A toast to you
A toast to me
A toast to the dreams that we can achieve

A toast to stars
A toast to skies
A toast to the moon still bright in our eyes

A toast to the distance
A toast to the calls
A toast to our laughter running down halls

A toast to tequila
A toast to shots
A toast to the nights we together forgot

A toast to libraries
A toast to the nooks
A toast to us hiding deep in the books

A toast to goodnight
A toast to warming
A toast to kisses and tickles all morning

She served milk toast on Sunday
She served milk toast on Monday
Milk toast is what you might guess
Milk on toast with sugar and cinnamon
That is all
She served milk toast on Tuesday
That is all
Four of the five complained
She served milk toast on Wednesday
All but one cried, “We hate milk toast!”
She served milk toast on Thursday with tears in her eyes
The littlest one saw his mother’s streaming salty fluid
He said, “Momma, I love milk toast.”
The streams turned into raging rivers
Amongst all the wetness came odd quirks of laughter
Momma mustered everything she could
Next thing out was, ”I’m taking that job Dean”
What could Dad say while he sopped up his milk toast?
That is when Momma went to work for the phone company
They never ate milk toast again

Toast to the guinea pigs
for extinguishing my fear of being alone

Toast to the moon
for being the substitute of street lamps

Toast to the car parked on the driveway
for indicating the presence of my family

Toast to the guitars
for remembering the way they tune

Toast to the fridge in the kitchen
for keeping our food fresh

Toast to the walls of the house
for absorbing the noises I rather not hear

Toast to the paintings
for reminding me of what I’m artistically capable of

Toast to the bed in the room
for keeping my body comfortable at night

Toast to the lights
for providing my room personality

Toast to the tapestries hanging on the ceiling
for maintaining my privacy

Toast to the dreamcatchers
for giving me hope of a good night's dream

Toast to the pictures on the wall
for reminding me of who I am with people I love

It’s amazing how one hospital trip can change the rest of your life. Or even lack of one even. He was four. I, three.  It was late, I had no idea why I was going to Bridget and John’s house. More importantly, I didn’t know why Zack wasn’t coming with me. 11 pm, I guess that’s pretty late for a three year old. I don’t think at that point I really had any grasp on what was actually happening. That nothing would ever be the same again. Half asleep, trudging to that sliding glass door I’d seen hundreds of times. I went into the house, the aroma of sweet cinnamon and love hung in the air.
      Burnt toast and peanut butter. That pretty much sums up an entire year of my life. Three years old, and for almost every weekend, which was too many, spent with Bridget and John, sleepless nights and peanut butter toast. There was: late night toast, midnight toast, way too early morning toast, morning toast, breakfast toast, too much toast. I think I was a picky three year old, then again, that isn’t exactly unheard of. I wasn’t very fond of peanut butter or toast, but I still ate it. I yearned for a sweet taste of normality. I craved something routine. Funny, because my life was everything but normal during that year. Funny, because I will never eat peanut butter toast ever, again.
     Many nights spent waiting for an answer. Wishing to go back, and hoping for everything to be okay. But as the car rolled out of the gravel driveway on that first night, so did an unmedicated future for my brother.

don't cry/you're almost home
I ******* LOVE FRENCH TOAST
almost. almost. almost. home. don'tdon'tdon't cry
stop. crying.
don'tcryyou'realmosthome
IloveyoulikeIlovefrenchtoastwit­hmaplesyrupinthemorning
but I don't know how to make french toast
you just crack some eggs and mix them with milk, you idiot.
Stop crying. You're almost home. French toast is at home.
No it's not. There's no cinnamon. I need cinnamon. I only like my french toast with cinnamon and vanilla.
that's a lie. You love french toast. Any kind of french toast.
You love it because it's french. I love french kissing.
No that's a lie, I love hard kissing.
No you don't.
I love you
Stop. You don't. You love french toast in the morning with maple syrup.
I love my french toast with cherry peppers
That's disgusting. Cherry peppers don't go on french toast. They taste disgusting.
You like french toast more than insecure cherry peppers
No. yesyesyes. NO. YEEESSSS.
Don't cry you're almost home.

Here's a toast
to the wicked and the broken down
pour a drink for me and my brothers

And I'll say "here's to you ,and here's to me,
and may we never disagree,
but if we do, then **** it to Hell with you,"
still I'll say "Here's to me"

Don't convict me, unless you have,
a perfect soul now, or a perfect past
Because I remember all your lies
so grab that whiskey, and come alive

yeah we'll toast, to the wicked
everybody raise 'em high if you get it
we'll toast, to the wicked
everybody's gonna die '*** we're livin

We're all sinners, and we're all saints
You're never early, and you're never late
The party's on now, its not too far
My door is open, come as you are

yeah we'll toast, to the wicked
everybody raise 'em high if you get it
we'll toast, to the wicked
everybody's gonna die '*** we're livin

If he who is without sin should cast the first stone
then he who is without sin should drink alone

yeah we'll toast, to the wicked
everybody raise 'em high if you get it
we'll toast, to the wicked
everybody's gonna die '*** we're livin

a toast,
a toast to every moment of clarity forgotten,
to every splendid line i put off writing down
until i could conjure it no longer,
to every sentence i should have spoken
and every silence i should have kept,
a toast to every deception i miscalculated,
to every promise broken, every bond neglected,
to every question i failed in formulating,
to every time when i should have wept
and every time when i should have refrained from weeping;
a toast, a toast to every embarrassment, every disgrace,
every regret,
to every time my hand should have been extended
and to every hand i stubbornly refused to accept,
and the rest, too, a toast to all the rest.

what else is there to do on nights like these
if not to get drunk
on memories,
the stronger the better? every spectacle
of microcosmic tragicomedy,
that makes up the vortex of my life,
is sublime before these disordered senses,
before it's revealed to be
pathetic and melancholy in the morning's lucid, lurid light.
a toast, then, that the night last the longest
and the next day pass by quickly enough.
a toast to every moment of clarity forgotten,
to every splendid line i put off writing down
until i could conjure it no longer,
to every sentence i should have spoken
and every silence i should have kept.

Well, it’s thanks to my friend, Neillie, that I'm standing here today;
He captured me down at his shop as I reached out to pay.
He said, “I have a job for you, and you've twelve weeks to prepare.”
I thought, my God - he wants his toenails clipped or help to dye his hair...

Now, a toast that's for the ladies; Lord, wherever will I start?
He said, “That's nothing rude and nothing crude, something from the heart.”
So, I scratched my head and searched my soul; I was’nae getting far.
It seems that Neillie's harsh restrictions took out half my repertoire.

Anyway - oh the Bard, he loved the ladies, and oh how they loved him back;
Seems a poem's all it took those days to get them in the sack.
No wonder he liked writing of the love that hid within,
Which explains his suave and healthy look, and how he kept so trim.

If only it were like that now; I’d write for all I'm worth,
Grabbing every chance I could each day to nail another verse.
And my wife, she would be pleased for me at all my new attention,
And I'd be thin from running scared from too much pain to mention.

Now, once my business took me roaming to each corner of Great Britain,
So, I catalogued the ladies; just the ones that I was smitten.
Well, Welsh girls they took hours to please, and the Irish take some beating,
And the English girls are very, very nice if your ears can take their bleating.
Ah, but Scottish girls are best by far; as steady as a rock,
But, if by chance your eye should stray, you'll wake withoot your ****.

So I married one, with no regrets; best move that I've made yet,
And I love her dear, with all my heart, in a life with no regret.
For like the Bard, I settled down when love could get no hotter,
But compared to him and his wondrous works, sure I'm just a ditty jotter.

Oh Sweet Ladies, you are dear to us - where would we be without you?
In wrinkled clothes and motley beards in a house of straw and cow poo.
Without you we would just exist - watching football in a bar;
Just sitting, drinking, laughing, eating, drinking…..and sleeping in the car.

Dear, Sweet Ladies, we don’t kid ourselves; we know you have us beat,
Hence why we hold the doors for you, and chairs each time you seat.
We love to do the chivalrous stuff - it makes us look the strongest,
You see, we have to make the most of things - you live the fecking longest.

Well, at last it’s time for me to stop - and give you chance to mingle,
And I'll make peace with my dear wife, before I'm Facebook status: single.
Now, gentlemen, I ask you all - please charge and raise your glasses,
And join me in a bumper toast: “To the beauty of the Lassies.”

i think, you should stop going to italy, for one, oh **** me, keep going on hedonist ****-**** fests to places like mallorca, but stop going to italy, you're making my stomach ache from laughter, with what you come back with, the so-called "innovations"; somehow i'd just poach my cauliflower, and drizzle it with fried breadcrumbs, and serve it as a side-dish to fried eggs (2), and some tatties; for goodness sake, even cauliflower cream soup makes more sense, garnished with some fried chorizo!

first it was avocado on toast...
          who the **** puts avocado on bread?
i can imagine putting it in pasta...
but on bread?
                hey, what the **** does
the acronym f.a.d. mean?
             i don't know, and i won't google it...
o.k. avocado on toast...
              nothing near guacamole,
  but fair enough...
           but what i discovered... pushes
the button where i turn into a fox laughter
(fuchslachen) -
           i couldn't stop...
                      you can find it in the *weekend
section of the saturday times newspaper...
written by nicola m.
          cauliflower and mozzarella pizza...
you have to be ******* me...
                cauliflower? on pizza?
one of my housemates at university told
me an anecdote:
    i was in a restaurant once,
          and asked for a pizza with no cheese...
he continued:
      and then the head chef came out and
asked me... are you, insane?!
       a bit like: bread...    but no butter?
and i thought i was insane eating a watermelon
today, whole,
the red pulp, and the outer layers including
the skin included, allowing myself
a gorilla imitation cameo gimmick...
      but i thought i was mad...
but there's avocado on toast...
   and now... cauliflower on pizza...
                              it's a ******* side-dish!
wait, don't tell me... you're going to put
some potatoes onto the pizza the next frizz
comes along... right?
                      how about beetroot?
                         thankfully, if i have some
wacky ideas in terms of culinary escapades,
they happen, drunk, after 12a.m.,
and i'm the scientist, and the experimental rabbit
2-in-1...
                     a newspaper column?
apparently, you get one, putting avocado
on toast...
                 or cauliflower on a pi-zzzzz-ah...
to be honest, even though i haven't tried it,
grilled aubergines on a pizza could work...
   the toast?               marmite and cheddar...
english people should stop glorifying holidays
in italy... they're ****** cooks...
                   an italian would just look at
a pizza with cauliflower and say:          cosa?
i'd suggest heading to scotland first,
and picking up the vibes from some haggis.
**** me...
   avocado on toast...
                caulifower on a pizza?!
                           now i can die happy, 'appy,
clapping: encore!

Muscles strain with the effort, each one
fit to burst from this skin in protest of the
things I do for you.
When I saw you falling by I couldn’t
help but to throw out my arm for you
to grab. I will anchor you to safety.
Sometimes I think that this act,
rescuing you, is all I know.

A toast!
To those buildings from our lives
which at times meant so much,
and how we saw them torn down.
To those people, who we loved and
hated and ignored and couldn’t be
away from, and to how we stood
by to see them torn apart.
A toast to the rips and tears.

When I’m not around, and this dark world
looms like death about your aspect,
how do you go on?
Do you have a bevy of pretenders,
waiting in the wings to assume the mantle
of hero for you, at your beck and call?
I think not.
No, the state that I always find you in.
Teetering on oblivion. Breathing in your
own acrid impending ruin.

A toast!
To the victimless crimes that always
find themselves a victim.
To the altruist with ulterior motives.
To the new car with seven hundred miles on it.
A toast to the rut I find you in.

How could I do anything other than rebuild you?
I sit and cobble you from the heart break
you discovered on your path to forget or forgo.
With delicate hands and loose calculations
I will rend you into a form that resembles
yourself, and when I am done I will
walk away.
You have never once thanked me.

A toast!
To the victimless victim of
self inflicted crime.
To those torn down and made whole
again.
To buildings wrecked and replaced.
To the occasional altruist with
understandable ulterior motives.