White Walls with Lavender and wildflowers placed around the room-
everything was perfect.
Lacey table decor with Lavender glasses displayed with each name tag-
everything was perfect.

Dad came in with tears in his eyes and Mom was there to help me get that dress on-
everything was perfect.
My best girls by my side with dreams of romance in their eyes and smiles on those perfect faces.
everything was perfect.

Two minutes before we walk down the aisle to say those vows I have rehearsed a thousand times in the mirror.
everything was going to be perfect.
Breathing in and out as my best friend and maid of honor asks me how I'm doing.
everything had to be perfect.

One minute before I walked through those doors and he would be there waiting for me like he always has been.
One minute before I made the biggest decision of my life.. the most lasting decision of my life no matter what the future holds.

But at 30 seconds before I walked down the aisle to my future husband...
you came flying through that door.
I froze.
You froze.

And in that moment I knew...
nothing was ever going to be perfect.

Thank you father
You were never the man we needed you to be
But you did leave me this gun
In the shape of a bottle

Genetically manipulated to magnetically stick to any addiction within reach
This bottle is strong arm robbing me of reality
Creating blasphemous momentary relief of my pretty great life

I am presently attempting to place bottle caps on broken bottles
Trying to put spilled liquid back into my mangled mistakes
I never wanted to be like you father
But here we are

Why are we all just living to die
when we all should be dying to live?

What price do we place on freedom
in a world of consumer slaves?
Do we measure it in the lives
of soldiers sent to their graves?

Do we measure it in the families
who lost dads, husbands, sons;
and trust the politicians
whose solution is always guns?

Do we measure it in the comfort
of never knowing first hand
the way that a child feels
growing up in a war-torn land?

What is the cost? What will it take
for us to wake and see:
if this were the path to freedom
wouldn't everyone be free?

If hate will only breed more hate
and if war only breeds more war,
it ultimately begs the question:
is "peace" worth fighting for?

It was short and concise,
Actually a haiku.
It reached out
And it wrapped itself around my brain,
Like someone wrapping their arms around my waist.
And it tried to squeeze the life out of me,
Like a snake or some sort of predator.
I don't know if I'm stepping in the right direction,
And I don't know who will be there following me when I turn around.
And I think I'm traveling blind,
Because I can't see anyone walking in front of me.
I'm not sure what I'm getting at here.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.

I'm waiting for the sun to rise;
going to cut these worldly ties.
Remembering summer reveries,
The autumn chill, the falling leaves.

Look at how we both have grown;
change for all the time we've blown.
Remembering the winters snow,
the stars above, the ground below.

Lets atone for throwing stones;
we can mend the broken bones.
Remembering that spring revives;
brings new light to cloudy skies.

I knew you as a person
who wore daffodils in her hair;
dancing barefoot in the fields.
Always unpredictable,
your aura, like an aurora of Pandora's open box.
Recklessly compassionate in your unrelenting affection.

I remember when they told me
that you had passed away.
I watched as they returned your body to the earth.
They say that you're in heaven now,
but I don't know how this can be true
when every day I still feel you in my heart.

Maybe your daisy chain was a halo
and the fields that you danced on were clouds.
I think I finally understand.
I knew you as a person,
but maybe you weren't.
Maybe you were just an angel
that got lost along the way.

I, too, was once a man
in search of guiding light.
Hopeless, lost, alone
and ready to give up the fight.

When a helping hand reached out,
unencumbered by my weight
and took it upon themselves
to pull me from Hell's gate.

Self sacrifice; a virtue
that I would someday know
to be the shelter that I found
beneath the cape of my hero.

Confide in me, my darling;
I'll be your great escape.
It was written in the starlight
that I would don the cape.

Maybe we are in love with emptiness
Which explains why we feel it so deeply

"You know what the sun looks like?"

"No, What?"

"Like he slit his wrists in a bathtub and the blood is all over the water."

"That's gross, Kaye."

"And the moon is just watching. She's just watching him die. She must have driven him to it."


I was driving to work
And this quote invaded my mind
Along with an image of you sitting on the beach.

I haven't thought about you in a while.
Now I cannot decide
Which one of us is the sun,
And which one of us is the moon.