Dance, I shall
I arise in the morn’;
I welcome the day
Like I was just born!

Dance, I shall
Unaware of what’s next;
Though the day may be hard
I see past the vexed.

Dance, I shall
So many ways to live;
How can I help?
How can I give?

Dance, I shall
I don’t dance alone;
I dance with the fam’
And my brethren of bone.

Dance, I shall
But with breaks on the side;
As the day wanes
In shelter I abide.

Dance, I shall
Preparing for rest;
I dance with God
Who brings out my best.

Dance, I shall
In the portal of dreams;
I dance high in the sky
By the star’s bright beams.

Dance, I shall
What a way to show praise;
I shall dance for my God
The Giver of my days!

I give you a stare showing I care,
But inside I don’t quite get what you’re saying;
I try, but does squeezing veins inside my head
Really trigger a better response and logic?
Would you prefer a sad truth?
Or a lie to make you happy?
Sure, I listen,
But eventually I hear the sounds of my thoughts
And am drowned by realistic crowd hubbub.
I want to respond with words
That favor the progress of a good conversation,
But I only have puns.
Trust me, I love to talk,
But when two voices and minds don’t catch on,
The mission for understanding becomes prolonged.
Maybe this is where
Talk-the-talk takes on a walk-the-walk cruciality.

At a panel with only high-schoolers my age,
The summer of 2015,
I asked a question related to the topic of vocations,
But the response was humiliating:
“We’re all single in life” sayeth one, with accompaniment of bass laughter
In the background.
The only one not going along with the laughter was the questioner.

Why do people tell me to smile more?
To not be too serious?
To take a joke?
What I would do sometimes to show people
All of my character, from birth, to prove them wrong.
How easy that is to do
Unless I acquire useful thinking.

People have instructed me before
To relax, but if I did “lighten up” at those moments,
I’d fear losing touch of public etiquette,
And receive a verbal penalty from the ones who told me to unstiffen in the first place.

A reverend once told me that life is such a balance,
But how can I balance the “what-ifs” in my head
With what is and should be appropriate in accordance with time and place?

My “Confiteor” is that I am part of the fault
Of not taking people seriously;
As I grow, I arm my eyes, ears and nerves
That what I unexpectedly receive I do receive
With a slower reaction.

I often imagine myself approaching the people,
Fists locked parallel to my hips, if you will,
Who have picked on me, joking or not, for just being aware
Of my surroundings and courtesy toward public environments,
And unleashing loud, assertive imperatives,
Reminding them I am not a carpet to step on,
But a warrior-patriot prepared to defend and even make-believe reasons for the moves I make…And I’m serious.

This is the thought
That many I knew couldn't solve for me
Or that kept me wondering
About when I would grow
Taller:
How I should know better
(Take from every person who has reprimanded me to now),
How there are things I should be doing
At a certain age.

You know what this means?
Fear doesn't die.
People like those family members and friends
I knew, know, maybe will know
Keep fear alive each time I should have done something,
Said something,
Thought something
At a given instant.

I've always had other fears though:
I would always like the bedroom lights turned on at night
To be able to see and notice movement;
During the years my brother and I shared a bedroom,
He liked immediate darkness at night so he could fall asleep.
When it's dark in a given space,
Not only is it hard for me to sense
If my eyes are open or closed,
But it 'twas hard and still is a question
Whether the moving particles pupils take from darkness
Are just optical matter construed in the air
Or ghosts and other dimension-flopping figures
That I can't make go away.

Other fears over the years:
I never liked being stung or bit by any insect,
But the ones I feared the most were the ones people told me not to worry about,
Like wasps or yellow jackets
Or spiders.
I can feel stung before even feeling a sting sometimes.

I was always afraid of balloons popping.
They look so innocent, but forcefully stabbing the air out of a full one
Chokes me on the inside and makes me jump
As if taking that sound as a bullet,
Felt yet unfelt.

Afraid of rooms with indentations or corners.
I may have had an illusory vision or two in my sleep
Of friends leaving me behind for whatever reason
To face a ferocious being alone,
Two fears right there.
The thing about corners for me
And not having a birds-eye view of geography
Is I don't know what's around them
Until I bring myself to approach and find out.

Fear of silent places.
Being home alone
Was an exciting thing for me
The first time my mom allowed it to happen with intent.
Little did I know the fear of a new scene
Would make me so nervous,
Whether home with one of my siblings or not.
Just like the one day after a piano lesson I had at Ruth's house
When my mom was running late picking me up
And it was raining,
So being at home for the first or second time one night years back
Had me wondering if my mom would return home at all.
Some days my mom can't get a hold of me on my cell phone
While other days I can't reach her.
How have people through the years
Remained faithfully confident that, whether some one they love
Would only be gone a few minutes...hours...days...years,
Another time being together would ever come around?
Be it the time before cars,
Before horse and buggy.

There's the fear I have had and still have
Of being lost.
Socially lost, not understanding society
Or the language of social interaction.
Not knowing how to score a date with a young woman,
Not knowing the right extent to keep her interested in me
And to let her know I care
Without taking up all her time,
But yet there's the fear within a fear
Of another guy like me preying in and leaving
With a person I chose not to chase after or fight for
As they say.

As far as being lost,
How do I know what I did and what I am doing now
Is right for my person to do?
Some days, even though my mother would put this thought to rest,
I feel like I should fill every pair of laboring shoes out there.
Few interests capture my attention
To last a career's length anyway to me.
And, even though I react as angry
When trying to find my way on streets,
Walking or driving, in a town or city that I should be familiar with
Or a new view,
I get scared thinking that others will think I'm stupid,
I will think I'm stupid
When I actually appear lost
Turning around embarrassingly.
I almost think that every car going by
Has its drivers going "Hmmmm...must be a newbie."

I have a moderate fear of heights.
I say that now,
But I could easily go back to fearing heights
As I may have years back.
Even the Mount Washington lookout from Pittsburgh
Had me holding my breath some times
Hoping that the top of the mount wouldn't start slanting
And my feet wouldn't slide toward feet down into concrete streets
And buildings.

I have a fear of friending young men.
I don't have a lot of the same interests as guys my age nowadays,
And a lot don't seem to find my humor inviting.
Every random word I have said,
Every attempt at light-hearted talk
Has left a scar on my previous self
Giving my present self the burden of explaining these scars
To those who notice them.
I also found it hard when a guy like me and around me
Would get all of the attention
Even though I wasn't much of an attention getter myself
And even now not really that much.
I was afraid, like the cartoon movie Home On the Range,
That another young guy would be that Slim,
That guy who would flip out his guitar,
Hypnotize all the "lady cows" to come to his ranch.
I find a lot of guys (I shouldn't even call them friends really)
Like to challenge me and question me
All the live-long day.
Challenge me to things I can't do
To see me fall.
Challenge me to the things I am good at
To watch me crumble in on-the-spot nervousness.

I fear church ***** instruments.
I never liked them growing up,
They were always loud especially in larger atmospheres.
I felt like hearing the ***** was like hearing the rhythm
Of music to words sung and directed at exposing my faults.
Although I think its safe for me to say
That I have sinned not in my natural way of life,
But also for other people so they wouldn't have to sin,
Like eating meat for someone too holy and devoted
But also not one to waste either.
When the God of the Israelites told Adam and Eve not to eat from One tree,
I don't believe he gave them a reason why,
He didn't say a serpent will then tempt you not to listen to Command and you will go to Hell.
Suppose just being afraid of such a Deity in the Christian world
Is plenty of reason not to rebel against limitations of food.

I fear public speaking.
I love it, but when I do it
I hate it.
It's so odd to have words
And then have people-stares just eat them and leave you with Nothing.
I cried over public speaking
Because I thought I had developed this flawless reputation
(Yes, in freshman year of high school, I thought this).
I in no way am a Mozart-child prodigy,
But some adults and people pressured me to learn fast,
Which made me feel like nothing if I didn't learn as fast as a dial-up Computer.

FDR said that fear is the scariest thing to exist.
I don't disagree,
I just fear I'll never fully know that.

What I used to crave
Has now lost its pleasure;
I have dipped into the abyss
Of emptiness in life’s glitzy amusements.

I have access and power
To what had seemed far from reach.
Pity me! I take freedom for granted
Unlike those uncountable souls past
Who chiseled history to now.

Believe me, I have jested with struggle
But not for day-to-day freedom
Of choice
To grow my character.

I meet my carnal needs
So want flushes me
With the drive for more.
As if I can’t be satisfied
For a breathing moment.

No more do I receive
Gifts the same.
I know I will live for my birthday
The luxury of how I live
Taken for granted through the years.

Instead of indulging in the anniversary of my birth
I consider the significance of life.
No more is it a brainless fun
Where I ignore what I cannot see.

No more do I receive
The day in childish anticipation.
Eagerness exists still, but when it wills
To water the blood inside
My soul, a life I leave starving.

Road trips neither blast my pulse
Nor weigh as a burden.
I am only more familiar
With land connectivity,
Surprising my sense of location lesser.

Instead of looking at my belongings
With a thankful tone
I mumble: “There’s dust on this!
That takes up space”
And mourn the items
That enslave me to them.

“Can’t you be happy?” most retort me.
Yes, but growth shall have its share
Of struggle
Thinking this phase as death itself.

I wonder how people
Would get along
(Myself too)
If religious icons and statues
Didn't exist
And were never made
(Like thinking if technology shut down suddenly, to reference a friend).

Would that challenge minds
To dig up more imagination?
Or panic
About an afterlife being no life
Without post-apocalyptic relief
Through pictorial prognostication?

There's no cost to death,
Only a cost for living.
Death is an open-door,
Anytime and anywhere
Policy.
No charge.
No refund.

Does hope die
Out from a dying person?

I know a little about solely
Learning a job on the spot
Or opening a college textbook
Right before an assignment is due,
But conversion at death?
Doing anything for another breath
Is like wanting more water
When no longer parched.

6 a.m. Saturday morning,
Brothers Bobby and Dylan submit
And accept the snow-grounded car ride to Mount Yeti’s ski ***** with their mother,
Sarah.
The skies resembling a TV screen powered off,
Bobby and Dylan sleepily ponder their future outing:
Their mother likes to ski upward,
Powering against the ascribed gravitational acceleration
That ordinarily compliments the sport of skiing.
On this cold winter morning, with a finger-nail of purple-yellow sunlight
Peering in the distance of Mount Yeti,
Sarah maneuvered the royal-blue Ford F-150 into a parking lot with only one other car.
Two hours past, and Dylan began to moan, faint sights of cold air rushing out his nostrils
As he, Sarah, and Bobby muscle their skis up Mount Yeti’s *****.
As it turned out, the ******* arrived later than they knew it, swallowing
Two more hours of ****** exertion.
Skis finally shaved snow on the head of Mount Yeti and Dylan fainted forward
In daffy exhaustion.
“Get up, dude, it wasn’t so bad,” Bobby teased.
Suppose the uphill battle was worth it, for Sarah, Bobby, and Dylan
Saw the smiling figure of Sarah’s late husband, Warren, swaying naturally
In the early-morning green-blue glimmers of the sky’s auroras.

Perceive:
Focus on the goal,
Plan it out in your mind,
And maintain confidence.

Achieve:
Win the match,
Make the game-winning shot,
And/or walk away with something greater;
Winners don’t brag,
Winners are those who hope in their time to come
Even after potential success.

Believe:
Remember that each has a time
To shine, to radiate.
For show? Not so,
But to discover
What was missing all along.

I know the feeling well:
Though I felt great before
In extended video-game time,
My cranium always knew
That the parental limitation
Was keeping me from losing
Not the game, but my reality-focus.

Though I fight certain urges
To fill the empty gap of routinely desire,
I cannot escape the guilt that
The amount of time I wanted to spend video-gaming
Was mentally unhealthy, a statistic I tried ignoring
To keep my head in the game…literally.

“It ***** your brain out,” my mom would criticize.
Bah! I’d think to myself.
Maybe my attachment to video games was never understood,
But the value of my life recognized as more
Than a set of eyes wandering an intangible world
That requires a certain power to play,
Yet that power won’t always be “on.”

When that power’s not on, my mind is,
Fulfilling its created duty of remaining in a world
That I see as a video game…
Since a video game, in its own rite, is a world.

Now I know the consequences of locking my eyes toward a telepathic portal;
I don’t hope to fall prey to the innovative trends
Of becoming more “virtualized” and in a game deeper.
Yet I don’t completely distance myself from my generational kind
In splitting entirely from gaming.
Just far enough to keep my life dignified
And to avoid the “Sim-toms” from gaming too much.

How fast I wanted to turn 20,
And, on-and-off, how fast I want to rewind.
I feel a freedom
I’m not used to.
I’m bound
Because of my freedom:
To choose, to make many choice calls.

There are those
Who let me make decisions,
Yet those same people
Sporadically pour “suggestions”
My thinking ebbs in empty confusion.

I felt I held my collegiate throne well,
Until that feeling suffocated me:
Where am I going?
Where are my new social connections I expected?
I’m giving an all-out effort;
I never tried or would want to force an answer,
But answers never showed up.

My edition of 20:
Stranded on a social island
Of not a kid yet not quite a full-fledged adult.
“It’s so hard,” I moan sporadically.
Do I focus more on myself?
Is that selfish?
When I’m used to defaulting to care for others,
What effort it takes to come away,
But I know coming away more often
Can bring more of the best out of me
For when it will count most,
Not counting 20.

Though my eyes resume looking outside of me,
I see images in floating space,
In my lids or where I look,
Which mentally recreate images and scenes
Of achievement, accomplishment,
With people who have since become more distant
Or who seem farther from social and spiritual reach,
And those times and places where I picked up
A new idea or skill.
As long as I know I left trail marks
Along the path of my life journey,
I hope I’ll be able to trapeze toward “That happened”
Rather than lust for “Let’s do it again.”
Life moments uniquely occur once,
Which is the challenge that comes with the fragility of memory:
Am I willing to gamble the previous “feel-good” times
For what I still have yet to do and explore
In an unknown tomorrow?

The wind-up figurine
Plays a chimy and peppy lullaby
Of Irish tune.

It makes me think of your smiles,
The trips to the store for waffles and Klondike bars,
How you were there for activities such as my basketball games when I was little,
My Confirmation in my teens,
My First Communion,
So many of my childhood birthdays were celebrated at your home
On Keywest Drive.
I think of the time, Pappy, that you scattered dollar coins around the backyard of the before-I-turned-eleven house
So I could test my National Geographic metal detector.
I remember talking with you, Granny, in the kitchens of your home and my parents’ current house
Asking me how I’ve been doing.
I even remember the times
Where I was rebuked by you because of my behavior.
I picture you guys standing in front of your house
Waving goodbye.
I took every moment for granted.
I just hope you aren’t too far away now
Because heaven knows I need you and your hugs and kisses.
You both are now super angels
And I miss you.

My childhood was fortified and I am reminded of your presence by you, Pappy, reading me Magic Tree House and saying so eloquently: “The wind started to blow, the treehouse started to spin. It spun faster and faster and faster, until everything was still. Absolutely still.”

As the figurine’s tune slows to a stop,
I stare into space imagining and recalling the feeling of you in my life.

I love you Granny and Pappy.