The riddled mind,
Speaks only in twists,
Hoping that way, to conceal,
The truthfully intended wits,

Hiding behind a glass door,
Thinking no one can see,
Only a foolish mind,
Would run from the ones who seek

for you to unleash your heart,
It will be a mistake you wish you made.

Do you only touch in anger?
Do you have the habit of hugging your kid?
Or do you prefer not to
Just like the parents of criminals did?
Do you think hugging
Will make your child turn out to be soft?
With nobody home to turn to
Would your child then be better off?

Does your son or daughter
Go without being touched in love for years?
Is the only emotion allowed
Obedience and silence, never any tears?
Does your perfect child idea
Amount to something like a stuffed toy?
Does your list not involve
Things that are normal for a girl or boy?

Is everything else important,
But not the issue of your child’s happiness?
When your child asks questions
Do you treat it as just smart-mouthedness?
If your child questions bad ideas
Do you take that as a personal attack?
Do you find yourself thinking,
And saying, you want your freedom back?

If any of the above is true
You are not being a loving kind of parent.
If your child’s image of you
Is of an angry person given to swearing
And calling them names
That should be reserved for enemy,
Then wake up and realize
That’s not the right behavior to use on family.

can you blame me

for tryna get you to open up more?

I’ve allowed myself to become vulnerable 

now I don’t know what for?

when you’re unavailable 

am I still yours?

Will you forever stay
A man of dreams?

You can never be
Included into my reality.
For one does not induce
The fall of preciousness.

Even when you are
In my gaze all day,
Even when I imagine
Your hand upon
The small of my back,
Or your eyes laughing
Into mine exuberantly.

You are painfully
None of this.

When you occupy
My state of mind
And alter my thoughts
Into wayward longings,
I cannot reach across
To establish your warmth
Into my memory.

I will pretend that no imagining
And no affinity binds me
Inexplicably and unquestionably
To your loveliness!

It is nestled deep inside the fertile
Shenandoah Valley.
There is a river that runs amok
like a rabid, winded wildcat in
the shadows of temptation.
And then there’s a back-country
woman that just won’t leave my
hesitated mind.
Taking time
to worry all about her,
risking heartache
to forever go
without her—
it seems like such an unfair penance,
like the result of prison’s popular
undeserved sentences.
Getting by without a proper windshield,
it’s starting to look as if my drummer
really is too far off the mark.
Wishes to again cross that princess on
that old and dusty road.
In the end it’s a crime that, quite
simply, has no motive.
And I’m paying my sentence daily for
being a prince—and not the most
handsome toad in the land.