Grey Area

The deep irony of you looking at me from your high horse is rooted in the fact that you have never touched the ground.

I'm not advocating that it's nice down here, in the grey. But it is more than a dark and unwelcoming fog, it is in fact a swirl of silver mist and pits of black sludge. Down here, you don't know who you are until you're cast head to toe from it, and more often than not — you're full of shit.

So it must be nice up on that stallion of yours, overlooking my turbulent reality, unscathed and clean like a god from above. But tell me, good sir, does your ass ever hurt?

And between you and me, saddles are very uncomfortable and leave asses in a very poor condition. It's not a question of if it hurts, but rather when. What do you do when your ass hurts?

Don't try and lie to me, of course it's hard being up there, constantly keeping the high ground. It goes against natural instinct, keeping one's feet firmly in the air is quite the peculiar profession. I wonder how many people you had to beat down to get to that position.

Or perhaps you were born up there. What an uncomfortable thing, to be born upon a saddle. I can't imagine anyone who would choose it, like being a priest's daughter, or a policeman's son. I assume their asses sting greatly.

I would pity your position if it weren't so simple to step down, even if you fall a bit on the way and damage that pretty blouse of yours. So rarely do you step down and risk it.

Because both you and I know that if you got off, it would be nearly impossible to get back on again. By the time the struggle would be finished your boots would be covered in the grey, and you could no longer regain your pristine moral glimmer of before.

So I reiterate: What do you do when your ass hurts?

I assume you complain.

You complain about something or another. Moral injustices, racism, economic inequality, all from the comfort of the high ground, never having faced a single injustice yourself and benefiting from the very system you're criticizing. And very rarely do any of you whiners ever do anything about how you feel other than complain, because that would require actually stepping down off the horse and seeing things from other people's perspectives through the fog and the grey. But that's too confusing.

Down in the nitty gritty things make less sense. Sometimes abortion can save a mother's life, but it's also murder. Administering death penalty is more expensive to American taxpayers than housing a murder for life, but then justice might not be served. Not all Muslims are terrorists just like all Christians are not members of the KKK. Donald Trump can be a good president, he also has the potential to spark WWIII. Not all white cis males are sexist pigs, and feminists aren't heavens equality angels from above.

Truth is, we are all people living in the goddamn heat of it all. So please, get off your horse, grab a shovel, and start scraping up shit like the rest of us.