We're all watching the same show with different glasses
Each pair constantly changing with the light through them passes
Born with a fresh pair, brand new,
We don't always get to choose what our glasses do
Others will bend them, straighten them,
Sometimes polish, or even break them
And once changed they can never go back
Just wabi-sabi your best to Kintsugi the crack
We'll forget that our glasses look differently,
And others might not agree with what we see
So try to try on other's glasses too,
And glimpse the world as others do
You might see a dent and say, "Hey that's like mine!
We're not so different you and I"

All seeing something different watching the same show,
We all feel the same things about the lives only we know

my dearest, today you are twenty and five
and my, how lucky we are to be alive
right now, a junction of playful health and slightly wise
loving you keeps me in constant joy and surprise
together we, two intertwined trees being one another's rains
our life a midrib of a leaf yet to grow and spread its veins
with each tear, embrace, and tender kiss
I hope you will always remember this
as long as the nettles remain on the evergreen pine
I am your Nick and you are my Dine

This here in my hands is a small stone
That I will carry on my own
Building a mountain one by one
I won't stop until it's done

Striving forward my muscles ache
What I'm building is not fake
I'm building strength, true and free
What I am building is a better me

A Me that can weather storms and loss
towards optimistic progress at whatever the cost
A hammer and chisel in my hand
From this rock I emerge a self-made man

Not just a body but more a mind
One that is powerful and fiercely kind
Focused on spreading the mindset of its fashion
Expand happiness and spread compassion

25
entire trips around the sun
making sense of the cents of a quarter
of years of growth and fighting fear
here's to another year

of complex thoughts and simple pleasures
finding more of myself and experiential treasures
to new all new things people and places
and never forgetting friendly faces

May I continue to realize and act on the fact
that only I'm in the way of my impact
Don't ever settle and always strive
to make things better and be alive

This life is mine to do, to create, to find the most of
because why the **** not?

It'll come around again soon, a harkening back to things like the moon.
Feelings in our core, a primal state, like we were before.
Not cave(wo)men or primitive society full of biblical piety,
but an advanced race with a separation between face time and a real face.

We will remember who we are. We want grass on our bare feet instead of a gas pedal in a car.
We won't waste touch on things lesser than a person we love who loves us just as much
Sounds of drums and harmonious hums will fill our ears and our eyes will cry tears to water flowers that have smells that sink to the wells of our humanity.

We will be free, from ourselves to enjoy, ourselves.

The knowledge of growing and feeling the flowing
of the ins to the outside showing, what you are.
It's enough to drive you mad hoping to make glad the hopes of your mom and dad while being your own man with a plan who along with everyone is pretending he can.
True change is subtle and I'll pose a rebuttal to any of those quick fix ****** that think life is anything but a struggle.
I constantly tell myself to take the toys of life off the shelf and be not a man but a very mature boy who enjoys life for what it is.
Insignificant in the grand scheme but significant and supreme to each individual, it can be full if you feed on the right stuff and not this materialistic fluff but relationships and love.
The taste can't be replaced it's easy to get tossed and lost in the cost of brand names and hearsay claims; you hear the heresy names shouted at you for being different.
Take time to rewind and look back at the facts that make you true. Apply the sutures to the wounds so the futures got more room to grow and you know you will.
The past never returns and the future never arrives so your only choice is to be present and alive.
**** fear, you don't need it. Make a goal and succeed it.
Everyone is different and this life is on rent so make sure all your money is spent by the end my friend because only dead plants don't grow.

People aren't the problem; fear is. Fear of people with power who are just little kids. A little bit smarter and with a bit bigger bodies, but like you they go poo poo in big boy potties. They've made mistakes, and loved, and lost. Yet we're afraid at what cost? The cost is plain the cost is simple popping caps to rid like popping a pimple. When will we grow up? That's the thing, we won't. What day does the kid in us up and leave? They don't. They get beat up and locked up by anger and greed. Broken trust, we build up the calluses we need. To survive. We must, we are just, people. But behind those walls and wrinkled faces is a kid who dreamed of going places. Places near and far for little and long whiles, sharing toys and laughs and spreading smiles. Not seeing color or caring what you wanted to be as long as you were nice to me. Don't let fear win, it ruins all things. Overcome it like you once did, your first time on the swings.

At the end of the day when I'm spent and expired,
and all energy has clocked out and retired.
I long for your warmth and tender embrace,
my weary eyes to rest upon your face.
A caretaker that without I cannot thrive.
I don't need you to live, but to make me alive. Alive
I can change the world with what you help me to feel.
You are fuel and rest, rejuvenation, zeal.
When my strength is gone and my mind is drifting to sleep,
know that my last few thoughts my mind struggles to keep,
are of you and my family that share my name,
and lastly, how soon they will be one and the same.
I love you. Goodnight.

Today you left memories in our minds and love in our hearts,
in fact, looking around the room that's only the start.
You left behind grandkids, sons, close friends, and a wife,
who is probably the reason you made it this long in life.

Today you left behind houses that families call home,
and plenty of pictures reminding us how you never needed a comb.
You left tearful prayers on Christmas Day, hearty chuckles and grins,
You, the trunk of the tree where all these branches begin

Today you left and that's ok, we know you had to go,
to fulfill God's plan that we can only wish to know.
I may know the burglar, but it still feels like theft.
I guess you were a guest in this world, and today you left.

Thank you for teaching these hands of mine to try,
and fix, and care, and build, and now wave goodbye.
Of all the lessons you taught me, this one hurts to know  
Sometimes your favorite people at a party still have to go.

Swallows dip and rise this morning brings
more than pennies treat for my two sense

Each grass blade swaths my skin
holding me barely off the ground
but nonetheless off of the Earth

A flying bird with hundreds of green feathers
closes his eyes as his soul sings

With the swallows

I looked at her and we didn't speak
I doubt she even saw me
My imaginations start to leak
knowing that she'll find her key
In this moment we are the same age
she is my half, better or worse
I grew in her heart close cage
But she set me free of course
I've heard tales but they couldn't be the same
as being there in that little house for rent
when she went by another name
when she lived with love and a single cent
I wish it could be but I know it never will
To live one day in this frame, not as a still

A single life can make all the difference
They didn't just die that day, but there remain each day hence
Too many closed caskets leave open seats at the table
and bicycle lessons from mom cause dad isn't able

True loss is in the blank canvases, empty pages with pencils sharp
And in the overgrown gardens and the silent harp
Potential never realized in the inventions never made
In the empty desk on the first day of sixth grade

Like a fish that doesn't know water exists
We add names like groceries to the list
Three letters mark every bullet in the clip
The "END" in someone's friendship

Count the cost of a conversation with a stone in the ground
In place of a daughter in a wedding gown?
For power, greed, hate, or just by mistake
We will never know the cost of the lives we take

He's there at airports and doctor's offices
between my love and I and when I'm at work

and when I invite him to come out and stay with my friends
and at family gatherings on holidays he never shows

I say, "Time, you're starting to **** me off."
He replies, "You should see me when I'm wasted."

Ms. Belvedere oh won't you oblige
my simple request for a spot of tea
Into the fire I've cast my letters
from you I never received

I sang SOS to you through the radio
but you were not scanning when I tried
someone else heard and to me, responded
"When does swimming turn into drowning?" I cried.

'Dere I see you in sketches on wooden tables
and inserts in the newspapers now and then
When even if your radio's on one day
I'll likely never swim again

Eloquence is comprehensive beauty.
Brevity shows a command and respect of time.
Wisdom breeds their concurrent existence

When distance separates and too much time has passed
Just outside the door I stand with excitement
I feel like a magnet
so close to its opposite partner
the invisible pull stronger than steel

I open the door and all my baggage falls
then I set my things down and we embrace
I feel like the last puzzle piece
discovered under the couch
fulfilling the final perfect fit

Your brain isn't supposed to have feeling
But I do, and this feeling I love
I feel like a waterpark
made for young endorphins to play
*every curvy slide in my brain for free

Calluses are not only for the working man's hands
They're for the white collar march
from comparing things of advertised brands
Shallow thoughts leave your soul parched

Deceased from years of collecting money and things
Though you can, money doesn't really count
Deaf to the song of life when it sings
You can't buy it back for any amount

So while it's hard to keep track of love, joy, and peace
keep count
for they matter most

I am in love with a woman who loves me
it is not perfect and I don't want it to be
no one knows what perfect looks like
home runs are best hit after the second strike
Ease fills my mind and chest with her
we aren't anything like we once were
She's my branch that's new and strong
green with flower and birds with song
in all shades, winter, summer, and spring
I'll forever remember the meaning of this ring
and the many rings as our tree grows
strong in the storms and the wind that blows
for we are a tree combined now
intertwined

My faded pictures will always be there
to remind me that you never will again
Never will I lose the ability to care
about you, my dearest friend

I will never understand why it works this way
how a "see you later" becomes a lie
How it still hurts such a long time after that day
when I made new tears that I had never before cried

Tears of equal parts disbelief, helplessness, and pain
They dropped from my eyes onto my shirt
soaked through to my heart and stained
old but still as fresh as the next morning's dirt

Cheers to sharing bottles of wine,
fifths of whiskey, and beers by the stein
To plugging yourself into that amplifier
and playing your song with the volume higher
Others join, you're a band pumping great sound
we'll have what we're having, 'nother round!

Honest fellowship is here
Spirits rise with bubbles in the beer
Cares are gone as soon as you begin
to feel the warmth start from within

Finding treasure in the night
on top of buildings the bright
stars shine a cool crisp heat
with scarce enough light to treat
my eyes to yours, tous le jours

Like children we use the stars as dots
connecting our way like nature's inkblots
Oh there's life in this moon
more than the sun at noon
to a sunflower, we breathe the power

Who knew they would be so trendy
in today's era of the ".com"
As commanders in chief in a modern war
declaring their weapon in silent unison, "Photobomb"

Picked up and spun
a granite glass balancing act
so much energy within to start
yet so serene
groove, a path
crumb, a stumble

watch out for the napkin

momentum is time and it's only leaving

A picture is worth a thousand words...

And a loss of them when you ponder
that moment in time when you were alive
and how things were

A longing to speak to a different you
with a harbored wish to tell them what's to come
and the feeling of remembering what you didn't know

Happiness knowing that person will become who you are now
with a quilt of pictures just like this
making the blanket of their existence
it has warm spots and cold spots that make the other what they are