“Listen here kid, have a seat.
Let me tell you about
The family.”*

You can choose your friends
But you can’t choose
Your family….

…and apparently you can’t choose
your career either.

This is dedicated to
my brother in crime
The younger brother
With stronger
Morals and values
Than mine.

The family is broken,
And your older brother is broke
And in the eyes of a distant father
You know we are both jokes

We are not prodigies
We are not straight A students
We are small town oddities
And some would say we are ruined

We were born into this life.
We were born into financial comfort
Bathed in upper middle class stability
Taught racism is acceptable as long
As we keep it to ourselves, and laugh
As if we are not serious.

We learned that as we grow up, dreams become schemes

We were raised believing we would succeed.
And success is defined by money.

The monetary system is god.
I will be the doctor
You will be the lawyer
And because the system isn’t flawed
We are.

Money is not good, money is god.
I’ve spent a lot of god on beer.

So when we watch our bloodline bicker
Like bad kids in sandboxes,
When we watch adults undermine
Each other’s “parenting skills”
Remember,

You did not chose this
You were born into this.

And as the age old argument
Of genetic versus environment
Rages on like arguments
Over furniture and kitchenware
Remind yourself
It’s not an argument.
Its your environment.

Today my little brother’s heart was broken
And his dreams were shattered like a
Malicious marriage
Divorced, and separated,
By god.

My little brother will not be an RCMP officer
And if he doesn’t know it yet,
This is the best thing to ever happen to him.

Just because your eyes aren’t apparently good enough
They have never stopped you from seeing right from wrong
They are wrong.
You are more then alright.

Cops are more crooked than the criminals they can’t catch
So whatever you do, don’t catch flack
For not having a backup plan
You turn 17 tomorrow, man…
Kid.
Be one.
For a kid can be anything.

You can race san dunes in the desert.
You can rebuild muscle cars and motorbikes.
You can make unique one of a kind furniture.
You can open a restaurant, even a bar.
You can be the next big sensation in Country music, or rap.
Or both.
You will live. You will smile
And you will make other do the same.

Brother, we can do anything.
Hell, when our parents die,
Miserable and alone,
We will inherit their throne
all of their god.

And we can take their god,
Design ourselves some superhero outfits
Break laws in order to fix them
We can grow and sell dope by donation
And make the difference
That neither our parents
Or the police
Are able to do.

I’m proud to share blood with you.
We are superheroes.
We are gods.
We are brothers in crime.

You,
You don’t know.
You have no idea,
What it feels like,
To miss you.

You,
You walk around,
You live on,
Like it’s nothing,
To miss you.

You,
You are more than okay,
You live through each day,
Without knowing,
That *I miss you.

I use to be in the closet
I use to go through all these false motions
Feel all these fake emotions
I would put the straight face on
But I would always feel out of place

The closet was where I would pack away all my insecurities.
I would put them in boxes for later so I could look back at the dark memories.
And whenever I felt threaten
I would hide in the closet.

But the walls would sometimes come too closely
I would get claustrophobic
As it suffocated me slowly.

Running out of oxygen, I would pelt the door with my fists to be let out  
I would scream, beg and shout to be let out
And when I finally mustered the strength to cross the threshold
I was shoved back in
I was told that I couldn’t love him
That I should have never been
I love you but I hate your sin.
Time and Time again.

I fought as they shut the door and turned the lock
I was in the closet but this time the new me wanted to be free
The half king, Half queen me wanted some liberty.
I tore the hinges from the closet door off
I tore down the walls and pounded them into dust
And after looking at my beautiful destruction I felt justice

Because the closet is man-made invention
To keep us under control.
The story no one mentions but they know it by heart
So they stay away and not wanting any comprehension.
It’s something they use to stifle us so we won’t make a sound.
Something that will keep our feelings hidden in the background.
So it won’t mess up their “beautifully normal” foreground.

But I say no more

No more should we have to go back to the closet
To where we must feel shame
To where we must bear chains
To where we have many names
To where it gets dies, our flame

The closet must be, no more

It's Friday night and I could pretend that I'm going to some party where
The boys are too drunk and
The girls have lost themselves in between the bathroom mirror and the bathroom floor.

Maybe the music is a bit too loud but the smoke outside should cover it up.

You might be leaning against the side of a couch or
Up against a wall with someone else-
A girl, maybe, with too long eyelashes
And hair that reeks of perfume
(I know you hate it).

I would probably walk in and change the music, do a little jig that makes people laugh but I won't remember it in the morning.

You could come over and pull me out into the biting chill of the backyard's night and tell me about the things you saw in the bathroom upstairs.

I would grab your face and kiss it all over and you'd let me because you'd be doing the same thing.

Step one, step two, step three
And it led me home.

And that was last night and I'm craving for your skin again.
Goodnight.

Following the long winding road with the
Dark clouds and lightning grabbing at our heels,
Gravel kicking up dust in the rearview,
We flew like sparrows in the spring wind.
Johnny Cash singing throughout the speakers;
Tunes of walking lines and rings of fire.
The clearing was just ahead, sandwiched in
Between tall evergreen trees with acorns
Where small sparrows wait for a worm dinner.