She is scared. Her eyes are red from crying and she is fragile and lost. I smile at her and she smiles back, but mostly because she thinks she is supposed to. She looks like she always does what she’s told. We go to the closet to pick out new clothes from the donations. She will be 12 next month. She wears a size six shirt and size seven pants. She looks undernourished.  I show her the room she will sleep in and let her choose a bed. I tell her how much I love her hair, and what a beautiful name she has. She smiles compliantly. But I can see she is scared.

He is tough. He is six and full of energy. He is a mixture of wanting to please and wanting to be naughty. But after he’s naughty, he is supplicating and desperate for approval. He is naughty again. He is playing on the steps to the upper bunk bed where he will sleep tonight. I ask him not to. He lies, and says he wasn’t. Then a loud cry as his shin connects with an unforgiving wooden step. I pick him up and put him on a chair. “Let me see, buddy.” I pat his back. He shows me and I tell him if he rubs it, it will get better faster. He says he is better. He says he is tough.

She is full of words. She is his six year old twin. She is dressed in a Disney dress and wants me to see. I tell her she is a beautiful princess and ask if she can twirl. She twirls until she is dizzy, then stops and rushes to find my eyes to see if I’m still watching. She is surprised when I am, and I clap with joy at how she can twirl. She is desperate to show me her room, her new shoes, her McDonald’s toy, her backpack. But I mostly see her heart, which is starving for recognition and attention. She is unaccustomed to receiving so much of it. She tells me about her teacher, her playdough, her fingernail. She has a lot to say about everything except what she is going through. She gives me little information. She is full of words.

He is tender. He is three and more verbal and articulate than the six year old. He has big brown cow eyes and tiny wrists. I show him the trains. He plays and plays, now and again glancing up at his infant sister who is crying in my arms, to tell her it’s ok. Back to his trains.  “Thomas the train is scared.” He tells me. “He is just little and he’s scared.” I choke back the sob and tell him Thomas is not alone and that he has friends to help him. I tell him even though he is little and scared, his friends are here for him. “Yeah,” he acknowledges. I hear him tell some other toys that he has to save his mom and sister, and then I remember that domestic violence brought him to our shelter tonight. He is honest. He is smart. He is adorable. He is tender.

She is inconsolable. She is almost six months old, and has tears running down her cheeks. I hold her and I tell her in soothing tones she is special. She tries to drink from her bottle, but then she abruptly stops and wails. I feel guilty that I have to turn my head to breathe for a minute, because she smells so badly. I cannot bathe her until she goes to the hospital for an exam and documentation. She is the one most accurately telling me her feelings tonight, and I can’t help her. I try and I soothe and I walk and I am gentle. But she is inconsolable.

I am undone. I get home and take off the clothes that smell like the baby. I fall in a heap at the cross. I tell Jesus they are no one’s, and they need Him. He tells me they are His. He tells me they are mine.

i should really
quit smoking you,
i’m ignorant
no more,
ashtray’s
fill faster
than my lungs,
quietly whispering
tip toes provoke
the screams of
hardwood
every night
at around 1 o’clock,
making way
to attempt quiet
openings of
neglecting doors,
sitting amidst the
tranquility as
the ******
fissure eats
the dancing smoke
while she
paints abstracts
on teeth
tongue
lungs
heart
and the
cognitive inability
to separate
index from middle
comes not from
ignorance
but from how
she holds me
tighter than anyone,
touches my lips
more compliantly  
than any woman,
she will never leave me
even as i take her
top off and
share breaths,
her touch is
recognizable
most nocturnally,
i know the damage
she does to me
she’ll cut my life in half,
she’s the only thing
i will let in that will
**** me,
she moulds
leisure and pleasure
as if i wear them on
my back,
her body is
pale as my fingers
drip down
and feel
as i exhume
her insides
intertwining
with mine,
listening to your
cries as i inhale
provokes me to
do so more
and more
and more
until i leave you
for the night,

i should
indeed quit
smoking cigarettes
as well

Those cruppled  crisp bags
a quick fix saline rush
theres better in pepper.
There been a lack of colour since 1972
Females were more surreal,
a midnight stint was possible then,
more than their hard pressed  
sisters currently conveying
adroit skills text thumbing
for that unfinished message.
Men no longer compliantly gallant,
merely over worked alabaster relief
with no self belief,
yet trying to project
anything other than diminished.
We have lost our confidence
verge on cloisters,
romance too few
believability never the done deal.

Another day of never sun, a leaden heap that frowns above
Whilst the few tangled answers quiver rhymelessly as it trifles
In other ways, however done, instead, a sleep encrowns its love
And the dew-spangled branches shiver timelessly as the sky falls

The paper lanterns on the wall betray the leaves’ seat in the dark
And the cool ochre gloaming spurs a telling and frail ardour
Now vapour cantons over all display the eve’s sweet watermark
And a cruel joking moan occurs, impelling the rainfall harder

I linger by my window pane as twilight reddens every mote
And I stay, candid; I pass days compliantly standing upright
My finger spry discinds the rain and yea, night deadens every note
And a stray strand of ryegrass sways defiantly in the half-light

The following statements of truth were brought to you
Not through, but circumnavigating fated parameters
Of insane, yet normative, largely uninformative
Mechanisms that formally give birth to *******;
And instead, strategically splicing said bounds with
Ideal variables derived from the courageously quixotic,
Unrobotic, and outraged agents of, and for, capital Real:

The train of corporate reasoning derails so fast
To follow is to snap the head backward,
Far past angles within measures of pleasurable fit
And open gates to deluging tangled circular
Failures of logic that trick and co-opt the proletariat.

We are Present-Ambassadors with broken flux-capacitors
Demonstrating a consistent tendency toward error
In efforts to obtain diplomatic access to a future where
The same reemerging deficits do not manifest unfixed.
One of said deficits may include all positive freedoms.

For the record, it shall be noted that civil society
Currently arrives implicitly to find it compliantly fine
To promote systems of labor designed to illicit behaviors
That will eventually undermine the actors of exhaustive work
And make benefactors of those complicit in crime.

As case studies of this paradoxical paradigm, we observe
Nations signing trade agreements aligned with
Selling more of the goods whose extractions have
Cataclysmic exactions upon locals contracted not to resist.
Those who take issue with this are directed to appellate institutions.
The projected scarcity of over-consumed poisons causes fear
Which leads to faster hoarding and more ex(t/p)ensive death.

Thus, most human behaviors presently inflate pricing, popularity,
And rapidity associated with committing system-wide suicide.
As shackle-some power consolidation bends toward a transnational peak
I hereby slide-tackle these forwarded trends, seeking goals of the rational.

Here we are, children of the Almighty Being
finished in the image to multiply and prosper, freely
as we continue to slumber in an endless dream
manifesting itself in a smug like comfort, so willingly

Time to grow and see pass the learned behavior
Time to grow and embrace one's spiritual flavor
Time to grow and regain the fruits of the garden
Time to grow and live in peace on this earthly heaven

Here we go, children never really rising
satisfied with the glamour of a self-indulgent life, compliantly
as we contend to control this false existence
clinging on this lifeline with defiance, so desperately

Time to grow and see the difference in others
Time to grow and embrace the leaves of Fall's weather
Time to grow and sip the love of the Carpenter's chalice
Time to grow and grasp wisdom of the Word without malice

For the time to grow is here, set aside for us to be clear
on a life we should lead, meek in the fullness of our deeds.