Life Askew

When I am old,

I will tell of warriors forgone.

Of their battles won, of their battles lost,

Of their enigmatic strength.

When I am old,

I will tell of warriors forgone,

Of their courageous feats,

And magical days, victoriously charmed.

When I am old,

I will tell of warriors forgone,

Of their lives, immersed in wretched sadness,

Of their tragic, abbreviated essence, crucified before full flow.

When I am old,

I will warn of warriors forgone,

Of their enamouring vigour

And our blinded trust in their seamless sinew.

When I was young,

We had warriors, carved of potent tenacity,

Moulded by life and fortitudinous charisma,

Who led us forward, finding our inner glamour.

When I was young,

We had warriors, carved of pluck, spunk and spine.

When I was young, we had warriors.

When I was young, we lost our warriors.

When I was young,

Our warriors we lost,

So sudden, with combatant-like fragility.

When I was young, lessons learnt, never to forget.

When I am old,

I want to be a warrior,

Attempting their footprints with sufficiency to fill,

Bequeathed by warriors of days gone past.

Warriors, residing not in our forever,

Leave us too soon, leave us weak, yet strong inculcated by their calibre.

Our warriors did not die, their battle-cry’s forever sounding,

Awakening the challenger inside this carrion left behind,

A parting gift, forever within us to reside.

Charmed are we, immortalising our warriors of days gone past.

Yes. To you the one who sits at home and moans about poor service delivery. To you who moans about the powers that be. To you who say our cities and towns are run badly and you could do a better job. You aren’t apathetic. You are pathetic. The moment you sit there on your high little horse, blowing your silly trumpet, with every second sentiment you utter being one which criticizes the government and proclaim how it would be better overseas, and that there is no point voting, you forfeit your right to bitch. You throw away your right to moan. You forfeit all we have, as a country, fought so long and hard for. You throw away your right to live in a free and democratic society. By not voting, you are saying you are fine with how the country, and more specifically your town is run.

To all of you, I suggest moving to Zimbabwe. Yes, Zimbabwe. You are obviously unappreciative of the wonderful freedom and most awesome privilege we have of living in a democratic country. Yes. I say privilege. It should be a right, but it is not. Only 50%, maybe a little more, of the WORLD enjoy democratic freedom, and you feel superior enough to sit on your horse and toss it away like it was nothing.

In my eye, you are pathetic, weak and undeserving of the tremendous gift of democracy. If you aren’t going to stand up, be counted and be a part of becoming the change you want to see, you should honest-to-God, fuck off and go somewhere where you don’t have a vote to be counted. Where you don’t have the right to bitch and moan and have your voice heard. For you are not deserving.

You have been weighed, measured and found wanting. Now get back to your beer, braaivleis, beerboeps and soul-depleting apathy. Yumm yumm.