my daughter is almost 5
and my son is nearly 2
I could simply say they're one and four
but when the number's higher it sounds a little better
they're less babies and more childlike
you know, bigger and more wise
I'm more wise

my daughter is almost five
and my son is nearly two
they're in our yard with twig berrets
and mud stained smiles posing for a postcard to make the hose drinking generation proud.
he straddles the ground, chest bare like he's Tarzan and howls at the blue sky
challenging the sun

I look at him like he's made of stone
she's a daisy pedal I crush in my hand and compress into a diamond
the toxins dripping from the curling edges of my lips burn the dirt from her face
the shine of the light washes out the blood on my knuckles.
a ring on my finger and my hands look clean

my daughter is almost five
and my son is nearly two
their muddy fingers comb their feral hair
and their green feet clip the grass till they find jagged rocks
they weep over skinned kneecaps and with one arm I pull her close
with the other I slug his shoulder, "buck up kiddo, you'll be alright"
I hold a stone in each hand, and call one a precious gem while I build my house out of the other

my skin has washed against those stones since they were none and none
built into the houses of a thousand graveyards I've watched daisies pile over golden sarcophaguses
watched them wilt at the bottom of alters built on stone
I won't carve epitaphs into these hearts I hold

my daughter is almost five
and my son is nearly two
we drag fallen branches to our firepit and dance to music next to the flames
like weightless stone his strength surges to his tippytoes
she powders his nose with ash and pretends she's a cheetah
her game isn't to **** she just wants to chase
princes have their feet welded to pedestals and the sport's no fun for her

my children aren't rocks, they're stardust
I won't make kings or queens I've no providence  over their future
so I'll **** the venom from the sky and watch them walk back to the stars
I may not be a champion but I'll be their father

I live to defy what you taught me.


"Girls are weak"

I received the message. I rejected it.

With my chubby arms, the arms of a child, I picked up the table, twice my size, and carried it across the

yard,

forest,

desert,

ocean,

wherever it needed to go.

I basked in adult adoration of my strength. My sharp look scorching all who dared to offer assistance.

Kindness or a sense of superiority- motive be dammed.

I've grown up with the world as my witness.

I've learned to never ask for help.


"Girls are emotional"

Emotions are a weakness, for you think of girls as weak.

I must not be weak, for the world is watching.

And so, I've locked in the drawer of my mind every troubling thoughts, every emotion.

They are still there, unreachable. Rotting.


I grew up to be numb.

I grew up to be a hypocrite.

I would preach about the health benefits of crying. I would be horrified to listen to myself.

Forbidden to even share my passions by my own brain.

I'm fine-

I'm a mess-

at the same breath.

One is the lashing out of self defense,

The other is a painful admittance.

One is happily uttered when they catch my face,

The other is shamed and condemned.


I've grown up strong in every toxic sense of the word.

In my pursuit to defy what you dictated for me, I live my life as you dictated for yourself.


If the facade will ever go, it will not shatter nor dissappear.

If I will dictate my own life for myself, it will take as long as the rebuilding of the world.

Man, be YOU.
That’s enough.
All the ******* about being tough
Manning up
It’s a bluff because the myth of the “real man”
Doesn’t measure up.
He’s a puppet.
Poison in his veins. He’s a slave to his role in the game.

Let’s face the truth.
The dross that’s aimed at youth, toughen up! The boy needs a hand that’s rough. That’s. girl.  stuff.
What do we get if we can’t let him BE?
Toxic Masculinity.
That’s enough!
Man, be YOU.

Tell me about the Ace of Wands!
Tell me about the Ace of Wands!

This has been poorly imagined I admit:
The sunny penthouse
Open to the breeze
which presses and sways
through the sliding glass doors

Upturned champagne bottles
set in buckets of melting ice
A crystalline view of the Pacific
Or dusky Vegas lights

Strewn silken sheets
A **** carpet you can grab on to
The myriad of variations under a rising Moon

Yet Leather and Ecstasy are no where to be seen.
And though I wasn’t thinking of Sardinia
or of the Amalfi
That is a great idea

ROMP
noun
1. a spell of rough, energetic play.
2. a farce.

Eventually
(An earth-sign cusp is slow no matter how much air)
Eventually
creeping into my mind’s eye
(Thank you Time)
was my dodging of the slow-moving bullet
Alas, the lumpy bed in Hollywood awaits
with serviceable sheets
Encased in variations on a theme of
brown everything
A soul death in faux wood paneling
Someone else’s earring on a
grubby carpet floor
that offers you
burns for your back that won’t heal so fast
if that’s what you want
There’s the opening of the door
on the purring refrigerator
to look at cold nothing
And think nothing
Cystitis is on its way
And yes,
Too much dust

Don’t get me wrong
I have no real issues with dust
I have stood
Alone in the semi darkness before
In such a living room
Staring at this luminous particulate
On album covers
and in the glare of backlit windows
Floating in a beam from
a ceramic thrift store table-lamp

I was on my way to find the bathroom
Where a pair of pink ******* lay
drying
in wait for
me

Bachelor dust
Is old
I can write my name with my finger
in that which rests
upon the turntable’s hinged cover
In case you don’t remember
What they call me

As I’ve said
I’ve got nothing against it
Ask the dust
Go ahead
Ask it
Resting quite comfortably
on the bookshelves
If there are bookshelves
As if it had
something to do.
I ask it why?

my invading molecules subdivide
and grow more comfortable

Dust?
Why do I smell the stench of
chaste virgins and ***?
The intoxicating odor of foxed letters from an epistolary exchange regarding:
One Fair Maiden and the Devilish Pursuits to  Compromise Her Virtue?
The Opinions and Observations of Fallen Fruit
Here: The woman and her only true
possession
And Here: The sticky absconder who smells of fish.
They meet.
She blinks.

The dust replies
It’s a simple plan:
The Dear Lady is to be led
Astray
by pretty words and unspoken indiscretions
her dowry in the end, useless
She’ll be banished to the counties
To be a governess
or the
Bored companion
of the only living relative who will
Admit her services
Unpaid in silver coins
He is Blind and his Cook has left
Dyspeptic
Disagreeable
Cheap
and Mean.

She is Ruined.
Perhaps she will escape
to Italy
and die
Alone
in the sunshine.

The dust tells me another story
The same century still
This time, a miscreant princeling
surrounded by Trifles
Picking up one bob and then another
Preoccupied by uselessness
Perhaps a strawberry
Perhaps more claret and his mistress’s left breast
Tonight will be the scullery maid
Who will lose more in the end
Than she could ever possibly imagine
Tossed out of the kitchens
to Providence.
God bless Her.

The dust tells me
It’s mercantile, my dear
It’s all transactional
But look at me
I’m here for a time but am easily
Agitated and
Airborne
Aeolian driven
Ever blossoming fugitive clouds of swirling devils
Interstellar Reflection Nebulae
As you can see
I’m never in one place
So I say keep it movin’.

sweet
little
boy,
who doesn't know
the tears he cries
are
"unmanly"