Tiny, little friends
Share tiny little secrets
As the symphony of laughter
And squeaking swings
Stuff the afternoon.

Tiny, little waves "Goodbye!"
Through tinted chariots
Whisking them home for the weekend.

And in twenty years
When the weather is irresistible,
They'll take their own tiny ones
For a walk.

When they stroll by the playground
And hear that symphony of laughter
They'll remember tiny, little Sarah
And her tiny, little secrets
Wondering how her littles wave "Goodbye!"

Alone
in the desert
of my sable anguish -
a solitary wildflower,
I weep.

I'm a throwback, baby
     atavistic and masochistic
I'll pay for dinner and
  I'll hold the door
you can complain and
     vilify this good guy
but I can take it.  Your
feminism does not and can not
     impel or compel
me to forgo my manners because
    you
        can't
           tell me how I should
                expect to respect
          you

You've been here before.  You woke up today and realized that the stress, the angst, and the foreboding that you've allowed to rule your life is there by choice.  You've gotten lost in the spiral of anxiety, again.

If it's not your health, it's your money.  If it's not the money, it's your kids.  If it's not your kids, you're worried about past life choices and how they will affect you tomorrow.  Your fears line up at the door, wrap around the block, and await their turn.  Your door is open to them all and you don't deny them.  You let them in.  

Once they are inside, you wrap your fears around you.  They’re a welcome smothering; a wearying security blanket of trembling phobia.  They are as familiar to you as they are distressing.  These constant, restless, companions are more comfortable than the unknown.  

Today, though, you stare at the line of fears and realize that something is missing.  Happiness.  Contentment.  Acceptance.  These are conspicuous in their absence.  And you remember an old Cherokee tale.  You have two wolves engaged in eternal battle inside you; one is fear and anxiety and the other is peace and serenity.  The strongest is the one you feed and you've been feeding the wrong wolf.  

You've done this your entire life in a self-centered, selfish, guilt-ridden, indulgent, fashion.  You wallow in the darkness because you're afraid you don't deserve the light.

You know you’ll feed the right wolf today.  But can you do it tomorrow?  

  mighty river;
the fish navigates
​as it will

his hipster beard -
mandatory accessory for this
gentrified borough of Pittsburgh -
leads him back and forth
from the kitchen to the tables

he serves more tables than he should
I wait too long for my
overpriced salad
as he drops a plate of greasy wings
in front of a table of oblivious
professionals who
judge him
find him wanting
without ever looking up from their phones

a small bead of sweat accompanies him
when he drops off my check

I pay with a twenty and he brings me back
a ragged five and a one-dollar bill.

I know what he did.  ****.

god ****** hipster server trying to fleece me
playing on social pressure
betting on pocketing that faded fiver
that he did not earn from me

I force him to break that Lincoln
I tip three bucks
because I ****** well won’t let him get the best of me

my indignation is an all-American righteousness
so much so that I forget -

forget I paid four times what the salad was worth
forget he doesn’t see a penny of that profit
forget that he makes less than three bucks an hour
forget that without tips he won’t make rent

I forget all of this in my pride at catching a huckster
who just wants to keep the lights on
one more day

My green-eyed first wife -
fiery temper and hair to match -
slid the wedding ring on my
finger.

Twisting on my knuckle, it
never left my hand.  I grokked
with certainty borne from intuition
that BAD THINGS would happen
should that tri-colored gold band
leave my touch.

Years, a decade and change, passed
and one day I took it off and set it
on the bed beside me.
For two seconds I was fine, but then
I couldn’t breathe.
In a panic, I put the ring back on.

But

I put it on backwards.

BAD THINGS happened.

Weeks later, soul-weary and
tired of constant fighting
I remembered my
misstep and I
flipped the ring on my finger.

Things got better.  But now I knew.  
Like peeling blistered skin after a sunburn,
I couldn’t stop.

Flip. Fight. Flip. Make up.
Flip. Scream. Flip. Sweet nothings.
Flip. Slammed doors. Flip. Makeup ***.

I forgot which direction was safe and
which was dangerous.

That marriage - that ring - is gone now.
I’m married to a blonde angel now
with a temper as cool as her hair; who
loves me more than I deserve
and knows me better than I’d like.

From day one, I refused to let the
flip
of the ring mar my new marriage.  

I flipped it on my wedding night.
I flipped it the next day on my honeymoon.
I flip that ring every day,
daring
it to curse me again.

Another decade has passed,
I flip my new ring daily.

And cringe a little each time.

The night went on
as the madness kept coming.
There was nothing
I could do
to stop it.
Eyes closed,
I prayed long and hard
for the dawn.

—Ron Gavalik

The writer’s job
is to build the words,
not perform for applause
or join cheap cliques.
The printed word, baby,
that’s the nervous anticipation
for the 300 pound *****
who ***** the best ****.
Words are the hit of whiskey
after the sun drops
below the buildings.

-Ron Gavalik

I’m trying  <!DOCTYPE html>
<html> Baby, I’m trying <head>
<!-- HTML Codes by Quackit.com -->
I’m trying <title> to see through
all the weeds "width=device-width">
<style> of our modern landscape
but I know my search {:left;background}
is a futile effort.{font-family:Arial, sans-serif}
{font-family:Georgia, serif} This is our world
now, and I’m just trying ;14px;font
</style>
to see
</head>
through
<body>
the madness
</body>
of the weeds.

-Ron </head> Gavalik </body>