Another morning, another day
I wake before the alarm.
The pressures, my stress
deprives me of the rest I need--
just to get through it all.

The rays of the new morning
slowly make their way in
transforming the room from dark to shadows.
I catch a silhouette of you,
lost in your peaceful slumber.
Such a perfect juxtaposition
revealing to me that I have been blessed
through it all.

I remember the young girl
her golden hair, the innocent touch
whose eyes once saw in me--her future.
Though I tried, time and time again
to wreck that dream-- you held on--
through it all.

The scene takes me back, to the expecting mother
so peaceful in her sleep, bravely ready to become
what I so feared I could never be.
While I struggled to become the man, the father,
you needed and deserved me to be.
I knew it would take your love--
to get me through it all.

Now those blessed gifts,
each containing the better parts of both of us
are starting to make their own way
while I'm still stumbling to make my own.
My fears for them collide
with the compiling stress of my day to day
and I find myself again awake before dawn.

On another morning, on another day
with the same silhouette reminding me--
We'll get through it all.

Joey Jones

i don't hate you
i fear you
and you make me stay by
teaching me that
to love is to fear and
to fear is to love

The clouds poured that day
When my mother took me in the church
I kneeled in front of a porcelain Mary
Who glared down in righteousness
So full of herself, i thought.

She should be a figure of strength
A warrior even, made by her virginal status
But you are still porcelain, I snarled
A slight push
And to pieces you go.

In the fear of the Divine
I confessed my sins
Her smile still cold and smirk like
Laughing ay my earthly worries
Dismissing my lonely sorrow.

I looked up again in pain and anger
Smothered by fear and angst
To be met with my mother’s face
Who stood in porcelain
Looking down in righteousness.

He's broken.
So broken.
He hadn't lost a parent.
But he is further from her than he was before.
The other is transparent.
Unhealthy habits.

Transparency has unhealthy habits.

Him.
A spitting image of his father.
Unhealthy ways of dealing with negative emotions.
He's throwing a tantrum now.
He can't handle it.
His rage filling up, consuming him.
He has justified it; not hearing nor seeing the logic others use to rationalize his feelings.
On the outside, he is definitely a toxic person.

One of those types of kids you should never befriend.

Toxic, indeed.
But not only to others, making fun of them and being bitter.
But to himself.
So young,
yet he thinks his intellect outmatches societies',
his maturity cannot be matched,
he is misunderstood,
he is one in a million.
He is not.

He is among the many regular people who carry a facade.
Shifting into somebody else whenever he cannot get what he wants

Perhaps,
this is because he can't handle his new life?
He was never like this before.
Perhaps,
his brain created personalities for him, for whatever each situation requires it.

So fragile, so sensitive.
Been through so much anguish.
So much pain.

And his mind could not withstand the transparency's abuse.
That same transparency that cannot understand him.
Made him hate the world and believe he was hated back.

He is a lost soul.
Underneath his manipulative, two-faced facade, there is a small child.
An underdeveloped mind.
That lacks power to process emotions correctly.
Numb, unfeeling of empathy.

At a time where puberty arises,
and the stress of a mistreating new life,
he has no freedom.
He feels as trapped as his sister.
She has people to confide in.
He does not.

He is alone.

Alone in his head.

His mother, he needs her. In so many ways.
His mental state is unstable.

He needs her.

Every time the cruel transparency strikes its manipulation,
nowhere to run.

Not allowed to process, not allowed to act,
if the little boy cries in retaliation, he will be awarded a slap.

Showing emotion means being dealt with more abuse.

Endless
Endless
It is endless
he wants it to stop.

unanswered cries for help.

but circumstances show that he'll be in it for a long time.
His gender,
is causing his anguish.
His age,
is causing his anguish.
His family,
is causing his anguish.
His existence,

is the bane of his anguish.

Maybe he's right, he is not a normal person.
He isn't allowed to be.

he is broken.
So broken.





and our family doesn't believe in therapy.

My mom's passionate about Newton's second law of thermodynamics.
She uses a "mom" version which can be stated as:
"Daughters tend toward disorder if not managed."
If I'm nothing else, I'm vigorously, meticulously managed like a tiger that must be turned judiciously from one situation to another lest a foot be forfeit.
"You're too young for"... is more than a formulate, it's a knife-like rule-tool, to dampen upheaval, banish trespassers, and put the "new" under glass" just out of reach. It's forever primed, there in the parenting tool-belt and can be thrown with the gunfighter's liquid, skillful ease.
So when I say I'm into something "new," I mean I've tiptoed into that Tartarus where you find the scandalous, like short skirts and Internet *******.
The "new" is prima-facie proscribed until it's proven cold, safe and harmless then blessed like an old Disney movie.
Our impromptu confinement in suspending the world has allowed me unaccounted moments to sample and measure how this "new" might fit into my life.
So it is  now that I wake up every morning ready for crime and I live but a hairsbreadth from punishment yes, I've discovered one of God's greatest gifts and seductions - coffee.
After about a week, my brother, while I'm reading the news, transparently focuses my mom's attention on the cup by my iPad, by glancing, slowly with his eyes. My mom is fleetingly lost, then she alights:
"You're too young for coffee," she says.
I look up and groan.
Then, as she moves to collect the now-banned item, I send a sisterly glower to my brother who stands blithely and innocently sipping from his cup.