Nothing candid for me,
thanks.
I like the planned. The known.
The contrived.
The professional.
The way I can’t
feel
inside.
Skeletons.   Mirrors.
It’s so sad that we have to explain that the symbol only matters if we agree on its meaning.
Society doesn’t want to agree that we don’t begin to teach
life’s important milestones.
The corporations sold government at least thirteen years of mandatory education
the breaking of the soul
for a life in a cubicle.
Earn, or die
on the street.
A shell that never knew,
never had a chance.
Just waiting
to be buried.
Oh, but the flashes. The sparkles. The lust and
amusement.
What it means to actually be alive — reduced to a few replayed moments.
The poisons, sanctioned
and otherwise.
The offer to **** everything else.
No rewind.
No delete.
The punches we never get to throw.
Our faces — always that attempt at “best we’ve got.”
The days that pass where we
can’t imagine what
or why
anything matters.
How do we learn the skills that transform us,
or give us the promise to set us free?
Do we think
of this as a time that could even belong to us?
The forced meaning we shove onto
our suffering.
Truths we’d rather never
revisit.
Filters inside of filters.
Inside is a shriveled, ambiguous thing we used to think
of
as an inner child.
What if it’s an old man?
What if it’s the Minotaur with no red thread?
What if the maze is
us,
and
we’re fine wandering?
The escape we wanted was from everything — especially ourselves.
( A self most of us wouldn't recognize, have never actually confronted and were never given the time or space ... to really ever, get to know.).

Bare feet drum the dirt,
My ******* quivers,  anticipation.
Slaughtering fragile patience.
Nerves, played with too long,
Fray and snap with delicious excitement.

Our fleeting freedom  a slipping trance     of enlightenment    The waves beckon to us all
The moon is shared by the world again.

Youth and its laughter sparks
Across the bruised horizon
Raw hot pink, wet and lugubrious,
To purple fading night,
Where a new kiss tastes
Like salted life and spilled tequila.

As bonfires rage their hiss,
Smoke curls, a tickling that stitches
Our shadows to the night,
Remembering every touch
Like a crime worth repeating,
Living in our minds
Till we stumble, enfeebled.

I beg you, make my blood rush again,
My heart yearns to be alive,
With the squealing carelessness of innocence.

Kool-Aid mustache, no shirt, shorts made of asbestos and dreams, and you're launching off a rusty piece-of- ramp built from  a saw  horse plywood, trash, and the quiet whisper of "this is a bad idea but  we  gotta be totally  rad."

The hot pink and gray flea market  skateboards?
, that thing looked like it was designed by a demon who just discovered  neon  sugar and cool.
Skulls. Castles. Flames. Creepy warriors. Bruce Lee  or  an  eagle
riding it, ?  you were summoning it.

And that   HE -  man "tracks" tank-thing?
Oh hell yes.
Guaranteed to: eat  batteries

Break toes

Destroy every baseboard in the house

Get stuck in the carpet     terrorize     the  cat.

Somehow flip over on a perfectly flat surface and start screaming like  me  ma stubbing a toe

Then the    THE BIG WHEEL.             plastic  status

your first real whip.
To  ride that blistering sun baked trike   faded tassels over 165  degrees .  Ready and  broken  like it was a ******* war horse of  possibilities...               .................         FREEDOM.

   The  smooth  front wheel spun so fast it sounded like a tortured monster, the handlebars were always wonky  , slick  or  sticky , and when you pulled the spin-out brake lever, you felt like you were being recruited   for  Knight Rider as  your  spine bent  in  3.

  ( Only Knight Rider didn’t smell like melted crayons and stale peanut butter. )  or  did  he  ?  The  A-  team  did  for  sure.

And holy hell, THE  real  TRAMPOLINE.
This was the rectangular  battlefield.
Forget  rules  this was Survive the unstable Slip-N-Slide of Doom.

You armor-all   up  that mat 'til it’s shinier than your dad's bald spot, throw a sprinkler underneath, and suddenly it’s a Roman death match.
You'd try to walk and it was like:

👣 step
🫨 slip
🧨 scream  sliiiidddeee
🪦 YEET into the springs like a piece of boiled  bologna
nard  pinching  glory.

And you didn’t get off the trampoline.
You got launched.
By your cousins or some  rando
In mid-air       cursing.
While eating a  drippy  Bomb Pop.

Parents? No clue where they   ever  were.
exactly one,   almost    rule:

“Don’t die before dinner.”

And Travis?
Yeah, that dude was a  clumsy  goofball  of  a legend.
Swirly gray wheels, creepy graphics, flea market gear, and a mischief radar so strong it picked up cops before they even turned down your way.

If he showed up, something was gonna catch fire, get duct-taped to a lawnmower, or turn into a new fad.


Sprinkler trampoline

Peach trees  and  mongrel  dogs


Rottweilers

slide failures

and a soundtrack of Twisted  sister    Journey , Mr. T cereal, and someone yelling “HEY! GET OFF THAT ROOF!”

You didn’t just live in 1982.
You  lived
And if you stood real still and smelled your yoda  shirt, you could still get  the scent of grape Bubblicious,   cap  guns , and play doh, if  the  dog  didn't  eat  it,    again.....