What if the world around you was ending? How many hands would you be lending? How would you save yourself and others? How would you stop yourself from breaking before bending?

What if there were things that you couldn't stop? Would you just sit there and watch? Would your pride get in the way? Or would you look away because you don't have the heart?

What if you controlled time and space? Would you put a smile across every face? What if not everyone could be happy? How would you decide which smile should fade?

Time Machine

  Sweet sunshine spreads across your bed as you breath, breathe scented with Playdoh and black raspberries from the front yard. I watch your chest rise, fall, rise, fall.
“There’s my boy. Time to get up. Rise and Shine.”
That grin, before you even open your big blue eyes, those windows to your soul, those orbs that reflect my own face back to me.
the softness of your young skin, freckled from long summer days.
Here we are content in this solitary moment.
I have a desire to dive head first into a black hole to stop time.
Growing up means girlfriends, heartache, peer pressure...*** ( frankly I am not ready to have that conversation)
Growing up means getting closer to the time when you won’t really need me anymore. It means understanding that the world  out there has teeth...
Then you will get your driver’s license, freewill.
I want to dive head first into that black hole to stop time so maybe we can hold onto this moment forever.

At bedtime last night you confessed you are scared of the those dark pockets in your room.
“What are YOU afraid of, Mom?”
I think I said fire, spiders. it was a lie.
I couldn’t bare to tell you about the funeral today.  You would ask the question that doesn’t have an answer:  Why was he driving so fast, Mom? And I would have to admit that I don’t have the answers this time.
Telling you would be like telling the moth about the flame, crushing your own dreams before you could even imagine them. I can’t tell you what it was like to watch his friends huddled in a circle, holding each other up to keep from throwing themselves into the grave beside him.
Past the circle, stood the body of his mother. Only her body. Her mind wasn’t there, It couldn’t have been. Because I am a mom. I have you, my boy and I know.I know that ****** created a vacuum for her hopelessness. Otherwise she would be ripping out her hair, screaming, clawing, jumping in the casket with the body, trying to forget that his lifeless image is now scorched into her brain for eternity.
That brain works like a time machine, gears turning, visiting the day at the ocean when he flew his first kite, seeing him in the photo next to his first bike, his first missing tooth, his first school dance, his first crush, his first basketball game,  his first car...   Memories upon memories turning brown like old photographs.  Her time machine now searches for the memory of his last dinner at home, his last words on the phone, his last basketball game, his last breath....
My boy, I hope I never need that time machine. But that black hole will not keep you here with me in this moment, young and innocent. That biggest fear you asked about last night.... is losing you forever, my boy.
Stay alive. Erase all other words of wisdom ever parted from my lips. I don’t really care if you use the word “ain’t”. I will cover my ears. Leave your jammies on the floor, forget to wash your face, leave your bike in the rain, play baseball instead of walking the dog, lie about finishing that essay, come home past curfew because it took awhile to gather the courage to kiss her. I won’t be mad. You will be in this world and I can look into your bright eyes again tomorrow...without that **** time machine.

I want to be a superhero. I want to shoot heats beams from my eyes like I shoot...spit, from my uh, mouth. I want to save people in the burning building. Lift girders with a finger and hope with my words. I'd give food to the poor and teach respect to the rich.
   I want to show the kid on the ledge that the bully is the loser and not him. That he has a life to live and what an ******* says is just a bunch of ****. And no matter how many times he jumps I'll pull him back on the ledge, show him that the hero he looks up to was just like him. Show him miracles happen and if he's lucky he'll become the hero in his eyes. Show him scars are scars and they're just out battle wounds, that even his hero gets hurt sometimes.
   I want to be like Tony Stark. Have an ark reactor in my chest powering a suit of armor. Knowing that any second my heart will be torn apart. Be like the Hulk cause I have such anger inside that sometimes I want to turn green and break things.
   I want to have the power of Thor, and show others that despite their expectations that deep down I have something they won't ever have: Compassion.
   I want to be a superhero. Because despite my expectations I am a hero in someone else's eyes. In another world, place, dimension I am the hero I want to be. And I know that eventually I will be a hero. I may not have powers but I have enough hope that maybe one day: I will.  
   But this isn't the future. I am in the present. And right now I am not the hero. Maybe I'm the villain.

you used to tell me that death was nothing to fear
but that's not true
and it's not actual death that I'm afraid of  though
it's what happens afterwards

where will I go?
what will happen to my spirit?
will there be a heaven waiting for me?
or am I destine to sit in eternal darkness?

I like to imagine that we all become stars
shining down on the earth
and guiding our loved ones through the forest
looking down on everyone and smiling because you know they admire you

I also think a lot about what will happen to me physically
I mean, I know that I will decompose
but what will happen after that?

I like to believe that flowers will sprout from my remains
covering the ground in beauty and joy
people will look at my garden and know I was loved

some might not be as lucky though
weeds might grow from them
they're poison will cover the ground and create landfills
they're toxins will spread into the hearts of everyone that sees their grave

it doesn't matter what happens once your dead though
what matters is what happens when your alive
and maybe that's what I'm most terrified of
that what I do while I'm living won't get me stars or flowers

maybe I'll leave scars and be destine to have a poisoned grave
the few who come to my funeral will spit to the ground
hoping that my soul will still be there to feel it
hoping that I live in eternal darkness

so the next time you tell me that death in nothing to fear
I will simply laugh
and reply with 4 words
"you're right, life is"