Fuck the Lies, Burn It Down

Submitted by Mary Christine

Guest Post by E.M. Burlingame

This world’s a cesspool of liars, stinking up every corner with their rancid breath. Liars and lies, malicious little bastards, crawling over each other like roaches in a dumpster. You can’t walk two steps without slipping in the slime of it—every word, every promise, every goddamn smile, a lie so thick it’s the air we choke on. Lies ain’t just words anymore, they’re the currency, the grease that keeps this rotten machine grinding. You got a truth? Here’s a lie to slap it down, a counterpunch for every honest swing you take. What’s the use? Truth’s a beat-up drunk in an alley, bleeding out while the crowd bets on the fight.

Four hundred years of lies, stacked up like bones in a graveyard, and you’re asking me what the hell truth even is? It’s a ghost, a shadow, a laugh track to a sick joke. It’s been buried so long under the weight of bullshit that it don’t even matter anymore. Honor? Being honest? What’s that worth when the whole damn game’s rigged, when reality itself is just a lie with better makeup? You might as well spit in the wind and call it a revolution. Fuck it—I’m done. Done pretending there’s some noble path through this sewer. It’s time to tell the lie that burns it all down, a Molotov cocktail of words to set this fakery ablaze.

We’re gonna need a fire, a murderous, screaming blaze to torch the illusions, the liars, the whole stinking mess. Reality’s down there somewhere, buried under the ash, but to get it back, we’ve got to light the match. And when it’s done, when the flames die and the smoke clears, we’re gonna have to live with it—live with the lie we told to kill the lies. That’s the kicker, ain’t it? Malevolence rules this shithole, so malevolence is what it’s gonna take. You don’t fight a monster with a handshake and a prayer—you get dirty, you get mean, you get ruthless.

But here’s the trick, the tightrope we’re staggering on: don’t go so far you turn into the same goddamn beast you’re fighting. Stare into that abyss too long, and it’s your face staring back, twisted and grinning. We’ve got to be brutal with ourselves, rip apart our own delusions, shred the pretty little pictures we paint of the world. It ain’t nice, it ain’t sweet, even though it’s got a good sushi bar—it’s fucking malevolent, resentful, a fist of broken glass in the gut. Fuck it! For today, this month, this year. Who the hell knows. Maybe the rest of our lives. It’s time to act as monsters ourselves, telling the lies that make the liars choke, watching the estrogen-soaked passive-aggressive genocidals burn themselves out in the fire we started with words and no small measure of glee.

Yeah, here we are, exhausted, pissed off, but still swinging. The truth’s a corpse, honor’s a joke, and the only way out is through the flames. Having to be dishonest kills the honest, deep and permanent like. But it’s gotta be and we gotta live with it. Burn it down, you motherfuckers—burn it all down and see what’s left when the smoke clears. Maybe nothing. Maybe that’s the point.