10 Things you should know about being a child growing up with a dying parent:

1. When you and your classmates are first learning how to read a dictionary, there will always be one word they don’t know: privacy. When they ask you where it is, you’ll be able to tell them that it’s the 29th word on the 925th page of a Merriam Webster dictionary published in the year 2001. But when you’ve given them all they asked, their favorite word will still be “public.”

2. The day you learn how to use the hospital equipment is the day you are no longer a child

3. You are born an adult. You come out of the womb with the intellect and physical ability to care for your family because that is what they need. You are a peasant child in the middle ages: work begins the day you are born and your job won’t stop till you are buried with her.

4. When you come back to school, people will develop a favorite phrase. It will be a 1 2 punch along with the word public: “How are you?” Tell them you’re ok. Tell them you are happy and glad you are back. Don’t tell them what you want to. That you are diagnosed with a sunken chest a hole over your heart. Don’t tell them you wish ******* was more available because hell: at least if your face is numb maybe you won’t cry as much.

5. Not everything needs a retaliation. See there was one time a kid walked up to me and asked if I was ok; I said go away; he said “You don’t get to be mad just because she’s dead.”

6. Anger. . .becomes tight fit clothing you never take off. You are a man created by the affectionate pages of Chinua Achebe: You “never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger” the problem is when you are only agry, Things always fall apart

7.  When they ask you if you are handling her death well, and you want to scream no blasting out the last breath you’ve held since she breathed her last! Don’t do anything but ask them if. . .

8. They ever knew her full name


9. As you walk through the halls of a high school building, be the dog that smells ignorance. When you hear those children tell you every part of their lives they struggle with, all the homework they have, the B’s they might get, the hangovers they get from drinking away their immaturity, tell them what it means to clash with your own mental composure. Tell them that. . .

10. You have been doing homework over a dying body for the better half of your life. Homework was the rock you leaned on because it was the only deadline you knew, Chemotherapy was the foundation of chemical equations, blood pressure was the only fractions you saw, your English vocab was the list of pain medications---

Life was a class on defusing bombs. . .and a flatline didn’t mean defused but at least the end was written in stone

Just yesterday, I saw men stand in front of podiums with red business suits ablaze with incorrect passion. Strings on their back , and words on their shoes. Woody. Those soles have been carved by one word: morals. And those shoes are ablaze with incorrect passion. Pulling apart a union piece by piece, string by string, and the only strands left are those attached to their backs repeating flint and steel comments that replenish the firewood. Merit badge. And grow their noses the length of the nation “they love.” Puppets. Historically, a canary follows a coal mine, and now it’s in good G-d’s gold mine searching for that soul of the red business tie precious metal is found and generously placed upon the plates of children but pushed away as if broccoli. Child in a grown man’s body. Today a woman stood in front of a room and told me about invisible lines. And how soon they may be visible because the flame of business passion is stone-by stone bringing us “closer to G-d” because separate but equal is no longer history and it is apparently a mystery that G-d is just; because what I see are bible’s no longer placed in hearts but in hands only to be thrown into the fire and used to interpret the remains as if oracle bones stating that Jesus was never love and G-d is a sin because the man in red passion as he recited what he wants said so.
Raise up your arms and aim your point-and-shoot cameras (guns) at the religious text with a backdrop of love...don’t bring it into focus...3...2...1...Bang

They tell me
write about her
I tell them
I reserve her for the
Word of God
the God I don’t believe in;
My God is the pen

A week ago, I noticed
a cramp in my neck
veins aching,
old bones cracking because -- I don’t know how to use them anymore

I only hold myself like this now.
In a position with a one-track mind
where I only look at my feet.

A part of me.

A month ago,
I noticed a cramp in my thumbs.
The veins in my wrist at a stand still -- no blood
because I don't need blood for my thumbs to type.
But soon…
my veins, my bodies connections aren’t helping
and I can no longer move my thumbs.

Disconnected
Wireless
Obsessed with me & my own person

I can’t make eye contact.

all I see of my friends anymore are words and emojis --

There is no depth.

All I see
Is the tile beneath my feet where my roots cannot grow
wi-fi…
is a broken system

Last night I walked into a cafe where love is blind and so am I

And whether or not is a newspaper or laptop
I won’t talk
because I am scared to ask
the article he is reading,
the essay she is writing, or the game they are playing.

If I do talk, I will look at their
Ears
Nose
Mouth
Hair
Forehead wrinkles
Or the space between their eyes because
I am afraid.

My name is Robert Nelson.
I’ve been married for fifty years
and I do not know the color of my wife’s eyes

My name is Jill Lennord & I cannot see the greens,
blues, or browns hidden in my husband’s face
and I have not known them since the cafe.

I can’t read a compass.
I tried turning it, but I only found an x.

X

The dependent variable.

ME

Dependent.

dependent on a broken connection, a broken system separating tables & people in cafe,
Dependent

searching for a Y variable.
but that requires that I look there
or there
or there
and I can’t do that I can’t find why I can’t
I can’t find my independence.
I don’t know why.
I can’t find my Y
All I have is my safe spot.
My feet,
My roots,
Me.
My obsession with me.
I’m obsessed with a disconnect and
EYE don't know why…

I can’t just look up.

Lakes are the great mystery novel. Every wave; another page

One night, Death came to visit me and I
Offered him a cup of tea.
He sat gracefully in a fragile chair
That had only ever known my
Grandmother
And said:
      "Young sir,
Have you anything with pomegranate?
      I find that it
traps more of the flavor."

I stood up--my hands trembling enough to cause an earthquake--
And fetched Death a cup
Of the oxblood fruit.
I tried to give Death the cup, my hands as bad as a scared tightope walker;
he
                  Refused.
And instead insisted I drink it.
(I didn't have the guts to tell him I hated pomegranate)
In the same instant my lips touched the hot crimson water,
A zipper opened across the face of death.

"Now, I have you."

Cliche: The world is yours for the taking--
       The last poem in a purple notebook--
Creative (possibly): The world is yours for the making--
       150 degrees--
where Africa is the continent placed
       UpSiDeDoWn
and North America,
       against all logical sense,
is in the south.

       Little boy in sixth
grade.
       Go to the man who painted the walls white,
dropped textbooks in every teacher's lap,
       and taught them how to
babysit.

       Tell him that we
need more than one flavor
       to splash our palette.
A subtle flavor so small
       that it's dust-like.

Make him give us something
to change,
to express our love,
to make our blood dance with passion,
and permanently graffiti the walls
with our heart's emotion.

So when the trunks
circle you
too tight,
don't be afraid
when they intertwine
and circle their vibrancy
around you.
Let them contain you.
Let them contain you
as a mother & father
containing all the atoms
of a second hand.
So when their vibrancy
turns to brown,
and you dance the
skies depths,
you will look back
on the intertwining veins,
and you will give them
all the atoms in a minute
hand.

BrIgHt TeNdRiLs Of A dEvIlS hAnD
rEaChInG tHrOuGh My FlOoR
lAtChInG oNtO tHe RoOf.
TuRn AwAy, RuN aWaY,
wAkE uP.

The first day
a man in the airport
searches my belongings.
He finds my thanks.
Written on paper
in colors of blue, green,and black.
A jagged smile form on his lips.
"Are these compliments?" He says. "Who wrote them?"
My answer , underlines with a chuckle is:
"That's just it. I have no idea."

"Well how peculiar. How do you treasure something that is the job of Sherlock Holmes?"
(solving mysteries, that is)
I say nothing,
just smile.
"And these names; you have taken the term read between the lines so literally here. These names are words I know, but I don't understand."
My response--as always--is:
"We use them to preserve
our magic.
our secrets.
our ties.
98% of what I hold dear is on that piece of paper. I swear."

Memories are just those suspended moments in time when everything is held together by the strongest strands of the spider’s web and the chest caving hug of a parent.
Memories are the tiniest seconds when you stand at the cusp of everything and watch every color breath across your field of vision and against your moral code you tie down those thoughts because losing that dance is worse than death.
They are the air we breathe and the space between my ears as lips creep up your face. Memories are the rooms of gold poured down a dragon’s throat and glaze hearts onto its eyes.
It’s the stuffed animal we all know is grotesque, but we can’t in our right mind throw away. Memories are the fundamental structure of everything good.
The warmth that rushes through our body and fire we take delight in. The unsuspected smiles that cause weird glances and good feelings.
Memories are an escape the equivalent to a book to which it is a world.
Memories are the birds resting on the shoulders of snow white that are so happy just to be there because they know the beautiful colors of a voice escaping her mouth are their treasure. Memories are the Hemoglobin of love that tell our minds: “remember this. It matters”

Like the gears of time, the moon’s ocean moves endlessly

The Intensity of human complexity is the simplest of all

Now that you're here,
No muscles can be properly exercised.
The tendons and ligaments don't
work like that used to.
I am a ball of everything
ready to explode
when my sodium
touches your water.
Now that you're here.

Now that you're here,
Every five seconds of my day
are devoted to one hand on
my shoulder and the other hand
reaching for Van Gogh's love.
Straight over my head
the veins; those impossible thoughts
tingling at the seems aching
to escape.
Only to fall back into me and wait five more
Seconds.
Now that you're here

They all told me that
I have moved on to a time
where it is expected of me
to be more.
And I don't see the
point of detailing a story
that always ends in
a circle

passion jumps

into your arms

and

grabs you by the shoulders.

Your eyes are caffeine making me

want more even though I've always

hated brown.

Your eyes are a

seaside dock in front

of a picturesque dawn,

and a tower of bricks higher

than God's spirit.

Your lips are a love

creeping

up those bricks

through the cracks

(Ivy walls)

Hugging my veins.

Your hands are tools

that have seen the magic of the floating

planets

and so

much more.

Those hands see the veins

in a wrist begging for attention

because they know how

important they are;

flowing with the black and white blood

of a poet's love.

All ink-filled branches

leading to a beating

blank canvas

full of the beautiful creations whining

like a dog to be free.

Because you are passion

and your entire being is

poetic.

Invade a tower and build upon its

glory.

Let all those words--
everything--

breathe out of your being

and write

PASSION

To the man with the black hair and dark mean skin
you told me that after your children learned their ABC’s
they were taught how to pray for people like me.
To sit at the edge of their bed
look up at the stars and hope we regain our sanity.
But you might as well pray to a mirror
because I do the same.
I ask that heavenly being that is said to look over us
I ask God to find you
to find you in the forest and bring you back to my world:
a world of equality.

To the man with a big sign
beating down my self-confidence by the second:
Do not bring your child into a world of animosity
where they are only shown one side.
Tell your son that the words he is saying
are tying a knot from the ceiling of a bedroom.
Tell him that those words are stuffing excess amounts of Norco down teenager’s throats
And let him know that the only reason his words are true is because he made them so.

To the anonymous woman sitting at her dining table
eating bacon;
the grease dripping off that dead animal and onto your sacred bible
Tell me to my face that you abide by all the laws of Christianity.
Look into my eyes and say that tomorrow,
you will go down to the black market and sell your daughter into slavery.
That you follow the laws shown by Jesus
who promised and preached love.
Because anonymous woman,
I think we both know the truth:
That you are no more open-minded than a horse with blinders.
That you follow what you want and disregard everything else.
Heart beating fast;
your hands the clammiest that they’ll ever be
tell me that you only eat “holy bacon.”

To the secret ally who thought that they could call their church home
until they learned the difference between expression and oppression.
This Sunday, go to church and pray; and sing.
But this time secret ally,
preach a different prayer and sing a different song.
Sit in that pew with your hands clasped and your eyes closed
and pray that everyone sitting around you is found.
That your mother is no longer afraid of people like us
and that your father removes the word f**got from his vocabulary
And that someday
you will realize
you don’t have to be secret anymore

To the secret ally who wants to start a GSA in their school.
I dare you to see the pleading in Jesus’ eyes not because he is dying,
but because his message has been obscured.
I dare you to break down every wall of enclosure that anyone has ever put in your way.
And secret ally I dare you
to tell those people at your church...
to do the same
because secret ally I can’t tell you exactly how long we will last
In a world where hatred is hidden in plain sight behind every alleyway;
But I can tell you this:
It won’t be long