We didn't have conversations about feelings.
It's just the way it was.
We would hold and withhold,
repress instead of express.
It's just the way we thought it had to be.
But things are different now.
And we're all trying to learn so we don't
implode.

write kid.
write your way out the hood.
write kid.
write until it's all good.
write about life.
write about strife.
write about nights.
write about days.
write about ways.
write about rights.
write about wrongs.
write as long as you can.
even if you don't understand.

what happens when a man is broken down to his most common element?
despair - we share - unfair
**** flair
i’m just trying to get it done before my mind outrun
my feet and speak
to the cement
of all my tears and my lament.
time spent,
respent,
and burned out.
shout.
speak binary so they understand you,
but underneath seek primarily
purpose and truth.
i guess it’s all just concepts in a modern world,
maybe it ain’t about time at all -
maybe it’s about time for it all.
i used to think a man couldn’t be uncertain.
could just hold up curtains
to his hurting.
but it’s burning,
scorching deep inside me like memories of
past performed sins.
guilt
and all that ****.
i’m not a religious man.
only a diligent one when it interests me.
and honestly, not a lot interests me in the world i see around me.
just my daughter.
just my wife.
but that’s a big just.
real justifications for finding
a way out.

We used to run around the streets in Elmhurst. Play football and bounce the ***** off windshields. Get into tussles and act like tough guys. Somebody on the block always opened the hydrant when things got too hot.

There wasn't a lot of running inside the walls of my high school. It was a train to a bus ride away from home. But it felt a world away.

I'd meet the homeys after school, out on the handball courts in Broadway. Sometimes I didn't bother going to school. I'd skip straight into acing fools on serves.

It's a habit I've kept with me over time. I've had trouble seeing the opportunity right in front of me because I've believed things had to be a certain way. I believed new relationships couldn't be formed as strong as old ones. But I was wrong.

I made it through high school. First kid in the fam to graduate out of college. First generation middle class man from the streets of a lower class upbringing. I don't get to bare that too often. And I don't get to speak my speak all time. Often times I've had to change tongues, dig outside my element to feel a part of something. More often I've chosen not to do so. Out of pride? Out of principal? I probably know as much as you. And that's nothing. But wherever I am, there are places that I came from, people I have met, things that I have been. And without them I'd have no words for you.

It's 4:50pm.
The second hand ticks through the numbers.
Nobody stirs in the office.
Just heads behind computer screens.
I think about my daughter.
She must be starting to work up an appetite for dinner.
The manager sneaks out earlier than usual.
I think about my wife.
She's probably cooking up something delicious.
I stare at the screen. A new email.
The subject line becomes blurry as I stare back at the clock.
It's 4:51pm.

there's this story
but it's stuck in my throat
there's a kid
and a man
a woman
and a dream.

there's different versions
halves
and quarters
untold details
misrepresented
and unaligned.

but it all happens
in the overlapping moments
like
that slice of venn diagram
right in the center,
although
the spotlight
shines
just as it casts its shadows.

so what we see
may not necessarily
be
all that there is.

i asked for more.
i asked for pieces.
i asked too much.

i guess i wanted the whole story
without thinking about anybody.
it was for myself and now
i realize that
as the words get caught
a jumble in my mind
a knot in my chest
a lump in my throat.