Procurements

While, my mom and I were watching Michael Jackson’s memorial service, my mom tried to sing Heal The World. When she got to the chorus, she mispronounced “heal”, making it sound like “hell”. Teasing her, I continued, “make it a bitter place. Poor you and poor me…”

This gave an idea of making my pessimistic version of Heal The World. I think it is some kind of corny, but I’m posting it anyway.

So here it goes:

Hell The World

there’s a place in your heart
and it’s nothing but emptiness
and this place
will not get better tomorrow
and if you really try
you’ll find all the reasons
to cry
in this place there’s nothing
but hurt or sorrow

there are ways to get there
if you care enough
for the living
give them much more space
leave this bitter place

(and say)

hell the world
it is a bitter place
poor you and poor me
and the entire human race
there are people dying
to make more room for the living
leave this bitter place
poor you and poor me

don’t ask why
there’s a love that always lies
it only cares about receiving
if you try
you shall see
it’s false bliss
you’ll always feel
fear or dread
you’re just existing
and not living

(and say)

hell the world
it is a bitter place
poor you and poor me
and the entire human race
there are people dying
to make more room for the living
leave this bitter place
poor you and poor me

This scene from Toni Morrison’s Sula once brought shivers down my spine:

And they saw the Lamb’s eye and the truly innocent victim: themselves. They acknowledged the innocent child hiding in the corner of their hearts, holding a sugar-and-butter sandwich. That one. The one who lodged deep in their fat, thin, old, young skin, and was the one the world had hurt. Or they thought of their son newly killed and remembered his legs in short pants and wondered where the bullet went in. Or they remembered how dirty the room looked when their father left home and wondered if that is the way the slim, young Jew felt, he who for them was both son and lover in whose downy face they could see the sugar-and-butter sandwiches and feel the oldest and most devastating pain there is: not the pain of childhood, but the remembrance of it.