Is that the lowest moment?
When you don't dare to wear shorts because of the scars that cover your legs.
And then you're sitting there at the dinner table with your family,
And they keep on telling you to eat,
But all you mutter is "I'm not hungry",
When you actually are.
You're starving but your image is worth more than a meal.
You eat a few bites just to shut them up,
And then run to the bathroom to rid yourself of it,
To make sure you can fit into those jeans,
The ones that could stand you losing another 5 pounds.
You get used to the lies of:
"I'm not hungry"
"I ate before I came"
And "oh yeah I'm fine, just tired".
Is that your lowest point,
When the only food you're feeding yourself is lies?

Condolence Cards Poem (Spoken Word)
5/19/2014

Congratulations: On landing your dream job!
Congratulations: On buying your first house!
Congratulations: It's a beautiful baby you brought into this world!
Congratulations: Marriage is so monumental, see you at the wedding!
Condolences.

Can you measure the amount of acknowledgements we forfeit,
to cheap card stock and cheesy colorful cutouts?  
Like each event in life is a round in sports,
requiring an announcer to stand on the edge of the arena,
shouting the play by play.  

We play pretend that cards can say what we feel.  
But I feel like unless if those purple, blue, vanilla,
or pink for valentine's and mother's day envelopes
can enclose an entire paperback novel,
I know that my feelings can't possibly be enclosed inside.  
As if feelings could surmount to anything less than a lifetime of experience.  

For when has then phrase, "I love you" ever conveyed the entire message intended, but without the soft gestures accompanying it, or perhaps the longing gaze of eyes and 'I Do's' entrenched in one another.  
For when has the phrase, "I miss you" offered up the subtleties of staring out your window on rainy day, listening to piano symphonies sinking into the sofa sipping away sorrows on wine?
For when has the phrase, "I am sorry for your loss" ever actually meant sorry, as if it was you who were the perpetrator of a ****** and were seeking exoneration through a sorry excuse of a phrase uttered by people who just don't quite understand the meaning of the term 'sorry.'
Condolences.

I stare at the Hallmark Sea in front of me and I wonder.  Are life's memorable moments so easily categorized?  Into baby showers, bar-mitzvahs, and birthdays?
What about cards just for barbecues with random neighbors?
About cards just for breaking your precious vase?
Cards just for being a ***** the other day?
Just for breakfast you made me in bed?
For binge-ing on alcohol with me and not leaving me almost dead?
What about cards just for thanking you for buying me a stupid ******* card?

Tell me where is the corporate branding on cards for being broke?
On cards for broken homes?
On cards for being homeless?
On cards for getting cancer?
On cards for cutting?
On cards for self-loathing and depreciation?
What about cards for being in the moment or sharing a cup of coffee?
Instead what we get is the catch-all, Condolence Cards.

Condolences - an expression of sympathy with a person who is suffering sorrow, misfortune, or grief.  
Condolences - an expression of sympathy with a person who is suffering sorrow, misfortune, or grief.  
Condolences - an expression of sympathy
Condolences - a person who is suffering
Condolences - sorrow, misfortune, or grief.  


I didn't realize most people's sympathy being expressed equated to blank stares like paper on paper, means nothing but thin and flimsy papers, feelings forfeited, grounded up like big beautiful trees teeming with life, chalked up into tiny pieces of toilet paper for you to wipe your crap on, leaving behind a Hallmark - Condolence Card.

That's Grass Poem
5/16/2014

If you think about it hard enough, you can feel the life tingling on tips of grass.  As if they are blades true to their name, yearning to clash against your soft skin soaked in the sun's sweat.  The thrill of the fight when you're feeling alive.  That's grass.

Getting chopped up into tiny pieces by the violent churning grummm grummm grummm of a mechanical ****** machine, the lawnmower.  Spurting out what's left, the ruins of a once emerald empire, into twisty bendy bits thrown to the fierce winds, allowed to dissipate into dust at dusk.

Who thought time could pass without you?  That's grass.

I went to the park the other day and guess what I saw?
Grass.  But on top of it.  There were picnic tables adorned with checkered table cloths, and I could just smell the waft of hot dogs, hamburgers, and acidic pickles.  But this is not about what I saw.  Not what I smelled, nor the fabricated memory I longed for as the moment fleeted, like a photograph fade out at the movie credits, when the characters' lives become just what they always were - figments of your imagination, allowed to live on the big screen for just a brief moment of viewing pleasure.  

I saw a family of four.  Picturesque, painting the scene one would like to see.  A father, mother, and two children.  Sons of separate ages.  Laughing, that laughter.  If I could just capture one of their smiles and keep it in a jar, I wouldn't have to ever go very far to feel happy.  And who knows if they went home later that day and cursed each other, or pulled out their phones at the dinner table, completely ignoring the company of one another.  Maybe, just maybe they hated each other with all the scathing loath one's own family can create.  But, they had the option.  They could grow together.  That's grass.

A. They had the ability to knock on your door and be told you're too busy to talk.  B. They had the ability to call you and let it ring to voicemail.  C. That older son had the ability to sneak out of the house late at night and wonder if you've noticed and been worried.  D. The younger son had the ability to have you drive him in your car and receive whatever wisdom you'd choose to share, even if it's only a belch or burp and then have a nice day school.  E. The mother, she had the ability to be a human being with you and live life happily, not just a mom, but a partner in love and life.  

W. The ability to see your smile at the law school acceptance letter.
C. The ability to ask you for a cash loan when times were tough.
M. The ability to watch sci-fi movies with you in bed and eat Chinese food.
A.B.C. The ability to share life's monumental moments with you, like learning the alphabet.

Those sons, they had the ability to fight with you and refuse your request to pass the tv remote from across the room when you were sitting down comfortable, and they were standing up.  Something so shallow and stupid,  not giving a ****. not knowing that at a few minutes before midnight that Christmas Eve... you would leave.  Is this what grass is supposed to be?  A ****** broken down family.

I saw grass this Father's Day.  It looked a bit overgrown, but 9 years can do that I guess.  It's almost gotten hard to read that plaque on the ground, but I know it still says Michael, father, husband, survived by sons and loving wife, now lost to the grass.

Who thought time could pass without you, and I could continue to grow.
But that's grass.

Grow Old Poem (Spoken Word)
5/15/2014

I want my heart to drop at least one more time before I die.
If it can tingle with that sensational micro shock wave,
feel it pulse fast through arteries and veins,
pumping ever so slowly, yet surely,
I can know that I am living in my last moments of being alive.

The thought never struck me that I could someday die of old age.
When the world out there is as scary as ours was,
one learns to not be afraid of what the future brings,
but instead of what's beyond the window in the present.
What malice is awaiting your dim-witted arrival out the door this morning?

Aging is the reason a Hell doesn't need to exist.
It can make a common theme among all of Dante's burning infernos.
How cruel is it to find things you love and ignite passions,
only to watch those things flicked off like fleas,
faltering into willowy whisps,
small pathetic pitter pats fluttering away into dust.

I did it right though, you know.
Growing old.
I did it by growing, after all, and not shrinking.
Step by step, things got harder, but in turn became more enjoyable.
My only wish now is to ask my 22 year old self some questions.

Why didn't you go to senior year prom?
Even though you didn't have a date, it would have been fun,
you and I both know it!

Why did you spend so much time obsessing over when you would lose your virginity when there were so many better firsts to be taken?

Why did you refuse to date for long periods of time,
closing off your heart as if falling in and out of love was like a fatal fall off a cliff.

Why did you care about little old me,
trying to make plans for the future, without realizing I could care for myself when it got to that point?

Why did you lie at your high school reunion as if anyone's opinion mattered if it wasn't something positive or interesting?

Why didn't you take better care of your body.
I know it's a low blow, but I'm not exactly a fan of my brittle skin, a little lotion daily could have gone a long way.

It's funny that these are the things I think of today.
That I remember out of all the moments, these few.
Why are you listening to me talk and answering these silly questions?

Go forth into the hustle and bustle of life,
Be enthralled in its tendrils,
letting its life force seep through your veins like a brilliant canal system.
Don't shrink as you age,
My advice to you is to Grow Old.

Building Blocks (Spoken Word Poem)
5/15/2014

I played with legos when I was young.
What I didn't know was the value of those building blocks.
Putting tiny pieces of plastic together,
all different shapes, sizes, and colors.

For what?
For fun?
For structure?
For a challenge?
Because my mom told me to keep busy?
Or because that was how legos were supposed to work - together.

As I grew up, I gradually upgraded.
My legos got traded in for classmates,
for co-workers.
for bar buddies,
and even for the occasional stranger at the mall or movie theater.

They started telling their own stories:
About their first day at lego high school and making new friends.
About falling in love with their first lego boyfriend.
About going to lego prom and putting the pieces together at the after-party, if you know what I mean.
About getting dumped, but then landing their first job at the lego factory.
About shedding priceless limited edition lego tears, on stressful days.
About going through struggles where all they could do is pray to lego God.
About dreams of a nice big lego house with lego children someday.
About lego suicides, resulting from bullying in every worst kind of way.

Eventually it felt like I had opened up an expert level pack,
containing a variety so vast that I never would have guessed anybody could piece them all together.

These building blocks started to feel pretty heavy,
like bricks building a house,
I could only carry a couple in a fistful at a time.
Except they've been worn down from a life full of misuse.
Their colors faded,
edges jaded,
teeth serrated,
like an adapted mechanism for survival.
And what's worse - no mortar to piece them together.
because it all got burnt up.
A casualty of angry tempers' crossfire.
The constant collisions of verbal bullets bullying the building blocks,
bulldozing them over.
With the strength of slurs,
societies seems to blur,
all the inadequacies faced.

Without solidarity to support,
these building blocks are beginning to contemplate giving up.
But Stop!
But I don't like that.
I'll shout, "Hey little legos, remember the plan?
We should work together with your manual instructions in hand.
You were built with a scheme to be put together.
So in unison you can create an amazing structure to cherish forever."

Building blocks are resilient anyways.
Remember that time you left a lego alone?
Detached from its peers,
abandoned out on the carpet,
without the safety of its pre-fab box home?
Well the lego didn't seem to mind, I mean it turned out just fine.

Remember when you stepped on that seemingly small, insignificant lego?
Yeah, don't step on legos.
I'm sure you remember how much that ******* hurt your foot.

Meaningless *** Poem
5/4/2014

Set your gaze upon the man across the bar.
Watch him as he casually drinks a beer and laughs with his friends.
Gossiping about past drunken nights' ends.
Ends that were met with a warm welcome's comfort.
Ends that involved taking a woman to bed without much effort.

How many do you think that man slept with in high school?
A mindless **** count as if they were tools,
willing to be wielded and fooled.
willing to be picked up and ******,
in the back of his ****** '04 pickup truck.

Maybe he's had at least one meaningless ***** with that **** of his.
So tell me this.
Please, why is the *** I have meaningful to him?
If his *** is shallow, then why does mine fill his hatred to the brim?

What's worse is the way he claims to 'know.'
The signs I give off that are guaranteed to show.

1. I wear tight underwear.
2. Their color scheme has a brightly colored flare.
3. I sit with my legs crossed in a chair.
4. That tells him I want it down there.
3. I get up and walk to the bathroom with a sway,
2. No straight man would dare do that.
1. ****** Marys and Long Islands are dead give-a-ways,
0. I held hands with a man walking into the bar.

But the same as him,
I could take someone home and forget their name.
I could gloat about it to friends the next night out for two minutes' fame.
I could go on with what to him could be an ordinary day.
But because it's me, it's more meaningful to him.
Because I am gay.

Let's have a toast for the ******* as Kanye once said.
Let's have a toast for homophobes who take women meaninglessly to bed.
meanwhile my meaningless *** only finds meaning in their heads.

Fearing Changes Poem
5/3/2014

I want a divorce from my feelings.
Lately I've been thinking,
about changing,
about becoming,
someone really bright,
burning full of wonder and life,
amazed by the world.

I don't want to grow into jaded angst,
taking life's anger inducing tragic bait.

I need to shower myself in streams of light,
bringing in a brightness that stirs crazy,
ushering in  a fierce ***** that can't be tamed.

I need to plunge headfirst into a fist full of firsts,
breaking through boundaries yet to be crossed,
ultimately setting the stage for my future in a neat new place.

It's these changes that I fear.
It's these changes that I think will become me.
It's these changes that I don't want to absorb me,
and take away my favorite pieces of person-hood.