When I was just a boy
I had this dream of aliens and green things
My mother wasn't home
She had to work so my sisters and I could eat
She hired a babysitter
In her teens
She was mean and
  
My, My, My Ba- Babysitter ***** me
My, My, My Ba- Babysitter ***** me
She bit me on the ear
She licked me oh so dear
But, she ***** me
  
And then my mother beat me
And then I grew too big. see?
I lived inside a bubble of my dreams
And then I learned of airplanes
bllsht!, With their war games
That's when I took the only way to see
  
and that was
My, My, My, Ba-Babysitter ***** me
My, My, My, Ba-Babysitter ***** me
She took me to the sea
Left me with broken dreams
'Cause she ***** me
         and that's not funny
  
My babysitter ***** me
And now I've learned to live with broken bones
My babysitter ***** me
I've been the king, I was the pawn, I'm clean
When my big sister teased me
It could have been a daydream
But what I know, life's been mean to me
  
and I'm tellin' ya
My, My, My Ba-Babysitter ***** me
My, My, My Ba-Babysitter ***** me  
She bit me in the ear
She licked me oh so dear
And she ***** me
  
I told my mommy Dee
About her new employee
That babysitter worked this week for free
She took off to Missouri
Forgot to say goodbye to me
She can live there
I can live with me
  
but I don't know why
My, My, My Ba-Babysitter ***** me
My, My, My Ba-Babysitter ***** me
Why oh why oh me
Spank me spank me please
'Cause my babysitter ***** me
ooooooooh she ***** me

Why go back
when you can move forward?
I face this question
each day I breathe.
It's not always so easy
to answer.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
Keeps me looking back
to my past
behind my shoulder.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
Usually associated
with our war heroes.
The ones who can't leave
the battlefield behind.
I am not one of them.
I am just
an anxious
a depressed
in pain
person.
But I can't help
that I have it.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
My battlefield
was the school,
the classrooms,
the playground.
The babysitter,
the dark closets,
the dark rooms,
the basement.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
The anxiety
the migraines
the depression
the fibro
no sleep.
All lead back
to square one.
The abuse
by my peers
by my teachers
by my babysitter.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
Four easy letters
Four simple words
Lifetime in pain
from those simple things
from those not so simple things.
P
T
S
D
Post
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder.

We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over

and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless

Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts

Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye

     and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
     and "yes we will continue safely"
     and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
     and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper

Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway

and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first

Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS

but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face

        and the room was a landfill
        and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
        and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
        and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots

but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple

who’s eyes were not dilated 
and the room smelled
lemon-scented

and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;

following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks

that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain

Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls

and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway

The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant

and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale

-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded

by moose roads
                             moose lanes
                                                     moose rivers
and everything mooses

ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless

and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:

"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"

Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days

and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had

and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:

and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words

and being on time with the trains across the plains  
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision

Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too

beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years

and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile

And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off

and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;

      Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
      and hovering 175 in slipstreams
      and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady ******* in dreamland Nebraska
      only 10 highway crossings counted from home.

Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;

     who formed as a snowflake
     in the light on the street
     and was gone by morning
     before I asked her name

and how are we?
and how many?

Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?

There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.

Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.

The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East

and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine

mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying

Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably

Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;

more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier

and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering

and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight

And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car

and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal

then two eyes

then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******* on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow

and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective

while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive

Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone

behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal *******
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller

Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high

climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones

and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze

and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside

in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells

Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”

and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;

running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by

but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday

and then a timezone was between us
 and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now

then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye

but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all

and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind

Victor D. López (October 11, 2018)

You were born five years before the beginning of the Spanish civil war and
Lived in a modest two-story home in the lower street of Fontan, facing the ocean that
Gifted you its wealth and beauty but also robbed you of your beloved and noblest eldest
Brother, Juan, who was killed while working as a fisherman out to sea at the tender age of 19.

You were a little girl much prone to crying. The neighbors would make you cry just by saying,
"Chora, neniña, chora" [Cry little girl, cry] which instantly produced inconsolable wailing.
At the age of seven or eight you were blinded by an eye Infection. The village doctor
Saved your eyesight, but not before you missed a full year of school.

You never recovered from that lost time. Your impatience and the shame of feeling left behind prevented
You from making up for lost time. Your wounded pride, the shame of not knowing what your friends knew,
Your restlessness and your inability to hold your tongue when you were corrected by your teacher created
A perfect storm that inevitably tossed your diminutive boat towards the rocks.

When still a girl, you saw Franco with his escort leave his yacht in Fontan. With the innocence of a girl
Who would never learn to hold her tongue, you asked a neighbor who was also present, "Who is that Man?"
"The Generalissimo Francisco Franco," she answered and whispered “Say ‘Viva Franco’ when he Passes by.”
With the innocence of a little girl and the arrogance of an incorrigible old soul you screamed, pointing:

"That's the Generalissimo?" followed up loud laughter, "He looks like Tom Thumb!"
A member of his protective detail approached you, raising his machine gun with the apparent intention of
Hitting you with the stock. "Leave her alone!" Franco ordered. "She is just a child — the fault is not hers."
You told that story many times in my presence, always with a smile or laughing out loud.

I don't believe you ever appreciated the possible import of that "feat" of contempt for
Authority. Could that act of derision have played some small part in their later
Coming for your father and taking him prisoner, torturing him for months and eventually
Condemning him to be executed by firing squad in the Plaza de Maria Pita?

He escaped his fate with the help of a fascist officer who freed him as I’ve noted earlier.
Such was his reputation, the power of his ideas and the esteem even of friends who did not share his views.
Such was your innocence or your psychic blind spot that you never realized your possible contribution to
His destruction. Thank God you never connected the possible impact of your words on his downfall.

You adored your dad throughout your life with a passion of which he was most deserving.
He died shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War. A mother with ten mouths to feed
Needed help. You stepped up in response to her silent, urgent need. At the age of
Eleven you left school for the last time and began working full time.

Children could not legally work in Franco’s Spain. Nevertheless, a cousin who owned a cannery
Took pity on your situation and allowed you to work full-time in his fish cannery factory in Sada.
You earned the same salary as the adult, predominantly women workers and worked better
Than most of them with a dexterity and rapidity that served you well your entire life.

In your free time before work you carried water from the communal fountain to neighbors for a few cents.
You also made trips carrying water on your head for home and with a pail in each hand. This continued after
You began work in Cheche’s cannery. You rose long before sunrise to get the water for
Home and for the local fishermen before they left on their daily fishing trips for their personal water pails.

All of the money you earned went to your mom with great pride that a girl could provide more than the salary of a
Grown woman--at the mere cost of her childhood and education. You also washed clothes for some
Neighbors for a few cents more, with diapers for newborns always free just for the pleasure of being
Allowed to see, hold spend some time with the babies you so dearly loved you whole life through.
When you were old enough to go to the Sunday cinema and dances, you continued the
Same routine and added washing and ironed the Sunday clothes for the young fishermen
Who wanted to look their best for the weekly dances. The money from that third job was your own
To pay for weekly hairdos, the cinema and dance hall entry fee. The rest still went to your mom.

At 16 you wanted to go to emigrate to Buenos Aires to live with an aunt.
Your mom agreed to let you--provided you took your younger sister, Remedios, with you.
You reluctantly agreed. You found you also could not legally work in Buenos Aires as a minor.
So you convincingly lied about your age and got a job as a nurse’s aide at a clinic soon after your arrival.

You washed bedpans, made beds, scrubbed floors and did other similar assigned tasks
To earn enough money to pay the passage for your mom and two youngest brothers,
Sito (José) and Paco (Francisco). Later you got a job as a maid at a hotel in the resort town of
Mar del Plata whose owners loved your passion for taking care of their infant children.

You served as a maid and unpaid babysitter. Between your modest salary and
Tips as a maid you soon earned the rest of the funds needed for your mom’s and brothers’
Passage from Spain. You returned to Buenos Aires and found two rooms you could afford in an
Excellent neighborhood at an old boarding house near the Spanish Consulate in the center of the city.

Afterwards you got a job at a Ponds laboratory as a machine operator of packaging
Machines for Ponds’ beauty products. You made good money and helped to support your
Mom and brothers  while she continued working as hard as she always had in Spain,
No longer selling fish but cleaning a funeral home and washing clothing by hand.

When your brothers were old enough to work, they joined you in supporting your
Mom and getting her to retire from working outside the home.
You lived with your mom in the same home until you married dad years later,
And never lost the bad habit of stubbornly speaking your mind no matter the cost.

Your union tried to force you to register as a Peronista. Once burned twice cautious,
You refused, telling the syndicate you had not escaped one dictator to ally yourself with
Another. They threatened to fire you. When you would not yield, they threatened to
Repatriate you, your mom and brothers back to Spain.

I can’t print your reply here. They finally brought you to the general manager’s office
Demanding he fire you. You demanded a valid reason for their request.
The manager—doubtless at his own peril—refused, saying he had no better worker
Than you and that the union had no cause to demand your dismissal.

After several years of courtship, you and dad married. You had the world well in hand with
Well-paying jobs and strong savings that would allow you to live a very comfortable life.
You seemed incapable of having the children you so longed for. Three years of painful
Treatments allowed you to give me life and we lived three more years in a beautiful apartment.

I have memories from a very tender age and remember that apartment very well. But things changed
When you decided to go into businesses that soon became unsustainable in the runaway inflation and
Economic chaos of the Argentina of the early 1960’s. I remember only too well your extreme sacrifice
And dad’s during that time—A theme for another day, but not for today.

You were the hardest working person I’ve ever known. You were not afraid of any honest
Job no matter how challenging and your restlessness and competitive spirit always made you a
Stellar employee everywhere you worked no matter how hard or challenging the job.
Even at home you could not stand still unless there was someone with whom to chat awhile.

You were a truly great cook thanks in part to learning from the chef of the hotel where you had
Worked in Mar del Plata awhile—a fellow Spaniard of Basque descent who taught you many of his favorite
Dishes—Spanish and Italian specialties. You were always a terribly picky eater. But you
Loved to cook for family and friends—the more the merrier—and for special holidays.

Dad was also a terrific cook, but with a more limited repertoire. I learned to cook
With great joy from both of you at a young age. And, though neither my culinary skills nor
Any aspect of my life can match you or dad, I too am a decent cook and
Love to cook, especially for meals shared with loved ones.

You took great pleasure in introducing my friends to some of your favorite dishes such as
Cazuela de mariscos, paella marinera, caldo Gallego, stews, roasts, and your incomparable
Canelones, ñoquis, orejas, crepes, muñuelos, flan, and the rest of your long culinary repertoire.
In primary and middle school dad picked me up every day for lunch before going to work.

You and he worked the second shift and did not leave for work until around 2:00 p.m.
Many days, dad would bring a carload of classmates with me for lunch.
I remember as if it were yesterday the faces of my Jewish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Irish
And Italian friends when first introduced to octopus, Spanish tortilla, caldo Gallego, and flan.

The same was true during college and law school.  At times our home resembled an
U.N. General Assembly meeting—but always featuring food. You always treated my
Closest friends as if they were your children and a number of them to this day love
You as a second mother though they have not seen you for many years.

You had tremendous passion and affinity for being a mother (a great pity to have just one child).
It made you over-protective. You bought my clothes at an exclusive boutique. I became a
Living doll for someone denied such toys as a young girl. You would not let me out of your sight and
Kept me in a germ-free environment that eventually produced some negative health issues.

My pediatrician told you often “I want to see him with ***** finger nails and scraped knees.”
You dismissed the statement as a joke. You’d take me often to the park and to my
Favorite merry-go-round. But I had not one friend until I was seven or eight and then just one.
I did not have a real circle of friends until I was about 13 years old. Sad.

I was walking and talking up a storm in complete sentences when I was one year old.
You were concerned and took me to my pediatrician who laughed. He showed me a
Keychain and asked, “What is this Danny.” “Those are your car keys” I replied. After a longer
Evaluation he told my mom it was important to encourage and feed my curiosity.

According to you, I was unbearable (some things never change). I asked dad endless questions such as,
“Why is the sun hot? How far are the stars and what are they made of? Why
Can’t I see the reflection of a flashlight pointed at the sky at night? Why don’t airplanes
Have pontoons on top of the wheels so they can land on both water and land? Etc., etc., etc.

He would answer me patiently to the best of his ability and wait for the inevitable follow-ups.
I remember train and bus rides when very young sitting on his lap asking him a thousand Questions.
Unfortunately, when I asked you a question you could not answer, you more often than not made up an answer Rather than simply saying “I don’t know,” or “go ask dad” or even “go to hell you little monster!”

I drove you crazy. Whatever you were doing I wanted to learn to do, whether it was working on the
Sewing machine, knitting, cooking, ironing, or anything else that looked remotely interesting.
I can’t imagine your frustration. Yet you always found only joy in your little boy at all ages.
Such was your enormous love which surrounded me every day of my life and still does.

When you told me a story and I did not like the ending, such as with “Little Red Riding Hood,”
I demanded a better one and would cry interminably if I did not get it. Poor mom. What patience!
Reading or making up a story that little Danny did not approve of could be dangerous.
I remember one day in a movie theater watching the cartoons I loved (and still love).

Donald Duck came out from stage right eating a sandwich. Sitting between you and dad I asked you
For a sandwich. Rather than explaining that the sandwich was not real, that we’d go to dinner after the show
To eat my favorite steak sandwich (as usual), you simply told me that Donald Duck would soon bring me the sandwich. But when the scene changed, Donald Duck came back smacking his lips without the sandwich.

Then all hell broke loose. I wailed at the top of my lungs that Donald Duck had eaten my sandwich.
He had lied to me and not given me the promised sandwich. That was unbearable. There was
No way to console me or make me understand—too late—that Donald Duck was also hungry,
That it was his sandwich, not mine, or that what was on the screen was just a cartoon and not real.

He, Donald Duck, mi favorite Disney character (then and now) hade eaten this little boy’s Sandwich. Such a Betrayal by a loved one was inconceivable and unbearable. You and dad had to drag me out of the theater ranting And crying at the injustice at top volume. The tantrum (extremely rare for me then, less so now) went on for awhile, but all was well again when my beloved Aunt Nieves gave me a ******* with jam and told me Donald had sent it.

So much water under the bridge. Your own memories, like smoke in a soft breeze, have dissipated
Into insubstantial molecules like so many stars in the night sky that paint no coherent picture.
An entire life of vital conversations turned to the whispers of children in a violent tropical storm,
Insubstantial, imperceptible fragments—just a dream that interrupts an eternal nightmare.

That is your life today. Your memory was always prodigious. You knew the name of every person
You ever met, and those of their family members. You could recall entire conversations word for word.
Three years of schooling proved more than sufficient for you to go out into the world, carving your own
Path from the Inhospitable wilderness and learning to read and write at the age of 16.

You would have been a far better lawyer than I and a fiery litigator who would have fought injustice
Wherever you found it and always defended the rights of those who cannot defend themselves,
Especially children who were always your most fervent passion. You sacrificed everything for others,
Always put yourself dead-last, and never asked for anything in return.

You were an excellent dancer and could sing like an angel. Song was your release in times of joy and
In times of pain. You did not drink or smoke or over-indulge in anything. For much of your life your only minor Indulgence was a weekly trip to the beauty parlor—even in Spain where your washing and ironing income
Paid for that. You were never vain in any way, but your self-respect required you to try to look your best.

You loved people and unlike dad who was for the most part shy, you were quite happy in the all-to-infrequent
Role as the life of the party—singing, dressing up as Charlie Chaplin or a newborn for New Year’s Eve parties with Family and close friends. A natural story-teller until dementia robbed you of the ability to articulate your thoughts,
You’d entertain anyone who would listen with anecdotes, stories, jokes and lively conversation.

In short: you were an exceptional person with a large spirit, a mischievous streak, and an enormous heart.
I know I am not objective about you, but any of your surviving friends and family members who knew you
Well will attest to this and more in a nanosecond. You had an incredibly positive, indomitable attitude
That led you to rush in where angels fear to treat not out of foolishness but out of supreme confidence.

Life handed you cartloads of lemons—enough to pickle the most ardent optimist. And you made not just
Lemonade but lemon merengue pie, lemon sorbet, lemon drops, then ground up the rind for sweetest
Rice pudding, flan, fried dough and a dozen other delicacies. And when all the lemons were gone, you sowed the Seeds from which extraordinarily beautiful lemon trees grew with fruit sweeter than grapes, plums, or cherries.

I’ve always said with great pride that you were a far better writer than I. How many excellent novels,
Plays, and poems could you have written with half of my education and three times my workload?
There is no justice in this world. Why does God give bread to those without teeth? Your
Prodigious memory no longer allows you to recognize me. I was the last person you forgot.

But even now when you cannot have a conversation in any language, Sometimes your eyes sparkle, and
You call me “neniño” (my little boy in Galician) and I know that for an instant you are no longer alone.
But too son the light fades and the darkness returns. I can only see you a few hours one day a week.
My life circumstances do not leave me another option. The visits are bitter sweet but I’m grateful for them.

Someday I won’t even have that opportunity to spend a few hours with you. You’ll have no
Monument to mark your passing save in my memory so long as reason remains. An entire
Life of incalculable sacrifice will leave behind only the poorest living legacy of love
In your son who lacks appropriate words to adequately honor your memory, and always will.


*          *          *

The day has come, too son. October 11, 2018. The call came at 3:30 am.
An hour or two after I had fallen asleep. They tried CPR in vain. There will be no more
Opportunities to say, “I Love you,” to caress your hands and face, to softly sing in your ear,
To put cream on your hands, or to hope that this week you might remember me.

No more time to tell you the accomplishments of loved ones, who I saw, what they told me,
Who asked about you this week, or to pray with you, or to ask if you would give me a kiss by putting my
Cheek close to your lips, to feel joy when you graced me with many little kisses in response,
Or tell you “Maybe next time” when as more often than not the case for months you did not respond.

In saying good bye I’d give you the kiss and hug Alice always sent you,
Followed by three more kisses on the forehead from dad (he always gave you three) and one from me.
I’d leave the TV on to a channel with people and no sound and when possible
Wait for you to close your eyes before leaving.

Time has run out. No further extensions are possible. My prayers change from asking God to protect
You and by His Grace allow you to heal a little bit each day to praying that God protect your
Soul and dad’s and that He allow you to rest in peace in His kingdom. I miss you and Dad very much
And will do so as long as God grants me the gift of reason. I never knew what it is to be alone. I do now.

Four years seeing your blinding light reduced to a weak flickering candle in total darkness.
Four years fearing that you might be aware of your situation.
Four years praying that you would not feel pain, sadness or loneliness.
Four years learning to say goodbye. The rest of my life now waiting in the hope of seeing you again.

I love you mom, with all my heart, always and forever.

The tired, old cliché –life is short—is probably more accurate than I would care to admit. With wry amusement, I have to admit that overused saying can be quite a joke to me, for I’ve heard it said way too many times, quite at the level of nauseam. Often times, I think the opposite, that life can be pretty **** long when you are not satisfied with it.

I am now at the age which I once thought was getting old, just having another unwanted birthday recently, turning forty-seven last month. As a girl, I thought anyone who had reached the age of forty was practically decrepit. Well, perhaps not, but it might as well have been that way. Forty wasn’t flirty. Forty wasn’t fun. It was far from a desirable age to be, but at least it seemed a million years off.

Surely now, life is far from over for me. Yet I must admit that I am feeling that my youth is slowly slipping away, like sand between my hands that is impossible to hold onto forever. Fifty is over the horizon for me, and I can sense its approach with a bit of unease and trepidation.

It is amazing. Many people still tell me that I am young, but even in my thirties I sensed that middle age was creeping up on me. And now I really am wondering when my middle age status will officially come to an end and old age will replace it—just exactly what number that is anyway. If I doubled up my age now, it would be ninety-four, so my age bracket cannot be as “middle” as it once was.

When we are children, we often cannot wait until we are old enough, old enough to drive when we turn sixteen, old enough to vote when we turn eighteen, as well as old enough to graduate from all those years of school drudgery, and old enough to drink when we turn twenty-one. I can certainly add the lesser milestones—when we are old enough to no longer require a babysitter, when we are old enough to date, when girls are old enough to wear make-up, or dye their hair. Those benefits of adulthood seem to validate our importance in life, nothing we can experience firsthand as a rightful privilege before then.

Many kids can’t wait to be doing all the grown-up things, as if time cannot go fast enough for them, as if that precious stage of life should simply race by like a comet, and life would somehow continue on as before, seemingly as invincible as it ever did in youth. Yet, for many people, after finally surpassing those important ages and stages, they often look back and are amazed at how the years seemed to have just flown by, rushed on in like a “thief in the night” and overtook their lives. And they then begin to realize that they are mortal and life is not invincible, after all.

I am one of them.

When I was a girl, I did not have an urgent sense of the clock, certainly not the need to hurry up to morph into an adult, quite content to remain in my snug, little cocoon of imaginary prepubescent bliss. It seemed like getting to the next phase in life would take forever, or so I wanted it to be that way. In my dread of wondering what I would do once I was grown. I really was in no hurry to face the future head on.  I pretty much feared those new expectations and leaving the security of a sheltered, childhood, a haven of a well-known comfort zone, for sure, even though a generally unhappy one.

Change was much too scary for me, even if it could have been change for the good.

At the age I am now, I surely enjoy the respects that come with the rites of passage into adulthood, a status that I, nor anybody, could truly have as a child. I can assert myself without looking like an impudent, snot-nosed kid—a pint sized know-it-all—one who couldn’t impress anybody with sophistication no matter how much I tried. Now, I can grow into an intelligent woman, ever growing with the passing of age, perhaps a late bloomer with my assertiveness and confidence. Hopefully, more and more each day, I am surrendering the fight in the battle of self-negativity, slowly obtaining a sense of satisfaction in my own skin.

I have often been mistaken as much younger than my actual age. The baby face that I once had seems to be loosing its softness, a very youthful softness that I once disliked but now wish to reclaim. I certainly have mixed feelings about being older, glad to be done with the fearful awkwardness of growing up, now that I look back to see it for what it was, but sometimes missing that girl that once existed, one who wanted to enjoy being more of what she truly had.

All in all, I’d much rather be where I am right this very moment, for it is all that I truly can stake as my claim. Yet I think of the middle age that I am in right now as a precarious age.

As the years go by, our society seems ever more youth obsessed, far more than I was a child. Plastic surgeries are so common place, and Botox is the new fountain of youth. Anti-aging creams, retinol, age defying make-up—many women, including myself, want to indulge in their promises for wrinkle-free skin. Whether it is home remedies or laboratory designed methods, whatever way we can find to make our appearance more pleasing, and certainly younger, is a tantalizing hope for those of us who are middle aged females.

Is fifty really the new thirty? I’d love to think so, but I just cannot get myself to believe that.

Just ask my aches and pains if you want to know my true opinion.

Middle age women are now supposed to be attractive to younger men, as if it is our day for a walk in the sun. Men have been in the older position—often much older position—since surely time began. But we ladies get the label of “cougar”, an somewhat unflattering name that speaks of stalking and pouncing, of being able to rip someone apart with claws like razors, conquer them and then devour them. There is Cougar Town on television that seems to celebrate this phenomenon as something fun and carefree, but I still think that it is generally looked at as something peculiar and wrong.

Hugh Hefner can have women young enough to be his granddaughters, and it might be offensive to many, but he can still get pats on the back and thumbs up for his lifestyle. Way to go, Hef! Yet when it comes to Demi Moore married to Ashton Kutcher, a man fifteen years younger than her, it is a different story. Many aren’t surprised that they are divorcing. Talking heads on television have pointed out, with the big age difference between them, that their relationship was doomed from the start. Other talking heads have pointed out the double standard and the unfairness placed on such judgment, realizing that it probably would not be this way if the man was fifteen years older.

Yes, right now I have middle age as my experience, and that is exactly where I feel in life—positioned in the middle between two major life stages. And they are two stages that I don’t think commands any respect—childhood and old age.      

I’ve been to my share of nursing homes. I helped to care for my father, as he lived and died in one. I had to endure my mother’s five month stay in a nursing home while she recovered from major surgery. I have volunteered my time in hospice, making my travels in some nursing home visitations. So I have seen, firsthand, the hardship of what it means to be elderly, of what it means to feel like a burden, of what it means to lose one’s abilities that one has always taken for granted.  I’ve often witnessed the despair and the languishing away from growing feeble in body and mind.
There is no easy cure for old age. No amount of Botox can alleviate the problems. No change seems available in sight for the ones who have lost their way, or have few people that can care for them, or are willing to care for them.  

I think time should just slow down again for me—as it seemed to be in my girlhood.

I am in no hurry to leave middle age.

By: Cedric McClester

As we shall see infidelity
While seeming to be
The latest fashion
Where there’s conviction
And passion
So even those
Who walk down the aisle
Are often betrayed by words or a smile

Increasingly
We’re beginning to see
Infidelity
Wouldn’t you agree

Let’s keep it real
There’s Bill -  (And Camille)
Knows how it feels
When tabloids reveal
The infidelity
That she didn’t see
Though it kept happening
Time and again

Increasingly
We’re beginning to see
Infidelity
Wouldn’t you agree

The unions survive
The husbands and wives
Living separate lives
Check out the archives
So what’s the reason
For their treason
Finding someone to squeeze in
Must be in season

It’s hard to respect
Those you wouldn’t suspect
Of bedding the babysitter
So you can’t blame the wives
For being angry or bitter
Cuz it never occurred
It was the babysitter
Who was preferred

Increasingly
We’re beginning to see
Infidelity
Wouldn’t you agree












Cedric McClester, Copyright (c) 2016.  All rights reserved.

our coolest babysitter lit a long joint and drove us to church
in her well worn '87 oldsmobile with chipped gold paint
a drooping side mirror and a tape player
that smelled like stale london gin mothballs
and a sunset butterfly heart at the same time
it had a deep ocean green calcite mandala
dancing from the windshield mirror
and a steal-your-face tattooed on the back glass
she used to blare brit-pop trying
to make the speakers bleed

that day when they finally oozed she swerved us
left through the other lane and sunday morning fog
to cut a jagged path through thick woods and into an oak tree
with a soundtrack of slow motion oasis and screeching tires
i clammored to the backseat to block the window
glass from your beautiful angelic blonde head as
dew sprayed into the vacancy from the ditch and
when i pulled the seatbelt spiderweb out of your mouth
and lifted you out of the car i was standing
barefoot in a cluster of bright red sumac next to
an ant hill pile of twisted steaming metal
and you were dripping blood from your eye and knees
asking me if we'd be late for sunday school
but you were awake and trying to smile so
we followed the powerlines back to the main road
holding hands dizzy and sweating
worried no one would ever find us
limping while the springtime songbirds
held their tongues for us but
when the hot ringing in my ears finally stopped
the sirens grew loud and close and the
birds too began their wet lipped eulogy

sometimes i think about
missing church that day
when the weather's bad
on nights like last night
sometimes i remember
our babysitter when
the fog rolls in over
the road in the morning
i wonder if she still
gets high on the
good stuff while
she drives or
if she's just
a treehugger

Drama like rats biting at my ear. I can hear them confiding in me their troubles, yet I am not willing to listen. I'm tired. So very tired of all their musings, *******, screaming, ranting. It's not that important, it stupid, silly ignorant. Life is so much more then this petty childish behavior from full grown adults. I am not a leader of a team, I am a babysitter. But here I am, ranting about them as they do others. Am I no better then they?

Wrote this while my best friend since childhood and I drove 1300 miles to South Florida on a whim for Spring Break. It's epic, so get comfortable.

"Approachable but you wouldn't know it.  Proclamations of the Romantically Challenged"

Day one.

We meet, old friends...watch old friends...become old friends again.
We find our lost grins, ones only shared with our closer than kin.
Thin shagrins of lasting cynicism and sinister pasts are masks to the blasts we got away with and lived to tell the tale.
Alas, we are sons and friends first, not last.
We cling to our good old glory stories past,
But at last the time is new, our trip begins.
Wheels burn, stomachs churn.
Our aspired souls yearn,
to fire the liars and unconcerned.
We head for the East coast.
With temperatures rising,
approaching unseen horizons,
rejecting the superficially tantalizing,
we begin to feel our tattered souls wisen.
Talking a new talk, calculating the steps to walk a new walk.
Testifying our pains, devilishly dodging heavenly rains, the bitter pains.
Watching yourself in a friend, a cynical kidder gone bitter. Your mirror becomes your babysitter.
We search our hearts and back again down I-10.
We find strength and talk about things friends for life can only talk about on a walk about.
We lift some Spirits to lift our spirits.
Night falls,
we arrive alive… our walk about calls 1,365miles in 18 hours.

Day two begins.

Meet and greet with the beach.
Get a handle on some handy sandals,
some nicotine candy and butane candles.
A fifth of Daniels.
Jack and Jose will duel this day.
"You know it's know your fault, pass the lime and salt," ends most answers before noon.
Let's take some dares with the local fare, shadowing the glare of our wear and tear.
The sun fries,
windy sands fly,
waves pacify,
dropped bikini tops glimpsed from the corner of our eye, testify.
The Sun sets.

Shuffing off the nightlife status-quo of Clematis Row, we turn our walkabout into a Palm Beach Safari...Club.
Whoa! Rows and rows of walking, talking shows barely clothed from head to tanned toes.Making funnies about hunting honies preying on $$$.
The unattainable passes. We tap our glasses.
"Point in case, what a waste, such tragedies as these, a lot of money and a little cheese meets a little ****** in high cut sleeves, low-cut cleaves & cuts way above the knees.
Our cuts are deep. Bartender, two Yagers please."

Low and behold…on those stools sit no fools.
Breaking all rules.
with Coronas as fuel,
we inflate our jewels.
As we coach our approach, mentioning "I-10 and back again" prompts grins,
hides our cynicism and sins,
then, moving in to win friends.
Names and places put to faces, careful glancing, winks and dancing.
Alright, the trips to the bathroom are getting old.
Warm smiles once cold, honest questions and truths told…no souls sold…we fold? Hmmmm.
We leave and arrive alive.
Caffine and nicotine stay the scene until the wee hours overpower us.

Day three unfolds

The sun rises and the ocean calls.
Old molds broken
No lies spoken.
No need to peddle your life away settling on the day-to-day following peers falsely content and full of contempt.
Eyes turn bright,
the Sun pours over night,
dolphin, lime and salt,
golfing talk,
day approaches night.
Less tense and more pensive,
more apprehensive and less expensive,
even so we head out to even the evening,
to end our grieving and start achieving....something.
Latitude changes have rearranged our attitude gauges.
So we choose West Palm's Clematis Row to show us how a little rude,
lude and tattooed could clue us in on the anew.
Fools with jewels.
Girls with rules.
Uncool tools abound.
We walk this street of sleekish freaks,
the falsely meek,
lions that squeak.
"Club Respectables" is dubbed rejectables as the objectionable scene is seen as a scheme by vampires with recessive genes.
Next is Spanky's…Best described as "A frat boy fishing pole contest to tackle box in bait shack." One bucket of beer away from "I got your back Jack in case of attack."
We move along.
Colombia Supreme brewed proceeding it's fine grind and American Online becomes the sign of the times swaying us to stay and play at an Internet Cafe.

"I could live here," proclaims a cynical kidder once bitter now soothed by the sea spray and salty air.

Enlightenment heightened by a magic man,
near night's end, inspires an O'Shea's Black and Tan.
The crowd mocks and baulks the sidewalk scene from the patio Pub Dubbed Irish.
We greet the ground,
not the masses' frown,
seat our ***** down,
toast our glasses of black and brown,
our bitters with bite wash down the bitter frowns we normally wear out in our hometown.
"That's a sharp Harp's and sinister Guinness; can I get a witness?"

We head back down our beaten path, writing our epitaphs and usual eulogies...But you know that the "place" or your "space" will change your face, one makes the case."If you sound bitter and you look bitter, chances are you are bitter."
I begin to smile during our final mile of token jokes,
Corona smokes,
shiny Harley spokes.
We leave and arrive alive at the realization,
we have things to strive for in our lives.  
We smoke and joke and poke fun at the run down broken blokes we were before our fun in the sun had begun.
  
Day four begins.
  
We embark for the Ozarks. Our souls at ease.
Save the scene...the last palm tree's waving leaves,  
we wave our palms and leave.
1300 miles more,  
Pushing the morning hour of four,  
empty coffee cups galore,  
moonings a score,  
pedal to the floor,  
memories and more,  
we knew we would be back for more.  
Suddenly learning how insane our inane claims of waning fame should hold no shame,
we reframe our game.
Upon our return…
the strength to strive, take back our broken banks and breaking backs.
Less taxing, more relaxing..."it could happen"... eliquinent waxing.
As we search our hearts and back again, down I-10,we find the strength in things you can only talk about on a walk about,
but that's what it was all about.
By R.Craig David-copyrighted 1995

appearances
appearances
appearances

we aren’t what
we seem,
are we?

but we are
what we seem
aren’t we?

how would
you know about
the drug-takers,
the child-rapists,
the murderers,
the doctors,
the racists,
the writers,
the sports-fan,
the obese,
the rage-filled,
the hateless,
if they didn’t
tell you?

what are they but
average joes
until they go
rob a bank
or
paint a master-
piece?

even
the very perfect,
like the president
or
your babysitter,
is probably hiding
something

maybe they’re
a *** addict
or a pill-popper
or a communist
but if you look
at them and
see a good little
child
or
a perfect
example of
human being
I highly
doubt that’s what
they really
are

I say this
simply because
people are not
perfect

but
society
refuses to let
them be their
misshapen
selves

so we hide it,
like all good
things,
and pretend
like we have no idea
what they’re talking
about
when somebody
makes fun
of our favorite
geeky tv
show

and that’s us

all appearances
all lies
all that we know

The tourists all jostle for a look at the falls
At the point where the water just drops
It goes over the edge, crashing down far below
And then it's all over, it just stops

But, further up river before the falls are in sight
Where the river's hypnotic, dull and oh, so boring
The dark voices are waiting, hiding and calling
This is the place that the powers are storing

Beware the dark voices
They come and they go
They infect your mind
You've heard them, you know
The dark voices are different
But, they always are there
Turn away from their callings
And as always....beware

A dark, gloomy bar on the wrong side of town
Where the waitresses all dance for their tips
A strip joint so defined, but really not so
This is where one's morality slips

A sniff of a perfume, so fragrant yet cheap
Blurs your connection to the ring on your hand
The dark voices are calling, telling you things
Get the waitress and prove you're a man

Beware the dark voices
They come and they go
They infect your mind
You've heard them, you know
The dark voices are different
But, they always are there
Turn away from their callings
And as always....beware

You've returned from  a movie, back to your home
You must now take the babysitter back
Your wife stays home waiting for your return
But, with the babysitter you kind of lose track

You see a young body, and a glimpse of her breast
She crosses her legs, but you don't look that far
You share idle chatter, as you flirt like a kid
And you take the girl to the back seat of the car

Beware the dark voices
They come and they go
They infect your mind
You've heard them, you know
The dark voices are different
But, they always are there
Turn away from their callings
And as always....beware

The voices keep coming, just block them out
They feed on your weakness and pain
You have to ignore their pleadings to break down
For nothing good comes of them, there's nothing to gain

Jump in the water, go over the falls
Go with the dancer, surrender your life
Lay down with the baby sitter
Feel the voices twist the knife

Beware the dark voices
They come and they go
They infect your mind
You've heard them, you know
The dark voices are different
But, they always are there
Turn away from their callings
And as always....beware

Miguel is a boy of mystery. His whole life has been a disturbing whirlpool of broken memories. His home's a train wreck, his family has vanished, his life lays in waist... Since the day Miguel was born, its gone unseen by no one of his sinister and baneful behavior. Miguel's own family could not bare the sight of him. By the age of 9 he had been put up for adoption several times. Along with scaring away any hope of accumulating a friend. Even neighbors felt the need to move through pure gut feeling something wasn't right with this young boy...but why?

   Well, the answer lives with a man named Michael. Michael was Miguel's Father. Michael lived a life searching that in which we all seek, riches, the big house, the life of a celebrity. Given the mere fact Michael was simply a fry cook, his dreams looked distant and impossible to achieve. That being said he was ready for a change, no matter the circumstances... One day, Michael was walking home from work when he stumbled across a woman in the doorway to an abandoned building. Not any ordinary woman, a beautiful woman. Her beauty wasn't like anything he had ever seen before. Her cheeks blushed, her voice could sooth a giant, and her eyes glimmered through the moonlight. Covered head to toe in jewels, in Cashmere, in Prada... The woman without hesitation snatches the attention of Michael. Her voice so soothing, so soft spoken, it's hard to feel anywhere else but in your own paradise simply being in her presence. 
   "Michael..." The woman whispers. 
   "Michael...Follow me." She says.
Michael so drawn to her beauty he obeys without the smallest of responses. Walking through the doorway into the abandoned building still manipulated by her beauty she brings him to a room. This room seems to have been abandoned for years. Torn wallpaper, carpet stripped leaving nothing but broken concrete. Although sitting in the center of the room sits a table and two chairs. 
   "Sit." The woman Says with authority. 
The man obeys taking into consideration this new tone of voice. She sits as well, directly in front of him. 
   "I, know you Michael." She says with a smile. 
   "I've been following you for some time." She continues.
Michael sitting in confusion he remains silent. 
   "Speak not if you must, It's only postponing your destiny Michael." She finishes with another smile. 
   "My, my destiny?" The man asks. 
She continues to smile gazing her beautiful eyes into his for a few moments. 
   "Yes my love. Your destiny. I have arranged something for you that you cannot pass up." 
Michael's life has him in such a deep depression he cant fathom on passing up the words of what seems like an angel. 
   "What do you have in mind?" He quickly Replies. 
   "Simple, whatever you want my love." She Replies. 
Michael Sits in silent for a second Not really understanding what is being presented to him. Although at this time he comes to terms he doesn't care, change is change. 
   "I accept anything you have to offer, beautiful." He replies with confidence. 
   "You, will live from this day forward wealthy. I can supply you with a house and enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your days." She offers. 
   "Is it that easy?" He asks  
   "No, you must in return Inflict my religious beliefs into your first born child." She says. 
Michael, not really sure what that means, accepts her deal, for she seems like an angel of the sky. Well, as for Michael he lives his life as planned, Wealthy, happy, Full of adventure. He even finds himself an amazing girl who he falls in love with. They even get married. Now, however, things get more difficult.

   They find out together they are having a baby boy. Yes, the greatest gift to any man or woman they think is about to happen to them. Michael's wife having no difficulties through the pregnancy goes into labor. After 6 hours of labor Miguel is born. He is healthy as can be. Miguel's mother on the other hand has surprisingly gone into shock. Hemorrhaging Viciously in her brain. She is quickly put into emergency surgery. With her life in danger they begin to operate. She, does not live to see another day. After doing an exam on her body trying to solve what caused her to hemorrhage, they find something very odd. During the birth of Miguel she suffered three broken vertebrates, and her ****** had been severed. Not being able to explain the cause, life goes on. Michael is devastated at the loss of his wife. The visions of raising a baby boy together have been wrecked. As devastating as it was Michael was forced to accept it and continue on, raising Miguel on his own. It wasn't much after Miguel's birth that Michael really started to realize something wasn't right.

   Miguel had no emotions. Although medically they could not find a single thing wrong with him, he still remained motionless. His eyes seemed as a portal to oblivion. No smiles, laughs, or anything. Once again as odd as this was Michael was forced to persevere on his mission to raise Miguel on his own. Until Miguel learned to walk. Once this happened Michael started to get overwhelmed. As his Miguel was a walking nightmare. Miguel had killed three of their animals within a months time. Things were looking to get out of hand. No matter how much Michael tried to discipline him, Miguel did not listen. Michael couldn't get a babysitter to watch him for any longer then a few minutes without scaring them off. The babysitters would leave startled, leaving Michael with responses such as "He won't stop staring at me" or "when he is around me the hair on my neck stands up." Miguel had become such an outrage Michael lost custody of him just two days after his third birthday. Miguel had driven His father to the point of insanity. Michael tried to suffocate Miguel and end this misery once and for all, but he could not. Miguel had grown too strong even by age three.  Everyone hated Michael for it and Miguel was taken from him leaving Michael now in prison. Michael at that point realized that woman was not an angel, but the devil in disguise, soon after he committed suicide. What others don't know is Michael knew something they didn't. Something so evil, so sinister, that it would ruin many more lives to come. More and more the people started to realize something wasn't right. He bounced from home to home, leaving every home in complete disarray. He was the talk of the town. He was referred to as the "Devil's Child" or "Miguel From Hell."

   The city was angered by the boys effect in the community and knew something had to be done. The council knew the boy had to be murdered. If only this same council would have seen it as Michael did, when he did. Things would of never gone so far south. However the town started planning in the dark for their attack. They didn't want the boy to catch any wind of this whatsoever. So one night as he was asleep in his foster bed the city made the building evacuate, quietly. All but Miguel had evacuated the building and at this time they said their prayers and begun. Six men volunteered, to enter the building. Holding rope, gasoline, and faith. They grab the boy holding him down on the bed tying him up. The boy begun to rage, but he wasn't quit strong enough to escape the six men. After tying him up and leaving him inside they lit all four corners of the building at the same time. Watching it burn to the ground. Once they thought it was finally over, the body was never found...

-Joseph B Schneider

I don't enjoy making new friends.
I loathe the conversations I have with
my own friends about branching out
and meeting new people.
I know this makes me sound like
someone who lacks the ability to make
a friend, but I can't stress
enough how it really comes down
to how much I actually
care for and trust the friends
that I already have.

I'll start from the beginning so maybe you
can understand why it is I think this way.

I grew up in a traditional home, with a very loving family
that for most of my childhood allowed me to
be content with the life I was living.

Later in my youthful years, it became aware to me
that I was unlike the typical child. I was not the average boy
who imagined walking on grains of sand while holding hands
with his beautiful wife. I was not the "ordinary" boy who one day
pictured himself fathering children with a loving newlywed who I
would spend the rest of my life with.

You see,
these societal standards of achievement to which
I could never merit only made me notice how
little I could ever contribute to the plans
my family laid out for me.  

For the longest time I considered myself
to be a religious person, one that could worship
the God that I was raised to love.

The day that I finally welcomed my
"unnatural" thoughts as merely an echo of my
soul guiding me towards a better life
is also the day I began questioning
the existence of any higher being.

How could it be possible to feel so much joy
when looking at another boy, yet be so
hated for even having that feeling?
A feeling that was out of my control
from the moment I understood what it
was like to be attracted to another human.

Why is it so common for believers to
shun the feelings of people like myself
for simply wanting to enjoy life in the same way
they do? This is where my faith was destroyed.
I  just can't find myself to trust the teachings
of a creator who purposefully created me
to be considered an abomination in His eyes.

I look back on my adolescent years and
only now realize that I always lived in a glass box;
a world that appeared to be accepting and loving
but was rather shielding me away
from the true potential of happiness
that I now know I deserve.

Ever heard the term,
"coming out of the closet"?
Let me put it to you this way...

I have this memory of when I was little
of my babysitter locking me in a closet,
turning out all the lights,
and laughing to himself as I cried for hours.
For a very long time I was scared of dark places,
of being confined to an area that I was
forcefully put into.

As painful as it was in the moment,
I am beyond thankful for going through that
because it helped me to see light in a new way.
It may as well have been symbolic
of the future decisions I was
going to make, ones that would
show me how bright
my love could actually be.

Now, I ask this of you because
I want you to imagine what I went through,
but have you ever heard the term,
"coming out of the closet"?

If you haven't, then all I can tell
you is that it brings about the most
liberating emotion that I
have ever felt, and one
that I wish every similar minded kid like
me has the opportunity to experience.

It was tough admitting to my family that
I was going to put all their hopes aside,
and start allowing myself to break free
from that dark cage I was trapped in
for so long.

It went exactly as I knew it would.
The support that I was so used
to having seemed to swiftly fade away.
It was missing for a while,
but then I found it in the strangest of places.
Who knew that such love and acceptance
could come from people you never knew existed?

My friends from day one were
always there for me.
They were always that metaphorical handkerchief
for me to wipe my tears and the
punching bags for me to release my anger.

It may sound cliche,
but there are no words for me to
show how much I value the friendships
that I have been so blessed with.
There are no poems,
not even this one I'm writing,
cleverly worded enough to
represent the amount of love
I have for those I consider
to be my friends.

My friends have burrowed
into places of my mind
that let me feel like I have
a family again.

This is why
I despise the introductions of new
people into my life.
I am terrified of the possibility
that they will take me
away from the second family that
I worked so hard to convince myself
that I had.

I listen to my friends tell me
how I need to just let go and allow
myself to be free, and to
not be scared of meeting new people; but,
until they feel the same sense of family
being torn away from them
then their mouths may as well be
sewn shut.

Do you get it now?

You had complete control over me
My mind, body and soul
Was yours to have
Making me shake
With every painful word
Every kick and hit
You used me for your dark amusement
Now that I finally got away
All you want is for me to be with you
Because you see now
I had become a part of you
You loved me
Because you hated me.
*i.c.d

Kids these days make me sick. Too much time spent on IT. What’s IT you say? Well IT is the only thing that is not. IT is in but really IT is out, like a drunk left in his ***** passed out on the couch. The ultimate cool the epitome of breathtaking, and your left taking this out of proportion. What is so important? I mean really I don’t understand the importance. A synonym for the learned: imperative or even essence. That is the idea of something but your left holding nothing. Not even a burnt out flame like the lack of heat from the passion in your heart. Does it need to start…once more? A muscle unused is abused and left to consume itself. You incite cannibalism! Munching on ourselves to feed our soul lost in this dangerous world. You’re too tough to ask for directions, too stupid to read a map, or too naïve to think you are alone in this? What is THIS? THIS is just IT after THAT. THAT is simply free thought. Yet the brain sits and rots in your cranium. That’s a fancy word for skull. The helmet, not to keep thoughts in, but to let them become mature and flow down into a puddle between my feet. You see this and harmful words escape your mouth and say I ****** myself. I think not; if my head is leaking that means my thoughts cannot be contained. In pain I see the young adults of our time reading line after line of the same crap we are feed everyday of our lives. A lie, a lie I scream from an empty room, a classroom. There are entities inhabiting the same plane, yet in the same they are not here. So far away lost in this digital age. I agree you cyborgs need entertainment all the same; however, the smile I receive from seeing the moon in the middle of the day is the found on your face when someone likes your page. A paper trail untraveled by so many and misplaced in cyberspace. I walk at night to see the darkness, and you see only the lit up text message from your lazy boy recliner chair. I am convinced you’re not all there, but that’s not your fault. I blame it on the generations. I do blame you because you succumb to IT. There is that funny word again that carries no weight, but wait it can mean so much. IT is the idea of reality and your losing touch. Thus, there’s a word I don’t think gets used enough. Thus, reality is known only by how well it is defined on Wikipedia or an online dictionary equipped with spellcheck of course because without that how would we know the right way to spell. Well, well in my lap a newborn child fell. Not crying, not smiling, I’m not sure if it was even breathing. This baby, helpless and fragile, is society. We as an assembly need a babysitter for our whole lives. Why? Why live without experiencing life? Why be content with any answer that was given, not found. You have to search to find and in time life’s chorus line will start and so will the tears. The so perfectly phrased line will place fear in all who understand. How can we understand when all left standing is man? Man a fragile thing like a mansion on the beach. Sand ******* up the existence of all the living. I want to introduce a new word: WHEN. WHEN will we not take the so-called facts as face value and attempt to discredit them with logical thinking. WHEN will we move the rudder instead of waiting for the tides to change? WHEN will we place IT on it’s own head and explain something we know to someone else. Learning is gained not by blindly memorizing facts, like my mac, but by forming an attack on the disbeliefs. Hopefully to hone an opinion and be ready to defend IT, and I mean in every sense of the word. IT is the idea of reality and your catching on. Leave the bottle of forward thinking, and begin to chew on the backwards and sideward food your not use to.  Open the mind and heart to be restarted by learning. Thought is the jumper cables to this world’s battery dead from leaving it’s lights on all night, and now late to work for it wouldn’t start. Roughly 6 billion, 775 million, 235 thousand, and 741 people on this earth and we still don’t feel part of IT. Have we lost IT, have we tossed IT overboard? The only savior to the sickness and now it is sinking to the bottom of the sea to be discovered like a lost treasure. A gold doubloon used to measure the currency of our time. The state of our States is left to us to state whether we hate or don’t care about the shape we’re in, a sphere, a bubble, a circle with no beginning or end. Nowhere to start just have to keep moving in the same general direction or be swept away by the undercurrent. Drop your anchor and disturb the flow, stop the overused pattern. Turn the cycle of a circle into the turning of a wheel and use that to drive. Finally to take a destination of you’re own and truly think of the cosmos. To place you’re cognitive mind into motion and here the notion that there is more to THIS then IT.

The room was filled with burnout nuts who looked half crazy dear lord what was someone as normal as me doing here.
Yeah dont laugh im being serious or however ya spell it.

The group slash cult leader approached the mic.
Hello im Dan .
Hello Dan.

Dear lord these people were some brainwashed hampsters almost as bad
as that voodoo priestest Taylor Swift yeah Her new song sounds just like her last okay.
the only people who like her are kids and perverts that reminds me gotta put that video on mute when i
watch it it really messes up the mood what!
Im talking bout when im writting ya perves haha no im not.

Enough with the foreplay kids.
The man went into his speech how he used to snort lines that went from here to texas
picked up hookers drank till he passed out.
Hey No wonder this man was a leader he was soon becoming my hero.

But then I hit rock bottem and stopped found Jesus once honestly i didnt know he was lost.
Now he hadnt had a dam bit of fun in four years i couldnt contain my laughter
what a ***** huh?
I said to the old drunk beside me.

Hey what you got in that cup there grandpa.
He just looked at me in a strange manner must be on a hell of a trip lucky *******.
He spoke slow in a ***** old seductive kinda scared shitless by me manner
It's Koolaide.

Yeah weird mixer what ya trying to pick up kids ya nut what else is in it?
This oldman was playing a game yeah  sure dont share you old ***** hound
my flask was nearly empty and my patience was fading with every sober ***** that took the stage Jesus people it was listening to Jeff Foxworthy it's great if your ******* but honestly its one step above a ******* puppet.

The group of lame areses was almost done when they looked at me hey there friend feel like sharing?
It was something I should fight but a mic and stage was as tempting as a
wild turkey and college keg party.

Why not.

Hey Kids Im Gonzo!
Hey Gonzo jesus it was like dealing with a human parrot or Brittney Spears really
you've  seen one mindless drone ya seem em all.

I took a deep sip from my coffee with a little something extra cup
mmm acid and folgers it goes togather like teens and ****** reallity  shows ******* MTV!

Well Im Gonzo , Hello Gonzo.
Look meeting of the living braindead it's funny the first time okay.
Okay jesus these people were bad as a boy band dam three tenors yeah your all
hot and can sing opera but wants to party to that ****.

Look here  Ive been drinking since 12  umm commited alotta fun crimes
Once paid the babysitter to show me her *******  yeah I know winning.
Ive been in 20  car crashes some of em not just other peoples cars  like I can afford one.

Ive done every drug known to man and some that arent made by people named skull and eightball.
dated strippers snorted coke off of more than just a table  get your mind outta the
gutter cause if ya dont your gonna end up like me serious!

My wife is full of life and strung out on pills that reminds me
i gotta pick her up after cheerleading practice.
Ive been in the iron bar hotel many a night yeah that ****** but he hairy guys are great to cuddle with
like big teddy bears who'll **** you yeah that ****** so ive herd well yeah.

The group was silent till DR Downer spoke up but when did you hit bottom.
Sir thats my personal life okay and besides i not that hung okay.
But you stopped right.

Stopped what are you high on crack Bobby Brown?  
First off amigo its cheap second I aint stopping till im dead yeah i could work out have no
fun and spend the rest of my life speaking in front of nuts who used to be cool
Like you Irene hey personally i wish i had seen you in the ******* cause you seem
like a nice lady and really easy to get into bed okay yeah im
sensative I always pay after that's manners.

The crowd was filled with something what was this place Jonestown
Look at what ya all become eating cookies and drinking **** I wouldnt even
drink when i was ******* five okay.

And you ****** Dave well okay it's kinda weird ya hung out in park restrooms
But if only you had met George Micheal maybe then he'd still be making good  records but ya gotta have faith im just saying.

Sure you can be nice live good yeah then one day ya cross the street and some *******
spoiled brat   teenager  who just got his license runs over your *** cause he's texting sally
asking to see her **** to share e with the rest of the football team okay.

Hey whatever happend to *** drugs and rock n roll kids.
**** living forever.
Lets party now and ***** tommorow cheers I kicked back the last
of the wild turkey hitting that liver like a sledge

The group was silent yet again **** I had crossed the line yet again ahh someone needs a spanking
but enough bout lady gaga.

Sir there leader said leave now!
Just then like something off of saturday night pro wrestling.
A folding chair hit the
hugging preachy nut over the head.

***** this guy the old drunk exclaimed lets go get trashed my life ***** lets get some ***** drugs and
Irene crank the music.

And like something outta a stupid wholsome after school special my heart grew
okay aybe thats a bit much .

We were off like fellow addicts set lose in a world as ******* up as us
And everything was as messed up as us we partyed laughed made some movies of are own that probaly wont be seen on tv anytime soon.

And we lived in the moment cause its all we ever have.
And this perves gonna make sure his is
******* fun stay crazy and avoid the clap love always
Gonzo

When I was little I was scared of things like sleeping in a room without my sister and the dark.
And I once choked on a cookie while crying,
And my babysitter used to let me off of my groundings if I promised not to tell.
And my aunt used to put m&ms; at the bottom of my bowl of popcorn, and everytime I was surprised.

When I was little I loved Hilary Duff and Mary-Kate & Ashley
I owned all the movies and cds.
I wanted to be pretty and skinny and blonde.
I practiced my signature to look like Hilary's
And tried to smile like Ashley.
I named my dolls Mary-Kate.
I wanted to be them.

When I was little I saw ghosts.
I would sit on the steps and talk to them,
Discussing movies and my favorite tv shows and how badly I wanted an msn account.
And they followed me and taunted me but mostly they were nice so they were my friends.

Now Im a big girl and Im still scared of things like
Sleeping in a room without my sister and the dark
And I don't eat while I cry anymore, because I once choked on a cookie and my mom ignored me.
And I don't have a babysitter anymore, but I never leave my room anyways.
And my aunt doesn't surprise me anymore.

I'm a big girl now,
And I know that Mary-Kate was a drug addict,
And that Hilary had an eating disorder
And that I look bad blonde
And that Im neither pretty or skinny
And that my smile will never look like Ashleys.
I know that I have an awful signature.
And that all those girls were sick.
But now I'm sick
Does this mean Im finally like them?

I'm a big girl now,
And instead of Disney stars, I idolize girls on tumblr
With thigh gaps and long hair
And ribs that stick out
I want so badly to be them.

Im a big girl.
I still see ghosts, but they aren't friendly anymore.
They pull my hair and dig at my skin and whisper nasty things to me.
We talk about death and blood and how good it must feel to be so skinny
That you can lie on your back and count your ribs
One
By
One.
They aren't nice anymore, but they're still my friends.

I'm a big girl now.

mom betrays us.
headlights into the night
& up the breakneck boulevard bluff overlooking town and terminus.
she brings his heart in a ziploc bag,
an offering
to that old burnt-out oak.

                     [husband\father\corpse]

front porch blood trails forever. she
claims self-defense and the camera-eyes caramelize her
fame & fortune & stepdaddies & book deals & ziploc pb&js & dead dog omens.
when did the heartache begin?

heir\son\brother\body
racing car ****** and fluxed up the boulevard in a ritual reach for daddy and the oak.
the girls are waiting. one two three, seeds.
brakes sabotaged. he
bursts into death, a molten ball of mazda.
father and son laugh there on the brim of here and hereafter.
apparitions uncoiled.

                    [home movies]

where mercury avenue ends
the woods begin.
& those woods are evil, an eldritch place, she laughs.
even the indians wouldn’t bury their dead there.

america.
caught between the whir of spokes and windshields reflecting
sky and skin, the blue hue
of television flickering on the hands of a family.

grandsons conjure grandmaster demons
on the ply of their treefort high.
the heart of grandma in a ziploc bag.
jupiter and saturn are in conjunction,
twelve past midnight on a tuesday in september.
a school night.

            [the babysitter brings over an unlabeled video tape, says its scary]

the children watch.
slumber party screams and pb&js.
ghouls blunted by pungent neighborhood inertia.
son, a ghost returned in rhythm and electronics,
hungry for pizza and pure vengeance.

Definition # 1: Being wanted, but not necessarily needed.
I was born on the coldest day of '93,
three months too early
and
three pounds too small.

That sounds like a death sentence,
but it's not – it was more of a:
“Here's what life is like,
now earn the right to live it.”

And I passed the test.
Oh, I passed with flying colors
and surprised everyone,
especially my parents.

They didn't allow themselves
to be too optimistic, see;
If they were pessimistic and wrong,
it was a pleasant surprise in the end.

Being pessimistic and right
always felt like a well earned stroke
to their over-inflated egos,
and they liked that more.

Still, they brought me home
and welcomed me – I was the first,
the only, the most important;
I was the VIP in the household.

My grandmother, a staunch Catholic,
came to see me, her first grandson,
and kissed me soundly on the forehead.
She proclaimed a prayer over me, then:

“Ah! Our Father who art in Heaven,
This baby is truly a blessing from You,
and may You bless him evermore!
Amen!”

Grandmother, my only words to you now
are these:
I wish you had prayed more fervently for me,
and stuck that blessing on me more firmly.

Definition # 2: Crippling kindness through actions.
Her name was Katy.
She was eighteen when I was six,
and she crossed the gap between us
as easily as Jesus passed over the waters.

She claimed she was my babysitter -
3 to 9 PM, Mondays through Fridays -
for three incredibly long years,
but don't they take *care of the kids they watch?

It's almost shocking to think of how
she peeled me apart back then
with fingers pale as my face
and a smile sweet as a tangerine.

(I thought it was love. I was wrong.)

I was misguided by her gentleness,
the way she held me in her arms
and gave me baths when I had played outside.
My mother never did that, after all.

But her fingers strayed too far
and she snatched something from me
that I have never recovered,
and now never will.

I would say it was my innocence,
but that's not true.
That went to rot long ago,
and I do not miss it.

No, it felt more tangible than that,
a feeling I had, one of trust,
one that only disappeared
after I realized what had happened.

Now I am left to side-eye people
and wonder about their true intentions;
all because someone named Katy
kissed me on the cheek, then went a little farther.

Definition # 3: Absolutely nothing at all.
It's amazing how one experience
affects the rest of your life,
but it does. Irrevocably,
each happening is a dropped pebble in water.

I wish it wasn't that way,
because there are things I want to erase
in order to move forward,
things that require moving backwards first.

That's never easy, going back to the things
that are in the past for a reason,
when facing them is a task you're not sure
you're really up to.

I know how that is,
how the moving forward feels like stumbling,
like stepping blindly in the darkness
and missing a step.

You fumble for something to hold onto,
and your heart panics,
gasping desperately while you flail;
I know. I know.

That's how I ended up kissing little Ann
in fourth grade – Katy was gone from my life by then
and I thought this other girl could give me back
that vital something I was lacking.

She gave it her all, truly, with that plucky mouth of hers;
from the warm depths of her trembling heart came a kiss,
but I defied the laws of physics then which state that heat
is energy transferred from one interacting object to another –

I felt nothing.

Definition # 4: Keeping painfully close.
Therapy should have been the option
when I told my parents that ‘Katy’ and ‘molester’
were the same thing, after I looked it up.
But it wasn’t.

My parents opted for isolation and
careful watching; if they could keep
an eye on me at all times,
they could keep me safe.

This was their pessimism talking,
leading them to think that a therapist would
**** them dry of their money and do absolutely
nothing.

Maybe they were scared of something else, too -
of molesters and rapists sitting outside,
just waiting to get their grubby hands on me
and take me away, to a place they couldn't follow.

Either way, their decision wasn't a cure,
it didn't help. Home-schooled at eleven, I lost sight
of how the world moved around me,
and all I knew was the inside of my house.

What kept me grounded were the little things:
snow days, which spoke of beauty and temporary freedom,
books, which promised a world away from the one I knew,
and the goodnight kisses from my parents.

Definition # 5: The right to take what you want.
I escaped homeschooling
when I entered ninth grade,
and the freedom I found there
was intoxicating. Addicting, even.

I’d been so out of touch with the world
that I decided the whole world
was now my friend – I fell in love
with everyone I met, at least once.

Opening myself up was surprisingly easy;
then again the only things I really opened
were my pants zipper and the pubescent hearts
of girls, always readily available.

There was the first girl, Caroline –
she kissed me everywhere, and all I did
was take everything in return – and then
there were a hundred others like her.

I knew Amys and Rachels and Sarahs,
but I never knew another Katy.
There was only one of those in my mind,
and she pushed all the others away in the end.

By eleventh grade I was in pieces,
dragging myself through each day
for no reason other than
to find another girl to claim as mine.

Definition # 6: Wrong, wrong, all wrong.
In the end,
I had it coming –
and though I don’t remember it all,
I remember enough –
rough beard pulled across skin
in a horrible mockery of kisses;
all the messy memories of Katy torn out,
like tangles pulled out with a boar hair’s brush;
the sound of something breaking,
though that might have just been me;
a ragged whisper of “Your uncle loves you, you
know that, right? This is me showing you how much.”
and finally, a piece of me I never
offered, flung far, far
                         a
                      w
                  a
                     y.
That’s all I remember,
and that’s more than I ever want to remember.

Definition # 7: Saving grace kisses.
Silence became my hiding place
in the year that followed,
along with a deep darkness
that I drowned in every night.

Where I was once confident
and a “ladies man,”
I was no longer; some experiences
ruin all the ones following.

This is how I suffered –
quietly, painstakingly, always.
I let no one in and no one out,
not even myself.

That is, until I was found out.
He was the same age as me,
but it felt like he was years
ahead of me, experience-wise.

That's how he knew -
from one sufferer to another,
we found something in common -
and that's how I redefined love, one last time.

It took three years of high school for me to step up
to the podium, clear my throat, shuffle some papers,
and mutter into the microphone, barely above a whisper:
“You know, maybe I was wrong about love.”

And maybe God did show up in the end,
in between his eyelashes and the gap in his teeth,
there to be the saving grace for a poor sinner
like me, who messed up love for far too long.

Definition # 8: Absolutely everything at once.
Recovery is a long, winding road,
one that I wanted to leave a long time ago –
if you must know, I’m still on it, though
I almost succeeded in leaving it once.

But there are almost always people
who will make you reconsider,
and decide that maybe jumping off the roof
is an act for another day, a better day.

And there are people who know how important
listening is, and that’s all they do: just listen.
I underestimated how powerful it is,
knowing someone cares enough to do that.

And there are other people who know where
a kiss goes, and where a hand should be placed,
and how to make the kiss a band-aid,
and the hand a life saver thrown out in churning waters.

There are others still that know what to say,
even when you don't. The words come easy,
and they reassure, they heal, they put you back together -
maybe not in the same way, but it's still good.

I know there will be scars, and there will be reminders
that all is not right in the world, of course,
but if you find a person who can listen,
or who can save lives with their mouth,
or who can find the right words,
you’ll probably do just fine in the end.

After all,
love is not just an action – it’s an experience.

Liam Neeson movies,
Lop-sided smiles,
Dandelion fields,
Fake marriage proposals,
Grass-stained knees,
Ketchup lips.
TRIGGER WARNING
“I put my first boyfriend away,”
I say at parties
Because I am a dangerous girl.
I am better at Russian Roulette
Than I am at beer pong.
I have stared down the barrel of a loaded gun,
This blonde girl stared back at me.
She doesn’t look anything like me.
If I didn’t look anything like me
Maybe he wouldn’t be able to find me.
My mother makes me dye my hair back;
She tells me judges don’t trust bleached blondes.
She asks,
“How is it abusive if he never hit you?”
TRIGGER WARNING
Plastic tiaras and performance chefs.
“No one will love you like I do.”
TRIGGER WARNING
I sleep with a baseball bat under the bed,
Carry hot pink pepper spray in my purse like lipstick.
My friend Dolton tells me he can get me a gun.
TRIGGER WARNING
No one will love you.
TRIGGER WARNING
I do not know my own triggers;
They are the way a stranger walks down the street
Or the way that my lover's lips
Form around a word.
“I put my first boyfriend away,”
I say at parties
Because everything is a trigger;
There is no safety on my mouth.
I say it because I’m waiting for it
To stop feeling like a lie.
TRIGGER WARNING
I signed the papers.
TRIGGER WARNING
I called the hotlines.
TRIGGER WARNING
He sat in a jail cell.
TRIGGER WARNING
I sat in a stairwell,
Shaking with the recoil
Of everything that we had done to each other.
I walk to work even though I feel
Too small to be a babysitter today;
I need someone to look after me today,
To cut my apple slices for me,
To hold my hand crossing intersections;
Keep me away from knives
TRIGGER WARNING
And cars
TRIGGER WARNING
And men on the street
TRIGGER WARNING
Who look like knives and cars.
I don’t believe in lying to children
But when she asked me what was wrong
I still tell her the storybook version.
I tell her that once
A bad man broke into my house.
I wish I had also told her
That the bad men look like respectable young men,
TRIGGER WARNING
That the bad men will compliment your grandmother
On her cooking from across the table,
TRIGGER WARNING
That the bad men write love poems,
TRIGGER WARNING
That the bad men smile so wide
They will swallow you
And you will then convince yourself you asked him to.
"Stalkers can’t be convicted unless their victims prove they feared for their lives."
How do you prove fear?
How do you put months of hell breaths into words?
And will you please come with me?
And he will **** me!
TRIGGER WARNING
He will **** me!
TRIGGER WARNING
He will **** me!
TRIGGER WARNING
But I told you so on my gravestone,
Because you can’t ever say
"She didn’t scream loud enough
"Into a ziplock bag
"For the ladies and gentlemen
"Of the jury."
TRIGGER WARNING
Loaded questions,
TRIGGER WARNING
Filling every chamber of my heart
With ammunition,
TRIGGER WARNING
Always a weapon,
TRIGGER WARNING
Always an ultimatum,
TRIGGER WARNING
He shoots me,
Underage,
Underweight.
TRIGGER WARNING
Contorted in his favourite positions,
TRIGGER WARNING
Tells me he knows how to upload the pictures,
TRIGGER WARNING
Without leaving any fingerprints.
TRIGGER WARNING
Aim: loving someone,
TRIGGER WARNING
Handing them a map of your weak spots.
TRIGGER WARNING
Fire!
TRIGGER WARNING
Fire!
TRIGGER WARNING
Fire!
No warning shots.
My friend Dolton tells me he can get me a gun.
I tell him I have seen a gun go off,
Yet I cannot shake the habit
Of believing, I can stare down the barrel
And gently wrap my fingers
Around the trigger
Without pulling.

I.   Warning

A boundary of warning issued premature
to a lad settled on adventure
will plant definition in a red
corruption code of ketchup on a
post-picnic bib orphaned to the wind
like a fictional friend's home continent's flag

The vision-fielding velocity of neighbours'
arrows augment the sleep-shearing flares
of the father's eyes in the centrifugal
bullseye of his boy's current-green nursery
so close to swelling wide as a planet
now a marble left behind in favour of
a shrunken moon's spheric promise
of an otherworldly adventure

II.   Island

Subservient to boundaries of none but its own
the loner of landmass nurses its nautical mischief
through the employment of sensual labour in darkness
sizing them up to encompass a knowing glow
for the enigmas of bare-faced daylight

The premature thirst for adventure
attended to by the drink of sanctuary
poured from the skew of its welcome-mat shore

III.   Neighbours

Game and Disappearance serve
the Monarchy of Volume under code names
of Hide and Seek undertaking missions in the name
of circumstantial viceroys: decibels
scanning search parties through the x-ray of silent night
for the orchestration of the morn

Tweeting birds equate an army horn
rainbowing the insurgent black sky
with adventures in crusade-recital grooming

An airy beach of reeds is looming
in the coastal fog bracing to embrace
the route taken on the faith of melodic compass

IV.   Discovery

No labourer of mortal being beats the sun
out of bed not even the little one
succumbed to slumber in the bony shadow
of the instrumentally inscrutable contestant
to the claim of composition by his
solar brother's sacred nursery rhyme
insuring the rest and energetic rise of time

This adventure-hearted child heard no battle cry
in what the rivals of his bearded babysitter
dubbed The Sound Of Panic
just the anthem of a little conqueror beneath
a bucky smile of approval on the heels
of a swim befitting of an older lad but not
the aura of exhaustion conquering
the eyes of a goal imagined and achieved
and the smiling gratitude duet in return
from the dutiful and loving neighbours
lulled to their reunion reed field
in anticipation of a father's target met
with a son's accuracy in tow

11 26 11

My boy told me the other day
That he didn’t have a mother
He only had a babysitter

I say my boy--
The boy at my daycare
The boy with seven siblings
Ripped from five of them
Gained another in the process
Losing mothers like pencils

The mother he has now is a teacher,
No summer job,
But four foster kids to her name
Her summers are free
Her pockets are full
But my boys

They’re still in daycare
Six to six
Or longer
They come with bagged eyes
one in pull ups at the age of five
My boys

Their sister's in the other room
Their mother sits at home
Alone
Doing nothing
Probably drinking
Or anything but mothering

Right now
She’s out of town
There’s a babysitter at home
She picks them up late and drops them off early
They're cranky
And tired
They're getting six hours of sleep
Plus one at naptime

My boys never sleep at nap time
None of them but Isaiah
Isaiah
He loves to talk about his home
Not where they sleep at night
But at home
In Africa
He’ll tell you if you ask
It’s beautiful to hear
The joy filling his face is fixating

But then you see his legs
How they wobble in at the knees
When you see how he sleeps
He rocks himself the whole time
Rocking even through his dreams
It’s all from the orphanage.
The workers couldn’t help him to sleep.
He just turned five.
He starts kindergarten soon,
And he just learned how to spell his name
Everyone else here can read all the names
His and theirs
My boys

I love them with everything I have
And they know that,
But I leave soon.
In a few weeks we all go to school
I’ve been doing this for years, but them,
They haven’t
It’s their first
And I’ll pray
But I hate that all I can do is pray
They deserve more than that.
They deserve attention and love
They deserve hope and security
I can only hope that the next teacher will give that to them
To my boys
To my wonderful boys...

We sat there in a group a circle of freaks with a doctor more ****** up than all of us put together on  the side.
So John anything you care to share today ?

I paid little or no attention to the ******* rattling off about feelings or all that other **** I truly could give a **** less about .
I was in this asylum and that was ******* embarrassing enough .

John?

realizing this paid babysitter for the insane wasnt going to leave me the **** alone untill I said something or told him the voices in my head were telling me to buy a hand gun and do a little spring cleaning .

I replied .
Yeah Doc I'm good not really feeling like sharing or talking or giving my opinion about crazy Larry's compliant about the martians trying to speak to him through the microwave okay.

John we try not to joke about are fellow residents .
Yeah whats not to joke about we got people in here who talk to walls and write letters with there **** okay!, Sad part is they spell way better than me for **** sake Deny here is scared of cats and I tell you I never trust a man who's scared of ***** alright .

John tell me about Gonzo.

Is this a ******* joke doc ?
I asked half ready to flip the **** out yet considering ****** would probably be frowned upon when it came to me getting out of the nuthouse.

Alright doc what the hell do you want to know?

Well is he a separate personality from you ?
No ******* it's me okay you ever hear of a nickname I'm sure your wife has one for you like needle **** the bug ****** .

The doc looked at me like well he looked at me like a guy who went ape **** and got locked in a nuthouse .
John is humor how you keep people out from knowing the true you?

No doc it's how I deal with the *******  who ask me stupid questions like that.
I sense you don't like me asking you questions.

Oh doc it's not that honestly you see I hate life right now and being locked up surrounded by dipshits who think a wild night is getting a extra graham ******* before night night time well it's kind of ******* lame okay that and I want a ******* drink and maybe a piece of *** okay!
Not from the doctor that is get your minds out of the gutter hamsters cant you see I'm using humor to be serious  here?

Yeah I know who gives a **** now enough with the foreplay kids.

Mr Robbins can you please re-frame from using vulgarity .
Can you believe this guy ? , Or the fact I can spell vulgarity and who said nothing good comes from a nervous breakdown .

I took a moment to look deep inside I saw a forest  and other pretty gay **** I'm kidding it was more like a brothel and Disney land combined  minus that hot duck with heels but enough about Selena Gomez.

Before the doc could say anymore stupid **** that would probably land me spending the rest of my life sharing a room with a guy that enjoyed making wine from his toilet I had to unleash a rant from hell and put a end to this this **** fest of a write cause it's happy hour and the drinks are a calling kids.


Look doc I'm going to tell you  like this.
Yeah sure I went a little a little nuts tried to **** somebody took one to many pills drank a little to much parked a car in the bar hey what can I say least when i woke up I didn't have far to go for cocktail in the morning.

But all the **** aside were all ******* nuts in this life hell there's more dudes and chicks sitting at home just building up pressure waiting to off one another like some bad mafia movie .

Yeah more ******* blood has been shed over that ******* word love than I can write about .

Yeah ******* I can sit here talk about about my Godammed feelings let me tell you what I'm feeling some of those good drugs that nurse with the great **** is handing out .
Her and me and some time alone that's what I'm ******* feeling sure it's just some cheap thrills and some ***** hot *** but hey thats about as wholesome as apple pie and ******* baseball pal.

So if your done with your stupid as questions I'm going to get the **** out of here hit on that nurse make her laugh and get shot down and probably go practice some self love alright amigo .

And let me also point out look how about some better mags in this place hey you ever tried to ******* to better homes and gardens?.
Yeah talk about a bush oh how a love the fall and a fern don't ask.

Mr Robbins.
Shh I put my finger to the docs beautiful full lips .

Look I'm crazy and I'm dam proud of it so to poetically put it shut the **** up cause I'm out homeboy.

With that said I left this circle of fellow freaks behind slammed my pills took my copy of home and garden and treated her like a copy of my favorite intellectual magazine hustler .


See and who said I didn't believe in happy ending.

Stay crazy or you just might go sane .

Gonzo

He is off to devour the babysitter
No need for shoes in the summer heat
No need for pants inside the house
Three steps at a time, claws awhir
Teeth aching to crunch the bones of his Brazilian prey

Sometimes I remember to move carefully around his loud, joyful willingness
Or I don't remember
And tear out a fat chunk of adventure with a stinging rebuke

But he is a T-Rex with two tons to spare

We are surrounded by silliness.
Don't make it obvious, but look over your left shoulder.
Slowly.
There, not feet from your face sits silliness.
Something silly breeding and FedExing its brood
to the best and brightest corners of the earth,
ensuring equal part shadow for every ray of shine.
If you find yourself disbelieving, please turn on your Television set
and flip (at your own risk) through the charmless channels
hovering enigmatically inside Mr. Pixel the “Babysitter.”
“Reality” shows, as if we weren't neck deep in enough reality
for a thousand years worth of open bars,
lamenting on how seriously, serious this soiree of sorts seems to be,
neighbored by celebrity rehab shows,
housewives from all over the country
desperately seeking attention
and augmentation
or attention to their various augmentations,
  divorce courts with quirky judges,
pawn shops in the ghetto with true grit, or is it true **** …
hard to say but they have attitude!
The endless scripts pour into HollyWeird from somewhere far, far away
from anything vaguely resembling reality …
a little place called – the Jersey Shore.
(Wait did he say scripts?) But ...

Ah, hell, it needs no description or justification,
in the land of the Super Silly,
it is the trophy wife of King Silly Bo Billy himself.
And no more time to waste on silliness wrapped neatly in a magic tube.
No, no, silliness is loose, running amok through the streets,
jumping with it's eyes closed on your neighbor Ricky's industrial size trampoline.
(Ricky only lost one of his nine children  last year to “roof to trampoline” diving)
tragic, yet the other eight get a little more tuna casserole on Wednesdays.
Silliness is fearless. It charges helmet-less into oncoming traffic
singing Christmas jingles in Latin,  
mid-February with no regard to Lincoln
or the people he is said to have helped liberate.
It defies logic, gravity, good intention or worst (best) of all – common sense.
You will find it in every church no matter the dogma.
Every court room, police station, financial institution, school, university,
tall building with more glass than steel …
yes, silliness grows there like mold in a dingy basement
overpopulated with sprickets.

Silliness is a disease.

Not to be confused with silly smiles and clowns at the circus.
This is not the silliness of your youth, but the silliness of adults
who have sold their love of the moment
and lust for life for the deadly elixir of conformity.
Conditioned by an unrelenting tidal wave of negative energy
and condemnation, they sign their death certificates long before they die.
Dreams and happiness are replaced with life insurance policies,
401k's and 403b's. In this lies the silliness.
As the masses line up one by one at the top of the cliff
and follow in suit as the jumping begins.
Into the abyss they leap, medical and dental plan in one hand
and neatly mowed lawn in the other.
As the happy children play to their parents dismay,
the merry-go-round spins blissfully around
as daddy slowly drowns.

google was my babysitter
not a very good one i'll admit

perhaps more like a cool uncle
with infinitely scrolling treats

the more i tickled his algorithm {
search queries = seo && [freewheeling whims];
}

OR ||
stray thoughts seeking foster homes
just fronts for attention farms

reaping curiosity off the vine
while overclocking the study room

being held to father's chair like a vice
if only to keep me safe in a web

spun by a child's simple thoughts
and a sentient robot babysitter

My babysitter used to the sell the leftover bad parts of her **** to her classmates at Lake Catholic
Paying for her stash by separating the junk
And selling it to spoiled rich girls who didn't know better
She was only part of this upper crust because of her Dad's insurance settlement
When a security guard high on drugs beat him

It is this irony that runs through my head, when she exclaimed, "I thought you were gay," when she found out I was married.
When I still was.

we begin
as college sweethearts.
maybe
made express efforts
       to ignore dreams,
       & the careers within those dreams.
to slip away and instead
assemble upon eachother’s bodies.
                           fuse into one.
one & new dreams.
with our mouths we speak of love.
                   we eat and eat and replicate
                   the fridge-inner with groceries endless.
we work until our fingers go numb
                          work the steering wheel way
home ::: to you.

maybe we drift, some days;
before;
& after ::: the lump in your breast.
                    you think of black depths,
                    eternal depths,
& the fire we are.
the fire we live,
                     in restless color.
all else is oxytocin
           so soaked,
           so thick upon our thoughts.

& we only know the world as reflected in words like
                                                                ­                           love.

an idea, a notion, an act,
a belly, baby :::
                   ::: echo of us.
& as our happiness metastasizes,
         we grey on certain edges,
         we say things that remind us of our parents’ voices;
& slip away
into the night, to dance,
to remember.

the babysitter will get a good tip,
us being so late.
the child sleeps
& you are smiling.

When I was younger my babysitter was my sister
I would call her my baby sister but she was older than me five and a half years
A mother figure figuring out what to do
Telling me when to boil the water
Or when to change the laundry and
Put it in the dryer and
Always still having time to beat the **** out of me when she was frustrated
But I get it it's ok
It's alright we had to fight
The battles within ourselves externally and verbally
I remember when I called you fat
I didn't really know what it meant
I didn't know it would hurt you like that and
I felt so bad
I remember when grandma died
When you cried and cried and cried and so did I
Only because you were
I know I was always an annoying little kid
I remember at fourteen you fled to grandpas house and
I would soon follow because the pain became too much
I faltered and fell away slowly at first
But eventually my clarity was few and far between and
You became mean
'We don't want you here leave'
So at eighteen I put on my shoes and walked away into the distance
No more armed resistance to your pleas for abandonment
If you would've told me what to say or who to tell it to maybe I would've told somebody
Now we bounce off each other like transferred energy
A steel ball see saw pendulum
But we get along

Resting on a stack of
original vinyl’s
a cowboy hat of black felt
the dresser was blonde with gold handles
a collection common in the 1960’s
a small turn table, red handkerchiefs
harmonica, guitar picks and cigarette papers
a diorama of his life
as kids, we would pull out the blue song folder
and sing Your Cheatin’ Heart
into an empty microphone stand
the aroma of rosin and pipe tobacco
guitar cases and Fender amps we dare not touch
when the babysitter’s boyfriend, one night
played Hey Good Lookin’ on the record player
I shot after him like a bear cub
my heart racing in my throat
saying I’m going to tell my Daddy!
a picture I drew found its place by
his fiddle, the one that
sits in my closet today, someday,
I will learn to play Lovesick Blues
because every time I hear that song
my dad is wearing his hat
tapping his feet
and singing like ol’ Hank Williams

A Word

            There you are
                Sitting so peacefully,
                    Typing away at your keyboard.

            I'm gazing upon your beauty,
                Wishing for more.
                    Will you notice me?

            "Come look at this."
                You say to me, so I walk on over to see,
                    A video and nothing more.

A Sentence

            We meet again; months have passed as
                We look around this new class.
                    It is with recognition that we sit together.

            Day after day, week after week,
                We listen, we chat, we study and test.
                    Together we learn what this man has to teach.

          
A Paragraph

            Help, you're in need of
                A babysitter with no time to wait.
                    "Can you help me?"

            I'm here for you, happy to help!
                Time and again, I'll watch her for you.
                    Such a delight, she shows me the light.

            Our friendship grows with each passing day
                A coffee, a visit, a walk, a lunch break,
                    Our bond grows stronger as time passes us by.

A Page

            The child already knew,
                Long before either of us.
                    Until a friend asks and we're together at last

            No longer hiding it from ourselves,
                We begin to move forward as
                    Hand in hand, we tackle this world.

            We run, we play, we date, we love.
                With smiles and tears, and hugs and kisses,
                    With texting at night, and calling all day.
            
            Soon we find our own way, an apartment just for us,
                We've a family to raise, and experiences to make as
                    Our numbers grow with a baby on the way.

A Chapter

            Sickness befalls you, this pregnancy is hard,
                But I'll care for you as we fight for our child and
                    Together we will make it through.

            Every day that I watch you lying in bed
                I am wishing I could take this pain from you
                    But all I can do is stand by and try to help.

            So many hospital visits, so many needles,
                Until the day we have been striving for arrives.
                    Today our son will join us in the light.

            He has left you so weak, you can barely stand.
                As you recover, time goes on and our love grows stronger
                    Until, sure in my decision, I buy the ring.

An Epic
            A picnic in peace among the trees.
                A question I ask, your eyes full of joy
                    A tackle more than a hug, yes of course you will.
            
            We tell the littles, the excitement grows and
                We begin to plan, how will it go?
                    Hurry not, we have time to decide

            A quiet ceremony to follow,
                A Monday dressed in purple
                    I do, and so do you.

            Smiles and love from all around us,
                We feel it in our hearts, we're on the right track
                    It is time to move forward, no looking back.
                    

A Novel

            We find a bigger home and are
                Settled at last, our rhythm restored,
                    We live happily for awhile until...

            A rumble, a quake,
                Our world begins to shake,
                    Filling with judgement, blame, anger and hate

            We begin to fight, to dissipate.
                We heal and break, time after time.
                    We're both wearing thin.

            Do we stay together?
                Do we put up a fight?
                    Do we make the call, will it be alright?

            
            Looking for a resolution
                We tried to make it work but
                    Every attempt only made it worse,
                    

An Ending

            I have given up, I've let go of hope.
                I have stopped the clock, it ticks no more.
                    We couldn't keep it up, we've broken down.

            Although your tears hurt me,
                They do not persuade
                    And it is with a heavy heart that I walk away.

An Epilogue

            I've moved out, we have gone our ways.
                But I am not gone, my kids shall not be without.
                    Yet come today, I find there's no going back

            We've fought our fights and talked our talks,
                We'll find our new rhythm and learn to coexist,
                    But we both know that things will never be the same.

            Our past is what makes us, we would never undo it
                Now at a distance we stand, no longer hand in hand
                    As we gaze over the horizon and look to the future.

The people regrettably frown
on Congress men with their pants down.
Poor ****** was caught in a lie
concerning unzipping his fly.
Despite having just wed his bride
****** wanted some on the side.
Now both sides of the aisle are atwitter
that his twee-tie was a babysitter.
He gave poor Ms Pelosi a fright
when she saw that he hangs to the right.
He looks in your eyes when he lies
but I doubt anyone is surprised
He was known as a distinguished member
now a registered ****** offender