Flying down the sleet covered ground.The stop is suggested
and I flip off my brights to see the other directions' traffic
and I wonder,
'What will our kids think? How will they feel?"
I mean
ten years from now,
will we sit together for a family meal?
I mean, I get that you're angry and hurt and ****** off and, if we're honest, it's only a glimmer of thought in the vast sea of doubt that covers hope for you.
The feeling I feel when I walk in from work and I take off that shirt and see all of their smiles, I could walk for miles on that feeling. Endure torture, starvation.
I couldn't go back to that lower elevation.
I know you'd abhor me to hear that I mourn us, our future. But Justice is served with both eyes just like yours that drew me before, and I know you'll be sore for a very long time.
I always try to level the gravel with my moving tires in my driveway,
and I think, 'What would it be like, if we could be civil and happy one day?'
Has your sane worn too thin? Is there no salvageable man? Have you so lost your way?

what are we
but moments caught in eternity
there is no linear
there is no clear
thought
i am fraught
with anger and pain and perseverance
the height clearance
snaps me in half
let me catch
my breath
and ready for death ....
there is no pain like the present

I'm listening to opposition.
Is there anything else?
The bird perched on the winter branch
cursing itself?
I've got two hands filled with empty,
like distance relates to envy.
And in the quiet stillness of this Midwest winter night
my shoulders become heavy.
My heart flirts with steady.  
My head calculates ready.
You wipe tears from my cheek and nose.
You're telling me to let them flow.
"Don't wipe them away."
I have nothing to say but that I am
afraid.
And I can't even say it.
The words are a bayonet at the end of the gun I hold to my head.
Is there requiem here?
The forest trees made clear in the fog of my disillusion?
The clever twist of fate that thickens my confusion?
Sometimes I doubt if I were made for this life.
I doubt the strings that fate has wound around our hearts
and save for my frown, my face seems to show the world
nothing.
Who or what am I becoming?
No longer the grouch, the fastidious mouse, or the the hermit.
I can not be the addict or the martyr in the skirmish.
And I am not in search of identity. I know me.
But I don't know this place inside of all the waste that has been this life.
I have only two things that are worth anything: their lives.
The courts are waiting, but the jury's still out on the verdict.
Not "Do I deserve them," but, "Do they deserve it?"

Moved from my home state.
Got a job doing **** I hate.
Got five kids between you and I.
They are ill tempered sometimes and we are on the fly
coming up with ways to handle the stressers
of food and shelter.
Why...
can't we leave today... Enter the fray... the edge of culture...
and make our own future?
I am caught in the thought
of my hands in the dirt and the sweat in your shirt
and no relief from the work of growing our own food.
Would it be rude to say that I've had enough of the days
of "super" markets and moving targets
and job interviews that bring hope and then bad news
when you find that it will never be enough to sustain even you, alone?
And really, what do we own, but ourselves?
Can it not be shared instead of set on shelves and hidden away in accounts that have safety nets and passwords and relationships that leave regrets and bridge-burns?
Could we be all-for-all?
Is it possible?

"No. It's okay. Sounds like you need somebody to talk to."
That's true. Just like, the wind here is biting cold.
My ten-times-broken knuckles make me feel old.
I always know when the weather is changin'.
I brace the gale with practiced patience.
Just like, if you hear something often enough, it cheapens.
"You're so strong." 'You're stronger than I am."
Just willing enough to be wrong, that's what I am.
Willing enough to see me in you and know that it's true that we are the same, separately.
The weather up here is different.
For the first time in my life, I see seasons.
"Everything is connected. We are parts of the same whole."
Just like, when the neon leaves fade to death
to live in perfect spirals...
giving the frozen air a soul ...
I see the parts dance together.
My peace is in these trees and hills... in these winter chills.
I could be free here.
But there is real fear
in harboring that escaped chaos.

Blazing within me
burning me inside out  
roaring fires of hatred
igniting with every anger filled thought
engulf my soul.
Soon enough
ashes will bury me.