Smokey the bear had fought lots of fires,
he was a good guy, didn't have any priors.
But after so many years committed to the job,
Smokey started to feel as if he would sob
every time he got a message calling him back to work,
to put out a fire started by some drunken ****.
No matter how many fires Smokey put out,
it never seemed to gain him any social clout.
His so called “friends” never invited him to hang
though all Smokey wanted was to be one of the gang.
They would hold fancy dances and dress in their best,
but poor lonely Smokey was never a guest.
He rented a tux and showed it to one guy,
who immediately retorted with quite the rude reply!
“Are you kidding,” he said, “Smokey tuxes aren’t for bears,
besides, you’d have to return it all covered in hair!”
“No,” the guy said, “It’s best you stay home,”
“Besides, I know you don’t mind hanging out alone!”
But Smokey did mind, he minded a lot,
and later that night, he had a brilliant thought.
“I’ll go to that party and show them, they’ll see,
you can’t just leave out a fun bear like me.”
However, Smokey's idea did not go as planned,
his first mistake being that he arrived in a van.
A van that looked like something a molester would use
while trolling the streets for a child to choose.
Smokey’s second mistake was his puke yellow tux,
the one he had bought for only two bucks.
When he finally entered people gasped in surprise,
unable to believe the strange thing before their eyes.
There Smokey stood, all covered in yellow,
holding a cane and top hat he thought made him quite the “fancy fellow.”
After a moment of silence there was a loud roar,
as laughing people asked, “What look were you going for?”
Embarrassed, Smokey tried to claim the whole thing was a joke,
Stuttering, “C’mon you guys know I’m quite the funny bloke!”
Eyes brimming with tears Smokey decided to leave,
but this embarrassed bear had something up his sleeve.
“I hate them,” he thought, standing outside,
and decided to make sure none of them would have a ride.
So he slashed all their tires while giggling with glee,
Thinking, "Now they’ll feel bad for laughing at me!”
But this was not enough, Smokey wanted to do more,
so he grabbed a gas can and started to pour.
He saturated the grass, the trees and the flowers,
and then sparked a fire that would burn on for hours.
This was one fire Smokey would not put out,
he simply stood, and then laughed as he heard the first shout.

Let me tell you about something I saw the other day,
when I was out walking through a field of hay.
The night was quite pretty, the air crisp and clear,
when I suddenly encountered a cat who was drinking a beer!
I walked a little farther and encountered some mice,
sitting around a card table, all playing dice.
The mice looked quite serious, they all dressed like thugs,
I was dumbfounded, and simply stared down from above.
Then I saw something that completely blew my mind,
it was a variety of animals, dancing in a conga line.
For hours and hours and hours they danced,
more animals joined in, even deer came to prance.
This party was larger than any I’d seen,
a couple of badgers were even smoking something green.
“Innocent” deer were snorting lines off of snakes,
and a couple drunk farm dogs were fighting with rakes.
A cat and a mouse were sitting in a barn,
entirely too drunk, they took turn telling yarns.
From across the field, you could hear an owl retch,
while a gaggle of geese slurred “Benny and the Jets.”
Sheep laughed, “Bahaha!” while dancing on tables,
the horses were getting it on in the stables.
This party was crazier than any I’d attended,
a pig even ended up losing an appendage.
As the sun came up, things started winding down,
all the cows went home, and the "Keg King" took off his crown.
I took this as my cue, it was time to depart,
so a couple mice and I hitched a ride on a farmer’s cart.
"Sayonara!" I yelled, "It's been lots of fun!
Everybody get home safe, try not to hurt anyone!"
But enough about me, let's talk about you.
That was my weekend, what did you do?

The buzzing inside my head tells me nothing is real.
It can’t be.
A fog has infiltrated my mind, distorting reality
Twisting
Thoughts, sounds, images,
Until I don’t know the difference between real and imagined.
People around me talk, I listen,
But is it really happening?
Or is it all just a dream?
I know this is real life, I do,
But through these heavy lidded eyes nothing looks the same.
I sleep and sleep and sleep
And wake up tired.
My eyes and my mind are constantly closing,
Wanting to drift away into darkness.
Only then can I find peace.

After moving to Windowville from a smelly pet shop,
Lord Lispy Lizard felt he would soon be on top.
The view from his new place was quite superb,
Lispy couldn’t believe he’d had doubts about the burbs.
“This year will be swell,” he thought, “It’s my time to shine.”
It was easier to think this away from mildew and brine.
However, Lispy was in for quite the surprise,
as there was a roommate in his highrise.
Shy, she had been watching from behind the plants,
nervously eating handfuls of ants.
Being alone for so long had taken quite a toll,
her former good looks had faded and left a troll.
Still, she was determined to confront this stranger,
in order to see if he presented any danger.
She was not too worried, he didn’t look like much,
and she was certain she could take him with only a touch.
Hardening her resolve, she lept out with a shout,
forgetting she had forgotten to pluck her mustache out.
This was not all, she had not bathed either,
And the yell she let out sounded like a deranged ******.
Needless to say, Lispy lept up, screamed, and bolted.
Both because he was scared, and a little revolted.
“Just my luck,” he thought, cowering behind a rock.
“But I’m a man, I’ll go out there and at least try to talk.”
So Lispy stood up and brushed himself off,
clearing his throat with a less than manly cough.
“I’m sorry…miss? I didn’t mean to run
It’s just that I’m allergic to the sun.
I got scared when it’s rays reflected off your pretty smile,
And thought it best I took off for awhile.”
The girl was a little confused, her teeth were very mossy,
she knew this because she never did any flossing.
But she decided to go along with his claim,
saying “That’s okay sir, let me tell you my name.
They used to call me Elenor, back when I feasted on Orange Roughy,
But the fatty whose cage we’re in just calls me Fluffy.”
Lispy couldn’t believe this thing had been rich,
especially when she looked even worse than a witch.
Still, he was a gentleman and did not want to be rude
so he said “What a pretty name, where does Fatty put the food?”
“I’ll show you,” she said, “C’mon, follow me.”
Beginning to think how nice it would be
if they ended up married and had lots of kids,
as it must have been fate that Lispy showed up when he did.
So later that night Elenor jumped in the pool,
scrubbing away dust, dirt, grime and drool.
She plucked out the unsightly hair on her face,
and pulled out a ribbon from inside an old case.
When Lispy was awoken by bright sunlight streams,
the vision he saw was that of his dreams.
There Elenor stood, shining like a star,
looking nothing like the former monster all covered in tar.
He couldn’t believe she had cleaned up so well,
with not even a hint of her old sour smell.
With this one look Lispy fell in love,
as if he had been struck by something up from above.
To this day Elenor and Lispy live in bliss,
even though she had not brushed her teeth before their first kiss.

Have you ever been under the influence so long
That when you are forced to stop
To come up for air
Everything feels
Unfamiliar?
Sobriety chokes you
Traps you
Makes your heart race
Like a Chinese finger trap
You voluntarily entered into,
But now feel as though you might not escape.
The sober life is what you strive for
Long for
Dream of
Everyone around you encourages,
You can do it
One day at a time
They say
Attempting to motivate
Inspire
Help
But these are all lies
A mere hour of sobriety is too much to handle
It suffocates
Makes my hands shake
And my mind go crazy
DRINKDRINKDRINKDRINKDRINKINEEDAFUCKINGDRINKNOWGODPLEASE
Thi­s phrase repeats itself,
Over and over
No matter how many times you tell yourself
ICANDOTHIS
You know
It’s only another lie in the endless stream of pathetic, useless encouragement
You have created for yourself.
And after you say this,
ICANDOTHIS
You laugh
Knowing that it is absolutely
UNTRUE
And always will be
How can you embrace sobriety
When the bottle calls from its hiding place
The place you hid it
From your lover, family, friends
Pretending you function
Just like all of them
Waking up
Going about your life
Without panicking about when the next drink will be
When the drinks you need
Will **** you
If anyone will even notice
Or care.
Probably not,
Why should they,
Do you?
You never have.
Your life is an endless series of drinks and lies, and more drinks
And more lies.
You are nothing.
An empty cup
Waiting to be filled with the substance that will distract you from living
And then take your worthless life in the end.
Alcoholic
Forever
Unfixable.
Stop wasting our time.

In a far away forest there was a bear who felt very blue.
She simply could not snap out of it, and didn’t know what to do.
There was no reason for this sadness, her life was going well,
But at random times in every day, tears would start to swell
This feeling kind of scared her, but even more than that,
It made her feel embarrassed, like some sort of selfish brat
I don’t know why I’m like this, she constantly thought to herself.
I have no reason to feel this way, I have my legs, my sight, my health
There are bears in other places who have lost their homes to fires,
And baby bears in situations that are absolutely dire.
But these thoughts did not allieviate her internal pain,
In fact they only made it worse, topping sadness off with shame.
While she wanted to go talk to someone, to find out what was wrong
She settled for self-medicating, taking hits off of a ****
This helped her out a little bit, at least for a short while
But it was not a real fix, to say so was denial
So this went on for months and months, getting progressively worse,
And the bear learned to carry the weight of it, bending to this curse
She became her toughest critic, her own worst enemy
An ugly, unlovable idiot is what she thought herself to be.
I can’t tell you what happened to her, I simply do not know
Maybe she’s still out there somewhere, just putting on a show.

Some days I wake up
But I don’t
My eyes open, I see the world
But nothing is real
This ringing in my head tells me something is not right
What I see must simply be imagination
People move around me,
Through me
As though I don’t exist
Automatic doors follow suit,
Refusing to recognize my presence,
Denying entry into every day life.
HELP ME
I scream and cry and plead
But my words and tears melt into the wind
Gone without a sound.
I drift through the day listless,
A plastic bag caught in the current that is my life.
Night comes,
I crawl into bed and sleep,
Ending a day that never really started.

Everything is hard
Moving, looking, breathing,
Laughing, loving, speaking
I can’t do it
I can’t
I can’t
I CAN"T
They say you can
It’s not hard, just be

happy.

I say the opposite
How can it be easy when just thinking hurts
Everything hurts
I promise you I’ve tried
And tried
and tried
and tried
But every time I try I fail
Can you hear me?
STOP
HELP
Every time I fall, the climb back up becomes harder
Someone is smoothing down the walls of this pit as I climb out
When I fall again I know this
My hands try to grasp something,
Anything
to cling to
To pull myself out
Of myself
There isn’t much left to grab, it takes awhile
One more fall
Just one
And then nothing

Congratulations, you now have a sweet *** ride
It was really my own fault for leaving it outside.
I have to say, I’m almost impressed,
because stealing a bike must have been quite the test.
In broad daylight, no less, you snuck up to my house,
snatched up my bike and scurried off,
quiet
as a mouse.
My neighbors must have been distracted, you picked a great time,
to steal that bike right off my lawn, the perfect crime.
I hope that you took it because you loved it a lot,
not so you could sell it, get some money,
and buy,
lots of ***.
But I’m sure that’s not the case, you wouldn’t do that,
I’m sure that you’re just borrowing it to bike off some fat.
Or you took it because you couldn’t afford one for your kids,
if that’s the case don’t worry,
I’m glad,
that you did.
Regardless of the reason it was taken for,
I’ve learned my lesson, I’ll leave my bike out no more!
Anyway, I hope that you’re now really happy.
Good day to you.
Sincerely,
Me

Saturday night, I’m getting crazy as usual,
taking pictures of my cats because they just look so beautiful.
Yea, some people go out, but I’ve got so much to do,
boys line up to take me out on dates but I tell them to shoo.
“Who are these guys?” you wonder, but don’t worry about that,
you wouldn’t know them because, they’re from a secret, hot guy frat.
I stumbled upon it once when I was out doing cool stuff,
like dancing with a king, and jumping off of bluffs.
Then one day, I jumped right into the hot guys secret lair,
and after I landed they could do nothing but stare.
I thought that they were looking at the mole on my face,
and I was right, but they loved it and begged me to stay at their place.
Not for the night, but forever, they didn’t want me to leave,
and who can blame them, I’ve got a badass weave.
But I had to decline, I just wasn’t ready for that,
so they said, “Come back anytime, even if you get fat.”
And with tears in my eyes, I bid them goodbye,
started my jetpack, and flew off into the sky.
I don’t have pictures of any of this because they were burned up in the fire,
but I can definitely assure you that I’m not a ***** liar.
But anyway, back to what I’m doing tonight,
I know that you’ll be jealous, you can’t help it, that’s alright.
I’m meeting up with Michael Scott and crew, but that’s not really a big deal,
we see each other every day, one time he tried to cop a feel.
Well, I may have just imagined that, which is probably pretty weird,
But I gave up on normal long ago, like my mother always feared.
Which is why I’m sitting here on Saturday night, talking to some cats,
who have low self-esteem because the media made them think they’re fat.
Those cats on the MeowMix commercials always look so thin,
no matter how hard regular cats try, they can really never win.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell them, “Let’s just have some fun.”
So now we’re watching TV, because, what else would we have done?

Once, a long long time ago, there lived a happy family,
of good looking dinosaurs, with all daughters; they had three.

The dad went to his job all day, he always worked very hard,
to support his family the best he could, against all evil he did guard.

And so his daughters and his wife never wanted for anything at all,
he even built them a swimming pool, his own hands put up the walls.

His daughters knew that they got lucky by having such a dad,
who did so many great things for them, though just his presence made them glad.

On top of this, these three girls had a pretty awesome mom,
who stayed home with them when they were little, and helped them all day long.

She put band-aids on their bruised up knees and brushed away their tears,
and came when they had spooky dreams, to chase away their fears.

Then, when they grew up a bit, she followed her own dream,
and started teaching little dinosaurs all the things that they would need.

Soon enough, it was time for their oldest to leave the nest,
and find out where she should go to start her own life’s quest.

While they were sad to see her go, her family did not despair,
for it was not that far to her new “independent” lair.

All too soon, it was time for the next daughter to move away,
she chose a slightly farther place, where they could not see her every day.

This made her family pretty sad, they didn’t want her to go,
but they knew she had to try new things, and have her own space to grow.

And so the “baby” was left alone at home, though baby is not the right word,
because she had grown into a beautiful dinosaur, as if overnight she had matured.

It was weird for this youngest dinosaur, without her sisters there,
she had her parents to herself, along with the entire upstairs.

While some days this was pretty nice, it was a little bittersweet,
because she loved her sisters very much, and they had moved out of her reach.

However, distance makes the heart grow fonder, as the oldest soon found out,
she hadn’t thought she could love her family more, but she now did, without a doubt.

And though it made her sad that she did not see them every day,
they were always in her thoughts, never even slightly fading away.

So this oldest daughter was really not too sad,
when she thought of her family, it only made her glad.

Because what she had realized, with all this time apart,
is that you never leave your family, because they’re always in your heart.

When my grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s everyone got really sad,
we couldn’t believe she would forget her family; her husband, me, my dad.
Everything happened so quickly, how could we have known,
that memories were running away from her, there were no signs she had shown.
To indicate that she was leaving us, not in body but in mind,
I didn’t know what was happening until I went to the hospital where she was confined.

Laying there in her hospital bed, with all of us around her,
worried about cooking dinner, she didn’t know where we were.
When I realized what was happening, I just could not believe,
that a few, very short, years later, my grandma would completely leave.
The reason I could not believe this was because she was such a source of love,
I could not understand why she was being punished, by somebody above.

Growing up I had always considered my grandmother to be,
the best woman in the entire world, true love’s epitome.
Every time we would come to the farm, she’d open the door, grinning wide,
and say “I’m so glad to see you all, c’mon let’s go inside!”
The minute you walked through that door, you knew that you were home,
surrounded by love so deep it was tangible and open spaces in which to roam.
The best memories of my childhood center around this place,
and in each one of these memories is my grandma’s smiling face.

Now my grandma sits in a nursing home, unable to respond,
to our pleas for her to come back to us, for her mind has been long gone.
And though this overwhelms me sometimes, because I just don’t think it’s fair,
I know if she was able, she’d tell me not to despair.
For our time together isn’t over, we’ll meet again someday.
Regardless, I know her love for her family will never fade away.

For some reason I can’t fathom I’m constantly alone,
as there are never any men calling me up on the phone.
I’m not sure why this is, but there must be some reason,
why there is such an absence of men in my life, season after season.

I guess it could be the fact that I have a lot of friends,
except they’re all cats and apparently that’s not “in.”
I don’t really understand it, we get along quite well,
and I know that all my cats do think I’m absolutely swell.

And yet my dates don’t usually last any later than six,
which could have something to do with all my cool cat pics.
Apparently guys think it’s “weird” when you show them all that stuff,
they’d rather see pictures of **** girls in the buff.

So when I present men instead with a styling, western-wear cat,
they are less than impressed, and that’s the end of that.
You’d think I would learn, but I never do,
so I’ll sit alone forever, just me and my cat crew.

I don’t want to do this!
My students complain
And ask,
Why should we anyway?
Often I respond
“For the points
Of course.
This is a big part of your grade.
You want to pass,
Don’t you?”
Because it’s all about the grade you get
The points you earn
The quality of your work.
You don’t really need to know
What the characters are like,
Or what themes are in the novels we read.
You can survive without it.
But as teachers we ask you to anyway.
I say, “You need the points!”
I say, “You have to pass!”
I say, “You need to work.”
But what I should be saying is what I truly feel.
Why should you read all of these books, you ask?
You should read them because they will
Change
Your life.
These books can open your mind to completely new worlds
They can take you to places you’ve never been
They can comfort you, scare you,
Make you laugh and make you cry.
When you learn to love reading and writing
like I so desperately want you to
You will see.
When you find those books that resonate within your soul
You will know.
Words will always be there for you,
Whether they come from someone else’s mind
Or your own.
When you feel so angry you could cry
Or so sad that you could die
You can transfer your feelings onto paper
Push them away from you
Find relief
You can write.
So why do I want you to read and write in my class?
Why should you do this?
Does any of it really matter anyway?
Well, it matters.
I want you to read and write
Because I don’t want you to just graduate,
Or survive,
Or get a good grade.
What I want for you is an experience.
I want you to learn how to truly live.
This is why.