My wife agreed to marriage counseling before the great divorce,
and of course, she picked the counselor.  This is it; one session, one shot at redemption.  I waited with bated breath for the day to arrive.
It did.  We met at his office, where hope was dashed to shreds like a ship
on a coral reef, like dreams of domestic bliss made of glass and shattered on the kitchen floor with no broom to sweep them up.
We shouldn't get lawyers and go to court.  We should have a funeral and sing, Rock of Ages, because divorce is the death of a family.

The room is nice and cold as ice, and he's friendly, boisterous, and bold, but here's the clincher, he wore an eye patch.  Maybe he had surgery or some type of injury, but everything he said was drowned out by the voice in my head that screamed, "He looks like a pirate, and no ******* pirate is going to tell me how I should have been a better husband."  I quickly scanned the room for a cage where he kept his parrot, which usually sat on his shoulder and sang old songs of the sea.  I glanced at his right hand, but conveniently it was hidden by the desk.  Now I was sure.  It wasn't a hand at all, but a hook, that he used to scratch his ***, or to spear the shreds of broken lives left over from a long day's work.  His hand was probably a casualty, lost on a voyage to a shark he tried to advise.

I leaned over and whispered in my wife's ear, "Where did you find this ******* nut. Long John Silvers?"  The humor eluded her like the sunken treasure did the old sea dog that sat across from me.  I swore if he said, "Aye aye matey."  I would smack him, and jack his ship, and maybe my wife and I would sail south to the Caribbean, not to the ride at Disneyland, Pirates of the Caribbean, but to the islands, where we would lie **** on the sandy beaches and drink Pina Coladas, or some other fruit-filled umbrella drink, until we were so drunk we couldn't see straight, and all our problems would sink like the setting sun into a brand new horizon.  But the old scalawag had no pirate lingo, so the hour came and went, our money was poorly spent, and it was lunchtime, and I was bent on seafood.

Angels with broken wings,
frostbitten dreams,
morphine nights,
and gangrene schemes.
She had that broken glass sadness.
The kind that gets worse with
every slammed door and every
lazy moon mad night.
The light in her eyes was dim,
like a candle in the fog, or like
a frog that dreams of flying, but
wakes up to the same old pond,
day after degrading day.
God, every time I see her, I want to
take her home and give her a bath,
feed her strawberries and rub her feet.
I want to free her from the rain slick
suffering she's stuck in, wash away the
stench of the lonely diesel strangers,
but I can't save her, hell I can't even
save myself.  So I *** her a Midnight Special,
and light it for her, with a brief sulfuric blaze
of glory bereft of any lasting light...
walk away...Jack-O-Lantern grin
into the lonesome neon night.

It's been five years, but
I still miss her.
Home was in
her arms.
That brown hair and
those blue eyes still
dance through my
dreams.
Everyday was
Valentines Day when
we were together.
She's always in my
heart, but the
sky calls;
time doesn't

There is a gravity to
sadness; it pulls me
downward into a
deep dark well.
I can't climb out.
It's my own private hell.
I pray for levitation.
I jump, only to fall.
I feel forgotten.

I put one foot in
front of the other,
and I will rise.
I move on.
Hope returns like
a long-lost friend,
and I find my sanctuary.

Fear is like
the shadow of a bat,
larger than life.
I taste the
rabid nightmares;
they poison my soul.
Anger masks the fear.
I hear the harpies scream
in my febrile brain
and my faith is
small as a
grain of sand
growing slowly
over time.

My natural instinct in
this flesh wrapped soul,
is to anestasize the
pain and ugliness of life.
Blackout the brutality and
cruelty in the world.
Close my eyes with *****,
drugs, ***, anything to
stop the oozing pain.

And then it dawned on me,
like the dew soaked morning,
opposite action is required.
Walk through the
pain with eyes wide open.
Let love and YHWH hold my
hand.
Sober, head held high.
Call me sentimental and foolish,
but I'm a real *******.

I'm going to embrace the beauty.
It is all around me.
It's painted in the
sunset of the robin's breast.
It's in the
sublime melody of
the starry night.
It's written in the
faces of all my brothers and
sisters in their pain and
struggles.

Love is the answer to
every question;
I have to die to grow;
like a seed, a cell,
a fractured heart.
Bring it On Life!
If you knock me down,
I'm getting back up.
I'm resilient, and
no longer afraid.
Yes, this world can be
brutal, and we often
lose the ones we love,
but I'm choosing
today, at this moment, to
take this wild ride called
life, and live it, and
love every second I have
left.

Then, I can leave victorious.
What the ****?
Everybody wants to win.

I long for the majestic
sunset of your hair,
windblown, dancing across my cheek…
The burnt orange and lavender…
I want to consume every drop.
I’m thirsty for your
footsteps near my bed, parched with
desire for your presence—your essence.
How long until you wet my
tongue, and quench this fire?
I stalk slumber like a shadow…
my only release from the
hunger and yearning for your
moist lips, like peaches
pressed against mine.