Young Liam loved Orange
and liked to wear ties.
To his firehouse friends
He was one of the guys.

He had his own locker
a slicker and hat.
He also had cancer,
and a bad one at that.

From early on in his life
he fought neuroblastoma ;
An invasive tumor
a metastatic carcinoma.

His family who loved him
labored to save
their dear little child
Prince Liam the Brave.

He faced surgery bravely,
engaged in his fight..
He endured radiation
Chemo and knife.

When many a New Yorker
complains about stress,
Prince Liam was stoic
When put to the test.

Then just before Christmas
he suffered a relapse
He became neutrapenic-
His immune system collapsed.

With blood in his *****
And a spot on his lung
Liam grew weak.
his defenses undone.




An Amethyst stone
he received from a friend
was his talisman of hope
that he held to the end.

The worst part of the journey
was when hope was gone.
Then Liam lay, still and silent
in his mother's arms.


There are brave fire fighters
Who’ll be fighting back tears
Brave Prince Liam has died,
He lived only six years

There are many old people
still avoiding the grave
Who know less about love
Than did Liam the brave

We will gather together
In St Francis’ nave
To remember the life of
Prince Liam the brave


i

Rosanna knew she was kidnapped. She was taken all those years ago. She never knew her new family was really as bad as they were. Her older brother Liam changed after high school. He wasn't ever really normal. This was something she always knew.
Being nine years younger than him, he was her protector. The day he snapped was about a week after he turned nineteen. He killed his parents and buried there bodies in unmarked graves behind the house. He was ready to **** himself when Rosanna got home from school.
He knew that before he took his life that there was something she should know. He told her that she was adopted legally but not obtained that way. The family that adopted her were the ones that took her away. He told her that he loved and her birthday was her own, that he had killed their parents and she would have to survive on her own. He said his final goodbye but he never would have known that she would snap to that day and he wouldn't let go.
She took the gun from his hands and threw it out the window. She pulled a chair over from the kitchen table and smacked her brother in the head with tears rolling down her face. She told him he was an idiot for forgetting the promise that he made just a few years ago. He said she'd never be alone, that he'd always be there. She reminded him of this while hugging him around the waist.
He wanted to be alone and tried to push her away. She wouldn't have it, especially not today. This only made her hold on tighter to the only family she had left. He picked her up and carried her back up to his room. She was still crying when he sat down on his bed and told her that he was sorry. She cried in his arms, late into the night.
She woke in her brothers room, on his empty bed. Frantically she ran down stairs to find her brother there. He was setting the kitchen table with a breakfast made for two. He saw her and he smiled. He went and scooped her up. He was feeling sorry for making her cry. He didn't  know his actions were the partial onset of her taking her life.
She was diagnosed as schizophrenic exactly one year from that day. He had no idea she would trip the way she did. The year she turned fifteen she went on a trip. She heard her brother and her boyfriend, they were the voices in her head. They were telling her to **** herself and that is what she did.
She thought about taking a rope and jumping from the balcony but she didn't want to display herself  for all the world to see. Her next option was to take a knife and slit both her wrists but that was just the thing everyone would expect. Finally she came to the decision such as this, she would get the bottle of ibuprofen and take all the pills at once.
Her brother had come home to find her laying on her bed. He thought she was sleeping but really she was dead. She wasn't too far gone, though, she was barely breathing. He sat her up against the bed, laid a towel on her lap and stuck his finger down her throat. She threw up the contents of her stomach. The whole pills and all.
She woke up unexpectedly in her brother arms. Another body was now laying in another unmarked grave. This one belonged to her ex-boyfriend. Liam's reason for this crime was this and only this. His sister nearly took her life because of the voices that were triggered when her boyfriend told her to the face that he was cheating on her.
He got all this from the note that was on the bed beside her. When she laid there on her bed going cold from all the poison. After he had saved her life he took the life of the person that didn't deserve any affection from his angel ever again.
Liam now has a new toy, a nineteen year old name Niall. It's been four years from the day his sister tried to take her life. She is happy with a guy that she can truly love. Caleb is the cutest thing and he doesn't mind that sometimes she is going to breakdown and he will see her cry. He doesn't even mind that fact he's going to have to share with Niall and Liam at times. She knows that Caleb will protect her just like Liam had. He knows of Liam's crimes. It's all happily ever after because her heart won't be broken this time.

"he-ll-o beau-ti-ful, i-am-a-ro-bot" a manly robot said.
let's call him LIAM.

"o-my-that-can't-be-a-co-in-ci-den-ce" the mate of
his electronic soul, a womanly robot, answered. her name was EMMA.

"well-i-think-eve-ry-thing-should-be-fi-ne-then", liam
reciprocated. "we-can-go-now."

emma's robotic face glowed in red colors.
"hmmmmh... i-am-not-so-su-re-ab-out-that", she told liam.

"why-not??"

"nor-mal-ly-, a-ro-bot-wo-uld-not-act-as-hu-man-ly-as-yo-u-a-re-do-ing. how-e-ver, i-on-ly-told-yo-u that-i-wo-uldn't-be-so-su-re."

liam's entire construction started to beam with joy:

"do-es-this-me-an that-yo-u-want-me?"

emma smiled at liam.

"yo-u-bet!" she shouted in happiness.
soon, the two robots became one. and they never were separated.

never.

My brow curly angel
my Lillian
with eyes that shine like
the first star in twilight.
My blond sweetheart
my Liam
with eyes that burn like
a sunrise on a winter day

They sit, with unseen bond,
and watch as lights flicker
and reflect on their eyes.
“Go! Diego Go!” Liam bounces.
Lillian’s lavish lashes fall, lackadaisical
she holds her doll and recites
“Mommy made me mash my M&Ms;”

Liam can feel the bond, weakened,
and teases her, lovingly,
“The lily-licking frog licked Lillian!”
she squeals and holds her doll tight
Frightened, he drives his sister out.

I smile, and hold them both,
Lillian’s escape postponed.
Liam falls into me,
but my angel,
she slips away
smiling
laughing
and then it hits.

Water trickles down my cheeks,
salty with defeat,
as we dress in black.
I have failed, my angel,
and I have lost you,
Forever.

I long for your Love
your Warm giggle
your Bright eyes.
My hope for happiness
is Shattered as you
fall
out of reach
and out of sight.

Why hadn't I insisted?
Why didn't I keep you safe?
Now my sweetheart is
lost, connection broken,
he watches his sister
disappear under Earth.

Another Graceful Mentor guides my Side
To ensure my Skills fly in Good Respect
Those Rivered Words; Service and Satisfy,
Two Stone Codes to keep Clients out of Debt
And fortunate I was to keep this New
Thanks to your Report of Knots I un-weave
Press well on Speed; But keep Quality true
To hear Smiling Faces before they leave
I'll keep my Silence; And Pray all goes well
As the Bond between in Profession last
A Basket I learned from your Talents sell
With hope that Demotion will come to pass.
All which I gathered, I'll keep in my Bank,
The worthy Deposit your Aid I thank.

I grew up in suburbia-
With picket fences as white as the faces
Who say they're godly enough to save babies
(As long as they're not queer)
Because we don't have to live with the fear
Of corpses lining the sidewalks
Of our perfectly landscaped yards
We have no guards firing on peaceful protestors
Because our children are filed into orderly lines
Laid out for them at birth
But for what it's worth, we teach them of racism
From a white textbook that lies about founding fathers
Where segregation is just a word and
Oppression is hardly even mentioned.
Our children, who play at the age of 6
And lose their innocence at the age of 16
Suburbia is a life of it's own,
Gangly arms and legs
Like the teenagers who starve themselves
And steal their parents liquor
Just to get drunk quicker
Ignorant of those on the streets dying of hunger
No wonder I yearn to be far from this hell I call home.

Allen Ginsberg once said
“America I’ve given you all and now I am nothing”
The Wonder Years once said
“Suburbia I’ve given you all and now I am nothing”
But I’ve found fallacies in both of these,
I feel it’s more like
Suburbia I’ve given you all
And now I’m an awkward 20 year old
Who doesn’t know how to talk to black people
Suburbia I’ve given you all
And now I’m way too confident walking around the city at night
Because I forget there are communities
Where people actually have to lock their doors,
Suburbia I’ve given you all
And now I have a 16 year old brother
Who thinks the word *** and **** jokes are funny
Suburbia I've given you all
And now my father hates that I'm for gender equality
Well dear daddy,
I hope this offends you.

Because I am offended
By a community that tells **** victims they were asking for it
I am offended by a community
That tells my best friend Liam
That he's just confused, that
His love for Adam is an abomination
I am offended by a community
That offers equality as thinly veiled oppression,
With houses decorated in the decadence of degradation,
All the while their perfect sons and daughters
Are dying of depression because
The hilt of a gun is so much quicker
Than the drugs of their addiction

Suburbia, you are the seed of suicide
Feeding off of your violent silence,
Your white fences slice our tongues
And leave us mindless.
Suburbia, you have betrayed us.
Taught us ignorance is bliss with
Algebra instead of how to do taxes,
Spent more time worried about
Girls' shoulders instead of *** education,
Taught me not to speak unless
My hand was raised as if praise
Is given to authority without question,
Funny how they forgot to mention
Our country was founded on rebellion.

But suburbia, I forgive you
And so I humbly ask of you,
Find the keys of compassion within the heart and
Shed the lock of ignorance that grips your mind
The door may be rusted but it can open with time
Suburbia, I beg of you
Join us in the war of love
Let us all raise our fists and
Paint peace signs on our wrists,
We are disobedient dandelions swaying in the sun,
Words of kindness rolling off our tongues
Like pacifistic shots of a gun
Firing respect instead of rounds
And burying hate instead of bodies in the ground.

See, once many moons ago,
by a single solit'ry sun,
I met a cat nominated Liam,
and above him was his thumb,

Twas a good thumb,
twas the best thumb,
unspun the skin cells were silkest
and yet, when reassembled,
not that ilk. It's (Whaaaaaat?)

She was a tough and callous blemish
that he'd relish, totally cherish
'till he'd perish, (not embellished
tales true, but tails lie)

and Lasquisha for all her balance
and her posture
all her talents
Gideon knot who'll accost ya, with her roster's
Fox'd-ya-got-cha talons
(oooooooooooooooooooo)

This Liam was a good old cat
a tabby cat, not big and black,
but orange, mangy, super slack
deranged, estranged and caged in slack

with slipper feet, and coddled back,
he sat in chair that lazy sack
and when the doorbell called his track
he shirked the effort needed, whack!

Lashquisha, see, she was another
met our cat before this brother
Set her sights on not a smother
but, acknowledged rites of other.

So lashquisha with her sight so true
and thumb eluding tyrants skew
so set about to be anew
not thumb or (k)not, nor nails too,

and that was where I'd met these two
well first the cat and then the shoe
for sock was never needed, who
would hide themselves from their own view?

Lashquisha when I met that thumb
surprised not I by glove of fun
and ***, and *****, layered un-
derneath the figure Liam strum.

See Liam knew his thumb so well
he knew the thumb twas not a shell
that caged the angry men that fell
to clipping when their partners tell.

For thumb a partner never is
unless like me you've ****** the quiz
and ended up a pointless shiv
in side of angry hornets nest.

And rest assured the thumbs annointed
given by their partners pointed
comments feeling slightly daunted
by need to act their best.

Attest they do the thumbs that chew
And unrest is left by plough and brew
But then again a thumb are you?
And me, and we, and I?
So tru....