The dinner table is crowded.
There are bowls of gravy, potatoes and greens -
Plates of meat and stuffing...
Don’t worry it gets better.
Juice and cider instead of wine.
Clean crystal cups and thick napkins,
All trimmed in blue.
Surrounded by loud elephants
Dancing on the words we don’t say.
The elephants slip on peas,
And sip my drink.
My relatives give glances
Instead of embrace.
The conversation gets heavy
As our stomachs get full.
The dinner table is a stage
Instead of a refuge.
We all wear our masks and pretend we’re OK.
The actors are well paid in self-loathing,
And pain;
Solitude.
Relationships that don’t fit into pockets
Because our phones are too important.
We are broken and shattered,
Unwilling to be fixed.
The elephants dance in gravy,
And pretend it’s a bath.

You recognize love after the fact
You did what you did and that was that

Don't say words that you don't mean
When I'm gone, please speak well of me

Looking back now
I only wish I had been kinder
Did I ever know love, did I ever know love?
And could I have been blinder?

Don't hold back all your love for someday, for someday

I would say that I'm sorry if it would do any good
But to never regret means you have to forget
and I don't think that I could

My Dreams
are for sale.

I have no idea how to un-erase so I just puddle at the door
My face looking like a pile of fallen cards
Like everything has been playing me.

I tried so hard.

When I said give me a ring

he thought I meant a call.

Another year will take my hand
Last year left me
Long before December cold
Arctic soul in summertime
2014 is God’s gift to humanity
We weren’t supposed to survive
Past two years ago
We waste away in our victors time
Complacency robs your family
Of love, affection, compliments
And life
On gifted time from the divine
Don’t resolve to do this or that
"Work out three times a week"
"Stop drinking soda"
"Brush my teeth one more time a day"
Do not wait to make your change
Set your life correct today
In the modern society
The right is replaced with the easy
The easy job, the easy life
Step back and look with eyes
Blurred by tears of future regret
That easy never won
A single thing except for
******* misery
Be a hero, it’s in your bones
To save a life, even your own

Wife,
        That’s a term I have been waiting to use for my entire life. I wasn’t always the best at searching for you. I was young and mildly ambitious growing up; other things got in the way because I never knew how much I could love you.
        If only I had known.
        I’ve told you most of my stories: my days playing sports, the endless reading list I had at my bedside table, and the sleepless nights thinking I would never find you.
        I’m eternally grateful that God allowed our paths to cross at that bookstore – how ironic that I was looking for books about love and I found you.
        My life taught me to question and second-guess many things: marriage, relationships, and the future.
        I had let my doubts and expectations reach into my pockets of hope and faith, stealing my motivation to succeed.
        Some would say I was justified in being a stoic.
        Not you.
        Before I met you, I was full of silly ideas and visions of how the world was. Those things – doubt, disappointment, failure – may be in the world, but they don’t define the world.
        Or me.
       I’m glad I questioned what was shinning so bright in a dimly lit bookstore. I’m glad I saw you.
        Holding a flashlight.

Always,
Yours

I will die.

In order to authentically die, you must live authentically. Some live so casually that death is not their end. They fade. They leave. Death must be an honor, not a fate.

My life will be proof in my death.

I loved my family first. I allowed them to continually conquer my heart and time. My affections were used on them and not the things my coffin refuses to contain.

The opportunities we are granted will be on our last breath. Confirming we were successful at taking them, or full of regret and bitterness.

There is no need for resolutions or bucket lists. Today is my life. I plan to make it count. God and I are the only mathematicians to this equation.

Our life is amplified by our death.

If an artist wants to make money, they best thing they can do is die. (Jackson, Shakur, Leonardo, Twain, Lewis, etc.)

I am not particularly excited for death. I am not morbid. But if I have to go through it, I’ll make my life worth it.

I give her my jacket knowing when she’s gone
It will still smell like her hugs

Putting my arm around her shoulders is more honest
Than when I raise my arm to the square

I don’t know where she is going in life
But I wouldn’t mind if it were the same place I was

The wind blows silently when she is speaking
Because even the flowers want to listen

If her smile were a disease, I would gladly infect myself
Especially if there were no vaccine

My chest is an air mattress when her head rests against it
I don’t mind when it deflates, brining her a little closer

Even in the winter I can smell fresh-cut grass
And it brings back memories I wish she were a part of

If I were made of mirror, when she looked at me
She might understand why I stare