10/5/24 The average American is a man smothered in military green, writhing on the ground in cold oil. The pressure builds. People are dying. 7:50 AM is my waking moment. I smack my alarm and flinch as I turn my phone on to tell my boyfriend "good morning" via text message. I see yet more information about Palestine. The dead bodies through the West's intention. Corpses. Blood and body. The images are repeated by my infernal algorithm yet the corpses remain in my thoughts long after the screen shuts off. The images linger. I must leave for class at 8:30, and arrive by 9:30 so that I can have enough time to get to my classes beginning at 10:00 AM concerning British Romantic Literature. We are studying Jane Austen's works at the moment. I cannot bring myself to lift the page. Reading work of the comfortable Westerner feels wrong. I don't care, unlike my professor, that Austen was a woman. Women can colonize just as well as men, and a woman can bleed just as much as a man. The infantile and romantic matters of the rich and delicate disgust me. The images linger. Professional Writing describes the relationship an audience has with multimodal texts at 11:00. Flyers, advertisements, magazine covers. I can't help to imagine the differences between "invading" and "arriving in", between "terrorist" and "military operations", between martyrdom and manslaughter. The images linger. Lunch hour, I do not eat. I read an article about things I cannot recall. The writer says he does not care much for politics. I want to beat his fucking head in. The images linger. Ancient Philosophy, 1:00-1:50 PM. Socrates before he passes, according to the Phaedo, claims the soul lives on beyond the body. That the body deters and prevents us, even, from achieving the upgrades of the soul. I try not to cry. The arms and legs. The images linger. The drive home is about an hour, exact, like this album. I wonder sometimes while I drive about how I am to balance this bastard world with my safety and comfort. I practice debates with an invisible man in the passenger seat. The images linger. I get home and get high. I'm now 21 and never got high before I was legally able to do so, but the guilt lingers about my substance use although I do not overuse. My brain is numb. My body feels warm. I cannot continue to mask what the real issue is. The images linger but I do an okay job of forgetting myself. The images linger the images linger the images linger the images linger. To function as a person within a society, to me, is to establish that you are in some way complicit with that society's decisions and ethical guidelines. Of course this is not always the case, but I feel very strongly as though I have no choice but to give up. If I spoke up about the death I have witnessed would lead to apathy or threats. Making artwork about the war feels pretentious and so goddamn wrong. No words, no music notes, no stroke of a paintbrush and no color could showcase the proper hatred I feel concerning the war upon Palestine. I feel desperately alone but Efrim Menuck and Company seem to help soften the guilt I instill upon myself. How can I go on like this, as though I'm not deeply hurt and concerned about the dead in the Middle East? I'm a good student in a world I want to watch burn. I feel as though I am a contradiction in this regard. Every day I pray to whatever god might be listening that I can live in a world where Palestine may be freed from the clutches of Western evil. The images linger the images linger the images linger. Free Palestine.