I didn't receive anything
I could hold in my hands
from you
But the best gift I received
this year on my birthday
was a chance.

I hold that
in my heart.

There is so much that goes on in that pretty little head of yours
un-shown to anyone with living or something instead of words
that mean so little when so much said causes burns.
So abbreviate, punctuate, silence and contemplate,
hold these conversations using only your face
those eyes of blue, convey everything inside of you:

the perfect despite what you tell yourself
the flawless despite how you rate yourself
the endless rattle of colic baby rattles
the voices telling you that you equal less
than the shocking
the breath-taking
the gasp of first love

that made this never-at-a-loss-for-words boy
stumble-stutter over himself
in his first attempts to get inside and learn what
goes on in that pretty little head of yours.

I am writing a new story,
but don't look here for the narrative,
because
I am not writing it with these words you think you are reading,
or the patience that I have found.
I am penning this new manuscript,
and all the illuminating circumstances that make those reading
wish they were the characters in the joy-tear-jerking plot,
the parts everyone passes eyes over in order
to make their own lives richer...
I am scribing my way through to the end
not with words, letters, jots, tittles,
but with
actions.

When you're missing something
(like a piece),
the only way to go,
is forward,
and one day soon,
you will roll over
what you
were
missing.

I should pull over,
but I'm speeding
through myself
too fast to stop.

I'm hurtling towards my rest,
not where the happy go,
but where men like myself go when
in need of water, warm,
to bathe in, cool
to drink
to quench this sandy-fingerprint throat.

A people wandering, lost
the temple, cracked
like spiderwebs spread across the surface,
pain captured in its lattice.

My sight lost from the goal,
for forty years it seems,
I've been lost, but...

I see the oasis, with its
materials with which to heal
the temple,
bring it back,
like the words that are now
coming back.

I go to sing with the gospel,
to cry tears of relief,
in the arms of you,
my temple,
where I kneel
in worship.

How the warm water seeps over your skin
in a bath that is too cold as it slowly pours into the water,
How the purr of a cat sometimes hits that cracking note
as it sits, legless, on your lap in Winter,
How a man can feel like a child again
when a woman undresses,
How I can feel so certain,
your bared back against my naked chest.

Oh son, my porcelain prince, if only your eyes were flesh and not glass
you could see that these things will pass.
Oh child, my fragile leaf, if only your roots reached deeper,
you could feel that this is only a short while.
Oh little one, my broken boy, if only you would grow up slower,
slow as nature deems,
time will give you foresight -
be patient.
I say this to help you avoid stumbling over roots,
or falling under the weight
that will surely come,
and too soon it seems.

My son, my pride, my knight,
my willow branch,
you will grow strong,
but remember to bend,
and do not let them break you.
Do not break under
the weight of words
the cold of shoulders
or the pollution of popularities.

Hold to those around you,
with deeper roots,
who have grown through the rough dirt
you are pushing through.

Hold to those around you,
because we love you.