I am okay!
I don't see a psychiatrist, I'm okay.
I don't need a psychologist, I'm okay.

I don't have seasonal affective disorder. I'm just sad, when it's February and I'm freezing and I'm hungry and I can't get out of bed. I'm okay.

I'm not depressed! My mother, sister one, and sister two are, but it's not like the depression is something that's passed on in genes as well as memes! I'm okay.

The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors that stopped my mother from killing both of us may explain my brain, but I'm okay.

I don't have ******* anger issues! My dad clearing his second-grade classroom, the bend stop sign on the corner of Sewall and Winthrop, and these scars on my knuckles have nothing to do with each other. I'm okay.

I don't have "real" PTSD. I just can't drive down monument street without smelling gunpowder and iron. Seeing red rain. Hearing the echo of my own voice "I didn't sign up for this". I'm okay.

I said I don't have "real" PTSD. It's normal to have nightmares. It's normal to wake up in a cold sweat, to still hear that mother's scream, to feel my chest pounding, retaliation for the compressions I withdrew from her little boy. I am okay.

"You are okay, the first few are rough but you get over it." I am okay, I got over it.

My grades were slipping, I don't need a psychologist, but I went anyway. He said I did have PTSD, but he's a quack and I never went back. I'm okay.

Standing in front of the mirror I see gross, unattractive, overweight, weak. But body image is only a problem for women, and toxic masculinity forces me to say, I'm okay.

I've loved you the longest and the deepest. You've broken me more times than I can count, but the scores still even. Yet the fact that you love that Rhianna song makes me question our choices and you always hear the cracks when I say I'm okay.

I've loved you for what feels like a second, like the second before a car crash, an explosion, a first kiss, a second that feels like an eternity. I want it to last for an eternity. Meanwhile, the implications of my considerations cloud my brain and I barely hear you. Yea, I'm okay.

I don't have anxiety, I know where you both are, who you're both with. I know my friends are busy people too. I shouldn't think you have all moved on, moved up. Except nobody could possibly stand my passive-aggressive *******, chaotic childish antics, or ridiculously terrible writings for long. So I understand, I'm okay.

I'm okay.
I'm okay!
I'm okay. Question mark?

The big bang, Hiroshima, Dynamite.
We all have a fascination with explosions.
They excite us, terrify us, confuse us, define us.
Yet, over 500 million years ago an explosion took place that shook the very fabric of life.
An explosion with fallout seen around us ever day.
An explosion that led to the dawn of man.

The Cambrian explosion, unlike the big bang didn't happen all at once, but it seems like it. While earth had spent the last 3 billion years at a slow crawl through evolution, from accidental lipid membranes and spontaneous RNA to bacteria, protists. Life moved at a much slower pace. The Cambrian explosion changed that! In roughly 25 million years life went from mostly soft, slimy creatures to having strong structures! This lead to more complex creatures with more complex behavior! It was the ripples of this explosion that allowed a simple ape to pick up a rock. To sharpen a stick. To stand, walk, run. To become man. To learn, to pass on memes as well as genes! To create language and communication! To read this very poem.

In a world without the Cambrian explosion, we might as well have skipped the big bang too.

Tuesdays are for me,
What Wednesdays are for Rosanne.

It's not only Tuesday, but it's always Tuesday.
I spend my day with growing anticipation.
Thoughts of the night to come to cloud my mind,
A welcome distraction to my daily uniformity.

Finally, the tease is over.
I sit with my Smithwick's and cling to the manic directions of how to appropriately retaliate when a poem hurts your feelings.
Excellent foreplay for a cunning linguist.

With that, the real play begins. A beautiful, floriferous group talking about beautiful, floriferous groups.
*****'s that never had a ******* thing to do with flowers.
Forget-Me-Not's worth remembering.

I sit with my ****-eating grin as I cling, morbidly to the real, visceral, tragedy of such caliber that Shakespeare would stand in awe of you.
A reincarnated sewer pump couldn't cut through the vile events I hear. For once my empathy is a weakness.

Razer burns on the wrist.
A book whose simple table of contents hurts more than a thousand papercuts.
A manic pixie with a chip in her shoulder like a porcelain cup.
A teacher and champion for the little guy.
A woman who's known more cultures than I ever will and she ever wanted to.

I absorb your words like a parched desert swallows the rain.
As the ground cracks, I see you, I see all of you growing.
The vile decay turned into nutrients for your roots.
I can feel the ****** coming closer.
Your floriferous display is just a prequel to the fruit of your labors.

I take in your energies and hear the whispers.
At last, it's​ all coming to me.
The energy overflows, the ******, crescendo, release.
You are my muse, you were always my muse.
For that, I thank you.
Thank you.

My love has no limits, except for the minutes.
While my time is gold I spend most of it on the road.
I drive an hour to work every day but that doesn't even touch the countless hours I spend driving my career, driving my education, Driving her, Driving them, driving me to the edge of my adulting ability.
All the while surrounded by near misses and almost disasters.
Watching other crash and burn.

I remember that Subaru hatchback that was older than us,
magenta with a back seat that laid down.
You first said you love me before I knew what that meant.
Now you say you love me with an upward inflection and I know exactly what that means.
When that Subaru died we could have fixed it but we hadn't invested enough to make it worth our while.
Now "We" with a capital W is slowly choking to death but so much has been invested to let her, it, us go.
It started slowly with no real merit.
A scratch that wasn't even noticed, but it wasn't the scratch.
It was the infection that was introduced.
So, so, so slowly it's worked its way.
The internal battle constantly being waged but we didn't know.
We didn't support the structures keeping it at bay.
I didn't feed it so it would be strong, I gave it McDonalds because that's that made it happy.
Now My chest hurts and I can't breathe because that little infection is eating my heart from the inside out.
So do I let it finish me and go back to the star dust I was?
Do I clean out the infection knowing full well that the damage has been done and no matter what I do I'll always be missing a little piece that I didn't nurture and always have a little pain where the good stuff uses to be?
I'm not a doctor yet, I don't know. This infection has gotten so bad that maybe stardust would be better.

No, Papa taught me that our scars remind us that the past is real.
That damage is done, but now I have to remember.
I remember holding your hand for warmth as the ocean mist turned to ice before stinging our faces.
I remember my heart pounding as you walked. two words binding us like a spell.
I remember laughing, and crying, and laughing again in the same conversation.
I remember smelling wood smoke, hearing gentle streams, seeing starry skies, and feeling you pressed against me.

I have made mistakes.
I was the cut that started the infection.
I didn't nurture you, nourish you.
I wasn't careful when  you told me "careful, it's ******* fragile."
I said I love you before I knew how to or what that meant.
I drove fast and took chances.
I didn't tell you to buckle up.
I didn't, wasn't, couldn't. I chose not to.

Now we're here in purgatory, but it's already getting hot.
I don't know how to fix this, but I'll try forget-me-not's.

Grafting trees is the process of taking a piece of one tree and incorporating it into another tree so it can grow and flourish with the rest of that tree.

While this isn't natural for trees it is for me.

You can't count the rings of my trunk because that would involve ******.
You can see all the grafts from my roots to the newest buds.
Every fork as my life grows in different directions.

Strong trunks like my best friend who gave me the love of martial arts and tequila.
The woman who pushed me to grow faster and higher than I thought I could.
The career that's turned me into the everyday hero I always wanted to be.

As well as severed and dead branches.
The branch that tried to give me enough rope to hang myself.
The poisoned branch that still burns the roots.
The clean cut from the scion never meant to be.

And despite all of this the tree still grows.
As we enter spring the buds of new life, new love, new adventures are taking form.
Coffee berries to distil in intoxicating form.
Purple flowers that glitter is the evening sun and smell like pure magic.
Avocados that fuel short walks and long talks.
Even this poem is budding into a less terrible form.

While the trees grow in cycles I constantly grow.
Where this story ends nobody knows.

Chest tight, hands cold.
Darkness, my friend of old.
Again, I hear her cry, "My baby"
Again, I see death, my enemy.

Breath.

Snap, crackle, pop, as the job goes.
WE NEED TO MOVE as his pulse slows.
His eyes open, blind, no one is home.
He swings, hits, ****. While in Rome.

Breath.

Left, right, left, right.
It wasn't war, I didn't fight.
In my castle on the sand.
I watch the waving hand.

Breath.

He fights to get off the bed.
It's the bleeding in his head.
doesn't hear me, doesn't see me.
******* does he hit me.

Breath.

Long couches, long thoughts.
Life was easier, fighting over tater-tots.
"I didn't sign up for this"
One memory I wouldn't miss.

Breath.

White ceiling, dripping red.
Everything seen, he should be dead.
We'll hide him from the family.
A holiday now in infamy.

Breath.

3 am, the witching hour.
They're close, with power.
My idea, a warm embrace.
Fire can free me from this place.

Breath.

We beat on his chest, like a Wardrum.
I demand we push on, against quorum.
Look, listen, feel. Mine fast, his slow.
Problems solved, it's time to go.

Breath.

NO, YOU LISTEN TO ME!
I would, but I'm full of apathy.
MY DADDY SAID!
Love, you're lucky your not dead.

Breath.

"Good job kid, you did well."
When I heard it I nearly fell.
Yet it isn't easy this cross I bare
whenever you call, I'll be there.