These are my knees
Lord
Cracked in a daily attempt to win your affection
These are my hands
Dear Jesus
Callused by one another in an oft futile longing for an answer
This is my throat
All Mighty God
Made rasp and torn from a constant calling of your praises
This is my neck
Oh Holiest of Holies
Strained in a forever upward gaze searching nightly for a sign
And these are my eyes
Son of God
Charged with searching for you in the stars
With directing my feet towards the purpose you have given me
Oh Lord
These are my eyes thought blinded after years of failing to find my path in the constellations
But blind these eyes are not
Oh Sacred Lamb
For these eyes
Creator of all that is good
See the bunions on these feet from a lifetime of walking atop your great magnificent earth
In an effort to survive
And these knuckles Carpenter of Nazareth
Are bloodied by the labors of man, for men, for the service of man's world
And this tongue, not of Satan, but of your creation
Oh Lord
Is twisted in a defense of my undying devotion to your love and to your empathy
And this back
Oh Heavenly Father
Has been made *******
Not from the weight of your cross in an attempt to share the burden of your sacrifice
No Lord
This back is broken from the weight of being a father to man
From the burden of society
And from the weight of the home I keep
Though I would never
Lord
Son of God
Question your ways
As mysterious as they seem
As they are your ways
Creator
Guiding Light of Man
Nor would I have the gal to belittle the accomplishments of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ
I must ask with my knees planted firmly in the earth
My hands clasped
And my gaze towards you
Oh Lord
Son of God
Holy Shepherd
What good are the golden streets of heaven if my feet can not walk them
And what of the beauty in the pearly gates if my back can not afford the strength to open them
And lord how could I ever face you if my knees
The knees from which I pray
Oh Holiest of Holies
Creator of the moon and the stars the heavens and the earth
How could I ever face you if my knees can no longer kneel before the feet of my King
I could never
I would rather stand in the face of Lucifer himself
Than fail to kneel before the will of my God
For that I could never do
And what then
Lord
What would you have of me then

I am often under the impression that old fashioned street lamps
The ones with eight sided glass and black ornate poles
Are strategically placed by the city planning commissioner's office
To let me know the wardrobe is just a few dozen feet away
And it will take me away from this Narnia
If I just open the door

My phobia of opening doors gets worse every time I think I've finally found it
Only to walk right into the girls bathroom after lunch
On five alarm chili day at the cosmetology school in Little Korea Town

I don't like watering the plants
It makes me wonder why mother nature fell asleep on the job
But the plants are always telling me the rain can't get them inside my living room
So I started the fire that the insurance won't pay for
And the chemicals in the emergency sprinkler system killed the plants anyways
It also killed the fish
But the insurance adjuster wore gloves
So he's still alive

I would make a pretty ****** politician
I get upset at people who don't make sense
Though sometimes I don't make sense
I also have a bad habit of doing the wrong things for the right reasons

I have found Waldo three times
He says hi
Carmen Sandiego is in San Diego
Which makes that trip to Cairo a really bad piece of detective work
On a related note Al Gore is Captain Planet
And every time I hear a bug zapper
I think it is the bat from Fern Gully
But it is not
It's a bunch of dead moths in a box
Monkeys in a barrel
That's how my mind does things
Every time someone say "it is"
When "it's" would be acceptable
I remember The Land Before Time
"This is fun, it is, it is"

You are welcome

At my high school reunion
Years from now
In the old gym
They'll ask, whatever happened to us anyway
I won't have an answer for them
It'll be a shoulder shrug
Upward palms
And a colon backslash face
They'll move on to my son
Or work
Or school
Or some distant memory which will undoubtadly begin with, "remember that time"
And most likely end with, "those were the days"
And while they move on with their conversations
I will still have a colon backslash face
And my mind will be in a completely different time machine than the prom queen and the class clown
I will
By the end of it all
Have devoted what I can only imagine to be significantly more time than alotted
Thinking about what did ever happen to us anyway
And when I go home to what I anticipate being a beautiful, intellegent, loving wife, girlfriend, fiancee thing
She will
For a moment
Or possibly two moments
Not measure up to you
And I hope she won't notice my colon backslash face
That she'll end up smiling until she falls asleep

The morning after my high school reunion
I will stand in front of my mirror
And for much longer than two moments
I will not measure up
To the man you could have made me
And I will notice
I will start by ******* in my gut
Running my hands through my hair to try and imagine myself with a different style
I will analyze my wardrobe
And half way through auditing my music collection I will fall to the floor
I will cry
And with you in the forefront of my mind
I will
In true movie scene fashion
Whisper to no one
Whatever happened to us anyway
And worse than not having an answer at the reunion
I won't have an answer for myself
In an empty living room
Because I really don't know whatever happened to us anyway
One day we were
The next day we weren't
It was so adult
I was so civil
Even our break-up will be the best I ever had

The day before my high school reunion
I will cut my hair
Trim my arm pits
And clip my beard
I will iron a suit
Pick a good tie
And I imagine
In front of a mirrror
I will
Be proud of the man I have become

In the years going forward
And leading up to that high school reunion
I will
As a matter of life's course
Have no other occasion
To ask myself
Whatever happened to us anyways
But never the less
One night
Years from now
That question
Will leave me paralyzed
Scared
Heartbroken
Lonely
And even if
I am not alone
My pillow will remember
For one night
Or maybe even two nights
How to smell like you
And my arms
If only for a half a moment
Or possibly one whole moment
Will
With no luck
Reach for you

Dad this suitcase hurts
I don't like it
It makes me feel unwanted
All of my favorite things fit in this suitcase
All of my things stay zipped in this suitcase
I can fit in this suitcase
If I can fit in this suitcase
Why do I go anywhere
Why do I sleep here
I have no home
Everywhere is home
My suitcase goes everywhere with me
And I know this may hurt for you to hear
Because you never liked the suitcase either
But, "you have to pick and choose your battles" right?
You have to let some things go
Isn't that how you say it?
How does it feel to let this one go
How'd it feel to let me go
Don't be so surprised
Nothing wins in a battle with avoidance
No one holds court with the jester
And no one laughs at the comic who didn't get on stage
T-ball starts in the spring pops
Sign me up
I want to learn how to play
I want to wear baseball hats
And run the wrong way around the bases
Ooh I would thoroughly enjoy to miss the ball entirely off the tea
Maybe even fall down trying to field a grounder
Will you get me a blizzard when the games is over?
Will you wake up to play catch with me before work?
Please sign me up
I want to play
I want to swing
Swing pops
Pick this one
Pick and choose this one
I hate this suitcase
It has wheels
I can go anywhere with it
I don't want to go anywhere
I want to be home.

I'm sorry that my spectacular patience sometimes goes wandering through the grape vines
Leaving me here frustrated at the fact that you can't tie your shoes without getting your pants *****
And sand in your underwear 150 miles away from the nearest beach
And I know on a few occasions the only way to get my patience back from the grapes
Is to drink a bottle of wine and take someone else's
But I'm working hard for you

On the days I forget clean socks
I know it's hard to believe that I'm the best choice
But I promise the judge had a good reason
I know you've been doing this alive thing for like three and a half years now
So you've had time to adjust
But I've been doing this father thing for like six months now
But you have to know I'm working hard for you

When you look at an S and call it an R
Can't figure to unbuckle your car seat and wont eat a green bean to get a cookie
I wish the guy who wrote
"What to expect when you're expecting"
Had written
"What to do when you weren't expecting"
Or at the very least
"How not to **** it up"
Your aunt says if you do the footwork the results will come
I am walking the path I will get there

You were born at 7am
I wasn't told until 11pm
I was late
But I held you
You squeezed my finger
I smiled
You're turning four soon
I'm late
But I love you
Hold my hand son
I will smile
We will walk this path
We will get there

She throws her head around and around and around and around and around
Like a five year old trying to slow down a ceiling fan to see it one blade at a time
She's got little pieces of tore up toilet paper on the inside of her right thigh
There's no room left on her face for new scars
She's got her stash locked tight
In lighter sealed plastic wrap
Inside a film container
Lying in a sandwich bag wit ha glass pipe, tin foil, and a purple lighter
All in a Crown Royal bag
Taped to the back of her TV
Every time she gets it out she wonders why she ever went through the hassle of putting it away in the first place

Inhale
Exhale

She has to remind herself now that her body has forgotten how
Her lungs are working so hard
Her heart beating so fast
That's moving like an addict
She moves like a user

Her cave is a fortress
The enemy is the light
Her house is a really really really big blanket fort surrounded by drywall
Her days are twenty four hours of twenty four hours of twenty four hours of darkness
Until they're twenty four hours of twenty four hours of twenty four hours of sleep
If she's not paranoid of what she's losing
She's regretting what she's already lost
And during the days she can't remember what she had to lose in the first place
She's afraid of what might find her
So her cave gets darker
The locks get thicker
And the mailbox gets too far away to pay the bills
By the time they come to make her another homeless drug addict
The kind they show as stock footage on local news at five pm
The only way she'll be able to tell the difference between the dark damp cave she was living in
And the pitch black back alley she's sleeping in
Will be the stars
And the stars are just too pretty for this to be rock bottom

She told me
"I'd disappear for a while if I could trust my self to come back to all of this"
She won't come back to this
She's too big for this
She's too big for this
Or I'm too small for her
Or the horse she rode in on died
And now she's riding off on an elephant
I don't know

Not all surprises are surprises
Sometimes we just act surprised
So that the other person doesn't feel bad about us knowing ahead of time
I've never really been in a fight
So I don't know what hurts worse a sucker punch
Or a punch you see coming
Either way this hurts
A lot less like a punch
And a lot more like getting branded at a bonfire in a cornfield by your best friend with a paper clip
It burns
Then bleeds
Then welts
Then itches
For along *** time it itches
Then when it's done itching
It's there
Forever
And every time someone sees it for the first time you have to tell that story
Of how you you got your *** burnt with a paper clip by your best friend in a cornfield at a bonfire
Or about getting sucker punched
Or surprised
Or about being too small for her

Sometimes you grieve before their gone
You write your love letters and goodbye notes at the same time
And you've seen her go so many times in your mind
That by the times she actually does ride off on an elephant
It's like you're watching reruns
And just crying out of habit

But sometimes you want to feel like size doesn't matter
That whether she's too big for this
Or I'm too small for that
That somehow it just fits

That's when you grieve
Before they're gone
When they're going
And after they've left
And you spend your nights wondering who the good guy was
But no one wears black cowboy hats or white cowboy hats in relationships
So you never get to know who the good guy was
I want to think it was her
I'm starting to believe it was me
And that hurts
To think I was so wrong for so long

You see size tends to matter
When you're reaching for the stars
One of you is going to reach them
Swing of Orion's Belt and grab the moon
And while they're staring back at earth
You'll still be here
Pumping your Reebok's
Trying to get just enough air in your shoes
To be just big enough
To jump just high enough
That they're just won't forget you
While they're off doing things
That you are just too small to do