Chad looked over at his sleeping son sitting next to him in the passenger seat. This little journey from the airport to his home still seemed so strange and uneasy to him. It astounded him that Ian was now twelve years old, nearly a teenager. To be honest, he still did not fully feel sure about this arrangement, this set-up for him to have his son for the summer. Nevertheless, he tried to project confidence to everyone involved, to his family and to Ian's mom. He kept reminding himself that it did not matter how he felt.

He needed to step up to the plate.

No, Chad Brewster never envisioned himself as a father, never dreamed of it, and certainly never once desired it or would have chosen it as his path. Though some of his close friends wanted or had a family, it was never a part of his plans to ever be a dad. He did not dislike children, but he just never expected he would ever settle down and have them.

He especially never expected to be a father at the mere age of sixteen years old.

The suburbs of Las Vegas were worlds away from the suburbs of Milwaukee. Driving down the desert surrounded streets and highways, sometimes homesickness tugged at his consciousness. At times, Chad’s craved the surroundings of his old existence—the shady pine trees, and spending time at Lake Michigan—and he would gladly trade some palm trees for the some of the pines he was so accustomed to. But this was the life he now chose to have, and he thought he should have no reason to complain or be too sentimental. Many people were not so lucky to experience any refreshing change in their lives, and he was able to have it.

While on the road, Chad reminded himself to give Ian's mom, Becca, a quick call to let her know that they were on their way to his home. He pulled out his cell phone before he got distracted. Ian already texted her a few times to let her know he was alive and breathing along the way.

Becca had her reservations about sending her son off to be with his dad. He had his visiting rights, though, and she couldn't lawfully deny him them. It was a tough decision to send him off alone on the plane to meet up with his father, but Ian had good sense, and he was taking a direct flight to Vegas. He loved to text, and his mother made sure he had his very own cell phone to keep in constant contact with her. It was so hard to let him go like this, for Becca cherished Ian. He had a much harder start in life than some other kids, and she felt partly to blame for it.

Chad got a hold of Ian’s mom. "No way in Hell! You are calling me now?" she angrily accused him, her tongue sharp with criticism. "You know **** well this is his very first plane trip by himself, and I thought you'd have the decency to tell me once he got off that plane! Please! Don't try to convince me that this whole thing is a huge mistake, some major lapse in my judgment. Can you do that for me? You could have at least had the decency! Put him on the phone! Let me talk to him!"

"Look, Becca, he's asleep. It was a long day for him. He's exhausted". Chad was trying his best to hold back any displeasure or to raise his voice, but he expected his calm wouldn’t last. "Don't ***** me out for not calling you the very second you are demanding. You know I would have called in a heartbeat if I felt Ian was in danger. You know I would".

"Oh, I'm really not so sure", she replied, sarcastically. "I'm tempted to fly over there and come get him! I've been sick about it all day!"

"Such a **** drama queen, Becca! Like it or not, the world doesn't revolve around you! You don't have all the control! “ The anger rising was rising up in his tone. Her judgment of him of was so tiring.

"Oh, really Chad?" she replied. "I've got my act together a long time ago, but you...".

"Look, he is my son, too!" Chad shouted loudly. He was fed up of her ****** attitude, ready to hang up in her face.

"You could have fooled me!"

His eyes were glaring as he drove down the arid Nevada highway, just as if Becca stood there right before him, her finger wagging in his face, her other hand on her hip. He pictured her now as if time and everything in it had stood still, and she was before his motionless car and in his face, still in step with time and letting him have it.

This little display was so typical of her. Only Becca Morgan thought she ever had any common sense when it came to their parental abilities. Sure, she was the one who really raised their son, but she never would have pulled it off without the huge intervention of her mother.

Without a doubt, Ian had to admit to himself that he had been avoidant and immature in the past, but Becca did not have the patent on good parenting or on maturity. In her eyes, Chad was never going to be a proper father, even if he proved it.

Chad vowed that he wasn't going to pay forever for his mistakes of being an absent father, far more absent than present in his young son's life.

He looked over at his son sitting beside him. Ian was sound asleep—thank God—for he heard his parents squabble about him far more than he should have. In fact, he never saw his parents talking in a friendly manner. No matter how they began talking to each other, their conversations always ended up with angry words.

Ian must have been dead tired to sleep through it all. He hardly stirred since he fell asleep. If Chad wasn’t driving, he would be studying his slumbering son in peculiar wonder, sitting there for quite some time and thinking how on earth he ever was able to produce such a child, a seemingly healthy and well-rounded boy. It was as if his child was an UFO alien, or something—someone to be discovered for who he really was, and someone to be fathomed with fear.  He felt that uncomfortable about being placed into the role of a father.

It gave Chad's stomach a funny, odd feeling to think he wasn't too much older than Ian when Becca—his loving girlfriend at the time—came up to him and told him the shocking news. It would be the news that would forever change his life, and hers.

She was pregnant. Chad was definitely the father.

It wasn't that Becca did not know what to do about her condition, for she knew what she wanted from almost the very start, and she had settled it in her mind without much inner conflict. There was no helplessness or hopelessness in her, not like some pregnant teenage girls that found themselves in such a predicament. She wanted to have her baby and keep it to raise as her very own, and not for a future adoption—with or without Chad's approval. She did love Chad, but in the long run, she did not care what he thought if he did not agree with her.

As far as she was concerned, this baby was hers.

Chad, on the other hand, was terrified, simply terrified. He did not want to believe the news, hoping that Becca would turn around and tell him it was a huge joke. He would be quite ticked at her if she did such a thing, but also very relieved. He would gladly kiss the ground for it not to be true.

If only it was a joke. Becca was quite serious, playing  no such prank on him, Next, she planned to tell her mother next about her unborn baby. But the first person she wanted to tell was her boyfriend, and she expected that he would be on her side—or at least be won over eventually.

As a dumbfounded Chad stared at her in disbelief and shock—like the classic deer in the headlights—Becca insisted that she was telling the truth, that she was even beginning to show. She could prove it.  Her periods had stopped, and three home pregnancy tests confirmed her suspicions.  Gently, she took Chad’s hand to place over her stomach. Freaked out of his mind, he ****** his hand away as quickly as it touched her belly. His knee **** reaction would always stick in Becca's mind of how Chad really felt about her. It was almost like she had a disease.

She suddenly felt dejected. It looked like Chad would not be on her side, after all.

Maybe it wasn't his? Chad knew that Becca would hate him if he ever implied such a thing. She was crazy about him. Chad knew that. But she had an equal amount of passion to go the other way if he betrayed her. The doubt on his face, and the hesitancy in his voice, did betray him and Becca’s heart slowly sank. She wanted Chad to care, to understand, certainly not to view her as the guilty partner who was ready to ruin his life.

Instead, it looked like the beginning of the end for them.

No way was Chad willing to break the news to his parents, especially his dad, Ed Brewster. He’d rather put a gun to his head than say anything about it. Chad really never saw eye to eye with his father.  Unlike his two older brothers, Michael and David, Chad always felt like he could never please the man. His mother, Nancy, had forever seen Chad as the role that life had given him—the baby of the family. He seemed to have more leeway with her, but not so much as an inch with his father.

Ed, a veteran police officer, wanted all three of his sons to do well in life, better than he had achieved. And as Michael and David were dreaming of such careers as doctors and lawyers, all Chad ever dreamed of was to be a drummer in a rock band. Playing the drums was fine for a hobby, but Chad's father wanted his son to see the garage band he played in as something temporary, something to grow out of.  His son saw otherwise, never seeing himself ever retiring his drumsticks for some job he was bored to death with, or that he hated. He didn’t care if he would never end up earning a dime from it, not playing the drums would be like not having arms or legs. Chad would never give up on his musical aspirations.

One of the first photos that his mother took of her youngest son was him as a baby, sitting on the floor in the kitchen and banging a ladle on the bottom of a pan. At that age, he would much rather play with kitchen utensils, using them like a drum, than any shiny, fascinating toy in his possession. His mom simply thought it was adorable. His father wasn't so impressed, especially since the racket he made was only the beginning in his musical journey of too much noise surfacing from the basement.  There would be plenty of times when Ed would warn his son to give the drums a rest, or he would throw them in the garbage, for Chad could practice for hours on end.

It seemed that music flowed in Chad's blood, was natural to him, but no one in the family had any such musical talents or ambitions.  While his father just didn't get it, his mother supported him with any help she could. When he was six, he was in his glory when his she bought him a child's drum set to bang on. When he turned eleven, she bought him a real set of drums, and encouraged his participation in school band. His brothers' interests were far more typical. They were heavy into sports, and they always had their father's blessings. When Chad kept on doing what he loved, he was seen by his dad as almost a delinquent.

Now that he was an adult, his love of music was paying off. Resettling in Vegas provided many opportunities, plenty of musical venues. With all the entertainment in Sin City, Chad could find enough work playing the drums. There has been a good flow of steady work for him to work in the casinos, and he also played in a local band that did such gigs as weddings, birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. They were a group of six talented musicians that got together to form their own band, and play just about anything—rock, rap, blues, jazz, country and swing. They soon voted with each other on what to call themselves. A good name had a lot to do with if someone got hired for gigs, and nothing they could think up sounded any good.  It seemed like all the great names were already taken, nothing new under the sun. The Sonic Waves sounded the coolest, but since that name was already used, Chad played around with the idea and suggested they call themselves Sonic Stream. That had good potential, and the others agreed with it. He was glad and honored to make such a contribution to his band.        

Chad could honestly say he was happy out here in Nevada. His mother felt like he was trying his best to distance himself from the reality of his problems, especially his strained relationship with his father. Chad disagreed. He just wanted to feel like he could accomplish something in his life, not proving anything to anybody—but to himself.

Would Ian be happy out here with him? It would only be for the summer, but would Chad make a good impression on him in his life out here? Ian glanced over at his son who still slept almost like a baby, seemingly wiped out, though the day was still young.

Several minutes later, Ian called out, "What time is it?"

Somehow awakened, he was rubbing his eyes, disoriented by the fact that he was in a different time zone and in an unfamiliar place. Chad smiled at him, trying to reassure the boy that he was glad to have him here.

“Almost two thirty", Chad returned. Ian moaned and tried to sit up straight, squinting from the glare of the strong Nevada sun. Quite groggy, his internal clock was not sure what time it was.

Your mom called”, Chad told Ian. “You know your mom, bud. She does worry about you”.

“I texted Mom. I said I made it OK”, he replied.

“But did you actually talk to her?” Chad asked. “You know how she is. Unless she talked to you herself, I am sure she was convinced some madman took control of your cell phone and pretended to be you”.

Chad laughed and Ian tried not to act like what he said was that funny, but he shyly grinned and tried to cover his mouth to conceal it. He did have a special bond with his mother, but he knew his dad was right. His mom worried way too much.

“I talked to her just before the plane took off”, Ian admitted.

They drove in silence for a while. Chad had to admit to himself that Ian was looking more and more like him the more he grew up, and Chad seemed to favor his mother's looks—of which he was grateful—for he never wanted to resemble his dad.  Lots of times, Chad and Ian were mistaken for brothers, Ian a much younger brother, but surely not imagined to be his son. Chad felt that Ian was already looking like a teenager, maturing fast for his age, and Chad often was perceived as younger than his twenty-eight years. Ian was growing up so much more than his father could envision, and Chad knew why. It wasn't like he saw his son so frequently that the change was not obvious. Every time he saw him, a big gap had been gapped by growth and change, and Chad was guilty of missing much of those experiences.

Was it that Chad did not really want to grow up? Becca surely accused him of that. His father did, too. Performing gigs in a local band seemed far from a man's job to Chad's father. When he still lived in Wisconsin, he knew he had better learn to have other work to fall back on, for band work did not always pay the bills in those days. That is why he trained to be an x-ray technician. It wasn't the job of his dreams, but it helped keep him afloat when making money from music did not meet his financial requirements. Even though Chad did achieve a fairly decent and respectable job, it did not seem to matter to his critical father.

At the mere age of sixteen, Chad had nothing to back him up against the anger his father would have towards him. He knew he would be knocked down for sure when his parents found out about Becca's pregnancy.

The words his furious father told him stung pretty harshly. "You don't have the sense to be a father! You don't seem lately to have the sense to be anything! You'd ruin that kid’s life, for sure!"

His father had to always play the street-smart cop, even at home, and Chad was fed up as looking like a criminal in his eyes. He almost wanted to cry, but refused to show his father any such weakness. Instead, he gave him the best stone cold, unemotional response that he could muster up. Replying in a monotone manner, though he really feared his father's anger, was the best way to stick it back to him.

"Sure, you're right. I take after you. Bad fathering runs in the family", he said back.

Ed looked like he wanted to punch his son, though he never laid a hand on any of his sons in such a way. Trying to repress his own sense of hurt, and remain with his anger, he replied, "If you were eighteen, I'd throw your *** out right now! Don't push your luck!"

Chad always aspire

Marriage is changing, from who can get married (37 states now allow gay marriage!) to who actually ends up doing it. Only 26% of millennials are married, a sharp decrease from 36% of Generation X and 48% of baby boomers, according to the Pew Research Center. But marriage isn't obsolete — in fact, in many ways it's thriving as we re-evaluate what the institution really means to us.

And with re-evaluating marriage comes re-evaluating weddings. The Knot's "2014 Real Weddings Study" found that couples are foregoing traditional wedding customs to modernize their nuptials through their choice of rings, dresses and officiants.

That includes — perhaps most importantly — the vows. Couples today are taking cues from badass brides like Amelia Earhart, who banned the word "obey" from her 1931 wedding vows, and reciting promises to one another that reflect the partnerships they strive for. Here are 12 real-life couples who vowed...

1. "To split the difference on the thermostat."

Why it's awesome: When Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston got married, Pitt pledged to "split the difference on the thermostat." While that partnership didn't last, as we all know, it was a lighthearted vow that highlights a crucial element of modern marriage: compromise. The key to a happy marriage is learning how to meet halfway.

2. "To be a true and loyal friend to you."

Why it's awesome: Marriages weren't always about intimate, caring partnerships between equals. But we know well enough now that the happiest, most long-lasting marriages are those in which partners see each other as friends (even studies have proven it true). Jevan's vows to Alithea, shared by the Knot, are a reminder that the bedrock of friendship is what makes a modern marriage stand.

3. "To communicate fully and fearlessly."

Why it's awesome: Among the traditional promise of partnership and faith, real-life couple Anne and Gabrielle told the Knot they vowed "to communicate fully and fearlessly" as spouses. In our modern world, we have seemingly endless ways to communicate — text, email, Skype, Snapchat — and yet still have to work to connect. Sitting down face-to-face, making eye contact and being vulnerable with one another is still crucial, as is being honest without fear of judgment from your partner. Emojis aside, that's what really sustains a lasting relationship.

4. "To grab your **** even when we're old and wrinkly."

Why it's awesome: As we become more open about sexuality (thank goodness), it's only natural that a wink and a nudge find their way into the wedding vows. In an open thread on A Practical Wedding, Zach and Kate shared their vows, which included the promise "to hit on you in awesome accents and grab your **** even when we're old and wrinkly." This promise to keep the spark alive even years down the line is no small thing. After all, studies have shown that all it can take is a simple touch to maintain a ****** connection.

5. "To value our differences as much as our common ground."

Why it's awesome: Love is a powerful force to bring people together, even when they're divided by cultural background, religion and, increasingly, politics. As society grows more divisive and we hold tight to our views, it's valuable to remember that our differences don't have to actually divide us, as these vows from real-life couple Greta Christina and Ingrid, told to Patheos, show.

6. "To continue to love your children, as if they were my own."

Why it's awesome: A marriage isn't just a vow to one person, it's a vow to an entire family — future and present. In 2011, Pew Research found that more than 4 in 10 American adults have at least one "step relative" in their family, including a stepparent, a stepchild or a step or half sibling. These adults are just as likely as others to say that family is the most important element of their lives. So it's no surprise that people have been adapting their weddings to encompass the commitment to an entire family, as Sara M. did in her vows, shared on Offbeat Bride.

7. "To comfort you when the Falcons lose and drink beer with you when they win."

Why it's awesome: As Mallory summed up so perfectly to Eddie in their vows, shared by the Knot, appreciating each other's distinct interests and actively sharing in them together makes a huge difference. It goes beyond just putting on the Falcons jersey: Sitting down for the game and sharing a beer is what researchers would call "shared leisure," and it makes a big difference for marital satisfaction. That football game is more than just a football game.

8. "To never try to hurt you just because I'm angry or tired."

Why it's awesome: The chaos of our lives means lots of stress, lots of late nights and lots of exhaustion. (Unsurprisingly, Gallup found that 40% of American adults get less than the recommended amount of sleep.) That can actually wreak havoc on a relationship, which is why it's all the more important to anticipate the challenge. Sarah's vows to her husband, which she shared on A Practical Wedding, are a promise not to take out her stress and exhaustion on him. Instead, she vows to trust him throughout the chaos, "even when we veer from GPS directions, schedules, itineraries and to-do lists."

9. "I have called you my life partner, my significant other, my longtime companion, my lover. ... Now I vow to love you always as my lawfully wedded husband."

Why it's awesome: The vows said by George Takei and longtime partner Brad Altman at their wedding, after the passage of marriage equality in California, were unsurprisingly moving, given they were 21 years in the making. As couples, straight and gay, wait longer to get married (and cohabit in the meantime), labels like "husband" or "wife" are less crucial for defining the relationship than the moments a couple has shared. Takei and Altman's wedding was not proof of their commitment, but rather a tribute to the commitment they had already demonstrated — a truth echoed clearly in their vows.

10. "To be your partner in all things, not possessing you, but working with you as a part of the whole."

Why it's awesome: If we're really striving for egalitarian marriages, then recognizing the equal amounts of work required by each half, as partners, is crucial, especially as women's participation in the workforce keeps growing (57.2% compared to 69.7% for men in 2013). In order for both careers to receive equal focus, a promise not to "possess" but to work to support each other is key. Much like Amelia Earhart refused to use the word "obey," real-life couple Alex and Michelle promised to be each other's "equal in all things" in the vows they shared with the Knot.

11. "I will love you no matter what makes my blood circulate, or even no matter what provides my body with oxygen."

Why it's awesome: Traditional weddings tend to be religious occasions, but with increasing rates of atheism and marriages across faiths, religion is taking a back seat to a more personalized expression of commitment. As of 2013, only one third of couples opted to get married in a church, and even more are removing religion from their vows. But that doesn't mean the vows don't appeal to a higher sense of faith — in the other person or in the world, as these scientific, "atheistic" vows, translated from Swedish and shared on Reddit, prove.

12. "I see these vows not as promises but as privileges."

Why it's awesome: Marriage might have been necessary decades ago, but these days it's more of a choice. So it's only natural that the vows we recite — traditionally a list of duties and obligations — actually reflect the happy choice that marriage now is for so many.

Yuval and Dina chose to frame their vows as honors, as they shared with the Knot: "I see these vows not as promises but as privileges: I get to laugh with you and cry with you; care for you and share with you. I get to run with you and walk with you; build with you and live with you." With between 40% to 50% of marriages in the U.S. ending in divorce, it's more important than ever that couples remind themselves that being with their partner is a privilege in itself, and one to never take for granted.

Source: http://www.graziadressau.com

Her mouth glittered agape
With sacred promise,
Like a box of unused
Engagement invites
Christening invites
Birthday invites
Still in the wrapper
For sale at a
Lifeline.

When you’d rather live
In a car
Than the zombie stance
Of a modern house,
Clean and soulless
With a hermetically sealed lawn,
Winter pageantry draws to a close
With bogan’s shooting-
Pearly eyed paupers
With constellations in their gaze.
With eyes full of hope and stars
That burnt bright and fade for
Flickering lens light.

Their voices murmur soft
Through catacomb
And underbrush
As only the ephemeral things are whispered of –
Dreams.
The addicts of ideals
The junkies of hope
The drinkers of despair
Have tiger soft tongues.

They lap and feast gladly,
From broken vessels
Chipped with hazardous teeth
That seek to fill their
Ermine mouths with the ******
Draught
Of truth.
Stumbling through wine-hour
They swarm, with tongues ******
And all constellations burnt out.

The hyacinth rides wild
Upon her shoulder,
Writhes in the silver brunt
Of moonlight,
Writhes in the stillness of dead perfume.

Marching to the beat
Of my enemies drum,
My hands inside my pockets.

Little bluebirds spun from dream
Sit on the holy perch,
A branch in all innocent minds.

The redeemed and patient
Make a subtle art from
Long distance perversions.

Similarly as we chase ghosts over Daffodils.

Fields of winter
under lunar glow
sway without us.

Long distance love
lingers with loose lust
along Regret street.

I hung it next to the memory
Of childhood cooking and Indian summers
Without further thought.

It slipped into the novel that took the form
Of an old coat, slipping into the lined pocket
It sank with a sigh.
Satisfied with itself.

Bombarded by the pounding
Dead eyed stare of ***** goddesses,
Broken by the undisputed angelic
And unglued ones,
All moon faced
All hopelessly optimistic
All lawfully rebellious
With green serenity
We pasted our dreams
On a wall so real it shone gossamer.
He counted the imperfections in the glass
With mind hesitation
As the whole world went black,
In a sea of much deserved discontent,
Wishing for the soft.

A moment of pure luck?
Jesus was an astronaut
Smoking Zen by the fire.

Suicidal angst
never had you in sonnets?
What a ******' shame.

Our life is but a song
We never hear.

I chipped away at the excesses
of my baroque person,
each strike took a
Railing
mounting
wall
decoration
desire
demand
exclamation
from the battlements.
All left now, a hill.

I paid for my banquet
with a sip of loneliness
and left behind the question
that asked all quiet poets
the meaning of love,
that asked all quiet poets
to answer with a villanelle
shouted from every
distant peak.

They sent the troopers
to greet me instead,
and my library was put in shackles,
and I kissed their ***** feet.

I answered that I carved this mountain
from the baroque bedrock
upon which they laid their city.
They smiled and asked about the aqueducts.
I wept and spoke of kitchenettes.

A meal provided
on a lead cast plate
my jailor asked about freedom
I answered with defeat.

There were two atoms
One questioned the meaning of existence
The other the existence of meaning.
             -Regardless they looked the same.

An apple on a branch,I took
The same way history takes a footnote.

The same way cashiers are all doctorates.
The same way trains find the station.
The same way you sing like a bird (and I like a cow).
The same way we never really wish to be writers.
The same way our final friend is made of pine.
The same way all streets lead to nowhere.
The same way all jobs **** society.
The same way we always lie to our children.
The same way a man loves a woman.
The opposite way we ****.
The opposite way we make love.
The way that I know a man who’s totem animal is a worker ant and he is unemployed by choice.
The same way we take old memories and turn them into fashion.
The very same way all sacred things become profane and all profanity becomes sacred in the eyes of many.

Dying relic of the Optimistic Seventies,
A new coat of paint for the old irony
     -slap dashed with obscurity.
Although I wear the costume of my enemy,
I will write the exaltation in blue smoke
As **** by an unsuspecting victim
Occurs in the dark.

The face of another love stares down at me.
I smile.
Yet I know it is not her.
I weep.
A sudden method sparks revival.

Jackie Pleasure wore a gray smile,
The anthem of a lost generation:
‘Happiness is lost in smiling.’

You are dead to me,
the boatman calls
I will not taste of your amber lips
I will not taste.

The welfare of all never hinged on darkness as we fear the fall,
A multitude of angels sang their songs
And never learnt to say goodbye
Or cast a long distance eye
Over half spent desire.

Drawn out caricatures,
Paraded intoxication
Flirt with our mistress death
And have her pick up the tab.
She pays with silent music.

The ***, we learn, is a bridge
Between all words and waltz’s,
Our Light Brigade to conquer art.

In the twilight of this, our mansioned night
Let us ring out true with indulgence,
Excess, abandon and the call of ‘yes’
Kali rang on the wire of a golden telephone.
Her name
“Kali, Kali…”
Like a quarrelsome minotaur
Flew through the waves of silk ideal
And strangled the babe
With cool breath.

There was ice (oh yes!) and fire and song.
With our candles burnt down to the ash of all streets
We walk then. We walk.
All life is but a song.

The ghosts of all forgotten stamps
Now echo on the wind of speech.
On High! Oh speak!
Of songs sung but never danced
With our broken dream.
When starlight meets the dust, and
Shadow eats the snow,
All our stories are satin sheer
And all our wants are gone.
We watch the memories march, until
They find a sliver of chrome that showed that place
Where all piano’s live and breathe.
My father in the wishing well,
My mother played trapeze.
My sister never saw the light,
My brother never born.
That was that,
Where stars meet dust
And floorboards sing off key.

'Tell me I'm not in a dream. Or one of my trances.' She uttered the two sentences between gasps and seem-to-be quickening pulses. In midair, the tension between them kept growing intensely, trying desperately to meet its peak every second, before finally disappearing into the sightless distance above it. 'You're not,' the man said, his voice distant even when his face was only a few inches from hers, and cupped his free hands around her chin to calm her pale face. Her cheeks were warm in his palms, as if being burnt by hundreds of heaps of dying, yet ravenous flames. She closed her eyes, recording the touch of his perfect skin that seemed able to charm her endlessly since the first time she had fixed her gaze on his shimmering features. The angelic voice which accompanied it woke her a few seconds later. 'And even if you are,' he traced his soothing fingers along the reddening skin of her cheeks, 'I'll bring you back to life. Which is here.' He emphasised the last two words with a smile, a heartbreaking, infuriating smile - because of its astounding beauty, before tenderly touching his cherrylike lips to hers, making her start to tremble uncontrollably in deep confusion. She was, again, in the middle of these steep rocks without any aid to support her unstable weight, meanwhile the air over their heads began to twirl in circles, the weather around them getting pink and turning red in five seconds' time. She was lost. In someone else's magical world, with a rendition of one of The Beatles' hit singles from the 1900s or 1950s - she could not exactly recall which period of years it came from - playing smoothly in the CD player in the languid atmosphere of the living room behind them.
After a moment of enjoyment the kiss brought them he pulled back, before slamming his left hand into the tiny depth of his shirt pocket and taking a silver locket out of it. He threw a confident smile at her, and in one blink of his eye, the room fell dark. Petrified yet washed out by the sudden darkness among them, the girl let out a heart-rending shriek, which was followed by her heaving her body onto him, making his head hit the floorboards and the long necklace break in half. In seconds, blood-red light began to shuffle out of the center of the torn necklace, mingling with the air outside its shell and sending the woman into gradually-coming unconsciousness. She could now only see shadows, muttering and brimming all over the weather around her, and had not the strength to stand up apart from lying helplessly on the feathered carpet beneath. Before her, she saw how he started to rise and reveal his claws, and fangs, and bright red eyes above her. He laughed mercilessly. Instantly, she covered her sweating face with her hands - which now felt too shaky and she hated it, she loathed it very much - and brought out a despondent, lamented sound of cry. Her evil lover, at the same time, continued to soak up as much energy as possible from the change of circumstance.
'Again, I successfully, harmlessly tricked you,' he whispered this to her right ear. Around them, the horrendous wind potter faster and faster meanwhile their invincibly powered circles got bigger. 'You should thank me for that.'
'Th... Thank you for what?' She abruptly gathered her courage to confront him. If this meant that the end of my life was approaching, I would be ready, she thought silently.
'For letting me bound my ways into your life again, Em,' his angelic voice replied, and before she realised what was coming next, she wailed with all of her might when she laid her eyes on his real monstrous, vampiric face before her.
'I am indeed sorry to say that you - a clever and sanguine girl like you - was granted the chance to relish your life only momentarily,' he cleared his throat. 'You have always known that you could not outrun us at the end..., and so have your family.'
'No,' she mumbled, and drifted her gaze to his face - his now burning face. 'NO!'
'No,' he mockingly repeated her words, 'or YES, my dear?'
'Don't call me using that 'D' word, beast,' she put her best effort to yell at the top of her lungs, ''cos I am not your dear, and prefer death to becoming one of you!'
With those last few words, she scrambled to her feet, and stood up in just two swift movements. In her both hands, which he did not know were protected by the two stashes of garlic and one wooden cross in her dress pockets, were two shiny swords with special blades carved onto their two edges which were designated to **** vampires. Get rid of them. And their malicious world of beasts.
She stepped forward, and new powers began to regenerate inside her - despite the cries she felt start to roll into her heart, upon knowing that her beloved Joe had died. Joe had been deceased now. He was lifeless, and no longer able to help her here. She should never have ditched him. It dawned on her now, when everything was already too late to fix up. But she knew that she should never give up. Javier and his vampire family might have tasted every single drop of her other family members - and the rest of Ludirus town's residents - including her Joe, before she idiotically kicked him out for this pathetic, heartless beast who wore a disguise to displace him. She stretch the first sword - the one in her right hand - out to him. He took a step back, his eyes remained focused on her.
'You won't hurt me,' he pretended to be in pain, and in one and a half seconds, he transformed into the figure of the innocuous, blue-eyed prince once more.
'I won't be deceived by your looks, pig,' spat her, meanwhile her brain rummaged through a thousand ways to stick the two swords into his chest. That was, in fact, the only way to **** him. To drain his evil life out of him.
'You were, once,' he laughed, the sound of his devious laughter echoed in the very room, and later left it in such dread and wariness.
'Not anymore,' she bravely took a step forward and, without any further doubt, without caring about her being imprisoned for the rest of her life before getting her blood dried by the fangs of Javier's two older brothers, she stabbed the swords into his chest with all the energy she had left. And the effects sprayed out by the action were beyond any of her expectations. Thousands of blood droplets poured out of his body and onto the floor beneath her, flooding the entire living room and finally the streets outside the building until no litter, little scraps of food, and wheels of vehicles were seen anywhere in sight. Surprisingly, these endless streams of blood did not cause any floods, and rapidly soaked through every single layer of soil the earth had on its surface. The blood that had been consumed out of the poor people of Ludirus, the rural village in South Ireland, famous for its cruel killing rampage for several thousand years, where a group of aristocratic vampire ruled the lives of humans and their own species. But now, there would be no more of them. No more of their horrible treatments. No more of their sneaking-up-on-humans tricks they secretly did at night - to savour human blood, which was lawfully removed from the protecting-human law renewed every year. It was all a lie. Yeah, a lie. A lie that allowed Javier's family to approach Lucinda's family members to be victims in their lifelong killing spree. But now, there would be no more vampires, thought Lucinda as she kissed her holy cross and sets of garlic affectionately. There would be no more blood sacrificed to fend for those beasts' hunger, even though it meant for her to live alone. Live on her own, as she no longer had anyone around her to turn to. To soak up her tears when she was scared away by the bunch of vampire kids on the way home from school. To calm her with her melodious chords at the piano. Mother. To serve her the best spaghetti in the world as a reward for her outstanding grades at school. Sister Sheila. To rub her back and put her to bed at night - at the age of sixteen! Father. Luce's tears just would not stop while she kept counting her memories, as every single shadows of her deceased beloved came back to her. And finally, the sight of her Joe lying his tired head on her lap, and reading out loud to her his newest poem he composed at the office for her. All were gone. Dissolved into the ravenous sea of blood in the guts of those psychotic, simpering, abusive monsters.
But she was satisfied. She felt, somehow, proud of her heroic, or at least, brave actions. She had taken control of her fear, and that was one of the most important characteristics a woman should have to succeed in this cruel world, her father had once said. Now she could prove to them all that she was a newly reborn person, and was no longer the old Lucinda. Lucinda Hale who had always been the 'tail' of her sister while they were six and four, and the little, spoilt daughter of Jim and Aileen Hale who could not hold a plate properly in every banquet their family was invited to. Luce knew that she was now completely a stranger to her family. She squinted her eyes shut, trying to imagine how nice it would be to show off her new self to her late family if only they were all alive with healthy pink cheeks now. In her own peace and this momentary solitude, she found herself sinking onto the floating warmth of blood, but strangely, she did not fall. She did not plunge into the limitless red colour underneath, and remained flowing above it while her tears started to crawl out of her eyes. She did not know, and did not want to know how long this remained until she eventually felt the rough surface of the bearskin carpet again. She woke up with a dizzy head and quickly threw a hasty look around her living room. The prince, beastly Javier had vanished. Oh, there are his remnants, she thought and unconsciously, chuckled quietly to herself when she came to take hold of several white, lifeless bones laid in front of her. Then suddenly she understood what had just happened. The legend in that book she had borrowed from the library transported the knowledge back into her mind. All the members of Javier's family had been crushed now. They were dead. Her sacred tears, which came to mix with the blood flood, became the cure for all the people who had been ****** by the vicious vampires in town. They were now freed, and reawarded, although still mortal, but yet a very rare, elusive, privileged chance to be alive once again and start their lives all over again. They must not be far from her now, thought her. Without any further wait, she raced out of the room, and wormed her way onto the street.
And here they were. The streets of Ludirus were no longer deserted. Traditional markets with a thousand-metre long series of antiques roamed them, occupying every single tiny space provided to place racks containing jewels, valuables, and gold pots. There were also shelves of books about cookery, traditional healing potions, sports, literature, and anything else someone ever wanted to buy. And then she spotted a book with a bright yellow cover, entitled 'Love Poems: From 1900 to the Present, by Joe Grogan.' Her breath seemed to stop at that time and suddenly, before she even got the opportunity to touch the cover of the copy in front of her, two warm arms wrapped her waists and turned her body around to face the owner. Once again, she was at a terrible loss for words. 'Joe,' she mumbled.
'I am,' the writer nodded solemnly. And just like the evil Prince Javier had done before, he pulled out a beautiful silver box and opened it. Inside, two rings shined beautifully before their eyes, radiating a smile as bright as the one seen on others' faces among them. A smile that celebrated the comeback of their long-lost independence. Before she knew it, Joe knelt before her, and presented the ring upwards onto her.
'What would you like to do first, Madam? Marry me, or buy my book?' He grinned and held both her hands. Before she could answer him, he inserted her left ring finger into the perfectly made ring, and helped her right hand fasten his own ring onto his finger. She lifted him up and wrapped her hands around his neck.
'Do you have time for both, Sir?' She rubbed his smooth cheeks and kiss them before looking deeply into his hazel eyes.
'Absolutely,' he answered firmly, and scooped her whole weight into his arms and spinned her around. Luce could no longer say anything when a sudden wave of happiness washed all over her, and became even at a more unfathomable loss of words when she caught the sight of her beloved father, mother, and her sister, all alive, start approaching to deliver their congratulations. Here we are, she thought with a satisfied feeling. We were, are, and will always be meant to be together.

Muse of the many-twinkling feet! whose charms
Are now extended up from legs to arms;
Terpsichore!—too long misdeemed a maid—
Reproachful term—bestowed but to upbraid—
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,
The least a Vestal of the ****** Nine.
Far be from thee and thine the name of *****:
Mocked yet triumphant; sneered at, unsubdued;
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,
If but thy coats are reasonably high!
Thy breast—if bare enough—requires no shield;
Dance forth—sans armour thou shalt take the field
And own—impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully begotten “Waltz.”

  Hail, nimble Nymph! to whom the young hussar,
The whiskered votary of Waltz and War,
His night devotes, despite of spur and boots;
A sight unmatched since Orpheus and his brutes:
Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz!—beneath whose banners
A modern hero fought for modish manners;
On Hounslow’s heath to rival Wellesley’s fame,
Cocked, fired, and missed his man—but gained his aim;
Hail, moving muse! to whom the fair one’s breast
Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest.
Oh! for the flow of Busby, or of Fitz,
The latter’s loyalty, the former’s wits,
To “energise the object I pursue,”
And give both Belial and his Dance their due!

  Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine
(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine),
Long be thine import from all duty free,
And Hock itself be less esteemed than thee;
In some few qualities alike—for Hock
Improves our cellar—thou our living stock.
The head to Hock belongs—thy subtler art
Intoxicates alone the heedless heart:
Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims,
And wakes to Wantonness the willing limbs.

  Oh, Germany! how much to thee we owe,
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below,
Ere cursed Confederation made thee France’s,
And only left us thy d—d debts and dances!
Of subsidies and Hanover bereft,
We bless thee still—George the Third is left!
Of kings the best—and last, not least in worth,
For graciously begetting George the Fourth.
To Germany, and Highnesses serene,
Who owe us millions—don’t we owe the Queen?
To Germany, what owe we not besides?
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides;
Who paid for ******, with her royal blood,
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud:
Who sent us—so be pardoned all her faults—
A dozen dukes, some kings, a Queen—and Waltz.

  But peace to her—her Emperor and Diet,
Though now transferred to Buonapartè’s “fiat!”
Back to my theme—O muse of Motion! say,
How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?

  Borne on the breath of Hyperborean gales,
From Hamburg’s port (while Hamburg yet had mails),
Ere yet unlucky Fame—compelled to creep
To snowy Gottenburg-was chilled to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned arise,
Heligoland! to stock thy mart with lies;
While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery Exit to a friend,
She came—Waltz came—and with her certain sets
Of true despatches, and as true Gazettes;
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match
And—almost crushed beneath the glorious news—
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue’s;
One envoy’s letters, six composer’s airs,
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs:
Meiners’ four volumes upon Womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind;
Brunck’s heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it,
Of Heynè, such as should not sink the packet.

  Fraught with this cargo—and her fairest freight,
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a Mate,
The welcome vessel reached the genial strand,
And round her flocked the daughters of the land.
Not decent David, when, before the ark,
His grand Pas-seul excited some remark;
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought
The knight’s Fandango friskier than it ought;
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread,
Her nimble feet danced off another’s head;
Not Cleopatra on her Galley’s Deck,
Displayed so much of leg or more of neck,
Than Thou, ambrosial Waltz, when first the Moon
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune!

  To You, ye husbands of ten years! whose brows
Ache with the annual tributes of a spouse;
To you of nine years less, who only bear
The budding sprouts of those that you shall wear,
With added ornaments around them rolled
Of native brass, or law-awarded gold;
To You, ye Matrons, ever on the watch
To mar a son’s, or make a daughter’s match;
To You, ye children of—whom chance accords—
Always the Ladies, and sometimes their Lords;
To You, ye single gentlemen, who seek
Torments for life, or pleasures for a week;
As Love or ***** your endeavours guide,
To gain your own, or ****** another’s bride;—
To one and all the lovely Stranger came,
And every Ball-room echoes with her name.

  Endearing Waltz!—to thy more melting tune
Bow Irish Jig, and ancient Rigadoon.
Scotch reels, avaunt! and Country-dance forego
Your future claims to each fantastic toe!
Waltz—Waltz alone—both legs and arms demands,
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands;
Hands which may freely range in public sight
Where ne’er before—but—pray “put out the light.”
Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier
Shines much too far—or I am much too near;
And true, though strange—Waltz whispers this remark,
“My slippery steps are safest in the dark!”
But here the Muse with due decorum halts,
And lends her longest petticoat to “Waltz.”

  Observant Travellers of every time!
Ye Quartos published upon every clime!
0 say, shall dull Romaika’s heavy round,
Fandango’s wriggle, or Bolero’s bound;
Can Egypt’s Almas—tantalising group—
Columbia’s caperers to the warlike Whoop—
Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn
With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be born?
Ah, no! from Morier’s pages down to Galt’s,
Each tourist pens a paragraph for “Waltz.”

  Shades of those Belles whose reign began of yore,
With George the Third’s—and ended long before!—
Though in your daughters’ daughters yet you thrive,
Burst from your lead, and be yourselves alive!
Back to the Ball-room speed your spectred host,
Fool’s Paradise is dull to that you lost.
No treacherous powder bids Conjecture quake;
No stiff-starched stays make meddling fingers ache;
(Transferred to those ambiguous things that ape
Goats in their visage, women in their shape;)
No damsel faints when rather closely pressed,
But more caressing seems when most caressed;
Superfluous Hartshorn, and reviving Salts,
Both banished by the sovereign cordial “Waltz.”

  Seductive Waltz!—though on thy native shore
Even Werter’s self proclaimed thee half a *****;
Werter—to decent vice though much inclined,
Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not blind—
Though gentle Genlis, in her strife with Staël,
Would even proscribe thee from a Paris ball;
The fashion hails—from Countesses to Queens,
And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes;
Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads,
And turns—if nothing else—at least our heads;
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce,
And cockney’s practise what they can’t pronounce.
Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts,
And Rhyme finds partner Rhyme in praise of “Waltz!”
Blest was the time Waltz chose for her début!
The Court, the Regent, like herself were new;
New face for friends, for foes some new rewards;
New ornaments for black-and royal Guards;
New laws to hang the rogues that roared for bread;
New coins (most new) to follow those that fled;
New victories—nor can we prize them less,
Though Jenky wonders at his own success;
New wars, because the old succeed so well,
That most survivors envy those who fell;
New mistresses—no, old—and yet ’tis true,
Though they be old, the thing is something new;
Each new, quite new—(except some ancient tricks),
New white-sticks—gold-sticks—broom-sticks—all new sticks!
With vests or ribands—decked alike in hue,
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue:
So saith the Muse: my——, what say you?
Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain
Her new preferments in this novel reign;
Such was the time, nor ever yet was such;
Hoops are  more, and petticoats not much;
Morals and Minuets, Virtue and her stays,
And tell-tale powder—all have had their days.
The Ball begins—the honours of the house
First duly done by daughter or by spouse,
Some Potentate—or royal or serene—
With Kent’s gay grace, or sapient Gloster’s mien,
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush
Might once have been mistaken for a blush.
From where the garb just leaves the ***** free,
That spot where hearts were once supposed to be;
Round all the confines of the yielded waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced:
The lady’s in return may grasp as much
As princely paunches offer to her touch.
Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip
One hand reposing on the royal hip!
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal!
Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;
And all in turn may follow in their rank,
The Earl of—Asterisk—and Lady—Blank;
Sir—Such-a-one—with those of fashion’s host,
For whose blest surnames—vide “Morning Post.”
(Or if for that impartial print too late,
Search Doctors’ Commons six months from my date)—
Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow,
The genial contact gently undergo;
Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk,
If “nothing follows all this palming work?”
True, honest Mirza!—you may trust my rhyme—
Something does follow at a fitter time;
The breast thus publicly resigned to man,
In private may resist him—if it can.

  O ye who loved our Grandmothers of yore,
Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, and many more!
And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste and will
It is to love the lovely beldames still!
Thou Ghost of Queensberry! whose judging Sprite
Satan may spare to peep a single night,
Pronounce—if ever in your days of bliss
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this;
To teach the young ideas how to rise,
Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes;
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame,
With half-told wish, and ill-dissembled flame,
For prurient Nature still will storm the breast—
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the rest?

  But ye—who never felt a single thought
For what our Morals are to be, or ought;
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,
Say—would you make those beauties quite so cheap?
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side,
Where were the rapture then to clasp the form
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm?
At once Love’s most endearing thought resign,
To press the hand so pressed by none but thine;
To gaze upon that eye which never met
Another’s ardent look without regret;
Approach the lip which all, without restraint,
Come near enough—if not to touch—to taint;
If such thou lovest—love her then no more,
Or give—like her—caresses to a score;
Her Mind with these is gone, and with it go
The little left behind it to bestow.

  Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme?
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme.
Terpsichore forgive!—at every Ball
My wife now waltzes—and my daughters shall;
My son—(or stop—’tis needless to inquire—
These little accidents should ne’er transpire;
Some ages hence our genealogic tree
Will wear as green a bough for him as me)—
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends
Grandsons for me—in heirs to all his friends.

Prison
Prison
These cells of the familiar I want to take you on a journey of sorts take you inside a real prison let you walk
The cat walk in B house the other four cell blocks were round this one could have passed for a haunting
Looking structure in an old horror flick it had ten tiers I can’t speak of Attica or Quentin though my army
Buddy lived on the dead end street with the prison at the end so I knew by sight and the preacher that
Worked in Quentin he almost convinced me it was more dangerous than Statesville in Joliet it’s a tossup like the
Old inmate well into his seventies he was called a crank they housed them on the bottom tier called
Cranks because they wouldn’t work in the prison because of their attitude it wasn’t his seventies he
Wouldn’t work when he was fifty he still had respect because he was part of the Saint Louis mob but he
Told one day it was different than in the old days he said it used to be you had to do something to get
Killed now they would **** you for a slice of bread or for a lot less as one guard found out on the other
Side on the tenth tier a guy went to walk this guy to the infirmary not the hole the inmate walked
Straight out of his cell stuck the guard with a homemade knife or prison lingo a shieve they said that
Wouldn’t have killed him but when he dumped him over the rail and he fell ten floors and hit the
Cement He was finished senseless unexplained violence it could be he didn’t like the food that day. That
Was one reason you got vacation after six months the stress was incredibly high unlike the old prison
Movies you were not even given a night stick when chow was called you had to frisk every one before they
Went back to their cells a spoon rubbed against concrete soon gets a deadly point so you stand there as
Two hundred inmates sneer at you as they pass going down the corridor to the mess hall if you had any
Kind of protection they could just take it and beat you to death with it. I was taking twelve of them from
One location to another one I didn’t give any thought to the Dingo boots with square toes I was wearing
Then one of them said you could really stomp someone to death with those couldn’t you I felt like Bob
Hope delivering a hyper joke in one of the old road shows I didn’t snarl like bob there wasn’t a camera
Running I tried to give him my best tough guy stone face answer yea you never knew what they said if it
Was heading somewhere but in this case he just enjoyed the thought of stomping someone to death.
I could go on and give you some details that are hair raising and more brutal than the scenes in
Fargo but I want you to be able to sleep without the light on I started as I said to take you on a journey
What has been said thoroughly gives you all you need or should hear about those places. But at the
Beginning I said the cell of my familiar not a dungeon but in the most emphatic truth that I can use we
Are closed up here it does play out as a dungeon darkness plagues the human family truly disturbing
Darkness surrounds us we separate form society those who can’t live lawfully and house them in
Prisons I have at different places written about the price Christ paid for our freedom he loves and sees
Present needs and future terror that the lost face for no other reason did he subject himself to the
Horrors of Rome’s cruel brutality and the agony of the death on the cross your house is filled with your
God given blessings and they are to be your comforts give you pleasure that’s loves provision but most
Of us know Henry Storemin his cell of the familiar with the help of an electric appliance turned all that
He knew into a death trap he couldn’t get out of a place he knew for years and neither can we exit sin
And Death on our own nothing is wrong yes like the girl at the lake picture of wealth and health but as I
Told I Saw the real situation pierce the obvious I told you I got in trouble when I tried to write about the
Death of Candy Jack out home I was probing deeper and deeper visualizing her in death and then the
Awful realization of death without any flowers or doctoring I started touching the true realness of death
It wasn’t rosy it was and can be out done only by hell as being scary I recoiled and fled our cell of the
Familiar is taken us to deaths door and if you don’t have a true walk with God hell will follow. People
Don’t realize the cross was the means of deliverance and payment but it was God’s living expression of
How dangerous the situation is for you without salvation the beams of light are striking your window
Panes it is being mixed and missed as natural light it is your escape from an eternal lake of fire the
Broken figure marred beyond recognition who can argue at judgment I didn’t get it liar you see what it
Cost this was irrefutable proof you need to heed such evidence of God’s displeasure and of the lengths
He has gone to protect and reach you I’m sure I will lose some or all today from this but one who does
Less than this is less than a friend and is also a prisoner in the cell of the familiar. God’s love bids you to
Come the enemy says be a fool and die with me and join me in the fire it was created for me and my
Demons but you make your selves guilty and bring the same punishment on yourself.
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

i must be the only one
who finds sparrows
amusing outside my window
filled with song,
the same in me trying to imitate
their song with a range of onomatopoeias
never written (thankfully, poets
who write sparrows' song, may you
be disgraced, chirp chirp,
beat-box that **** elsewhere, where
you're welcome by admirers),
the same in me laughing
at the kangaroo hops
unable to use both feet to walk
in the guttering of the carcass plateau of crows...
but there my laugh,
like the last whims of a pope when a robin presides
over the ritual outside the window on the sill...
i find pronouns unable to capture
timing, a class of words for standing still,
they just can't capture timing, they're space
orientated, a man of 70 will say the same
of a man aged 20 about a woman,
but both will be idiotic about the size of
her earrings concerning her promiscuity:
bigger the earring, the bigger the need to feed
her juiced up genitalia lips...
warm **** and cold mouth,
some say in reverse: getting ****** off
is like ice-cream being eaten...
and cold in reverse would give you circumcision
defined lawfully as ****... a cold genital
assertion of womanhood will peel the skin
right off... ask for a cake you''ll be welcome
away from the bony **** of your hand's embrace...
perhaps marriage... and that cold mouth
that encompasses all hidden glaciers;
still, the **** is about sparrows in rain rain gutters
hopping along to the orchestra playing only
one tune that's ha ha ha.
all in all, when aroused, one hole warms
up the other cools down... the third?
don't know, don't care, apparently it's exhilarating,
trying to turn men onto all three
and away from homosexuality,
with the fourth (woman's ego) being missed...
could never equate that to a phallus and a hole...
i always felt ***** by that thing, the fourth dimension
once the **** was explored... it's all Dostoevsky after that...
everything is permitted, no deity exists,
i guess a the end is required of such a poem as this.

bewilderment, many more women than men, and still so few a man committing polygamy, it's almost like the mirroring of so many men committing suicide; the loss of the practice of polygamy leaves so many men committing suicide prematurely, leaving so many women alive to give the abnormal ratio without an actual diseased cause of death of men, hence the statistics.*

just when you start enjoying it,
you stop,
there are so many going to restaurants,
but you're just a turkey
readied for stuffing,
you gorge on it
like traffic in Hinduism with
the holy cow that's a pedestrian
in England...
chomp and chop the food
like a toilet blockage,
you eat it without a palette,
no cheese and crackers after,
no candlelight, no wine,
it's a strange looking necessity,
esp. once digested;
it's as necessary as death for your
engagement: you have to eat,
you have to die...
i eat to add to the insomnia cure
because i should but can't pay alimony
payments because an engagement is
not lawfully enforced...
chemists are natural bachelors,
i told you, but you wouldn't
understand...
you were the ******* of youth,
the girl aged thirteen prone to suicide
and still the many numbers of men
committing to the act of suicide...
the law is in your favour, since you're
the incubator of it, the womb,
any rich **** can provide the Semitic root
of it all, cutting the excess skin of genitalia
of one ***, whether ******* or *******,
you think you won't get anti-ontological
behaviour? if what was intended was intended
and you play and revise the **** thing,
do you think the answering reason will
not look ridiculous enough to not attract ridicule
like a cow and flies, ready to spawn maggots
in the wet eye sockets?
you must be joking then!
monotheism was born in the halo
of revising mankind, abraham's snipping
isaac's "excess" skin...
it took place there... but revising a second
time with female circumcision...
well, revising humanity like that
gave us all the possible abominations accessible...
how can you teach the origin of man
with that ugly aesthetic of being furry
and a blunted snout of the gorilla
and not wonder why revising man
to an over-eager representation of engaging in ***
not combine into a holocaust...
you steal the sheath of the sword from the sword,
you'll find it constantly warring,
because that's what circumcision did,
it stole the sheath of the sword...
and no, this isn't crude imagery, ******.

the first time you have
mistaken me for her
i knew it wasn't
just a freudian slip
i mean i was aware
of it for a while now
i just chose not
to comment on it
but if i said
i didn't mind at all
i would be lying
but i guess
pretending i don't
know anything
is still sort of —
kind of —
lying.
like that time you
made me breakfast
in bed and i was
surprised you knew
how i liked my
coffee when you
didn't even like
caffeine — but
i realized that it
was the only
thing you knew
how to brew
because she was
the one who
taught you.
and that time
i was so sure
i caught the first
syllable of her name
trapped between
the intersection of
your lips and my skin
and throughout
that whole night
i wondered if you
were closing your
eyes because of
pleasure, or because
of the pleasure of
imagining her.
but the last straw
was on the day of
our wedding, and
we were saying
our vows, and i said
i (my name)
take thee (your name)
as my lawfully wedded
husband and you
were supposed to
say i (your name)
take thee (my name)
but instead of my
name you said hers
while we were at
the altar and you
were holding my
hands and
i knew —
and i have
always known
that it wasn't just
a slip of the
tongue.

{g.c.q}

I wish the bride were blushing,
but her face is pale, as she looks
at the perfect sunshine, as she looks
at her groom, whom she refused to see
till today.

Today she will be married,
I can not give her any promises,
but the sun does shine bright,
merrily, and the sky seemed to
make her deepest worries careen.

Pale, her face, like a ghost,
afeared someone would pass,
but they watch in dazedly peaceful silence,
And so the ducks keep out of the air.

Nervousness, the flower girls weren’t given bread,
they wanted to throw crumbs into the water for
the ducks to gnaw upon, but one couldn’t get pieces of flour
on her veil. And until the vows were said, completed,
soon over, soon finished,
the little girls could throw all the bird seed,
to please the ducks they called their friends.

On the bridge she will be married
the priest will bless their names at the top,
and therefore I hope the truest vision
encapsulates my predictions.

Under the bridge swelter two pools of water,
and sprays of water come up. Around the duck pond
there is a side path, where the guests wait, eagerly,
for the bride and groom’s wedding cake.

Curious ones will gather on the hill behind, or on the
gazebo. No sound will they mimic, for things are
found in quiet.

The bride, she makes her footing, on the other side of the
pond, at the entrance near the road, walking on her way
to meet him at the altar, but watching in a way,
to be certain that her aunt is breathing. Her aunt is ready
for leaving, and from her pale face, the veil hangs down
closer, as though a branch filled with water,
bursting her eyes, almost bursting, with hope clenching
tightly, to her solemn breast; the bride hopes her aunt will live
just one bit longer. The wedding had to be moved
for the aunt to see the girl marry, the tube that draped her lung
long, could not supply more air than a dying body can muster
thinning breaths.

Pray the sunny day will keep her close from dying.
God, hold that last little thread from snapping,
Pray, after the wedding ends, after she is given
wedding cake, for a breath longer, breathing ‘till
more breaths are no longer feasible,
and some more time
before she has to pass.

Where is the ring to put on his finger,
she’ll take his name you know,
be leaving behind her old life,
as her aunt decides to go.

Her aunt took care of the bride,
and kept her in her house,
home, she sacrificed everything, when
she was the only one protecting
the girl, before she was a bride.

Being once a little girl,
the aunt took her along to sit while
she worked, as she was kept
from the neighborhood.

Mopping, scrubbing, brooms, floors,
vacuuming, on her hands and knees:
no more partying for her, for she had a little
girl, and it was her most wonderful
blessing. She could not have kids,
she liked no men, and had no luck with
the things she found.

Growing up, going to school,
All mundane, filled with thrills
and chores. Nothing special happened,
until her mother came back
demanding her baby girl.

The aunt knew where the girl would be,
her mother was almost pitiful
enough to mourn for,
and her mother could not keep a house,
and never gave up, like the aunt did,
on finding a suitable partner
(That never worked out).

“Let me have my little girl,
Let me have my little girl!”
No, I have kept her longer than you
would have, I have all the paperwork,
the custody rights, the little girl,
she stays with me and no longer
will she ever be your little girl.

The little girl, 11 or 12,
Wanted her mother again,
And fought her aunt
tooth and nail
to be with her mother again.
The aunt decided to relent,
she gave into the 11-year-old’s
wishes, and the girl went to
live with her mother.

“One month, two months,
she will be back.”

She lasted three,
And came back.
She would’ve had to change
schools, and summertime
kept her mother too close,
and the ‘daddy,’ as he insisted,
much closer.

Now she was back, and she’d
finish school, inconspicuously,
walking across the aisle,
or the pond, that her groom
insisted upon, where they met eight years
before; she still in nursing school,
he a broker. Throwing bread,
bobbing her legs, she took the same
bench, he gave the same
smile, “What kind of bread do you throw,
White, rye brown?
You throw like a granny;
throw lightly, and it will hit the pond,
or hit somewhere the ducks will tear it
apart, and shred it to crumbs.
The birds are contented with
shredding gluten.”

They were in love, they met
every sunday ‘till fall,
then soon they’d meet for
coffee, and later coitus,
and intimacy, and love.

Do you take this man
to be your husband?
“I do, I do.”
Do you take this woman
to be your lawfully wedded wife?
He looked into her eyes, to find
one more regret, and stomach his
vows: “I do, I do, and you:”

The veil is cast, the bride is kissed,
the husband is happiest, or the *****’ll
make him contented with the rest of his
life, I am not worried that this wedding
will end badly, but paint yourself
the pictures of their hands holding in the
sun of a storm.

Is she alive, the aunt the wife was worried about?
Instead of rushing to the car, she sits on the bench
beside her. Was she breathing, or living,
and not dying, and seeing, what would be her only
daughter (her mother is probably over, the next city over,
lying around, nothing from nothing, nothing to show
and nothing to be but a will of the wisp. If God doesn’t
blow her away, then like he will take the aunt away,
and she flies away, as she is released with angel wings,
as she is released into her comfort,
and bodies that are rampant,
disease flung and broken, choking life away,
she died within the day. She saw her own one
away, tonight, while the once-little girl dances,
and let her be sentimental, because she is death;
The niece is now dancing with her prince,
and he holds her tightly, she mourns over that devotion
her aunt had given to her, when no one else could ever
give a ****).

Mediocracy...
these words I write
governed by a
standstill, at-war democracy
that's got me medio-crazy,
executively lazy
judgmentally hazy,
and lawfully spacey,
running on as their own prisoner-of-war escapees
in search of freedom from the ordinary
and overly, extraordinarily
conservative binds
that constrict the construction
of these hardly courtly,
yet ordered lines.

inspiration derives from the evocation of thought

symbolism, at times, can be cataclysm for the mind

and yet when one looks to be inspired,

until they are weary and tired,

when the earth’s ends,

can hold no trends,

they find themselves incapable,

and often times improbable,

of complimenting anything,

while criticizing everything,

and God forbid they stop and think

and look at it as a human being,

and as their ship begins to sink

a blast of thought comes after seeing

the black from scribing

eroded with the wind rising,

off the shores of the brain

to a vocabulary train,

delivering written ammunition,

after being petitioned,

and so the gallant author knight,

the reader-maiden’s arousing delight,

with his holy-tipped sword of ink

slays the scroll dragon in a blink

lawfully fixated,

and well compensated,

they sit back relieved,

finished with what had them aggrieved

until a source of new light,

causes rupturing delight!

There were several hundred of us
And we were marching up the street.
We could hear some of the curses
We did not consider defeat.
We were lawfully assembling there
Though the custom  bade us not.
The time had come, we would not stop
We would strike while the iron was hot.

It was the one-year anniversary
Of rebellion against unfair laws
And there were many thousands of us
There to rally for a righteous cause.
We intended to show them all
What social freedom can mean.
And it was all started a year before
By some righteous, rebellious queens.

We were respectful and orderly
As we formed the parade
It was seen to that all permits
Were properly secured and made.
There were some simple floats
And choirs and groups
That were marching together
In Hollywood's traditional
And pleasant summer weather.

The police stood by, many deep
To be sure we **** behaved.
And so we all mostly did
So nobody ended in a grave.
We didn't hear of anyone
Being hustled into the lockup.
Forgive the pun, but it went down
Without much of a cockup.

TV was there, but not a horde,
And we got thirty seconds later.
We were pretty sure that alone
Would stimulate the haters.
To see us gays holding hands
And kissing in the street.
We were sure it would bring
Bigots at home to their feet.

But we didn't care, we had done
What even we didn't expect.
We got Hollywood and society
To look at us with respect.
Things started to change then
In California and everywhere.
We were here and we were queer
And no longer easy to scare.

Self improvement isn't always
Easy but nothing ever is
When it's worth equals your birth
And no longer do I feel cursed

Cause control with moderation
Accountability and resiliency
Needs alignment so my assignment
Is to create a formula like science

That leaves me less defiant
And use my rolodex of excuses  
Cause that laziness is useless
Or maybe I'm just to stupid

But you don't have to be smart
To learn from a mistake
That I inadvertently force on myself
Mimicking the traits of ****

Without the date so I try to escape
To make my life better
Cuz I believe it's never too late
Wait....they say never say never

Which is more convoluted than clever
So whatever, I just wanna be better
So I leave this motivational letter
to remind most hardship endeavored

Are created by me so whether
I call it bad luck deep down I know
lobotomy of proper ideology leaves my life like our Economy, and its told

Philosophy states success is made when preperation meets opportunity
And it's been hard prepping for what can feel like a dead end but... No

Cause faith isn't just for religion
You must calculate your vision
Cuz any goal met must first be set like premonition the first Provision

Of many on a desired mission
no longer will my present position discourage me cause courage.Be my currency even if currently conditions

Leave me impositioned by decisions
Of the past that finally crash
When it chases me to grasp
The changes I've made but that

Is the bad karma I rightfully have
Wooven like its tapestry that flows
So without a needle&thread; or learning to knit i still knew how2sew

forced to reep it and keep it asan
Expensive lesson given
Ramification and consequence
Once written will later find u wishin

That the epiphany now hittin me
Didn't need so much time to see
But the sams transgressions may
Also be a blessin, a present of me

Who is evolved from who I use to be
But still knowing its nor enough
So more consciously I move on as it cautions me to live lawfully tough

And although premature I grew up
This reflexion will be my incubator
better late than not seein the indicator to act as my Instigator

The initiative initiating creator
So if you judge me for early labour
That conceived the belief Received i only hope it relieves knowing these

Words are left to show your deceived
But if that's the cost I wagered
Then this poem now stands a receipt for dues paid and mayb one day later

I can be refunded or if nothing write it Off as a cost of business
Or even education bridging the gap
Of inflation since my occupation

Leaves me expendable so vacation
is taken at club prescription med
So metaphysically I fly to my own
Tropic island gettin out my own head

Where I dare swim in the despair
Of being overwhelmed by damage
left by dumb adolescence to manage
The mess it collects so i bandage

damage i caused Unnecessarily
Physical and mental damage
mislabeling Addiction as a habit like affliction warnings were in spanish

Walking around while I fly high
Not realizing I was being ravaged
So if i end average its stil better than
The full picnic basket short a sandwich

That I was, with a side order of
A chip on my shoulder
Which I learned to swallow with my
Pride which is y i got fat when older

Which is a built Im jacket as colder
It will definitely get til karmas done
Dishing out what outta be awfully
Close to described as ******

A relationship maintained constantly
And a futures what it's costin me
Basically karma holds the **** u emit
Like it was a bag of your colostomy

Only it gets tossed back onto me
Which sparked nostalgia in my head
Hearing my mothers voice echo
Now making sense of why she said

I was **** for brains or **** head
Like my dad often used
Not as abuse but to give truth
Of what becomes of wasted youth

Maybe its the way she speaks, that keeps my mind intrigued.
Every word becomes a seed to a bush full of weeds.
She is great, indeed.
Everyday I plead,
Don't take your love away from me..
See, I need you to be my freedom in a world free from freedom..

I love you,
Not just you, but every factor that makes you, you.
I don't know what I'd do, if I lost you.
My life would shatter out of the blue..
My mind would sue my heart for unfair dismissal from you.
Yes, it true
I belong to you,
No matter who tries to do us apart from our 2 man crew that no one has a clue as to why me and you behave the way we do...

When I look in your eyes,
My why's stray from lies
As my heart cries to your
Lovely sized heart which doesn't mind that you're mine and I'm yours.. With no doubt in either mind, we find our hearts drawing lines that carve forever on to the signs in our minds cause we feel like our lives are assigned to duties behind enemy lines so our problems defined become fine from kind words..

Has it occurred that we're obscured from a bigger picture that will capture us in a painting that makes our love caricature? Funny, cause this love is pure, and it remains a cure from our uncertainty to make sure we are what we were when we're supposed to be?

Let's make this clear,
Our love drives out fear
So my eyes can see her
Walk down that isle..
My arms around her as I whisper in her ear.. It's you and me, Dear..
Her sheer elegance makes her appear as my heart sees her..
Untouched with tears
Loved without chandeliers,
With no restrictions as they all flee her...

Its instinct for this distinct moment to inflict harmony with stitches of love...

Do I take you as my lawfully wedded heart bearer, to carry my heart through the sickness in this world and the health in your soul...

I do, love you..

I regret to inform you that your lawfully, wedded boyfriend, Robert Cohn, no longer want to be lawful, wedded, or your boyfriend. He'd much rather be ******* Brett and writing books about what she tells him behind closed doors
            Sincerely,
              Jake Barnes

I'm so sorry that's its over now
we've abandoned sacred love
The passion we once held so dear We are now devoid of
We've past the point of no return
And now the end is here
The sanctity of marriage destroyed
An act I always feared

Do you take this man to be your
Lawfully wedded husband?
You nodded quickly and said I do
As we happily both grinned
Your answer I believed at once
To forever be upheld
The tribulations came and went
Then against love you rebeled

I held on tight and fought the fight
But my grip was not enough
We endured so many storms
but in the end they proved too tough
You slipped away so savagely
Your willpower grew so weak
Now our marital ship has crashed ashore
We no longer speak

After all is said and done
I have one thing left to say
If I could choose to do it all again
Its a price I'd willingly pay
Even though I suffered so
From this spiritual endeavor
My vows were to love you til I die
So I'll keep loving you forever

I cannot believe in your idiocy
That you no longer love me
Please let my final words imbue
And set your ignorance free
Even though all hope is gone
And this situation is very dire
Love is not a perishable good
Love does not expire

"I [Name]  take you, __,
To be my lawfully wedded husband,
To have and to hold, from this day forward,
For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
In sickness and in health, until death do us part.... I DO"

We can now check off wedding from our to-do list
And update all our status to married
But what happens to the marriage ?

Why does something that sound so free leaves one so trap
I don't want to be together for my religion sake
It was not Jesus or  Mohammad that I married, no I married you
I don't want to be together for our children sake
I am unhappy and I know they are aware
So what is with the  masquerade?

I want to be together for our love sake
Because I have search the entire planet
Yet I can't  find another partner who is better than you sake
For I complete you and you complete me sake
We have an iron bond that can never be broken sake

Babe keep your wedding, if you are not ready for our marriage
Just for my peace of mind sake

I have to ask myself the question;
Why is Americas second admendment rights attacked each time some fool does something so evil?There are millions of law abiding gun owners in America that use firearms lawfully and legally every day but you will not hear about that in the liberal media. These senseless murders are a tradgey and those who commit them must be dealt with accordingly .I, as a law abiding American citizen have the right, unlike most citizens of other countries in the world, to own firearms .I do not have the right to use that firearm against any other human being other than in an act of self defence and then only if I or a family member are in immediate danger of  death or serious ****** injury, and only then.
There will always be people who will **** others by whatever means they can. It is the heart of a man that causes him to love or to hate others lives as well as his own.Our second admendment right is not a problem, the problem is not an American problem. It is a heart condition of every man who breathes.
Until man's heart is changed ,nothing changes.

RLB

He’s saying,
As long as you stay, you can leave as you please

He’s saying,
As long as you return to me by sunrise, you can run free at midnight
Saying nothing When I come home by daylight, just as long as it seems we are together in public eyes.

Games we play are pure Deceptions.
I’m in home sweet prison, we are papered bind, chained by delusions and lies. Our love is like doing time and even though he senses the unhappiness on my mind, he says to me all the time “you will be alright”

"I do" was my crime. Our child is the paying fine. So I’m Akon "Locked up" until He closes his eyes. He hears when I sneak out, so even he sleeps with one eye open, towards my unfaithful behavior. He Pretends to be blind.

Im Trained to be home momentarily. Agreeing to be in his detentions temporarily.
For when he met me my love was untameable widly desired to be spirited and free

But he refuses my request to be free. He holds on tight and that’s even if it’s killing me.

So when he senses my  surpressive screams to finally leave. He will rush to leave out the set of keys. Within my arms reach. by my bar side intentionally. because he knows my desire to run yet in need of a safe home.  he holds  the keys.  Giving me a copy version to be free.

And If I don't return like we lawfully agreed, The punishment of manipulation will be black hole deep. He will catch me and emotionally blackmail me. Verbally put on the handcuffs, steal away my keys.
appoint me to the critical  judge, reminding me he’s the man who holds my Keys to leave.

Presenting my  past and mistakes to the courthouse packed with tyrants, which will be past me's. Deferment my character, rule me as guilty. Killing my spirit by Belittling my dreams. Crying that I attempted ******. attempting to **** him. for attempting to steal me.

He won. Victimized and trapped I return to my cell.
After verabally placing on the black and white strips and putting me through hell.

handcuffs on tight, game face on right,
He taunts me with tactics all day and night......

30 days of his controll, guilt trip complete.
He surprises me with kind  gesture and ask how bad do you want to be free?

He plays with sound of jingling keys, a melody that sounds good to me
Next to my Bar side, He finally placed down my set of keys
And reminds me,
That as long as you return here by sunrise, you are free to leave

I will gladly take you as my lawfully wedded wife.
To have and to hold, while I slowly destroy your life.
From this day forward, when you're feeling at your worst, I will lie to make it seem better
I promise I will be the one to sign your resignation from the world letter.
This sickness inside my soul will continue to deteriorate your health.
The days I bring you to your knees is how I'll count my wealth.

Till death do us apart,
I swear to poison your heart.

Am I a Man?
Or am I a boy?
Make the ******* choice!
You choose when it soots you.
responsibility!
Or Naive.
You know me as a son.
Not a person.
So you don't know whats right!
I can lawfully move out or have a ****** wife!
You lied and said you wouldn't live through your children's lives!
I will be here when you need me.
but I'm contemplating leaving.
perhaps you would appreciate me more if you couldn't see me.

Reality is gone again be cautious when you're swallowing the toxins
In a way that makes your lungs believe it's oxygen.
It's unhealthy, I know because they tell me I get lost within
The fog, but when I'm wandering God never felt so heavy.
Exhale, what's a cross to a christ?
I think as my smoke gets lost in the night,
I watch a moth that thought he was right,
Flock towards the light, drop from his height,
Even hindsight gets lost with its life
It's quite a fine line between rotten and ripe.
When each day's the same thing, the pain that each day brings,
Won't go away, but it may fade into a faint sting,
No matter how much change collection plates may bring,
Soldiers start marching in when the proud saints sing,
Painting on an angel face, collecting feathers, made wings
Idolized 'til praying hands became the devil's playthings.

It seems strange the way the scenes change while repeating
Replay, cliches disguised before a greenscreen.
If there's no end, then the mean seems suspiciously
Dependent on the missing slash fictitious bits of history
Ideas like divinity, religiously were underscored,
Resources were the forces that had both begun and won the war.
So whats the score? Far as I can tell, same as it was before
Suffer for, more forbidden fruit but rarely touch the core.
Coming up, from the floor, People taking from the poor
Exporting it with disproportionate rewards and nothing more,
I wonder what the money's for, what's everybody running for?
If I would love my muscles more, comfortably numb or sore.
But this is just the business, counterfeiting twisted smiles
Optimistic, bound to fit in if I live in single file
Children growing cynical within a vicious cycle
Feeling like what's worst in life is critical to his survival.

Those most viciously afflicted with the sickness are the symptomless
The most prolific vivid vision's typically the simplest,
It's amazing what you see when you bother to look,
Dividends of fishermen got caught in the hook,
Of his line, while his mind got lost in a book,
Now he's lost in his lines, lawfully rob from the crook,
I guess he saw his time was borrowed, only so long you can follow
Only so many fine wines that you could swallow,
My intent instead is to reject what uncle Simon says,
My defiant rhyming dialect is just a side effect,
People walk around like walking dead more than a minor threat,
How you gonna **** a talking head when you can't find a neck?
I suggest that you protect your mind instead, cause mindless men
Think that they're the brightest cause the light switch in the lion's den
They've kind of been confined within is on so high it blinded them,
Moths go flying towards those kinds of lights and then they die in them

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

6 The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.

7 Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.

8 Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel:

9 Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.

10 Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

11 It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him:

12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:

13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

14 Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.

15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;

18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.

19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

20 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour.

21 If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.

22 Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.

24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,

25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;

26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

I’m 19 years old
I’m ambidextrous
I hate bell peppers in my food
I still don’t have a driver’s license
And for as long as I can remember
I’ve had a fascination with hugs, Ginger Ale, and other people’s names
I believe there are only two people in the world:
Those who like spoken word
And liars
I’m not religious
My faith in God died before I could even figure out who He was
But in June 2019 I saw my nephew’s face for the first time and thanked whoever created humans that day
I go to a pretty standard college
Where thankfully my disabilities are taken seriously
And I don’t cry so much anymore
I know the best way to lawfully cheat to make your essays longer
Hint: the font size
But I don’t know the last names of any of the ladies who serve me food every day
I’m the transgender son of a man who still doesn’t want to believe it and would rather I be non-binary
The son of a woman who finds happiness in putting her children’s hopes and dreams down
I’m only 5’5”…on a really good day
But being built like a haiku in a poetry book is a lesson in finding ways to be seen as the tallest in the room
I don’t know what it means to be a man
And for a while, I thought dressing like a ******* could tell me
I’m still learning to unlearn the self-hatred inside me
Reminded every day that the ******* I have on my chest can be seen as male body parts if I had the humor to see it:
******* can be my misplaced ball-sack
I know that we all carry an addiction to property in our blood
I know that love cannot be owned in any way shape or form
Somedays, I am still the fourteen-year-old on the ground with my wrists pinned, being told to “shut the **** up” every time I see someone who looks like Him
I only watch two shows now but I know deep-down, iCarly and WOWP will always be the best **** Nickelodeon or Disney created
I know that the best actual company is not Disney or Pixar but DREAMWORKS
Because I like owning the fact that I am a male Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove
I like being the first person in my life to go to a human rights march and actually WANT to be there
I was the tree that fell when no one else was looking and dared to make a sound
I am the Thanksgiving buffet that depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder tried to take apart piece by piece
I am living proof that those ******* didn’t know what they were getting themselves into
I am both survivor and boy
Every night, the sky opens its mouth and swallows the sun in a single gulp just to make room for the room
What a terrifying but amazing way to see our lives
To be so full of so much light but always hungry for more

but each truth-seeking man seeks no marriage, no eden as such, but the turbulent fate of a brotherhood: a family of men thrown into the depths of the north sea with no sight of feminine comforting, for a thousand years at least if note more: so she might be strained for giving affection and refrained from philandering: the wiser the man the more reward he sees in a brotherhood, than a harem.*

that seagull white backdropped against the plum
purple bruises of the sky pampered with immediately
lashing out a torrent but for seagull's sake
withdrawing for a consistency of colours not mingling
into a drear opening of a letter addressed
for some dear mr., in that virtuoso of waters cascading:
wishing i too had no umbrella
or be miniature under a mushroom,
as i am and forever will be, an ant's lack of sweat lifting
its bodyweight and more over bookmarks
and crevices we sweated rivers for,
and died, exaggerating... the outlasted remains
of chiselled rock, when others took to
climbing non-chiselled rock of mountain
for a compass they thought would
make others plagiarise their lives for theirs,
having accomplished the climb of the heights
thus suggested with no other comparative issuing
of demands... indeed to what height to what
depth is there a guarantee to be given?
to what depth to what height is a guarantee
of adoration lawfully bindingly fulfilled
with red carpet 24 hour surveillance paparazzi?
we have unlearned the face broken
by stone and forest pine...
instead we learned to be an epileptic narcissus
blinking into the frozen mirror of the lake...
but our face breaks a thousand upon a thousand
more times like this... for in looking elsewhere,
we forsake ownership of the things that
never reflected us, but were made mandible by us,
so now we have become mandible by them,
for the once prized mirror of narcissus in the lake,
has become a blinking circus act we dare not believe.

"So I got this idea for a poem"

"Nono!!! You can't write that!
you'll regret it when he reads it"

Doesn't mean it's about him!!!

Freedom of Speech has more then one meaning

then being lawfully allowed to speak your mind.

And if it means you don't have to face consequences,

then that law is fake.

a lot can happen in a year, maybe four;
a lot can happen in an hour, maybe more.

talking is fine, but can you take on the risk?
now, i’m not just talking about an ordinary task.
whether it be a lifetime of love, the love of your life,
or one particularly special night,
it all comes down to this:
a right
of passage, a race.

who’s better?

he’s taller, but he has the nice hair;
she’s blonder, while she tries not to care.
he can’t dance, and he won’t try;
she won’t admit to the tear in her eye.
he knows what he wants, and he knows nothing;
she tries to distinguish a little bit of everything.

stop it.

there’s no winning the race yet because his shoe is untied;
she can’t stand and go face that finish line.
he tripped and fell, but so did she;
the other guy ran, only to fall to his knees.
stop panting and collect yourself- just breathe.

a lifetime led to four years, and four years to that day;
she ran and chased too many check points along the way.
afraid of being alone, she asked too many times;
afraid of dancing alone, she asked, but was still denied.
him, him, him, him, he who was possibly that sacred hymn:
one he wondered impatiently,
another he pursued contradictingly,
another he fell flawlessly;
however, no he was to be lawfully,
but only so rightfully.

this is no lifetime, but only
one evening not meant to be lonely.
the only way to win is to face them directly in the eye
and have every question answered. why?
because this is that special night,
senior year, and you have the right.

step back, step up, have courage, calm down.
ASK her to a quaint place in town,
but before she even knows you’re listening,
just as both your hearts are quickening,
surprise HER with that special something.
if she knows, you may think you blew it,
when really, this whole time, she probably knew it.
it won’t be easy, but if it comes from the heart,
there’s the finish line. all you’ve got TO do is start…

ya know, sometimes Poems Reveal Oblivious Messages...