Fly - never past devils in big windows, taking bows for a plate of flowers. They will glean your soul from you, as a reaper might - only you're living at the end.

Fly beyond wanton desires, past graves that were planted years before this moment. They hold memories, bodies of things best left forgotten. Bodies don't always have a face.

Exist in a time that knows nothing of itself. It has no perceptions of seconds, despite its blood is littered with wasted hours.

Believe you are sublime. The earth carries you to only the destinations that you own. All is yours, even the cracks in the sidewalks with reeds of grass deeply rooted in them. Cracks don't always mean broken.


Losses of life take the light out of the deep within - eviscerated by our grief. Flawless love and always praying for moments - momemts that have not our name on them, that are not ours and are not our right to touch.


What lies ahead is a road. Forked in many different directions, with vultures circling if you dance down the wrong road. Vultures are ignorant. You choose the road - AND LIVE!


Baby, I'm an American. I cry for those who can't. I cradle hope and hopelessness in the same arm, while they scratch and bite at each other. Will one lose? Yes. Time will scream it from the tabloids.



I Couldn't Love You More crooned the singer. And I can't. You are my skin. My cells. As others pull at you, I hold you up - for life! We're in this together, baby! Trust no devil!

I've been robbed.

My childhood, my manhood. My self-love.
Taken... taken from me without permission.

A ten-year old boy with an ancient soul.
"Think beyond the physical. Think beyond the physical. It will be over soon. It will be over soon. It always is. It always is..."

The mantra of a screaming, hollow little boy.

A ten-year old with the vocabulary provided by abuse.

You weren't there, and yet... you were,
in your later guilt.

You cried.
"If I had only known!"

Ah, but you did know! You were there. You felt the shake of the bed. The quieted, muffled, screams of your child.

I wanted the shiny blue bike, but you told him no. I'd earned it, didn't I, Mum? For what I'd done - what I'd done for you.
You wanted love, and I wanted you to have it.

A son making a sacrifice for Mum.

"Oh baby there ain't no mountain high enough,
Ain't no valley low enough,
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you..."

I used to believe I was being responsible when being irresponsible,
I used to hold hope that time had a life for me that was of brilliance and soft petals, because I'd known a hideous child life.
I was wrong.
The flow is off.
The DJ has not played my song.
I am not dealing in fanciful "what if's" any longer.
I kept it at bay.
The loss.
The feeling of it.  Its stench.
Now, it sits firmly in my gut.
Anguishing, as if it too knows its own demise.
Separate, but every bit a part of me.
Back in the day, I remember I used to love myself, despite the hurt.
I wish I knew him, he was a wonderful kid.
His hair used to hang down, covering his eyes.
Shy, but he had hope.
Too bad.

I had a thought on the long train ride home - the trees opposite me, out the window - passing quickly - but whispering.

I thought of my ability to get on the train, to go where I need to go - at any point in time, without being stopped, questioned, detained.

I had no bars keeping me from doing what I needed to do at any given moment.

I was free.

I could walk down the street and do .....

And do what?!

I am not free.

I work in a job that I work paycheck-to paycheck.

I live in an apartment more than half my income.

I have no car because I had to surrender it. I could not afford basic transportation costs, so now, the train - my only transport. Health costs dictate much more than most know.

I am stuck in a job that the only move I may make is lateral. No pay increase. No increase in respect. No increase in worth.

I'd always believed that "free" people had lives full of the love and relationships they needed. I used to believe that they at least had "family." (What is family, again?!)

I can save no money for my future, and I am aging. Not yet retirement age, but not enough time to save any numerical amount of monetary fulfillment that would make a difference to an aging man.

I am not free to walk down the street, void of judgement for being gay, should anyone "notice."

I am not free of my disease. The 80's disease meant to take all those who encountered it. Yet, it is cruel and won't take me.

I am not free of the empty space. The space where my family and friends should be, loving me. I guess there really are unlovable people, despite my reaching out, with a wounded, diseased heart.

I am not free.

I never have been.

Are you?

The abolute,
Resolute,
Binding and torturous,
Weight of the World,
Sits,
Boldly,
Between the blades of my back.
It mocks and laughs.
It does not know on whom it has chosen its ride.