Some people will approach you. You will let them, and they will hurt you.
But here’s the twist: they won’t want to.
Their intentions are sweet and pure, like petals that drip in honey.
Flowers; but the kind that are covered in thorns.
But here’s the twist: they do not know they have thorns.

“Where are you!” they will cry, standing in the quiet café you would meet.
But they will not find you.

You hide, hearing their soft whimpers, and you think, “Oh, what should I do?”
But you see, you cannot tell them about their thorns.
You cannot say ‘you are unsafe for me’ without breaking their heart and yours with the truth, the crushing truth. For thorns only fall when a soul has grown enough, and theirs has not grown where yours has;

“Please speak to me! I don’t understand!”

and this is why they do not yet have the capacity to understand your silence.

You hide still, and you cover your ears, but oh, how painful it can be, when flowers are so stubborn!
“Shush”! you want to tell them, “Shush! You cannot yet hear the truth! Stop calling my name, I’ve little patience left! Do not hurt yourself, do not hurt me!”

The thorns that *****, the honey-kissed petals that fall.
Oh, how frustrating! -to hide from flowers who only wish to love, but have not yet learned how.
Oh, how sorrowful! -to see a hand bleed when you caress it, to be covered in thorns, and to not even know it!
Yes, how awful it is, to hurt another.

I will tell you something.
I have pricked the ones I love, when I only wanted to give,
and I have hurt flowers who all but withered away at my silence- whose souls had not grown where mine had.
So you see, I am both the flower and the Other, so I understand.

And so here it is, here is what I want to say:
Shush, flower. Stop calling their name. You cannot yet hear the truth. Do not look for it; for it will crush you. Do not hurt yourself, do not hurt them. Shush; the pain you seek to **** will not wane with force. Shush, flower, quiet your wants. Listen instead; listen to the lessons of the universe, grow. For only when you have grown will you be able to understand.
Shush, flower, and know, that one day you will sigh at the memory of your pain, and the thorns will have fallen from your body; and flower, oh flower,

you will be able to hold their hand.

What’s more depressing than darkness,
More shameful than a golden fool,
As hopeless as a castrated bull,
As frustrating, as a stalemate, in chess?

The smooth surface of a snooze button
Probably pressed enough for two people
Lastingly longs for a lift of his head
Heavenly hopes in hand the button wafts herbaceous
Scents seducing his sack of sullen

The button beckons in unbearable vain
Wishing his waste of space could find work
Or motivation to move about the mattress
Cause cheerlessness corrupts even carefree things

Including myself inclined to intervene
So I will surround the room with sound
In a frustrating futile fling of furry
Until I encumber bereavement from bills I beckon upon.

It can be Frustrating to look so mean
When Success presents your Certificate
And Honest Fans some to most turn so Green
When their Tangent Voices are celibate
Now my only Say to unsoak the Blame
Is when that Sponge within Speaks without Words
You know it as HEART; That Character sane,
Serene discharge of Flavoured Bees and Birds
Even when Flowers rebel and Worms spit
Still your Compassion can embrace them all
Believe this: In, to Out, Around and Fit
Past the Royal Egg survive a Great Fall.
It's been there in you; And all of this Time
My Lesson to learn from Wise Owls behind.

Obscure
the messages,
their context
out of synch,
don't you just love
cyber space?

I want to see an actual face.........her your voice.

On the dusty slopes where there's still cowpokes, where there's yet more sky than land,
In the Big Sky State, back in thirty-eight, they were hiring at Fort Peck Dam.

In the open skies where I get my highs, past the spill-way and the fort,
A small town looms where there's more saloons than a feller like me could sport.

Came a Texan bloke who was almost broke (and I'll tell you right now, it was I).
I was looking for work, something of my sort, but I'd take any job to get by.

At a cowpoke's inn where I wet my chin, and while standing at the bar,
I watched a girl who could dance and whirl to the tunes of a wrangler's guitar.

Every eye in the bar watched her jiggle and jar, not a one who wouldn't make her his own.
But, in spite of her shaking, I could see she was taken by a gent who sat back all alone.

And I saw in his face that he felt disgrace, Saw the jealousy seethe in his eyes.
Though he sat in disdain, and he never complained, his displeasure was easily surmised.

In a place where legends and tales abound, where circumstance rules the day,
Shaping men's schemes and frustrating their dreams, Till their willpower has no sway.

Where fate may run contrary to plan, frustrating our deepest desire.
It has often been shown that the life of a man can be changed when his soul's set afire.

I can only tell what I know is true , what I saw with my very own eyes.
But the man, alone in the back of the room, had a murderous look in his eyes.

I left the bar and went up to my room; tomorrow I'd be working for sure.
And the music still played, but the blare and the din didn't keep me from sleeping till four.

The morning came fast, and now working, at last, (for they'd hired me to work on the dam).
I worked and I toiled and I know my blood boiled pouring concrete for old Uncle Sam.

I gave no thought at all of the evening before; soon the whistle blew, ending my day.
And a drink with the crew seemed the right thing to do. I still had a few bucks I could pay.

At a bar back in town where we all bought a round The gossips were whispering a tale.
It seems like the girl, who knew how to whirl, was being held down at the jail.

A body was found under two feet of ground in a newly dug patch of her lawn.
And no one was missed from the residents list but her husband, nowhere to be found.

The body was new, but was nothing to view. It was burned beyond recognition.
Folks came forward to tell of a marriage from hell, of suspicions and speculation.

They had argued and fought over things she had bought. Some said he had threatened to leave her.
And a weapon was found laying there on the ground. He'd been slain with her brand new meat cleaver.

It was open and shut, they'd arrested her ****. and there weren't any clues to redeem her.
The gossip was keen and vicious and mean. Every woman in town would demean her.

Then a telegram came and I got on a train to a Texas town on the divide.
Where my father, quite ill, was having a spell and I wanted to be by his side.

I was well out of town when I happened to hear a railroad detective named Sam
Tell a story, quite odd, of a hobo he thought was asleep, by the track near the dam.

He had gone off to chase the *** from his place and had tossed a road flare on his bed.
But he fell to surprise when the *** failed to rise; and approaching, he found him quite dead.

He left him to burn so the next one would learn that "Old Sam was the king of this road."
But when he went back there was nothing but track, not a sign of the *** or his load.

Then I had an idea, for it made me recall what I'd seen that first night at the inn.
In the look on the face of a fellow disgraced, who had now vanished into the wind.

Had he buried that *** and planted some clues, then departed on this same train?
Sent his wife off to jail and covered his trail-- to start his life over again?

When I was chief creative officer for Liz Claiborne Inc., I spent a good amount of time on the road hosting fashion shows highlighting our brands. Our team made a point of retaining models of various sizes, shapes and ages, because one of the missions of the shows was to educate audiences about how they could look their best. At a Q&A; after one event in Nashville in 2010, a woman stood up, took off her jacket and said, with touching candour: “Tim, look at me. I’m a box on top, a big, square box. How can I dress this shape and not look like a fullback?” It was a question I’d heard over and over during the tour: Women who were larger than a size 12 always wanted to know, How can I look good, and why do designers ignore me?

At New York Fashion Week, which began Thursday, the majority of American women are unlikely to receive much attention, either. Designers keep their collections tightly under wraps before sending them down the runway, but if past years are any indication of what’s to come, plus-size looks will be in short supply. Sure, at New York Fashion Week in 2015, Marc Jacobs and Sophie Theallet each featured a plus-size model and Ashley Graham debuted her plus-size lingerie line. But these moves were very much the exception, not the rule.

I love the American fashion industry, but it has a lot of problems and one of them is the baffling way it has turned its back on plus-size women. It’s a puzzling conundrum. The average American woman now wears between a size 16 and a size 18, according to new research from Washington State University. There are 100 million plus-size women in America, and, for the past three years, they have increased their spending on clothes faster than their straight-size counterparts. There is money to be made here ($20.4 billion (U.S.), up 17 per cent from 2013). But many designers — dripping with disdain, lacking imagination or simply too cowardly to take a risk — still refuse to make clothes for them.

In addition to the fact that most designers max out at size 12, the selection of plus-size items on offer at many retailers is paltry compared with what’s available for a size 2 woman. According to a Bloomberg analysis, only 8.5 per cent of dresses on Nordstrom.com in May were plus-size. At J.C. Penney’s website, it was 16 per cent; Nike.com had a mere five items — total.

I’ve spoken to many designers and merchandisers about this. The overwhelming response is, “I’m not interested in her.” Why? “I don’t want her wearing my clothes.” Why? “She won’t look the way that I want her to look.” They say the plus-size woman is complicated, different and difficult, that no two size 16s are alike. Some haven’t bothered to hide their contempt. “No one wants to see curvy women” on the runway, Karl Lagerfeld, head designer of Chanel, said in 2009. Plenty of mass retailers are no more enlightened: under the tenure of chief executive Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie & Fitch sold nothing larger than a size 10, with Jeffries explaining that “we go after the attractive, all-American kid.”

This a design failure and not a customer issue. There is no reason larger women can’t look just as fabulous as all other women. The key is the harmonious balance of silhouette, proportion and fit, regardless of size or shape. Designs need to be reconceived, not just sized up; it’s a matter of adjusting proportions. The textile changes, every seam changes. Done right, our clothing can create an optical illusion that helps us look taller and slimmer. Done wrong, and we look worse than if we were naked.

Have you shopped retail for size 14-plus clothing? Based on my experience shopping with plus-size women, it’s a horribly insulting and demoralizing experience. Half the items make the body look larger, with features like ruching, box pleats and shoulder pads. Pastels and large-scale prints and crazy pattern-mixing abound, all guaranteed to make you look infantile or like a float in a parade. Adding to this travesty is a major department-store chain that makes you walk under a marquee that reads “WOMAN.” What does that even imply? That a “woman” is anyone larger than a 12 and everyone else is a girl? It’s mind-boggling.

Project Runway, the design competition show on which I’m a mentor, has not been a leader on this issue. Every season we have the “real women” challenge (a title I hate), in which the designers create looks for non-models. The designers audibly groan, though I’m not sure why; in the real world, they won’t be dressing a seven-foot-tall glamazon.

This season, something different happened: Ashley Nell Tipton won the contest with the show’s first plus-size collection. But even this achievement managed to come off as condescending. I’ve never seen such hideous clothes in my life: bare midriffs; skirts over crinoline, which give the clothes, and the wearer, more volume; see-through skirts that reveal *******; pastels, which tend to make the wearer look juvenile; and large-scale floral embellishments that shout “prom.” Her victory reeked of tokenism. One judge told me that she was “voting for the symbol” and that these were clothes for a “certain population.” I said they should be clothes all women want to wear. I wouldn’t dream of letting any woman, whether she’s a size 6 or a 16, wear them. Simply making a nod toward inclusiveness is not enough.

This problem is difficult to change. The industry, from the runway to magazines to advertising, likes subscribing to the mythology it has created of glamour and thinness. Look at Vogue’s “Shape Issue,” which is ostensibly a celebration of different body types but does no more than nod to anyone above a size 12. For decades, designers have trotted models with bodies completely unattainable for most women down the runway. First it was women so thin that they surely had eating disorders. After an outcry, the industry responded by putting young teens on the runway, girls who had yet to exit puberty. More outrage.

But change is not impossible. There are aesthetically worthy retail successes in this market. When helping women who are size 14 and up, my go-to retailer is Lane Bryant. While the items aren’t fashion with a capital F, they are stylish (but please avoid the cropped pants — always a no-no for any woman). And designer Christian Siriano scored a design and public relations victory after producing a look for Leslie Jones to wear to the “Ghostbusters” red-carpet premiere. Jones, who is not a diminutive woman, had tweeted in despair that she couldn’t find anyone to dress her; Siriano stepped in with a lovely full-length red gown.

Several retailers that have stepped up their plus-size offerings have been rewarded. In one year, ModCloth doubled its plus-size lineup. To mark the anniversary, the company paid for a survey of 1,500 American women ages 18 to 44 and released its findings: Seventy-four per cent of plus-size women described shopping in stores as “frustrating”; 65 per cent said they were “excluded.” (Interestingly, 65 per cent of women of all sizes agreed that plus-size women were ignored by the fashion industry.) But the plus-size women surveyed also indicated that they wanted to shop more. More than 80 per cent said they’d spend more on clothing if they had more choices in their size and nearly 90 per cent said they would buy more if they had trendier options. According to the company, its plus-size shoppers place 20 per cent more orders than its straight-size customers.

Online start-up Eloquii, initially conceived and then killed by The Limited, was reborn in 2014. The trendy plus-size retailer, whose top seller is an over-the-knee boot with four-inch heels and extended calf sizes, grew its sales volume by more than 165 per cent in 2015.

Despite the huge financial potential of this market, many designers don’t want to address it. It’s not in their vocabulary. Today’s designers operate within paradigms that were established decades ago, including anachronistic sizing. (Consider the fashion show: It hasn’t changed in more than a century.) But this is now the shape of women in this nation, and designers need to wrap their minds around it. I profoundly believe that women of every size can look good. But they must be given choices. Separates — tops, bottoms — rather than single items like dresses or jumpsuits always work best for the purpose of fit. Larger women look great in clothes skimming the body, rather than hugging or cascading. There’s an art to doing this. Designers, make it work.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses

Your curls are Gulf Coast weather,
rarely cloudless and sunny, each
frustrating loop a messy
ice-cream scoop cascade.
They look like a love affair,
as ***-centered as your star sign,
too-friendly, sunday-sensuous,
meandering into ***** knots.
Every sweet-floral-fruity
custard you toss them in
is as well deserved as the
satin on your lashes and the
salve that slicks your
orbicular body.

When God created me He knew what he would see,
Someone that wasn't perfect or in heaven I would be.
He put me here on earth to lead this life I live,
Learning as I go giving what I can give.
He knew that I would stumble and sometimes even fall,
He knew that I would suffer and for Jesus Christ I would call.
He's had a plan for me from the very first day,
Frustrating times will be but soon I would see his way.
The love I have inside me all the good that I must do,
This does not go unnoticed and I know He sees it too.
I thank you God, for all you do even when my heart strays from You.
My heart is yours, forever more until the day I'm at your door.

The Hanbleceya.
The cry for a vision.
The Vision Quest.
The space between worlds.
In the presence of the Great Mystery.
I went down to the fire,
and she, the self I aim to be,
was not there.
I became her.
And maybe just for that moment on my blanket because I needed to be her.
She is on the eternal quest.
Forever in search,
forever seeking.
That magic I was hoping for did not emerge in the way I believed it would...
I let instead the Earth, and only her,
hear my screams.
Hear some deep agony within me,
maybe not even completely of my own.
Maybe the ancestral pains of the women who carried lives before me.
Red is the road to my heart,
is the color that bled out of me on the way up.
Dripping prayers down my legs,
each step became even more sacred.
Together, we sang our warrior song.
They are my amor, my comfort, my shelter, my warmth.
But on your blanket in your circle of prayers,
there is only you and the Creator.
You and the Great Mystery.
You and your fears, your pains, your demons.
You and your truths, your reasons, your prayers.
It is your choice whether to feed to thirst and hunger in your head,
or the hunger in your soul.
There is no greater pain than a soul not enacting its purpose,
its duty, its agreement with the Divine.
No greater pain.
And those screams that emerged from me,
from depths vast and deep,
was everything I ever let block me.
When we are broken open,
when we cry that deep soul cry,
we are breaking to let love and truth in,
we are watering our gardens.
So what magic am I believing was not present?
A vision may have not been shown to me,
but the courage of a single moment was.
To decide to not shut my eyes,
but to pray.
To offer compassions back to the Earth and take less for myself.
To not **** a single mosquito,
but rather walk off that blanket four days later marked with their persistence.
I watched their points enter my flesh
and saw their bodies fill with my blood.
Maybe they were extracting from me all that I no longer need.
And what itch is worse?
That of a red bump,
or that of the soul's need to incessantly scratch through its flesh suit to get to the core of its truth?
There were hours upon hours I let myself fall silent.
Listened to the sound of the woodpecker,
watched the spider crawl,
saw the turkey run.
They know how to be at home here.
And it is nothing grand that they do,
but they understand their purpose and place and they do not strive to feed and ego.
They do not "Ease God Out."
They are of God,
they are a God of their own.
So how do I remove myself from all the ******* of this world
if I do not place my being into the womb of Creation and sit?
The layers strip down,
the sun rises and sets and does so again.
I began to know before the sky would lighten that the morning was coming soon just by the sounds of the forrest.
The great trees barely swayed and the Earth was uprooting.
What am I doing here?
The days were long and hard and filled with a frustrating buzzing in my ears.
Buzzing like all the nonsensical thoughts we have on a daily basis.
If only our ears would buzz and ring every time we had a thought that backtracked us from our truths
and the inherent love that is within our beings.
If only we had the persistence of the mosquito that does not,
will not stop until it is filled with the one nectar it was meant to live on.
There were moments of bliss and moments I felt anxiety bubble up within.
Such a rare form of myself,
a piece of me I do not know too well.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin and be gone.
Be wind, be ether, be smoke.
Be gone.
And then they came,
bearing compassion.
Just a single sip of water.
Just a little.
They handed me that cup and I just cried.
Cried from the depths of my being.
"Do I even deserve this?"
And I let some moments pass,
held that cup in my hands and prayed in the form of tears.
That water,
that precious gift bearing life,
it touched my lips and made its way into my being.
And all become calm.
I am here for a purpose,
on this blanket, I mean.
I am here and meant to be no where but here.
And gently they spoke of the 6 pointed white star flowers surrounding me.
Not to me,
but a message for me.
A reminder of the beauty all around,
if I would only just look.
There I was,
sitting upon the hands of Creation.
If I had just stopped to listen,
stopped to breathe,
maybe I would have understood that on my own.
But that is why we tie that red prayer hung to our Ancestors.
He said,
"that prayer is your reminder to come back."
So for the next 360 days until I sit upon my blanket again,
the only prayer is to remember what I learned on that Mountain.
To remember what a blessing it is to drink a sip of water,
to be alone,
to look not into the eyes of another,
but only see the beauty of Creation.
I went out there wanting to be silent.
To just listen to what the world had to speak to me,
to shut out the voice in my head,
but there were moments that I could not hold back the words and prayers from my throat,
moments I needed to send my voice up or else I swore I would get up off that blanket and just walk away.
Moments I swore I would have filled the Earth with my screams again.
And when I spoke,
it was with such softness.
Maybe to not disrupt the frequency that Mountain has known long before Creator ever chose that spot for me to pray.
Maybe because when I spoke I barely recognized my own voice.
Because when you speak to Creation,
it is the truest version of yourself whose voice rises up from the very depths of your soul.
This is the voice that Creator knows.
And I just need to say I'm sorry that if for any moment I used my voice not pray
or to talk myself back into my heart and out of my head.
I'm sorry if I wasted a single moment on that Mountain.
The minutes seem so long when you're out there,
but now as I'm back home,
I'm wishing I could have just a few moments back on my blanket.
That I could have just one more opportunity to pray.
I would say to the Creator my name,
I would say please help me because I am struggling.
Please help me because  just want to make the best out of my life.
Please help me because I want to make sure I am on the right path to my purpose.
Please help me because I never want to know a life without you,
without prayer, without this Red Road.
Just one more time I want to speak those truths and let my tears become offerings of myself to the Earth.
But that is why we tie that prayer in Red.
Because I can go back.
I will go back and again be given the holy space to send my voice up and pray,
to cry,
to fall into silence,
to watch the sun set and rise again.
And I can stop now and breath.
I can stop and close my eyes and be on my blanket.
I can smell the freshness of Earth and the copal cloud of smoke.
I can pray and cry with myself on that blanket,
because there is a piece of me that will always be there.

Waiting
will always be for me the most effective
(albeit the most frustrating)
of all the means of time travel.
You won't find me in those new fangled machines.
(You don't know when you'll end up.)
Just leave me be.
I'll wait now and see you later.

I have to throw up walls...
I have to refuse...
I wish I didn't have to,
But that's not possible;
At least not with you.

I love you and I've learned.
I can't give you everything.
Or you would just use me up.
The frustrating part?
You're unaware. Or your not listening.
It's the same either way.
It's for my own good
And yours too

Your reaction confirms I'm doing the right thing
Or you'd never respect my answer
(not that you really do now)
but I respect myself enough to say it.

I've been too lenient with you.
A realization that comes too late.
Like a mother and her child
Realizing her mistake during the tantrum.
The realization comes with the knowledge that you present understanding until met with opposition.
Contradictory texts and I now realize, painfully, you knew it was a big ask

....you just weren't expecting me to say no....

You don't respect my time. That much is clear. I just wish I realized it sooner.

So your motorbike gets you from A to B
With no hiccups or fuckups or stops in between,

No ponderous walking just to **** time
Or impromptu chats with a friendly old guy,

An excuse just ramble and gather your thoughts
Explore a some places or visit old haunts

If you find something new in an old part of town,
You find that there's worse things than sometimes breakingdown.

I admit it's frustrating to get to work late,
Or have your dinner plans foiled whilst out on a date.

But When friends say "just get a bike that works'
I reply "one that doesn't sometimes has its perks."

You had your words and I had mine.
But where your words were beautifully crafted,
mine were a jumbled mess.

“I don’t know why...”

Wait.

That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever written.
I know exactly–
Why I don’t write.
Why I can’t write.
Why I’m terrified to write.

Every time I open my laptop–
I’m loading that hollow point bullet into
the cylinder, giving it a casual last roll,
and pressing the muzzle to my temple

Every time I push my pen to the paper–
I’m finishing up that thirteenth rung on a
noose and slipping it tightly over my throat,
standing at the edge of the seat, waiting to take a step.

Every time I think–
Every time I write–
I hesitate.

And you make it sound so simple.

You can pull a beautiful phrase from the skyline
and have a masterpiece in minutes,
while I set here scheming for hours;
trying to expel just a word or two from my consciousness.

It really ****** me off that you can do that.

You know?

His wails put a knife to my chest
He can't comprehend the world
Where his mother went
Why his father is never to be seen
Why his family is struggling
Why strangers are so mean
Why school is frustrating
Why danger is obscene

His smile jammed the knife deep down
His mother is trying to get back up
But the only thing coming back up
Is her delayed dinner
He can't express himself
Without making a scene
He just wants to be normal
His normality is aware to me

His struggle pulled the knife out
I tell him that I love him
I laugh at his jokes
I pull his legs into bed at night
I check on his medication
I-I-I
How self centered I am
I need to try harder, stop his confused cries

His future helped me close my eyes
Say good night to the helpless
This strange little boy
That I describe in this rhyme
He is my brother
Can't even tell the time
But he can stand tall
When the world decides to fall

At age 45 I decided to become a sailor.  It had attracted me since I first saw a man living on his sailboat at the 77th street boat basin in New York City, back in 1978.  I was leaving on a charter boat trip with customers up the Hudson to West Point, and the image of him having coffee on the back deck of his boat that morning stayed with me for years.  It was now 1994, and I had just bought a condo on the back bay of a South Jersey beach town — and it came with a boat slip.

I started my search for a boat by first reading every sailing magazine I could get my hands on.  This was frustrating because most of the boats they featured were ‘way’ out of my price range. I knew I wanted a boat that was 25’ to 27’ in length and something with a full cabin below deck so that I could sail some overnight’s with my wife and two kids.

I then started to attend boat shows.  The used boats at the shows were more in my price range, and I traveled from Norfolk to Mystic Seaport in search of the right one.  One day, while checking the classifieds in a local Jersey Shore newspaper, I saw a boat advertised that I just had to go see …

  For Sale: 27’ Cal Sloop. Circa 1966. One owner and used very
   gently.  Price $6,500.00 (negotiable)

This boat was now almost 30 years old, but I had heard good things about the Cal’s.  Cal was short for California. It was a boat originally manufactured on the west coast and the company was now out of business.  The brand had a real ‘cult’ following, and the boat had a reputation for being extremely sea worthy with a fixed keel, and it was noted for being good in very light air.  This boat drew over 60’’ of water, which meant that I would need at least five feet of depth (and really seven) to avoid running aground.  The bay behind my condo was full of low spots, especially at low tide, and most sailors had boats with retractable centerboards rather than fixed keels.  This allowed them to retract the boards (up) during low tide and sail in less than three feet of water. This wouldn’t be an option for me if I bought the Cal.

I was most interested in ‘blue water’ ocean sailing, so the stability of the fixed keel was very attractive to me.  I decided to travel thirty miles North to the New Jersey beach town of Mystic Island to look at the boat.  I arrived in front of a white bi-level house on a sunny Monday April afternoon at about 4:30. The letters on the mailbox said Murphy, with the ‘r’ & the ‘p’ being worn almost completely away due to the heavy salt air.

I walked to the front door and rang the buzzer.  An attractive blonde woman about ten years older than me answered the door. She asked: “Are you the one that called about the boat?”  I said that I was, and she then said that her husband would be home from work in about twenty minutes.  He worked for Resorts International Casino in Atlantic City as their head of maintenance, and he knew everything there was to know about the Cal. docked out back.  

Her name was Betty and as she offered me ice tea she started to talk about the boat.  “It was my husband’s best friend’s boat. Irv and his wife Dee Dee live next door but Irv dropped dead of a heart attack last fall.  My husband and Irv used to take the boat out through the Beach Haven Inlet into the ocean almost every night.  Irv bought the boat new back in 1967, and we moved into this house in 1968.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun the two of them had on that old boat.  It’s sat idle, ******* to the bulkhead since last fall, and Dee Dee couldn’t even begin to deal with selling it until her kids convinced her to move to Florida and live with them.  She offered it to my husband Ed but he said the boat would never be the same without Irv on board, and he’d rather see it go to a new owner.  Looking at it every day behind the house just brought back memories of Irv and made him sad all over again every time that he did.”

Just then Ed walked through the door leading from the garage into the house.  “Is this the new sailor I’ve been hearing about,” he said in a big friendly voice.  “That’s me I said,” as we shook hands.  ‘Give me a minute to change and I’ll be right with you.”

As Ed walked me back through the stone yard to the canal behind his house, I noticed something peculiar.  There was no dock at the end of his property.  The boat was tied directly to the sea wall itself with only three yellow and black ‘bumpers’ separating the fiberglass side of the boat from the bulkhead itself.  It was low tide now and the boats keel was sitting in at least two feet of sand and mud.  Ed explained to me that Irv used to have this small channel that they lived on, which was man made, dredged out every year.  Irv also had a dock, but it had even less water underneath it than the bulkhead behind Ed’s house.

Ed said again, “no dredging’s been done this year, and the only way to get the boat out of the small back tributary to the main artery of the bay, is to wait for high tide. The tide will bring the water level up at least six feet.  That will give the boat twenty-four inches of clearance at the bottom and allow you to take it out into the deeper (30 feet) water of the main channel.”

Ed jumped on the boat and said, “C’mon, let me show you the inside.”  As he took the padlock off the slides leading to the companionway, I noticed how motley and ***** everything was. My image of sailing was pristine boats glimmering in the sun with their main sails up and the captain and crew with drinks in their hands.  This was about as far away from that as you could get.  As Ed removed the slides, the smell hit me.  MOLD! The smell of mildew was everywhere, and I could only stay below deck for a moment or two before I had to come back up topside for air.  Ed said, “It’ll all dry out (the air) in about ten minutes, and then we can go forward and look at the V-Berth and the head in the front of the cabin.”

What had I gotten myself into, I thought?  This boat looked beyond salvageable, and I was now looking for excuses to leave. Ed then said, “Look; I know it seems bad, but it’s all cosmetic.  It’s really a fine boat, and if you’re willing to clean it up, it will look almost perfect when you’re done. Before Irv died, it was one of the best looking sailboats on the island.”

In ten more minutes we went back inside.  The damp air had been replaced with fresh air from outside, and I could now get a better look at the galley and salon.  The entire cabin was finished in a reddish brown, varnished wood, with nice trim work along the edges.  It had two single sofas in the main salon that converted into beds at night, with a stainless-steel sink, refrigerator and nice carpeting and curtains.  We then went forward.  The head was about 40’’ by 40’’ and finished in the same wood as the outer cabin.  The toilet, sink, and hand-held shower looked fine, and Ed assured me that as soon as we filled up the water tank, they would all work.

The best part for me though was the v-berth beyond.  It was behind a sold wood varnished door with a beautiful brass grab-rail that helped it open and close. It was large, with a sleeping area that would easily accommodate two people. That, combined with the other two sleeping berths in the main salon, meant that my entire family could spend the night on the boat. I was starting to get really interested!

Ed then said that Irv’s wife Dee Dee was as interested in the boat going to a good home as she was in making any money off the boat.  We walked back up to the cockpit area and sat down across from each other on each side of the tiller.  Ed said, “what do you think?” I admitted to Ed that I didn’t know much about sailboats, and that this would be my first.  He told me it was Irv’s first boat too, and he loved it so much that he never looked at another.

                   Ed Was A Pretty Good Salesman

We then walked back inside the house.  Betty had prepared chicken salad sandwiches, and we all sat out on the back deck to eat.  From here you could see the boat clearly, and its thirty-five-foot mast was now silhouetted in front of the sun that was setting behind the marsh.  It was a very pretty scene indeed.

Ed said,”Dee Dee has left it up to me to sell the boat.  I’m willing to be reasonable if you say you really want it.”  I looked out at what was once a white sailboat, covered in mold and sitting in the mud.  No matter how hard the wind blew, and there was a strong offshore breeze, it was not moving an inch.  I then said to Ed, “would it be possible to come back when the tide is up and you can take me out?”  Ed said he would be glad to, and Saturday around 2:00 p.m. would be a good time to come back. The tide would be up then.  I also asked him if between now and Saturday I could try and clean the boat up a little? This would allow me to really see what I would be buying, and at the very least we’d have a cleaner boat to take out on the water.  Ed said fine.

I spent the next four days cleaning the boat. Armed with four gallons of bleach, rubber gloves, a mask, and more rags than I could count, I started to remove the mold.  It took all week to get the boat free of the mildew and back to being white again. The cushions inside the v-berth and salon were so infested with mold that I threw them up on the stones covering Ed’s back yard. I then asked Ed if he wanted to throw them out — he said that he did.

Saturday came, and Betty had said, “make sure to get here in time for lunch.”  At 11:45 a.m. I pulled up in front of the house.  By this time, we knew each other so well that Betty just yelled down through the screen door, “Let yourself in, Ed’s down by the boat fiddling with the motor.”  The only good thing that had been done since Irv passed away last fall was that Ed had removed the motor from the boat. It was a long shaft Johnson 9.9 horsepower outboard, and he had stored it in his garage.  The motor was over twelve years old, but Ed said that Irv had taken really good care of it and that it ran great.  It was also a long shaft, which meant that the propeller was deep in the water behind the keel and would give the boat more propulsion than a regular shaft outboard would.

I yelled ‘hello’ to Ed from the deck outside the kitchen.  He shouted back, “Get down here, I want you to hear this.”  I ran down the stairs and out the back door across the stones to where Ed was sitting on the boat.  He had the twist throttle in his hand, and he was revving the motor. Just like he had said —it sounded great. Being a lifelong motorcycle and sports car enthusiast, I knew what a strong motor sounded like, and this one sounded just great to me.

“Take the throttle, Ed said,” as I jumped on board.  I revved the motor half a dozen times and then almost fell over.  The boat had just moved about twenty degrees to the starboard (right) side in the strong wind and for the first time was floating freely in the canal.  Now I really felt like I was on a boat.  Ed said, “Are you hungry, or do you wanna go sailing?”  Hoping that it wouldn’t offend Betty I said, “Let’s head out now into the deeper water.” Ed said that Betty would be just fine, and that we could eat when we got back.

As I untied the bow and stern lines, I could tell right away that Ed knew what he was doing.  After traveling less than 100 yards to the main channel leading to the bay, he put the mainsail up and we sailed from that point on.  It was two miles out to the ocean, and he skillfully maneuvered the boat, using nothing but the tiller and mainsheet.  The mainsheet is the block and pulley that is attached from the deck of the cockpit to the boom.  It allows the boom to go out and come back, which controls the speed of the boat. The tiller then allows you to change direction.  With the mainsheet in one hand and the tiller in the other, the magic of sailing was hard to describe.

I was mesmerized watching Ed work the tiller and mainsheet in perfect harmony. The outboard was now tilted back up in the cockpit and out of the water.  “For many years before he bought the motor, Irv and I would take her out, and bring her back in with nothing but the sail, One summer we had very little wind, and Irv and I got stuck out in the ocean. Twice we had to be towed back in by ‘Sea Tow.’  After that Irv broke down and bought the long-shaft Johnson.”

In about thirty minutes we passed through the ‘Great Bay,’ then the Little Egg and Beach Haven Inlets, until we were finally in the ocean.  “Only about 3016 miles straight out there, due East, and you’ll be in London,” Ed said.”  Then it hit me.  From where we were now, I could sail anywhere in the world, with nothing to stop me except my lack of experience. Experience I told myself, was something that I would quickly get. Knowing the exact mileage, said to me that both Ed and Irv had thought about that trip, and maybe had fantasized about doing it together.

    With The Tenuousness Of Life, You Never Know How Much      Time You Have

For two more hours we sailed up and down the coast in front of Long Beach Island.  I could hardly sit down in the cockpit as Ed let me do most of the sailing.  It took only thirty minutes to get the hang of using the mainsheet and tiller, and after an hour I felt like I had been sailing all my life.  Then we both heard a voice come over the radio.  Ed’s wife Betty was on channel 27 of the VHF asking if we were OK and that lunch was still there but the sandwiches were getting soggy.  Ed said we were headed back because the tide had started to go out, and we needed to be back and ******* in less than ninety minutes or we would run aground in the canal.

I sailed us back through the inlets which thankfully were calm that day and back into the main channel leading out of the bay.  Ed then took it from there.  He skillfully brought us up the rest of the channel and into the canal, and in a fairly stiff wind spun the boat 180’ around and gently slid it back into position along the sea wall behind his house.  I had all 3 fenders out and quickly jumped off the boat and up on top of the bulkhead to tie off the stern line once we were safely alongside.  I then tied off the bow-line as Ed said, “Not too tight, you have to allow for the 6-8 feet of tide that we get here every day.”

After bringing down the mainsail, and folding and zippering it safely to the boom, we locked the companionway and headed for the house.  Betty was smoking a cigarette on the back deck and said, “So how did it go boys?” Without saying a word Ed looked directly at me and for one of the few times in my life, I didn’t really know where to begin.

“My God,” I said.  “My God.”  “I’ll take that as good Betty said, as she brought the sandwiches back out from the kitchen.  “You can powerboat your whole life, but sailing is different” Ed told me.  “When sailing, you have to work with the weather and not just try to power through it.  The weather tells you everything.  In these parts, when a storm kicks up you see two sure things happen.  The powerboats are all coming in, and the sailboat’s are all headed out.  What is dangerous and unpleasant for the one, is just what the other hopes for.”

I had been a surfer as a kid and understood the logic.  When the waves got so big on the beach that the lifeguard’s closed it to swimming during a storm, the surfers all headed out.  This would not be the only similarity I would find between surfing and sailing as my odyssey continued.  I finished my lunch quickly because all I wanted to do was get back on the boat.

When I returned to the bulkhead the keel had already touched bottom and the boat was again fixed and rigidly upright in the shallow water.  I spent the afternoon on the back of the boat, and even though I knew it was bad luck, in my mind I changed her name.  She would now be called the ‘Trinity,’ because of the three who would now sail her —my daughter Melissa, my son T.C. and I.  I also thought that any protection I might get from the almighty because of the name couldn’t hurt a new sailor with still so much to learn.

                                  Trinity, It Was!

I now knew I was going to buy the boat.  I went back inside and Ed was fooling around with some fishing tackle inside his garage.  “OK Ed, how much can I buy her for?” I said.  Ed looked at me squarely and said, “You tell me what you think is fair.”  “Five thousand I said,” and without even looking up Ed said “SOLD!” I wrote the check out to Irv’s wife on the spot, and in that instant it became real. I was now a boat owner, and a future deep-water sailor.  The Atlantic Ocean had better watch out, because the Captain and crew of the Trinity were headed her way.

                 SOLD, In An Instant, It Became Real!

I couldn’t wait to get home and tell the kids the news.  They hadn’t seen much of me for the last week, and they both wanted to run right back and take the boat out.  I told them we could do it tomorrow (Sunday) and called Ed to ask him if he’d accompany us one more time on a trip out through the bay.  He said gladly, and to get to his house by 3:00 p.m. tomorrow to ‘play the tide.’  The kids could hardly sleep as they fired one question after another at me about the boat. More than anything, they wanted to know how we would get it the 45 miles from where it was docked to the boat slip behind our condo in Stone Harbor.  At dinner that night at our favorite Italian restaurant, they were already talking about the boat like it was theirs.

The next morning, they were both up at dawn, and by 8:30 we were on our way North to Mystic Island.  We had decided to stop at a marine supply store and buy a laundry list of things that mariners need ‘just in case’ aboard a boat.  At 11:15 a.m. we pulled out of the parking lot of Boaters World in Somers Point, New Jersey, and headed for Ed and Betty’s. They were both sitting in lawn chairs when we got there and surprised to see us so early.  ‘The tide’s not up for another 3 hours,” Ed said, as we walked up the drive.  I told him we knew that, but the kids wanted to spend a couple of hours on the boat before we headed out into the bay.  “Glad to have you kids,” Ed said, as he went back to reading his paper.  Betty told us that anything that we might need, other than what we just bought, is most likely in the garage.

Ed, being a professional maintenance engineer (what Betty called him), had a garage that any handyman would die for.  I’m sure we could have built an entire house on the empty lot across the street just from what Ed had hanging, and piled up, in his garage.

We walked around the side of the house and when the kids got their first look at the boat, they bolted for what they thought was a dock.  When they saw it was raw bulkhead, they looked back at me unsure of what to do.  I said, ‘jump aboard,” but be careful not to fall in, smiling to myself and knowing that the water was still less than four feet deep.  With that, my 8-year old son took a flying leap and landed dead center in the middle of the cockpit — a true sailor for sure.  My daughter then pulled the bow line tight bringing the boat closer to the sea wall and gingerly stepped on board like she had done it a thousand times before. Watching them board the boat for the first time, I knew this was the start of something really good.

Ed had already unlocked the companionway, so I stayed on dry land and just watched them for a half-hour as they explored every inch of the boat from bow to stern. “You really did a great job Dad cleaning her up.  Can we start the motor, my son asked?” I told him as soon as the tide came up another foot, we would drop the motor down into the water, and he could listen to it run.  So far this was everything I could have hoped for.  My kids loved the boat as much as I did.  I had had the local marine artist come by after I left the day before and paint the name ‘Trinity’ across the outside transom on the back of the boat. Now this boat was really ours. It’s hard to explain the thrill of finally owning your first boat. To those who can remember their first Christmas when they finally got what they had been hoping for all year —the feeling was the same.

                            It Was Finally Ours

In another hour, Ed came out. We fired up the motor with my son in charge, unzipped the mainsail, untied the lines, and we were headed back out to sea.  I’m not sure what was wider that day, the blue water vista straight in front of us or the eyes of my children as the boat bit into the wind. It was keeled over to port and carved through the choppy waters of ‘The Great Bay’ like it was finally home. For the first time in a long time the kids were speechless.  They let the wind do the talking, as the channel opened wide in front of them.

Ed let both kids take a turn at the helm. They were also amazed at how much their father had learned in the short time he had been sailing.  We stayed out for a full three hours, and then Betty again called on the VHF. “Coast Guards calling for a squall, with small craft warnings from five o’clock on.  For safety’s sake, you guy’s better head back for the dock.”  Ed and I smiled at each other, each knowing what the other was secretly thinking.  If the kids hadn’t been on board, this would have been a really fun time to ride out the storm.  Discretion though, won out over valor, and we headed West back through the bay and into the canal. Once again, Ed spun the boat around and nudged it into the sea wall like the master that he was.  This time my son was in charge of grabbing and tying off the lines, and he did it in a fashion that would make any father proud.

As we tidied up the boat, Ed said, “So when are you gonna take her South?”  “Next weekend, I said.” My business partner, who lives on his 42’ Egg Harbor in Cape May all summer and his oldest son are going to help us.  His oldest son Tony had worked on an 82’ sightseeing sailboat in Fort Lauderdale for two years, and his dad said there was little about sailing that he didn’t know.  That following Saturday couldn’t come fast enough/

                          We Counted The Minutes

The week blew by (literally), as the weather deteriorated with each day.  Saturday morning came, and the only good news (to me) was that my daughter had a gymnastic’s meet and couldn’t make the maiden voyage. The crew would be all men —my partner Tommy, his son Tony, and my son T.C. and I. We checked the tides, and it was decided that 9:30 a.m. was the perfect time to start South with the Trinity.  We left for Ed and Betty’s at 7:00 a.m. and after stopping at ‘Polly’s’ in Stone Harbor for breakfast we arrived at the boat at exactly 8:45.  It was already floating freely in the narrow canal. Not having Ed’s skill level, we decided to ‘motor’ off the bulkhead, and not put the sails up until we reached the main bay.  With a kiss to Betty and a hug from Ed, we broke a bottle of ‘Castellane Brut’ on the bulkhead and headed out of the canal.

Once in the main bay we noticed something we hadn’t seen before. We couldn’t see at all!  The buoy markers were scarcely visibly that lined both sides of the channel. We decided to go South ‘inside,’ through the Intercoastal Waterway instead of sailing outside (ocean) to Townsends Inlet where we initially decided to come in.  This meant that we would have to request at least 15 bridge openings on our way south.  This was a tricky enough procedure in a powerboat, but in a sailboat it could be a disaster in the making.  The Intercoastal Waterway was the back-bay route from Maine to Florida and offered protection that the open ocean would not guarantee. It had the mainland to its West and the barrier island you were passing to its East.  If it weren’t for the number of causeway bridges along its route, it would have been the perfect sail.

When you signaled to the bridge tender with your air horn, requesting an opening, it could sometimes take 10 or 15 minutes for him to get traffic stopped on the bridge before he could then open it up and let you through.  On Saturdays, it was worse. In three cases we waited and circled for twenty minutes before being given clear passage through the bridge.  Sailboats have the right of way over powerboats but only when they’re under sail. We had decided to take the sails down to make the boat easier to control.  By using the outboard we were just like any other powerboat waiting to get through, and often had to bob and weave around the waiting ‘stinkpots’ (powerboats) until the passage under the bridge was clear.  The mast on the Trinity was higher than even the tallest bridge, so we had to stop and signal to each one requesting an opening as we traveled slowly South.

All went reasonably well until we arrived at the main bridge entering Atlantic City. The rebuilt casino skyline hovered above the bridge like a looming monster in the fog.  This was also the bridge with the most traffic coming into town with weekend gamblers risking their mortgage money to try and break the bank.  The wind had now increased to over 30 knots.  This made staying in the same place in the water impossible. We desperately criss-crossed from side to side in the canal trying to stay in position for when the bridge opened. Larger boats blew their horns at us, as we drifted back and forth in the channel looking like a crew of drunks on New Year’s Eve.  Powerboats are able to maintain their position because they have large motors with a strong reverse gear.  Our little 9.9 Johnson did have reverse, but it didn’t have nearly enough power to back us up against the tide.

On our third pass zig-zagging across the channel and waiting for the bridge to open, it happened.  Instead of hearing the bell from the bridge tender signaling ‘all clear,’ we heard a loud “SNAP.’ Tony was at the helm, and from the front of the boat where I was standing lookout I heard him shout “OH S#!T.”  The wooden tiller had just broken off in his hand.

                                         SNAP!

Tony was sitting down at the helm with over three feet of broken tiller in his left hand.  The part that still remained and was connected to the rudder was less than 12 inches long.  Tony tried with all of his might to steer the boat with the little of the tiller that was still left, but it was impossible in the strong wind.  He then tried to steer the boat by turning the outboard both left and right and gunning the motor.  This only made a small correction, and we were now headed back across the Intercoastal Waterway with the wind behind us at over thirty knots.  We were also on a collision course with the bridge.  The only question was where we would hit it, not when! We hoped and prayed it would be as far to the Eastern (Atlantic City) side as possible.  This would be away from the long line of boats that were patiently lined up and waiting for the bridge to open.

Everything on the boat now took on a different air.  Tony was screaming that he couldn’t steer, and my son came up from down below where he was staying out of the rain. With one look he knew we were in deep trouble.  It was then that my priorities completely shifted from the safety of my new (old) boat to the safety of my son and the rest of those onboard.  My partner Tommy got on the radio’s public channel and warned everyone in the area that we were out of control.  Several power boaters tried to throw us a line, but in the strong wind they couldn’t get close enough to do it safely.

We were now less than 100 feet from the bridge.  It looked like we would hit about seven pylons left of dead center in the middle of the bridge on the North side.  As we braced for impact, a small 16 ft Sea Ray with an elderly couple came close and tried to take my son off the boat.  Unfortunately, they got too close and the swirling current around the bridge piers ****** them in, and they also hit the bridge about thirty feet to our left. Thank God, they did have enough power to ‘motor’ off the twenty-foot high pier they had hit but not without doing cosmetic damage to the starboard side of their beautiful little boat. I felt terrible about this and yelled ‘THANK YOU’ across the wind and the rushing water.  They waved back, as they headed North against the tide, back up the canal.

      The Kindness Of Strangers Continues To Amaze Me!

BANG !!!  That’s the sound the boat made when it hit the bridge.  We were now sideways in the current, and the first thing to hit was not the mast but the starboard side ‘stay’ that holds the mast up.  Stays are made of very thick wire, and even though the impact was at over ten knots, the stay held secure and did not break.  We were now pinned against the North side of the bridge, with the current swirling by us, and the boat being pulled slowly through the opening between the piers.  The current was pulling the boat and forcing it to lean over with the mast pointing North. If it continued to do this, we would finally broach (turn over) and all be in the water and floating South toward the beach towns of Margate and Ventnor.  The width between the piers was over thirty feet, so there was plenty of room to **** us in and then down, as the water had now assumed command.

It was at this moment that I tied my Son to myself.  He was a good swimmer and had been on our local swim team for the past three summers, but this was no pool.  There were stories every summer of boaters who got into trouble and had to go in the water, and many times someone drowned or was never found or seen again.  The mast was now leaned over and rubbing against the inside of the bridge.  

The noise it made moving back and forth was louder than even the strong wind.  Over the noise from the mast I heard Tommy shout, “Kurt, the stay is cutting through the insulation on the main wire that is the power source to the bridge. If it gets all the way through to the inside, the whole boat will be electrified, and we’ll go up like a roman candle.”  I reluctantly looked up and he was right.  The stay looked like it was more than half-way through the heavy rubber insulation that was wrapped around the enormous cable that ran horizontally inside and under the entire span of the bridge.  I told Tommy to get on the VHF and alert the Coast Guard to what was happening.  I also considered jumping overboard with my son in my arms and tied to me hoping that someone would then pull us out of the water if we made it through the piers. I couldn’t leave though, because my partner couldn’t swim.

Even though Tommy had been a life-long boater, he had never learned to swim.  He grew up not far from the banks of the Mississippi River in Hardin Illinois and still hadn’t learned.  I couldn’t just leave him on the boat. We continued to stay trapped in between the piers as the metal wire stay worked its way back and forth across the insulated casing above.

In another fifteen minutes, two Coast Guard crews showed up in gigantic rubber boats.  Both had command towers up high and a crew of at least 8 on board.  They tried to get close enough to throw us a line but each time failed and had to motor away against the tide at full throttle to miss the bridge.  The wake from their huge twin outboards forced us even further under the bridge, and the port side rail of the Trinity was now less than a foot above the water line.

              Why Had I Changed The Name Of This Boat?

The I heard it again, BAMMM !  I looked up and saw nothing.  It all looked like it had before.  The Coast Guard boat closest to us came across on the bullhorn. “Don’t touch anything metal, you’ve cut through the insulation and are now in contact with the power source.  The boat is electrified, but if you stay still, the fiberglass and water will act as a buffer and insulation.  We can’t even touch or get near you now until the power gets turned off to the bridge.”  

We all stood in the middle of the cockpit as far away from anything metal as possible.  I reached into the left storage locker where the two plastic gas containers were and tightened the filler caps. I then threw both of them overboard.  They both floated harmlessly through the bridge where a third Coast Guard boat now retrieved them about 100 yards further down the bay.  At least now I wouldn’t have to worry about the two fifteen-gallon gas cans exploding if the electrical current ever got that far.

For a long twenty minutes we sat there huddled together as the Coast Guard kept yelling at us not to touch anything at all.  Just as I thought the boat was going under, everything seemed to go dark.  Even though it was early afternoon, the fog was so heavy that the lights on the bridge had been turned on.  Now in an instant, they were off.

                               All Lights Were Off

I saw the first Coast Guard boat turn around and then try to slowly drift our way backward. They were going to try and get us out from between the piers before we sank.  Three times they tried and three times again they failed.  Finally, two men in a large cigarette boat came flying at us. With those huge motors keeping them off the bridge, they took everyone off the Trinity, while giving me two lines to tie to both the bow and the stern. They then pulled up alongside the first large inflatable and handed the two lines to the Coast Guard crew.  After that, they backed off into the center of the channel to see what the Coast Guard would do next.

The second Coast Guard boat was now positioned beside the first with its back also facing the bridge.  They each had one of the lines tied to my boat now secured to cleats on their rear decks.  Slowly they motored forward as the Trinity emerged from its tomb inside the piers.  In less than fifteen seconds, the thirty-year boat old was free of the bridge.  With that, the Coast Guard boat holding the stern line let go and the sailboat turned around with the bow now facing the back of the first inflatable. The Captain continued to tow her until she was alongside the ‘Sea Tow’ service vessel that I hadn’t noticed until now.  The Captain on the Sea Tow rig said that he would tow the boat into Somers Point Marina.  That was the closest place he knew of that could make any sailboat repairs.

We thanked the owners of the cigarette boat and found out that they were both ex-navy seals.  ‘If they don’t die hard, some never die at all,’ and thank God for our nation’s true warriors. They dropped us off on Coast Guard Boat #1, and after spending about 10 minutes with the crew, the Captain asked me to come up on the bridge.  He had a mound of papers for me to fill out and then asked me if everyone was OK. “A little shook up,’” I said, “but we’re all basically alright.” I then asked this ‘weekend warrior’ if he had ever seen the movie ‘Top Gun.’  With his chest pushed out proudly he said that he had, and that it was one of his all-time favorites.

            ‘If They Don’t Die hard, Some Never Die At All’

I reminded him of the scene when the Coast Guard rescue team dropped into the rough waters of the Pacific to retrieve ‘Goose,’ who had just hit the canopy of his jet as he was trying to eject.  With his chest still pumped out, he said again proudly that he did. “Well, I guess that only happens in the movies, right Captain,” I said, as he turned back to his paperwork and looked away.

His crew had already told me down below that they wanted to approach the bridge broadside and take us off an hour ago but that the Captain had said no, it was too dangerous!  They also said that after his tour was over in 3 more months, no one would ever sail with him again.  He was the only one on-board without any real active-duty service, and he always shied away from doing the right thing when the weather was rough.  He had refused to go just three more miles last winter to rescue two fishermen off a sinking trawler forty miles offshore.  Both men died because he had said that the weather was just “too rough.”

                     ‘A True Weekend Only Warrior’

We all sat with the crew down below as they entertained my son and gave us hot coffee and offered medical help if needed.  Thankfully, we were all fine, but the coffee never tasted so good.  As we pulled into the marina in Somers Point, the Trinity was already there and tied to the service dock.  After all she had been through, she didn’t look any the worse for wear.  It was just then that I realized that I still hadn’t called my wife.  I could have called from the Coast Guard boat, but in the commotion of the moment, I had totally forgotten.

When I got through to her on the Marina’s pay phone, she said,  “Oh Dear God, we’ve been watching you on the news. Do you know you had the power turned off to all of Atlantic City for over an hour?”  After hanging up, I thought to myself —"I wonder what our little excursion must have cost the casino’s,” but then I thought that they probably had back up generation for something just like this, but then again —maybe not.

I asked my wife to come pick us up and noticed that my son was already down at the service dock and sitting on the back of his ‘new’ sailboat.  He said, “Dad, do you think she’ll be alright?” and I said to him, “Son, she’ll be even better than that. If she could go through what happened today and remain above water, she can go through anything — and so can you.  I’m really proud of the way you handled yourself today.”

My Son is now almost thirty years old, and we talk about that day often. The memory of hitting the bridge and surviving is something we will forever share.  As a family, we continued to sail the Trinity for many years until our interests moved to Wyoming.  We then placed the Trinity in the capable hands of our neighbor Bobby, next door, who sails her to this day.

All through those years though, and especially during the Stone Harbor Regatta over the Fourth of July weekend, there was no mistaking our crew when you saw us coming through your back basin in the ‘Parade of Ships.’  Everyone aboard was dressed in a red polo shirt, and if you happened to look at any of us from behind, you would have seen …

                               ‘The Crew Of The Trinity’  
                         FULL CONTACT SAILING ONLY!

The corporate sports shop has erased the swim section with snow sports
and I can't find those jagged ear plugs I like there
must go back local to where I got half a wet suit
made by O'Niel, the inventor from my home town
and I remember a friend who was a great skier and even
better ski ***, and he hung out with Tommy Moe in Wyoming and
he almost put his eye out going down a Black Diamond ***** ******
and maybe that's brave, but I don't think so really because true bravery in
my mind is rarely physical, and most commonly, but perhaps rarely mental
as I see the Christmas shoppers like every year doing the same things and dysfunctional
families everywhere pretending to get along when they'd rather **** each other
understanding why, like Freud first tried to show us, in his strange 19th century way
has led to a situation where everyone could understand why, what really drives them
and so few do, because it is scary and expensive and long term and frustrating and you have to go back
over and over and realize you are doing the same **** thing over and over and it's worse than
school when you were a kid, when it was just over and over and a teacher blaring at you until
you finally got it and moved on, because that can really happen.  You can get it and move
on and you won't need the salve of the alcohol or the forty big screen TVs or endless ballgames
watched as if they held some kind of key to a special universe and if just one more game, like one more quarter in that slot machine, and what you are really running away from is yourself and your pain.
And I am different, it is true, because that inner journey to understanding is essential to me and
psychology is amazing, how the mind tries to protect us from ourselves by creating more distraction
when we all have that Black Diamond ***** to go down and it is scary and frustrating
and we may fall but in the end we will understand.  And that is the most important thing.

i cannot write anything
it's all in my head
and i can see it but
it won't come out

no matter how hard i push
my mind is constipated
and laxatives aren't helping
i'm not sure what to do

i can write ******* and
tell myself that's good enough
but it's not and it's so
******* frustrating

and depressing how
unhappy i am with my creative self
i am not creating enough
and i feel stagnant and stuck
no matter how much **** i use
my mind is still a dry desert
and it's painful to keep trying

A razor is my nemesis, because the blades do not behave
Gouging cuts into my skin, that is the path they pave
But it is unavoidable, I have become a bathroom slave
To rid myself of excess hair, from a shave that I don't crave

Ever since the birth of man, it goes back many years
A growth around your lip and chin, extending to your ears
It may go down particularly well, among the bents and queers !
I'd rather have a smoother face, to avoid Ducky's and Dears

Why do men want ****** hair, why do they want a beard
Bits of stubble sticking out, a design that's rough and weird
A Goatee isn't very good, it's cattle that's not reared
You wouldn't get tickled or scratched, if beards had not appeared

Okay some guys might look alright, when they are neat and trim
Scruffy ones they just look bad, and some are rather grim
I don't want hairs growing on my legs, or any other limb
Nice smooth skin is my preference, and it's not a passing whim

There is just one problem, something I would love to ditch
Hair removal is a pain, and it's an evolution glitch
When the morning comes along, I have that same old itch
Having to shave is immanent, and a *******

How many ****** shaves, does a man have to endure
Eventually your skin goes dry, from this old daily chore
You get cut far too often, I don't want it anymore
Razor blades no longer work, and that's a shaving flaw

Girls complain about their periods, it must be so frustrating
With all that blood just seeping out, when you are menstruating
You wouldn't like it daily, there is a period of waiting
It only happens once a month, so it's not as irritating

I'd rather shave twelve times a year, without anymore hair traces
No cuts and grazes for a month, in many different places
Unscrupulous razor companies, would have no more hairs and graces
Hairy smiles would be wiped off, from their stupid corporate faces

A close shave does not exist, I think it's a fare bet
That manufactures cut your throat, with electric dry and wet
All the claims of the best, that a man can get
Sharp shavers are a fabrication, and that includes Gillette

The cheaper brands are just as bad, shops own brand or BIC
You may as well tape a knife, to a piece of stick
Are potato peelers any sharper, would they be a valid pick
Would chipped skin be as bad, or just get on your wick

One shave is not sufficient, you have to do it twice
There's always bits left behind, which isn't very nice
I would've tried the No No, an expensive hair device
Razor blades and shavers, have such a high tagged price

It makes me cross and angry, because there is no reward
When buying beauty products, which they say you can afford
Why cant you have a body switch, or a desired level cord
So you can turn of your hair, and sod Wilkinson Sword

Excess hair I do not want, except for on my head
Is stress the cause of going thin, when it begins to shed
Would it not be better, coming of your face instead
Shaving would then be reduced, and not something to dread

Many men go through the curse, of losing it on top
The older that you become, your head hairs for the chop
A full crown is all I want, why take away my mop
I didn't want a bad harvest, by losing half my crop

The only place I wanted it, I've lost my style and flair
Why does a bald patch appear, why does your bonce go bare
Is it my comeuppance, with the creation of a glare
All I want from follicles, is my head full of hair

If you want to have a beard, then that is fare enough
Don't be mistaken for a *****, by looking like a scruff
I don't want a hairy face, or stubble that is rough
Or a weird beard with scraggy parts, or any yuk *** fluff

Some men just let beards grow, and maybe that's just crazy
It's not as though they look sweet, or as pretty as a daisy
Personal hygiene may not count, if they are always lazy
To me it isn't fashionable, it makes you look old and hazy

Who wants to be a yeti, but perhaps it is too late
And wild men roaming in the woods, is evolutions own cruel fate
No matter how much I shave, it's the scratchy bits I hate
Wasted shaves when hair returns, why does it lay in wait

How much has man evolved, how much as man progressed
Personally I think the state of hair, has radically regressed
It's based on my own experience, so perhaps I am obsessed ?
Who wants a hairy monkey, when your naked and undressed ?

There is a smooth advantage, when you are misbehaving
A kiss feels much more sensual, without the crazy paving
This is all that drives me, although it is enslaving
Even with the nice things, I'm not craving for a shaving

The sun was shining,
Pitch black, sending out rays of misery in a blinded realm of self hatred, casting a shadow even darker to trail a clear record.
A sun of darkness, made out of despair, casts it's light before the zenith, a day like any other, tiring, exhausting and frustrating.
The phantoms of the past linger around the streets, seemingly not noticing anything, the lack of light nor the constant agony this brings,
Perhaps it was just my sight, which tricked me into seeing everything as it was and thus the others hadn't noticed but a single, little thing.
I hide my truth behind a curtain of both a smile and a fake cheerful mood, put up with the last strengh my worn out fighting spirit has.
Once upon a love, the mornign glow used to be more than a sunrise,
It's brilliance unmatched, almost roaring as it illuminated the atmosphere while we were watching this scene unfold with awe!
This is how it should be, nothing more.
But when I knew the meaning of love you were already gone,
Dragged away by the chains of fate lead by time and left me as the sun was about to set and never truly come back as usual, darling.
You were my light.

~ Umi

Ask me what it feels like to be dead inside. Go ahead. Ask.
I know you're curious.

It's like swimming in circles.

You can't see the shore and you can't see past the surface of the water. You're moving but you're not making any progress and it's frustrating. Your muscles are on fire and you're hungry but you keep going because what else is there to do? You could stop and just wade but you know that if you do that you'll give up that much quicker. You wonder what it would be like to surrender and let the water wrap you in it's unknowable depths for the rest of time. You wonder how deep it is and what it's like down there but you figure you'll end up there inevitably someday anyway so you keep going for the time being.

You can change the way you move through the water and how fast you go but you never stop swimming. There's a variety of weather and waves you experience. Sometimes it's nice and the water is calm and you can forget about the emptiness you feel inside and do the backstroke to feel the sunlight on your cheeks but other times it's cold and the choppy waves smash into your face and sting your eyes and all you can focus on is your breathing over the burning in your joints. Nevertheless, you swim and swim and swim without any destination, waiting for the next change to come.

You do a lot of thinking. You wonder what it must be like to feel anything other than longing and discontentment and exasperation. You ponder the big questions and answer the little ones and you try to fill the void inside you with complicated concepts and pretty words. You thoroughly analyze yourself, coming to terms with everything that makes you what you are. You're not happy but not sad either. You're not even somewhere in between. You gave up crying a long time ago because it never helped anything but you still laugh when you get the chance. You're very practical and proud of your cognitive abilities but you also suspect that they are the reason why you don't experience emotions the way other people seem to. You once read "Those who are sensible about love are incapable of it" somewhere and you think just maybe that applies to all the feelings you don't feel. This almost makes you feel distraught, or maybe you just want it to. Regardless, you contemplate anything and everything to distract yourself from the never-ending circles.

You swim and swim and swim and swim because that's all you can do and all you want
all you've ever wanted
is to feel alive
but you don't know how.

And that, my friends, is what it feels like to not feel anything at all.
Swimming in circles.

I dreamed of thee again last night-so frustrating. I still miss thee. I have to admit that. I can no longer deny it. I still want thee back. I want thee back. My thee, o, my thee, Vladimir! In my mind I keep but playing those scenes over and over again; those scenes full of temptations-and breaths gasping more freshness under the sheets of our romantic air-which are no other than the beautiful, picturesque paintings of the days of our togetherness. Those rapturous paintings-sketched carefully by the jealous winds-outside of my bedchamber, wherein adjacent to the rolling fireside thou would caress my hair and smile at me with that serene blueness of thy eyes. And how as soon as those moments came, I would close my eyes, and lay my head against thy cleavage-and its steady, luminous heartbeat; and flew I through the wings of enthralled unconsciousness-as though I was floating in the sky; and then believe would I, that yon bubble of sophisticated happiness would never end. But thou! Thou ruined everything-and that idyllic, idyllic blue castle of mine as soon as thou walked away. Ah! And didst I cry back then, cry whenever I woke up and found that thou wert gone, and it was only thy scents that were left all over me. What a horrible memory! The remembrance of thy blissful eyes-o, a pair of majestic blue eyes!-and thy golden hair, flowing smoothly against mine on that tranquil night, is but a wealth of fondness too dear, yet unbearable-to me. Full of tears are my eyes, as I am writing t'is sorrowful passage, that might still mean nothing-nothing, to thee. But I doth need to be honest! It might just be too late to say this, but I need thee, Vladimir. I need thee! Thou art the only miracle that has ever happened to me, since I first heaved my steps onto this land: this foreign land with a stash of autumnal stars grinning at us from the sleepy eyes of the sky. The sky-o the sky, whose innocent blueness is just as handsome as thy eyes! Thou consoled my fear, and relieved my sarcastic anxiety-in those first, first days! How thou silently-yet joyfully, entered my heart! My prince, my soul. How I want us to be back together-embracing each other under the clouds' mesmerizing lullaby. I who can never love him-the one everyone dear to me so excitedly raves at. No-never, although from the same kin is he, as thou art, with that flash of wild black eyes running vivaciously at every appearance of my being. And those queries he always puts-yes, on my series of daily runabouts, and keen interests in which I immerse myself during my solitudes. A smile so charming then he shows-but still, unable is he to bring my heart to galloping excitements, nor shake my soul with adorable passion, like thou didst! And no! He is but no lover I wish for-as far as I'th ventured to recognise, as in my heart still hides thy name, dwelling so quietly with bursts of violent fascination. And the red blushes it sends to my cheeks-whenever I think of thee. Vladimir! The prince to my love-today and yesterday-for whom my affection shalt never fade; and the sole king to my being-all through the year, and the remaining hours of my night and day-for whom my soul was duly made. O Vladimir! I love thee, I love thee! Come back and cherish thy days here, wander back into my heart-and celebrate this innocent mirth of ours, just like we once had before-with our hands together, whilst thy heart in mine, amidst t'is silent afternoon-and ah, under tonight's marvelous moon.

Everytime a guy asks me what I prefer in a woman
They normally ask me if I like the front or the back
But honestly I think class is what's lacking
I don't judge a woman by her body
I think her personality is really what matters
I know we men would be angry if a girl asked another girl if she liked guys with a Maserati or a Ferrari
Not all of them are about money
That's when you know if she's really your honey
She doesn't except to take your money and run
You can get fired from your job and have your car get towed
And she'd still offer you a ride home
Isn't that funny
She wants you to get the hint and you still react like nothing has happened
Ain't it frustrating to be a girl
Not wanting to come off as desperate, but you desperately want him to see
What it could really be
Going through all the crap and still wanting to be with him
That's a real woman
That's what I want
A strong woman who puts up with my stupidity and still sticks around
With no possible reward to be found
The real jackpot is having her instead
Any woman like her is a lottery
Just make sure you treat her right
And be there for her when she's giving birth to your children
If you ask me, I wouldn't of made it so painful
But the pain is a little easier
When you're holding her hand and refusing to let it go
She'll remember that forever
Only being glad she decided to have kids with you
Just remember that when you **** her off
And you're sitting there with dozens of beer bottles on the floor with a few empty Doritos bags
Eating till you become dizzy
Regretting that you made her mad
And she let's you suffer with no response on your apology calls
We all make mistakes
But make sure letting her run away from your life isn't one of them

I used to think of my parents as divorced.

Legally, they were not. They lived in the same house, had the same last names, and on every legal document it stated that they were married.

Though it did not feel like that.

They lived in the same house, but they did not share the same bed. They had the same last names, but their morals were so different they seemed like strangers. They were technically married, but it felt as if they have been divorced for years.

As a child this brooding question had been lingering in my mind that has yet to be answered.

Why do people stay when they are supposed to leave?
Or why do people leave when they are supposed to stay?

I asked my mother why she did not leave my father yet, and she said it was because of my siblings and I. Though, the way she said it seemed as if it was an excuse for something bigger. Every time I would push her to answer my question, she would scold me for being too curious and repeat the same saying , “Curiosity killed the cat,”.
But I was not a cat. I was a confused child who has been through too many years of her parents fighting for no reason or too many reasons.

I grew older, my parents were still together, and the question still never left my mind. Before I knew it, relationships were sprouting all around me. All my friends changed their relationship statues to Taken, my sister started talking about boys more often, and every question out of everyone’s mouth was who was single and who was on the market. It sounded as if everyone became merchants waiting eagerly until a new, rare, product was in stock.

Of course, people fell out of relationships, and I realized it was the same way of falling out of love. It’s just as easy as falling in it, and thats what people are afraid of. I started asking around my question again.

Why do people stay when they are supposed to leave?
Why do people leave when they are supposed to stay?

And the answer remained in the format of excuses. It was always because of someone else leaving first, or the usual “thats just how things are,”response. It was so frustrating.

Out of bitter frustration, I decided to figure it out myself. I allowed myself to become very close with once a mutual friend. We shared secrets and told each other embarrassing stories we never told anyone before. We went out of our way just to see each other and even called each other Soul Mates. I found myself forgetting that this was all an experiment, and started to believe that we were, in fact, Soul Mates. We started to talk about getting into the same colleges, and moving in with each other while in college and after. We started planning road trips that would take two months and even introduced ourselves to each others parents.

Then that person left. Just as easily as they came.

It took me by sudden surprise, and I became immobilized for a while due to shock. I realized that it hurt, giving all of yourself to someone and letting them walk away with all you gave them as if you’re just a nostalgic memory, or a forgotten trinket. My question surfaced again, with much more rage and hurt this time.

Why do people stay when they are supposed to leave?
Why do people leave when they are supposed to stay?
Why do people leave?
Why do people always leave?

In my final conclusion of my hypothesis, I have realized that people leave because they were not supposed to stay in the first place. Everyone and Everything is temporary. I do not think the point of life is to find your soul mate. I do not think its to find someone to spend your whole life with. I think its to try and change every persons life you encounter with. It does not have to be nuclear, it could be really subtle. But change it in some way, for the better hopefully.

I think my parents are staying together for the better. I hope so, at least.

Our Maths Sir erases the blackboard
But leaves a part unwiped
He takes a pen off the hooked cord
And now begins to write

Our Maths Sir erases the blackboard
And keeps a bit not right
We look at it with our necks bent
But it just doesn’t seem alright

Writing on the now whiteboard
He flashes a cunning smile
And tells us not to hoard
What puzzled our minds awhile

While erasing the frustrating blackboard
He repeated himself again
“Keep the good things on board
And throw the rest away”

And that’s the golden life’s taste
And all because no waste- no haste

October 18th, 1995. I was born a little more than a month early; Ma always says it’s because I’d thought of a good joke and couldn’t wait to share it with everyone. Dad says it was because I was too hungry.

Yes, my name is Harsh but I promise I’m a nice enough person. Harsh means happiness in Sanskrit and I’ve always worn that name tag proudly. I use the username "harshhappens" as an alternative to the unfortunate saying "**** happens." Happiness happens, too.

I’ve got my father’s temperament and my mother’s smile, but I love my mother’s temperament and my father’s smile wouldn’t fit my face. I look at the two of them and see a patched, two-tone mirror of myself. I’m scared of what I am taking from them and what I’m not.

My childhood was Pokemon and Legos, chocolate chip pancakes and milk, hugs from my grandparents and bedtime stories with mom. Oh, how I loved to read. If books were grape juice, I was an alcoholic.

I’ve got my share of adolescent acne, the bags under my eyes hold the weights of my sins and I’ve already got smile crinkles about my plain, dark eyes. My hair is usually combed to a side and turns into a beard as you trace down my sideburns. I dress like a trendy 80-year-old psychology professor sometimes, other times I dress like a wannabe-tumblr-model. Oh well.

My favorite colors are maroon and grey. I’m also colorblind. Go figure.

I’m going to school to help people and hopefully save them from themselves. Problems of the mind are at the root of our existence, and will continue to terrorize victims no matter how much money they earn, no matter how much *** they have, no matter how lovely their spouses are, no matter how big their houses are. When people go to sleep at night, they deserve to have peace of mind. I’d like to help with that. I know too many people who can't take it. I knew too many people who couldn't take it. No one deserves to go through that alone.

I’m a five-foot-ten-inch sculpture made without wax. If I’m nothing to you I’ll at least be genuine. I’m pockmarked and scarred in my own ways.

Music runs through my veins, along with endorphins and an appalling lack of iron. What I listen to can be like honey and sometimes it’s a hurricane. I’ve shed tears to music, it’s been a part of me for ages.

I don’t sleep very well.

I am an introvert in the most proper sense of the term. Sometimes I get oversensitive, and being with too many people or around certain people can get very overwhelming and intense, I tend to shut down in these instances. Just make eye contact with me and I’ll open up to you, I promise. I don’t like parties. I’d much rather sip a mug of coffee in my basement with a canvas in front of me and paint all down my jeans, or sit by my window and write my heart away. I’d rather take a long drive with the love of my life or take her to dinner. I don’t take pride in this solitude, I hate it most of the time. I wish I enjoyed myself at parties.

I’m scared of heights and of knives in the wrong hands. I’m also terrified of the dark.

I’m a hopeful romantic, it’ll take a lot for you to take hope away from me. I’ve been blessed with a girlfriend that is genuinely the best thing to ever happen to me. She’s the kind of girl that you work hard for but you know she’s **** worth it. She’s the kind of girl that teaches you things both about the world outside your bedroom and about the person inside your heart. She’s the kind of girl that makes you write poetry. I am plenty ******* up in my own way, but no one else can ever love the way I do; let that be a vice or virtue.

You could probably buy my soul off me for some chocolate. Or some nice lobster. Or mashed potatoes. I'm just a very hungry person.

It’s too late for my parent’s praise to mean anything to me, I needed it earlier. I live with a constant doubt that you can call self-consciousness or self-doubt. You can quote Freud all you want. I need constant reassurance that I’m worth anything to anyone and everyone and I look for it desperately. Sometimes when I get really bad I just want to hear a reason why I’m worth listening to. I am constantly trying to convince myself that I’m good enough. It’s frustrating for both me and my loved ones. I’m 150 pounds of waiting for someone to tell me that I try hard enough and that I’m all they need.

The best compliment anyone has ever given me was from my girlfriend. She said “I love your mind.”

I write because of my girlfriend. She woke up this primordial part of me that really just likes to put a pen to paper.

So, hi there. I’m Harsh. Nice to meet you.

this was today:

a splendid breakfast, ****** black intestines...
whatever the hell they put in those...
pig brain cartilage, blood, liver... barley...
fried with some onions, eaten with a decently toasted bread...
then... figuring out what to do with the ****-show
in the garden, three trips to the recycling centre
with rotten timber, and, some spare parts...

conversations with father...
football, the Grand National... i hate myself for this...
i'm not a gambling man...
but each year like clocks go back come the winter
months and like clocks go forward come the summer
months... i place a bet on the Grand National...
a bit like Harold Norse might have claimed
at not being a man... i'm not a man...
i don't gamble... i hate gambling...
today proved my point...
   yet again...
         i don't know how Bukowski or Dostoyevsky
managed a habit... i'd much rather work some
menial work and... then... yeah "gamble" with
a *******... gambling for me is more the thrill
of the unexpected than: expecting to fall-flat on my face...
having unprotected ***... but... just checking:
she might inform me... a ****** doesn't make
a lot of difference... if... you're not smarting-up
with your hygiene... so i get the exclusive no ******
******* into her... that's gambling...
a different sort of gambling...
  i'm the horse and the jockey...
the bet? oh... that's somewhere in the back of my mind
when i pay for an hour...
whatever... i'm a man and i'm not a man
in how the normal man would rather place a bet
on a horse than... have unprotected *** with a *******...
all... or nothing... that's me...
because i'm so ******* with myself...
i only bet a £1 on this one horse... each way...
so even if he came in 5th... i'd get a return...
so each way implies: a £1 bet you cough up £2...
for security... and he was running so splendidly for
about 28 fences... at times first... at times third...
****** gave up... after the last fence...
came in 6th...

     but what's frustrating about betting on horses...
or football teams...
like with this girl Jeminah... single mum...
bankrupt / a bad credit score...
i get these wrong sort of butterflies in my stomach...
when i start courting her...
drop round... one time... twice...
i promise her a bottle of homemade wine...
well... first "date" we just talk... job issues...
i already know she's bullshitting about me behind
my back... i keep a watch... second date
i bring the wine and some banana loaf that i too
have made... i'm getting these stomach crunches:
this is such a good idea! my ego-phallus is demanding...
but... my digestive system is rebelling against me:
check again...
   i had this ****** on a line and sinker!
if only i had the sort of intestines that might warn me...
about what could be or couldn't be
a good bet... i had him in my sight!
the Grand National Winner!
   i had him... there's no logic to gambling...
but this time around there sort of was...
   if i could only have the gut feelings in-tune with a
winner... like i might... with a female: loser-project...
*******, cycling drunk to her house...
leaving flowers in the middle of the night...
hot-head me... well... yeah...
you go to prostitutes from time to time...
you're going to get a hot-head...
               ******* ginger lasses...
                       but if i can get these right sort
of sensations concerning women...
who the hell cares if i don't get the same sensations
when it comes to horses, running for a gamble?
long-term projects... i like those...
i'd much prefer earning an honest wage
than winning some spare cash on the sly...
i hate gambling...
   but i ******* had him!
             i was looking through the list...
   Longhouse Poet: 14 - 1... poet... poet...
                  poets... Irish poets... W. B. Yeats...
why didn't my gut find my brains? i asked my father
on one of our trips to the recycling centre...
chances of a 7 year old winning it?
i heard... not since 1940?
  no... no chance, he replied... what about the 13 year old?
Blaklion - last time a 13 year old won
the Grand National was back in 1923...
but i had this Noble Yeats... **** me... 50 - 1 on my mind...
i was thinking... Longhouse Poet... Poet...
Yeats! come on!
  see... this is why i hate gambling...
i get the proper gut feelings when it comes to women...
no... she's no good... three ******* days of
constant stomach crunching without doing
any crunches... constipation... ooh... i'd love to simply
**** her: but... she's of that sort of age
where... a casual fling isn't simply going to cut it...
can't i just replace these gut-wrenches when
it comes to betting on the right horse...
just once a year... i had the ******... in my grasp!
there was also this horse: Freewheelin Dylan...
but... Bob Dylan is a lyricist...
   he's not the Dylan Thomas... so... three poet horses...
i just sort of ******* knew...
but... money muddles judgement...
unless... it concerns prostitutes...
    because that's what gambling has replaced:
the old religious superstitions...
talk of demons is equivalent to the talk of luck...
to hell with it...
              the same old religious superstitions have
been usurped by secular gambling habits!
so... why do i get these gut feelings of repulsion
i first think of as infatuation: rightly so...
oh... she was a cougar i'd love to pass...
why can't i focus that sort of gut sensations
when it comes to betting on the winning horse?
easy money...inherit a mountain:
without how many pebbles it takes to give
a mountain its form...
     maybe i'm lucky... in that respect...
     maybe life has allowed me to... hmm... see:
the bigger picture...
    if i can cough up for one hour living dangerously
with a *******... and... this sort of woman...
is not shoving me her offspring down
my throat... while's she's looking for
beta-bucks deluxe... i think that's better than
betting on a winning horse...
  give me the menial task... forget it...
earning money: freely... easily...
         but... i'd love that Spiderman sort
of sensation on a good bet...
mind you: i had a good-sensation... a premonition...
i just listened to bad advice...
with women? i don't listen to any advice...
i just... cruise... automatically solo...
     but thank god i only gamble with a quid's worth
once a year... i had W. B. Yeats in my mind...
ugh! it's so frustrating!
   like with the women in my life...
the mares keep nodding: upon approach at the first
hurdle... last hurdle... the image of:
pretending to sniff my eyelashes...
          the horse is looking for: side-lining it to:
side-lining "blinkers"... no good...
this... custard... is fresh?!
              stay up to 1am... wake up 20 minutes prior
to 8am... have a croissant and coffee at Putney Bridge...
before the lazy-assed Somalis: depending...
decide to... feel important...
which is never... fair enough...
Thames goes down to glue...
          i hate gambling...
                i never gamble...
this is what it might possibly feel like not having written
Crime & Punishment...
which, given the current year?
feels... pretty ******* good! oh, no...
no high-brow type of motivation to keep
the European literary up-keep of "culture"...
that load of *******... is long gone...
enter African: grime... enter... horse-****-imitation-sludge.

that way yesterday:

just at my annual check-up with the nurse...
the woman sat there, amazed...
although still worried about my high-blood pressure...
we agreed... no matter the diet:
i avoid fruit, i don't like too much sugar...
i prefer eating vegetables...
come to think of it... only yesterday i ate a...
medium-rare slice of beef with nothing
but salt, pepper... some toasted sourdough...
i was going to make myself a creamy mushroom
sauce with too much parsley...
but i was like: n'ah... not going to happen...
i'm a puritan when it comes to beef...
less is more...
i even told my mother: in it for the calories...
i don't care what it is...
like Socrates once said:
some people eat to live...
while others: live to eat... i'm of the former
persuasion... but don't get me wrong...
i like the chemistry experiments that go around
cooking up a decent curry...
work was fun, always is...
i'm always very, hardly: talkative...
unless i'm probed... tickled... in the right way...
after being rejected by Jeminah...
that auburn... conker... beau...
                       my god... after being rejected by her...
i've built up a fetish for gingers...
sure... the mythological blonde...
the Turkic raven hair black...
   but gingers... and Gaelic...
   i feel like an elder Saxon coming to these shores
when i see that pale skin, those freckles...
i see ginger i turn into a bull that charges
against: fuchsia... because bulls never charge
against prime colours...
like red... bull charge against a hue of something
between red and purple... almost UV...
fluorescent... fuchsia... is a hue: it's not a colour...
per se... since it mingle red with purple...
or... is it blue?
           i've learned that rejection by something
specific makes me more predatory if other similar
examples proper their heads up...
ginger girls... pale skin... freckles...
i'm ******* zoning in... cruising... circling...
but it's not my fault if women find me intimidating...
this one at work... oh my god...
if she was 20 years prior... from Dublin...
i already told her: i have a James Joyce hard-on...
what did we talk about? her working in a care-home
with dementia patients... Gaelic...
like i had this friend once... her name was:
spoken: N-E-E-V... kneeve in English...
that's already adding letters: not said... the surd K...
but... how was her name spelled?
******* Niamh... Niamh said is... *******
Neave?! she loved learning French, i hated it...
merde... again... what's that loose E doing in that word?
that's what i love about ****** spreschen...
distinct syllable, distinction between vowels and
consonants...
westerners tell us: too many consonants! too many!
the easterners might counter with:
TOO, MANY, *******, VOWELS!
i can't see what you're about to say if
you write one way, but speak another!
   but my nurse was very much shocked...
two years ago i weighed in at 117.9kg...
she weighed me today... 98,7kg...
        lean, slim, pretty *******: i dare say...
what did we talk about?
oh... that blood pressure "thing": it runs in the family...
144 / 96... the second measure is about...
circulation or something... the first can be high,
that's good... means you're pumping...
problem with her middle child...
   the elder son managed to buy a house...
the middle child is having issues... i choked about being
the only child... and... well... with me?
it would have to become borderline patricide...
i think she got the joke...
   the son gets along with his younger sister...
blah blah...
then... on a scale of 0 to 5...
depression and... anxiety...
the anxiety questions i put back to her:
do i look anxious?
   depression? can i use the term melancholy?
my grandfather died "recently":
i'm sort of churning out... being reflective concerning
mortality... how's that?
i cycle like a madman... well... that was lovely...
just watching her face... behind that 2021 *****...
how did i do it? walked at first... marathon lengths...
to St. Paul's and back...
  then i got on my bicycle...
but... you see... i had this friend... he was a big too...
but he avoided doing cardiovascular exercise...
hit the gym... later? problems with loose skin...
it takes time... cardiovascular exercises tones you:
since you're applying repeated strain...
you're not trying to bulge up...
you can't turn fat into protein mass...
you need to burn the fat off... then you can start
building up protein mass...
and... repeated strain... is more important than...
just pumping iron...

I think, at least some of us, fall in love instantly without even knowing it. And the time between then and the point where we actually admit it to ourselves, is more about acceptance, either social or personal, of how long it should take to "get there".

How else would you explain that once you know you're in love with someone its almost impossible to remember a time when you weren't in love with them.

The downside of this theory is that should things not work out, its so ******* ******* hard to get back to a time before, a time when you weren't in love with them.

And maybe we never do. Maybe we never fully recover.

Initially it's the immediate changes that carry the most pain. No morning greetings on your phone, no shared nonsense during the day, the kind of nonsense only couples share, the empty bed... the feeling of once again being alone.

In time though those moments get forgotten, or at least replaced by new routines that help avoid them until enough of the pieces are back together that they don't hurt anymore. You no longer have to fight the urge to say good morning the moment you wake up; going for coffee no longer feels like an inside joke you have to share; going to sleep is no longer something that follows a two hour phone call.

But the bigger stuff, the truly great memories, they never go away. We find ourselves looking back on them with fondness, for comfort, proof that it did happen, that we were once that happy, that for a while at least we felt like we had it all. And sometimes we'll know why it ended and sometimes we wont; and as frustrating as either of these scenarios are, we'll accept that it doesn't really matter.

As long as we get to keep those moments.

It's those moments that make me question whether or not we ever truly stop loving someone. No matter how hurt we feel, no matter how much we feel they hurt us, deep down, if we're honest, we all have those moments, even for those who hurt us most. Sure they could be hidden behind bitterness, buried under blame, locked up behind the walls we let ourselves build as some kind of protection, but they're still there.

You're all still there.

Sometimes on the hardest of days,
I bear nothing but the softest thoughts of you.
Thoughts so rousing, they send adrenaline speeding down my highways,
stopping for nothing until every inch of me melts.
This isn’t your average fight or flight;
it's a fight that's for you, and a flight that's with you
to a place where the birds and the bees can't even reach.
For most, my heart can be a stone wall surrounded by a backbiting moat,
but somehow when you bring yourself to it,
the draw bridge gives way to you every time.
It’s frustrating; I have no control over what my heart desires,
but for some reason, it chose you the moment yours played hopscotch with mine.
Skipping beats is only the tip of the iceberg:
I could bleed out my entire fountain of youth if that’s what it takes.
And yeah, if you scale it up to the waters of the world,
my fountain will make only a single drop,
but I’ll be ****** if that drop doesn’t pass through
all the flaming hoops it takes to land on your lips.  
I will make sure that you never forget the taste,
and the ripples it forms shall never lie still in you.
Ripples that in time will manifest into incredible waves
that will alter the very ones your mind creates.
It’s said that the brain waves of love and insanity are identical to one another,
and it just so happens I have a longboard that can fit the both of us.
I’ve never been that great at love, but I’ve always been the best at insanity,
and if you ever lose your balance,
my hands will always catch you before you’re ever out of reach.
So what are you waiting for? The water’s fine.
So paddle on over to a place I like to call "existence",
and let’s ride the swell of this swollen heart.