Despite living in San Antonio my entire life, I had never seen inside the Alamo; The same way you said you used to drive around my neighborhood on your way home from work every Sunday, but never inside.

If you or I had turned in, though, I'm sure we wouldn't have liked the view very much. Crooked, outdated, houses lay out along uneven roads, paved decades ago; The ghosts of those who had died fighting a battle that seems so irrelevant and far away, trapped inside heavy stone walls. What was the point?

They're just buildings. Another sight, seen.

How small the must the world be for us to pass each other in our day-to-day life, ignorant to what the future holds?
How many times had I seen you out and about, without ever longing for a deeper connection?

If it wasn't for meeting you, I still wouldn't have went inside the Alamo. You would've kept driving around my neighborhood every Sunday night.
We both would've been unaware of the ghosts that reside behind these heavy walls.

Maybe I would've found a reason to go, and maybe you would've too. Curiosity? Boredom? Perhaps we would've ran into each other. (I like that thought).
Maybe, at that time, instead of embracing these ghosts, they would've scared us away for good.

Either way, I would've never gotten to know you, and that's more terrifying than any ghost we could find in each other.

Winding, windy, wintery drive,
The flurries through my headlights
And woefully wondrous gusts
Begin to dot the world in white:
Glowing, gusting gale
The winter storm approaches.
Hearth and home, I head straight in,
The cold keeps getting colder,
Blowing, biting, baleful bursts
I return to my warm fold:
Softly, slowly, surely
The winter storm is here.
Here at home the heat is on,
The cats are fed,
The falling, fluffy flurry
Gives way to gentle beds:
Growing, snowy drifts
The Texas snow sets in.
Mushy, melting mournful,
The sun rises on white expanse,
Dripping, dropping droopy branches
The sun extends her own warm hands:
Pure, fading, here then gone,
Leaving muck and brown and memories
But precious in the time it’s here
This unexpected Christmas flurry.

ANOTHER TERROR ATTACK HITS
RIGHT IN AMERICAS HEART
IN A CHURCH IN TEXAS
THE COMMUNITY IS TORN APART



HOW MANY LIVES MUST BE LOST
BEFORE YOU CHANGE THE GUN LAWS
DON'T LET ONE ORGANISATION CONTROL YOU
YOU MUST FIGHT FOR THIS CAUSE



I CANT UNDERSTAND HOW GUNS
ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN HUMAN LIFE
I JUST KEEP COMPOSING TRAGIC POEMS BECAUSE
AMERICA IS IN REAL STRIFE

I miss you,
West Texas,
You more than most.
I miss people
And things
But I’ve never missed more,
Than I’ve missed you.
One day, I’ll return to you,
And we’ll be together until I die,
My dear West Texas.
Some say your deserts are unbearably hot,
And I say,
It’s easier to make shade
Than a fire.
Picturesque cacti,
Blooming in the spring,
Sunsets that put oil paintings to shame,
And wild mustangs escaping man’s unyielding possession,
Just like me.
I can see them running along the dusty banks
Of a wide river in canyon carved by the Great Artist Himself,
West Texas,
I want to drive a rusty old truck through hot afternoons till frigid nights,
Miles and miles of sweet loneliness,
Until it’s just you and I,
And I can watch your brilliant display of stars move
Across the endless horizon.
Desert owls,
A serpent’s rattling warning,
Creatures that crave solitude,
As I do,
Emerge in the night,
Like the neon lights of lonely bars in the middle of nowhere,
Sweet prickly pear in perfect harmony with Jose Cuervo in my glass,
A tribute to my lonely West Texas,
Singing me a tune of cicada chirps and desert winds,
And the jingle of spurs on concrete floors,
As the men,
As old and covered in sand as the bar itself,
Make their way in from isolated jobs miles away,
To listen to Tejano,
And sip on that cactus nectar,
Distilled by the Great Bartender
For a night like this,
In my West Texas,
Perfectly lonely,
Perfectly perfect.
I just want it to be me and you
And your hot red sand,
I want to see those yellow blossoms bursting from the deceptively spiny hands of desert life,
I want to hang a dusty, wide brimmed hat above dusty leather boots when I come home,
I want the sky to explode with color,
As a reward for enduring a long day of the heat,
And when the rare jewels from heaven fall, and nourish your cracked ground,
And peace is sworn between all animals,
Predators and prey,
For that moment,
So that all may celebrate the loving dew sent by our Great Caretaker,
I want to dance on your planes,
Twirl in the rain,
And let the drops fall between my lips like the crevices of your canyons,
Brought to life when you are,
Slumber when you do,
Live each day as you live,
My sweet West Texas.

My grace,
My love,
My soulmate.
She drapes her majesty in mountains, oceans, rivers, plains, canyons, swamps, rivers, and rocky shores, big cities and small towns, deserts that bleed into forests, and anything and everything that the world could offer.
She extends her arms so far, you couldn’t reach the fingertips of one hand to another,
Not in a single day,
Not without ignoring her beauty.
I love her from her masterpiece sunsets
Down to her rusted shack tin roofs,
From her lush green fields,
To her sizzling sands,
I love you,
Texas,
My Texas,
From the freezing floods of January,
To the hot, dry death of July,
And I’ll never let her go,
Even in death,
I’ll be buried in the sandy loam,
Under the sticker burs,
And wild flowers,
And let my love nestle me in her embrace,
Long after I’m a pile of chalky, white bones and ancient cowboy boots,
I’ll lover her until the ocean cuts away her shores,
And the wind wears down her hills,
And the parasites drill holes in her ground,
And build streets on her fields,
I’ll love you,
Texas,
Until the end.

“Don’t you want a life with someone you love?”
“Don’t you want a ring on that finger?”
“Do you want to die alone?!”
I can’t get married,
You see.
Married life,
Just isn’t for me,
I can’t have a white wedding,
With a pretty dress
And roses galore,
I can’t have a little suburban house with a swing,
In the backyard,
And a yellow lab wagging his tail by the front door,
I can’t get married…
Because I already am.
I am married,
Sealed and sewn,
To my love
My forever soulmate,
Who has me,
Mind, body, and soul,
Until the end of time.
I cannot give you my hand,
For my whole being belongs to her.
She owns me,
Like the sun owns the earth,
And it’s her tender,
Unrelenting,
Nourishment of love,
That sustains me when I must travel,
And we are apart.
Every day I wake to her beauty,
And every night I drift off peacefully in her embrace.
If I am ever forced to exist away from her,
I’ll die,
Just as slowly as everyone else,
But far more miserably,
At the base of an altar to her,
Surrounded by canvases marked with her image,
I’ll die,
Like a dry succulent,
Slowly wrinkling and withering,
Without the liquid life from the sky,
I’ll die,
Of heartache and loneliness,
If I’m ever forced to be away from
Texas.