I want to fall asleep, and wake up on November 5th."
If only... If only.
