Thank you for the distinct lack of natives trying to kill me because I invaded and built upon their land for personal use. Thank you for genocide and a history of white supremacy, because they have set up a convenient society in which I can flourish and ignore the problems of the oppressed, displaced, and misfortunate in surrounding areas.

Thank you for the arrogant superiority of the mainstream white American that set everything up for me and thank you for the arrogant superiority of the bohemian mindset I have adorned myself with to feel better than them

Thanks for molecules that eventually arranged themselves into human life and the natural laws of physics that induced this arrangement

Thanks for the inherent feeling that you are better than others and that the group you were born into is better than the group others were born into

Thanks for the strong sense of community this fallacious feeling gives, as well as the chauvinistic, arrogant, patriotic nationalism and the knowledge that the religion of you and your parents is the correct one and your language is the best and your soldiers are fighting for the better reason

Thank you for the shared human care that arises from self-interest and loneliness and that results in families, gangs, societies, markets, armies, and governments

Thanks for the superior arrogance that gave Europeans the audacity to sail to, divide, conquer, and sell to each other the beautiful shared lands of the natives, and thanks for the superior disease and superior weaponry that gave their audacity its intended consequence

Thank you for the psychological flaw that allows me to see some things as simply beautiful

Thank you for the historical fights that led to interesting stories and fun childhood games while I grew up on the land my parents were told they owned after the area was raped for hundreds of years by genocide and capitalism

Thank you for the comfort I had in this home with my family

Thank you for the ability to simply not care as the institutionally oppressed members of other ethnic groups who are intelligent and ambitious enough to leave their lifetrap of low wages and gangs and easy jailtime and early death by bullets or drugs from mexico speak out at the slam poetry open mic

Thank you for the supermarket down the street and the chemically preserved, corn-fed, pre-murdered turkeys that we can feast upon on this one day of the year that comes every fall

Thank you for supplying the plastic trophies that I could fill my shelf with for a sense of achievement, which I received because my parents paid for me to play many sports that I was not very good at

Thank you for the advertisements that brainwashed me to go after guitars, girls, guns, cars, and cigarettes, otherwise I would have no reasonable ambitions

Thank you for lyrics and interviews of suicidal musicians, for popular acclaimed novels and unpopular acclaimed televisions shows and films for showing me that I’m not entirely alone in my thoughts

Thank you for various media that provide me with recorded thoughts of witty thinkers who either killed themselves or drank themselves to death, for those are the people I can most closely identify with

Thank you for making sex require much nuance to experience, with a combination of oppressive, sexist, slut-shaming, an almost unanimous lack of obvious attraction to unconfident, creepy, awkward, individuals such as myself, inherent value placed on virginity, and the taboo nature of sex where you can’t do it in front of people or you’ll weird everyone out and maybe get arrested. All of this forces a sense of specialness upon sex so that it is not immediately obvious that it is just another meaningless activity with which to kill time

Thanks for the for sensual quality attributed to playing guitar and singing, as well as quiet mysterious musicians in general, for this is the only reason I have ever had sex

Thank you for videogames, so I can experience danger and heroism and psychotic killing sprees without any real life consequences

Thank you for trying to get me believe in god and the afterlife and for trying to save me, I appreciate your concern

Thank you for the overemphasized concern with immediate surroundings that allow me to laugh at something stupid while genocide is still happening in Darfur

Thank you for sociopathy

Thank you for the quick-witted terrible people that keep the world interesting

Thank you for colleges that group me off with others relative to age, intelligence, and fiscal standing , so I can find like-minded individuals and we can have interesting conversations and find interesting ways to convince each other not to kill ourselves

Thank you for informing me that drugs are bad

Thank you for a country where the most cared about social problems are that sexism and racism of the past still have lingering effects despite not being as perpetuated with modern laws as they are in other countries

Thank you for a nearby city that everyone has deemed the greatest of all for reasons I have tried and failed to observe for myself but nevertheless causes great rock bands to make sure to put on an extra special rock show there

Thank you for the brain and the clothes to sometimes let others see me and hear me the way I want them to so that I can make friends with some of the people I want to be friends with

Thank you for rejecting me so that I didn’t follow you into tattoo high school drop out drug addiction abortions

Thank you for Wikipedia for giving me hope with succinct stories about people I’ve never met and places I’ve never seen

Thank you for jokes that keep me distracted

Thank you for people who say things I have never thought, it is the only interesting way to learn anything

Thank you for people who have the ability and effort to say things beyond the inane

Thank you for high paying jobs that I don’t understand but that my father enjoys working at, for it is the source of all my possessions

Thank you for the people of the world coming together to make mind altering drugs always an option despite the government’s persistence against them

Thank you for James Dean for making me feel cool when I wear a leather jacket over a white t shirt

Thank you for deadly constant random car accidents due to negligence, for they are the most pointed satire of our society as well as a reminder to the small towns where the victims hail from or die in that life is precious

Thank you to classic poems that aren’t really that great and inspire me to try to write better ones

Thank you for the general acceptance of the idea of property, even though no one truly has a right to own anything

Thank you for people who disregard or directly oppose what they are told and come out on top, they make interesting stories and give me hope

Thank you for people willing to read things I’ve written and tell me I’m really good

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to any human being, see any part of the earth, read any book, and watch any movie

Thank you for the random coincidences that allow everything to work out, sometimes

Thanks for a template on which to attempt to improve classic writing only to realize that the writing is classic for a reason and much better than whatever bullshit I just tried to say

Thanks for a funeral that is all dress up and handshakes