Kiss one:
And I’m left thinking,
“Have I found him?”
The one
Who can love this mess that I've become?
Have I found the one
Who can repair
This broken vase
I call
myself?
                                          No, it can’t be.
                                          He’s only drunk.
                                          There is no way.
                                          Not me.
                                          No.
                                          No.
Kiss two:
And I’m left thinking
"Was I wrong.
Was it not
Just the alcohol.
Have I found him.”
                                           Yes.
                                           I have.
                                           He can love me.
                                           He can.
                                           He is the kind of man
                                           That can care for something
                                           So broken.
Cold December night:
I discovered
He was no man at all.
He was a boy
Who made a broken girl fall.
                                          Fall.
          ­                                  Fall.
                                              Fall.
Until she hit the bottom.
And then buried her.
And her hope.
And her love.
6 feet under the ground.
Because he was a boy.
Who found it easier
To go back to what he knew
Than to try at something new.
So he buried
That broken girl.
6 feet under.
That cold,
Hard ground.

Wife,
        That’s a term I have been waiting to use for my entire life. I wasn’t always the best at searching for you. I was young and mildly ambitious growing up; other things got in the way because I never knew how much I could love you.
        If only I had known.
        I’ve told you most of my stories: my days playing sports, the endless reading list I had at my bedside table, and the sleepless nights thinking I would never find you.
        I’m eternally grateful that God allowed our paths to cross at that bookstore – how ironic that I was looking for books about love and I found you.
        My life taught me to question and second-guess many things: marriage, relationships, and the future.
        I had let my doubts and expectations reach into my pockets of hope and faith, stealing my motivation to succeed.
        Some would say I was justified in being a stoic.
        Not you.
        Before I met you, I was full of silly ideas and visions of how the world was. Those things – doubt, disappointment, failure – may be in the world, but they don’t define the world.
        Or me.
       I’m glad I questioned what was shinning so bright in a dimly lit bookstore. I’m glad I saw you.
        Holding a flashlight.

Always,
Yours

Sometimes I look both ways before saying "God"
like I'm trying to be politically correct, since I don't go to church or believe in sin.

But God is subjective, and it comes from within.

It's one more universal truth polluted and perverted
by deluded
social constructs
just like drugs, money, *** and gender
and proper moral conduct
(it doesn't exist)

Well, not they way they've taught us.

don't have too much fun, do drugs only if they're prescribed
(you'll know that it's a sin if it gets you high)
Don't breathe out of rhythm or you'll be deemed a *****,
unless it's for procreation,
but still - pretend ******* are a chore.

Listen to your daddy and watch your mother silently nod,
question what he says, and his reply won't be "because I said so," but it'll be
"because God"

A WHITE MAN WHO HATES GAYS AND CONTROLS WOMEN
did you say God or Fraud?
Is that a stain on your white linen?

Your omnipotent holy deity,
I regret to inform you,
is a mere projection of human fallacies,
enlarged and stretched across the walls we build out of fear.
your God is a tool.

And I'm supposed to feel shame
when I so carelessly toss around His name
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain"
but what does it matter when God itself is running through my veins?