I got to wondering the other day,
I wondered if you still have my t-shirts,
Do they still smell like me?
Do they smell like cologne, youth and regret?

I’ve gotten older, but clearly haven’t gotten smarter,
I clearly haven’t learned to avoid touching stoves
Or walking in traffic
Or poking beehives

**** your institutions,
**** your distance,
And **** your rules,
Because this heart couldn’t care less

The heart wants what the heart wants,
And what the heart wants is to **** me,
It wants to turn the clocks back,
It wants to be less of an *******,
It wants anything but this emptiness,
Anything at all but this…

Skip a little higher
while you can still skip
Run a little faster
while you can still run
Laugh a little louder
while you can still laugh
Smile a little wider
while you can still smile
Eat a little more
while you can still eat
Breathe a little deeper
while you can still breathe
Live a little more
while you can still live
Stand a little further
while you can still stand
to be around the broken
*and not become broken yourself

The Journey**

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Just noticed I haven't
looked at my news feed
in over a week.

Either the world
has managed to get along
without me
or it ended and no one
told me.

Either one pretty much
the same.

I remain blissfully
ignorant.

And it doesn't matter.

~mce

The day when
a pretty, young girl
says you remind her
of her grandfather.
   ~mce

Don't try to hide your scars.
They are the signatures of your life.
They speak a secret language
that reveals who you are to yourself.
No one else can ever have them.
Only you can know what they mean.
Wear them with a lover's pride.
It doesn't matter how you got them,
only that you have them.
They are secrets you whisper
into your own ears.
Listen to them closely.
As a wise man once said:
"A scar is what happens
when the word is made flesh."

~mce