A tomboy, naturally barefoot, gingerly walks the white painted line because the asphalt is just too burning hot.  Scrubby tufts of weedy grass are welcome respites on the way, briefly cooling her steps even if they are stickery.  The ***** soles of her now calloused feet were intentionally toughened just before school got out, with mincing steps across the roughest gravel she could find.  Her mother accommodates her preference, leaving a pan of water outside for her to scrub her feet before going in.  Even then, a black path has gradually appeared leading from the front door in the old orangish carpet.  Two months of summer barefoot every day when she had the choice. Keyed roller skates clamped onto last year’s school shoes were the exception.  She can flat out run anywhere.
  
This particular expedition began like every other thing they did, which was anything to fend off boredom.  She had been sitting on a cement step shaded by an open carport, just three oil-stained parking stalls for three small apartments on the tired poor side of town.  There is a little more dirt on the street here, and grass is a little neglected.  Just like the children, but these kids prefer that anyway.  Two scruffy friends stomp on aluminum cans, brothers sporting matching buzz cuts and cut-off shorts.  They are flattening them for the recycling money by the pound, so the carport smells vaguely of stale beer.  Another boy attempts to shoot a wandering fly with a home-made rubber band gun; rings cut from a bicycle tube made the best ammo.  “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  Thwack…  The only requisite for friendship here is vicinity, yet it is still true.  The idea of choosing friends is about as odd as the concept that one could chose where one lives... Strengths and shortcomings are completely accepted because it is just what it is.  

Their amazing three-story tree fort with a side look-out had been heartlessly taken down by the disgruntled property owner last week.  Two months of accumulating pilfered and scrap two-by-fours, nails, and even a stack of plywood (gasp!) from area construction sites had yielded supplies for a growing fort.  A gang-plank style entry had crossed the ditch to the first level.  Nailed ladder steps to the second offered a little more vertigo and a prime spot to hurl acorns.  Another ladder up led up to the third floor retreat, with a couch-like seating area and shoulder high walls.  A breeze reached the leaves up there.   The next tree over was the look-out, with nothing but ladder steps all the way up to where the view opened up out of the ravine.  When the wind blew, it gave merciless lessons in facing any fear of heights.  But now that was all over, discovered gone overnight.

Someone says again, “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  “ 7-11? ”  Good enough, so they head out.   Distance measures time.  Ten minutes is the end of the street past the cracked basketball court in the church parking lot.  Fifteen minutes and the lawns end at the edge of the sub-division.  Half-built homes rising from bare dirt and scattered foundations could offer treasures of construction scraps, (where she suspects the stack of plywood came from.) but they keep walking.  Twenty minutes is where industry has scraped away nature, and railroad tracks form an elevated levee.  But time is meaningless if there’s a wealth of it, so there’s no going further until an informal ritual is completed.  Wordlessly they each dig around their pockets searching for equal amounts of pennies.  Each of them carefully arrange them lined up on the rounded-surface rail, and they settle in for the wait.  It could be five minutes or it could be thirty.  They all understand it’s a crap-shoot of patience waiting for the next train. It’s an unspoken test; quitting too early means losing your coins to the one who stays, so that’s not an option.

Heat presses down and the breezeless air smells like telephone-pole creosote.  She sits in a dusty patch of shade found next to an overgrown ****.  She knows it tastes like licorice and breaks off a stem to chew, but doesn’t know what it is.  The boys throw rocks randomly until she finally stands up to join in, tempted by the challenge of flight and distance.  Then she stands in the center of the tracks, looking one way then the other, searching for the first random distant glimmer of the engine’s light at the horizon.   A flash, so she places her ear to the metal Indian-style, and the imminent approach is confirmed.  She calls out, “its here!” and double checks her pennies’ alignment.  Heads up or tails, but always aligned so the building might be stretched tall or wide, or Lincoln’s face made broad or thin.  That happened only rarely, since it could only be rolled by one wheel then bounced off.  If it stuck longer, the next wheels would surely smash it into a thin, elliptical, smooth misshapen disc of shiny copper.  Its only value becomes validation of a hint of delinquency, Destroying-Government-Property.  Once she splurged with a quarter, which became smashed to just a gleaming silver, bent wafer discolored at the edge.  Curiosity wasn’t worth 25 cents again though, so she had only one of those in her collection.

The approaching engine silently builds impending size and power, so she dashes back down the rocky embankment to safety because after all, she is not a fool, tempting fate with stupid danger. She knows a couple of those fools, but she finds no thrill from that and is not impressed by them either.  Suddenly the train is here, generating astounding noise and wind, occasional wheels screaming protest on their axels.  She intently watches exactly where she placed her coins, hoping to see the moment they fly off the rails that are rhythmically bending under the weight rolling by.  It becomes another game of patience, with such a long line of cars, and she gives up counting them at 80-ish.  Then suddenly it is done and quickly the noise recedes back to heat and cicadas.  The rails are hot.  Diligently they search for the shiny wafers.  Slowly pacing each wood beam, they could have landed in the gravel, or pressed against the rail, or even lodged straight up against the square black wood yards down the tracks.  They find most of them, give up on the rest, then continue on.

She has thirty cents and at last they reach the afternoon’s destination.  7-11’s parking lot becomes a genuine game of “Lava”, burning blacktop encourages leaps from cooler white lines, to painted tire stops, to grass island oasis, then three hot steps across black lava to the sidewalk, and automatic doors swoosh open to air conditioning.  She rarely has enough money for a coke icey; she is here for the bottom shelf candy, a couple pennies or a nickel each.  Off flavors but sweet enough.  She remembered when her older brother was passing out lunchbags of candy to the neighborhood kids for free, practically littering the cul-de-sac.  She had wondered where he got enough money for all that popularity, or could he have saved that much from trick-or-treat? She wondered until he got busted shoplifting at the grocery store.  The security guard decreed that he was never allowed in there again, forever, and the disgrace of sitting on the curb waiting for the mortified ride home was enough to keep him from doing it again.

Today she picks out a few root beer barrels, some Tootsie-rolls (the smaller ones for two cents, not the large ones that divide into cubes) a candy necklace and tiny wax coke bottles, and of course a freeze-pop.   Sitting on the curb, she bites off small pieces of the freeze pop, careful not to get tooth-freeze or brain-freeze, until the last melty chunk is squeezed out the top of the thin plastic tube.

“What do you want to do now?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

Rivinia,
It's a pretty cool name.
I had a key to a house
and threw it in his face.
Color me mine
and topple me yours,
it's off the cuff
like pogo stick chores.
Throw your knives sideways
on table tops.
Now isn't that attractive
to you, to you?
Now, what do I do?
With people coming here
and stand bys rushing there
of the female persuasion
and bunnies up the foot.
All in a confidential sweep
of rice ball rubies
and a dented cup.
Oh, manual window,
it's chilly outside,
so please be a doll
and help me make it fine.
Because where have you been, all of life?
Completely unaware
of an existence of your kind,
with a new screwball
and a lamp for kicks.
Drum stick models
so you can eat and cook
and take down the spark notes
via nightlight.

Etta James, oh the lady could sing.
Sarah Vaughn,when I hear Anita Baker in away it's Sarah.
If you never knew one of the two.
You would swear they was one.

Billy Eckstein, during his time.
Mister B, was smoother then Billy Dee Williams.
And he had away of mastering a song.

Which we saw when David Ruffin came along.
Who was a rival to Sam Cooke?
A master of the coolest romantic hooks.

He might have been a little different.
Except Chuck Berry can't be deny his dues.
Johnny B Goode, is nationally known.

The color country boy in his song could play.
Yes, he had to change the word to suit the segregation days.
But Johnny B was African American in everyway.

Who doesn't believe that when you see Morris Day?
That he owe his style to Cab Calloway.

The role of an African American diva could be trace to Lena Horne.
Or maybe actress Freddi Washington.
Or opera star Marion Anderson.
Who sometimes don't get recognition like they should.
Almost like Dorothy Dandridge doesn't.

Still they played on like Josephine Baker.
Who like George Washington Carver faces hostility and problems?

We still trying to educate people about Charles Drew.
Who fame is traced to the blood floating within you?

Against the greatest of odds.
They adapted and blazed a trail.
Through the roughest of times.
They was determine to be.

Who doesn't know Little Richard?
Who borrowed heavily off of gospel singer Billy Wright?
And soon was creating truth within his lyrics.
Until others came along and water them down.

We know truth still is avoided by them.
Except for the man that sung about a hound.
Which wasn't at all about a dog.
But about a cheating man.
Sung beautifully by Big Mama Thorton.

But then no man plays the guitar better.
Then Marva Collins or Rosetta Throphe.
Yes, these women could play.

Some people will never understand Malcolm X contribution.
Except, he left many that's seen today.
Just notice the way he never revisted the prison in any negative way.

We marched.
We protested.
And some of the best controversial stars comes from the musical side.

For no other side of music can touch the blues with truth.
Well, I guess country do.
But the blues takes many forms.

Could be about leaving.
Could be about loving.
Or that stuff you do in the dark with your love.

It could be the howlin'.
It might be the scoffin'.
It could be the chasin'.
But like many styles of music.
Some knows they was creating babies.

Which leads us to Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass.
Where the Love TKO and Let's Get It On still is the songs.

It's an African American tradition of the past.
That affects the future too.
For stars of yesterdays.
Are seen in stars of today.

A Legacy.
And we know legacies doesn't fade.

So breaks the sun earth's rugged chains,
      Wherein rude winter bound her veins;
So grows both stream and source of price,
      That lately fettered were with ice.
So naked trees get crisped heads,
      And colored coats the roughest meads,
And all get vigor, youth, and spright,
      That are but looked on by his light.

It’s been said to cause success,
Yet its’ face is boldly grim.
Some even say it makes or breaks you,
Kills your soul, or fills the brim.

It’s been deemed the roughest test,
Where preparation meets implausible.
Whenever passion makes a breakthrough
Sounds of hell’s end become audible.

It’s received reviews of stress,
Of endless torture tearing through.
Leaving good men self-departed,
For they had no will to make it through.

It’s been seen in years of the past,
The trials of Job denote it well.
As Satan crushed his joys,
Job consummated to prevail.

It’s been said, “show no regret!”
When you look deep into your mind,
For this test is truly an artist
Creating a man, from pure divine.

So why let discouragement corrupt
Your trip through the abyss?
For it’s been said to cause success,

And that’s one hell of a gift.

There’s a smile on my face today
And it’s all because of you
You’ve shown me love these past years
You’ve helped me make it through

I’ve had some rough days here
And been depressed very much
But when I come over and see you
My depression disappears with your touch

You provide me with hugs
And sometimes kisses too
You take my mind away from reality
And all the stressful things I have to do

You always can make me smile
Even in the roughest days
I’ve never been sad around you
You just seem to have your ways

You’re an angle sent from heaven
Up there from far above
Counting me as part of your family
And showing me all your love

I’m thankful for our time together
And our wonderful friendship too
If ever you need anything in life
I hope you know what to do

Just simply pick up your phone
And dial my number fast
When it rings I’ll pick up
And I’ll be there in a blast

I’ll show up for fun
Or support if needed too
Your family has brought the best to my life
Seriously it’s the least I could do.

I love you all so much
With all of my heart
And just wish life
Would not pull us apart

It was the schooner Hesperus
  That sailed the wintry sea:
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
  To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
  Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her ***** white as the hawthorn buds
  The ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
  His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
  The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old sailor,
  Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
“I pray thee, put into yonder port,
  For I fear a hurricane.

“Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
  And tonight no moon we see!”
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
  And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
  A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
  And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain,
  The vessel in its strength:
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
  Then leaped her cable’s length.

“Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
  And do not tremble so:
For I can weather the roughest gale,
  That ever wind did blow.”

He wrapped her warm in his ******’s coat
  Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
  And bound her to the mast.

“O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
  O say, what may it be?”
“Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!”—
  And he steered for the open sea.

“O father! I hear the sound of guns,
  O say, what may it be?”
“Some ship in distress, that cannot live
  In such an angry sea!”

“O father! I see a gleaming light,
  O say, what may it be?”
But the father answered never a word,
  A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
  With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
  On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
  That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
  On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear
  Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
  Towards the reef of Norman’s Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
  A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
  On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
  She drifted a weary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
  Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
  Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
  Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
  With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
  **! **! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
  A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair
  Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozed on her breast,
  The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-****,
  On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
  In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
  On the reef of Norman’s Woe!

GROWLTIGER was a Bravo Cat, who lived upon a barge;
In fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large.
From Gravesend up to Oxford he pursued his evil aims,
Rejoicing in his title of “The Terror of the Thames.”

His manners and appearance did not calculate to please;
His coat was torn and seedy, he was baggy at the knees;
One ear was somewhat missing, no need to tell you why,
And he scowled upon a hostile world from one forbidding eye.

The cottagers of Rotherhithe knew something of his fame,
At Hammersmith and Putney people shuddered at his name.
They would fortify the hen-house, lock up the silly goose,
When the rumour ran along the shore: GROWLTIGER’S ON THE LOOSE!

Woe to the weak canary, that fluttered from its cage;
Woe to the pampered Pekinese, that faced Growltiger’s rage.
Woe to the bristly Bandicoot, that lurks on foreign ships,
And woe to any Cat with whom Growltiger came to grips!

But most to Cats of foreign race his hatred had been vowed;
To Cats of foreign name and race no quarter was allowed.
The Persian and the Siamese regarded him with fear—
Because it was a Siamese had mauled his missing ear.

Now on a peaceful summer night, all nature seemed at play,
The tender moon was shining bright, the barge at Molesey lay.
All in the balmy moonlight it lay rocking on the tide—
And Growltiger was disposed to show his sentimental side.

His bucko mate, GRUMBUSKIN, long since had disappeared,
For to the Bell at Hampton he had gone to wet his beard;
And his bosun, TUMBLEBRUTUS, he too had stol’n away-
In the yard behind the Lion he was prowling for his prey.

In the forepeak of the vessel Growltiger sate alone,
Concentrating his attention on the Lady GRIDDLEBONE.
And his raffish crew were sleeping in their barrels and their bunks—
As the Siamese came creeping in their sampans and their junks.

Growltiger had no eye or ear for aught but Griddlebone,
And the Lady seemed enraptured by his manly baritone,
Disposed to relaxation, and awaiting no surprise—
But the moonlight shone reflected from a thousand bright blue eyes.

And closer still and closer the sampans circled round,
And yet from all the enemy there was not heard a sound.
The lovers sang their last duet, in danger of their lives—
For the foe was armed with toasting forks and cruel carving knives.
Then GILBERT gave the signal to his fierce Mongolian horde;
With a frightful burst of fireworks the Chinks they swarmed aboard.
Abandoning their sampans, and their pullaways and junks,
They battened down the hatches on the crew within their bunks.

Then Griddlebone she gave a screech, for she was badly skeered;
I am sorry to admit it, but she quickly disappeared.
She probably escaped with ease, I’m sure she was not drowned—
But a serried ring of flashing steel Growltiger did surround.

The ruthless foe pressed forward, in stubborn rank on rank;
Growltiger to his vast surprise was forced to walk the plank.
He who a hundred victims had driven to that drop,
At the end of all his crimes was forced to go ker-flip, ker-flop.

Oh there was joy in Wapping when the news flew through the land;
At Maidenhead and Henley there was dancing on the strand.
Rats were roasted whole at Brentford, and at Victoria Dock,
And a day of celebration was commanded in Bangkok.

A hundred thousand miles
were written on his face
He'd earned near every wrinkle
Did this cowboy known as "Jace"
He'd ridden cross the country
From Death Valley up to Maine
In weather full of sunshine
To the roughest hurricane
He owned two pair of Levis
One for workin', one for church
To know how long he'd been here
You'd really have to search
"Jace" was born in Kansas
In the spring of fifty one
His parents were both teachers
And he was their only son
Kansas was a "free" state
One where slaves were free men too
Where the soldiers were militia men
Who served in Union Blue
The fighting up in Kansas
started before the civil war
They were fighting over slavery
For many years before
The first call up was in summer
Back in June of sixty one
Jace's father got his papers
And he left his wife and son
The First Kansas Regiment
Were a proud and fearsome lot
They were a tougher foe to battle
Than the South had at first thought
"Jace's" father was a Captain
In fact he had his own brigade
And he was a decorated soldier
For his dues,  this man had paid
In October of sixty four
He was riding his horse "Sleek"
When we was killed by a "grey" ******
At The Battle of Marmiton Creek
The news got home directly
"Jace" and Mother quickly left
They boarded up the house
And then, they headed for the west
With no father to guide him
Jace became the man at home
He didn't like to settle
And he would much rather roam
His mother passed...consumption
Jace was only seventeen
He was not one for mourning
If you know just what I mean
He needed work to get some cash
He left school....and could ride
And he always had his rifle
Just hanging by his side
He could shoot better than older men
And he could ride just like the wind
And even at this early age
He was leathery of skin
Jace joined in a cattle drive
Moving eastward from the west
He didn't take much time to prove
He was equal to the test
Roping, branding, riding herd
Jace was comfortable as hell
But, he rarely ever said a word
Jace would hardly ever yell
He would eat off from the main group
Always watching, keeping post
He would have his own small fire
The men would call him "ghost"
He never settled down at all
Just rode from west to east
Then turning round he'd return home
His palms had now been greased
He didn't spend much money
He kept it in a bank back home
He had a spread in Austin
And he ..yep, lived there all alone
Each time he'd run a herd across
The country he would buy
Some more land in the area
Or at least, most times he'd try
He had a man named Sancho
Worked the ranch and kept it up
and a young lad known as Felize
Followed Sancho like a pup
Jace would come and clean his rig
Never staying past a week
Then he'd be back out on the trail again
On his second horse...still "Sleek"
His jeans were crusted over
Clay and mud from all the drives
There was more age in this mans jeans
Than most cats did have lives
He beat them with a broom at home
Never ever washed them clean
He said by looking at the dirt on here
I know exactly where I've been
A grizzled old range  cowboy
With a skin as tough as hide
He was never home for very long
Always waiting for the ride
In Austin his ranch was just huge
14 thousand acres square
But, what good was a ranch that big
When he was never there
"Land is something stable"
"They can never make more land"
"But as for cold cash money"
"It's not worth a field of sand"
He died while home in Austin
Nineteen hundred twenty nine
The market crashed around him
But he said, "All this is mine"
They took him back to Kansas
To be buried at his start
He was buried near his father
And his mom, god bless her heart
He gave his land to Sanche
and gave some to Felize too
They kept it up for him so long
It was the least that he could do
He was the image of a cowboy
A loner, sagebrush in his soul
But in the end , it was family
For that's what kept him whole.

When I am told things like,
“The adult part of you needs to step it up and return …This has to happen NOW!”
                                                                      - it feels like everything that’s going on inside of me…
                                                                                   the pain,
                                                                                        the nightmares,
                                                                                             the helplessness,
                                                                                                 the hopelessness,
                                                                                                      the anger,
                                                                                                            the sadness,
                                                                                                                  the fear…
                                                                                                                                    isn’t even real.
It makes me feel like I’m so inadequate and a failure and over-dramatic. It makes me feel like you think it’s all in my head and I have the power to just stop all of it and if I would just “step up” and use that power – I’d be HEALED! Yea Me! And I wonder why I don’t feel that way – why I still feel so much pain. Because of your invalidation I doubt my feelings, what happens to me, because I “choose” this because I want to feel this way. I must be a stubborn ridiculous drama because I can’t just “summon” the adult to take over when ****** chick’s in charge. "Just figure it out, Nita! You’re such a whiny baby…come on! Get over it! Deal with it…” That’s what it sounds like. AGAIN! I’ve told you that there are times when I CAN do it – but there are just as many times I can’t!

I am not asking you to ‘understand’ it – or say you ‘understand’ it – that’s not possible. But it isn’t that easy to just “summon the internal ‘rational’ Nita”– and it’s overwhelming and it feels like a boulder has fallen on top of me and there’s no strength to lift it off. And I don’t want to die – but I fear every night that the ****** angry Nita is going to **** me… that one night, she is going to be in charge, and the ‘tools’ I have presently are not going to work, nobody is going to be ‘available’ and it’s going to be the wrong night…and it’s going to be my last night. That’s real to me. Let me say this again. I DON’T WANT TO DIE! ME! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! But she does – because it doesn’t stop. And she can’t make it go away nor will she relinquish control. Not right now. Let me say this again, too: I do NOT expect you to understand how horrific it really is those nights.

                                           You couldn’t possibly because :
                                                         1. You aren’t ‘living/experiencing’ it.
                                                         2. If you did understand, you wouldn’t tell me to “step it up
                                                            and take charge” because you would understand that it isn’t
                                                            even possible to do that.

I know that you have tolerated my pain for a long, long, very long time. And I am immeasurably grateful. I do feel the love and acceptance in your compassion and hope and commitment to our friendship. However, at the same time I feel so disconnected from you and unsure how to respond to such feelings. I wish I knew why and how to fix that. And I know that all the ‘pain and fear’ is not going to let up any time soon and I am so exhausted I don’t know how much more I can survive, or if I even want to. It’s so depressing that some days I cannot even move and I want to die just to get some relief!

Tonight the pain in my head is excruciating – it travels down the back of my neck into my abdomen – and nothing touches it. I desperately want to hurt myself tonight. It will make it stop – at least temporarily. I bite the inside of my lip until blood flows – trying not to do further damage.
There are voices all talking at once now, and at this moment, I don’t know if I will be here tomorrow, or if I am what state of mind I will be in.

I am so lost right now. I have tried to believe that it won’t always be this way but I feel so depleted and hopeless. I cannot take care of myself right now. I want to be alone but when I’m alone, with no one to distract me, or talk to me, the piercing truth of my reality cuts into my heart and burns through my soul. I am so drained I cannot even think straight. My heart aches….this is the roughest patch I’ve hit and I can’t believe I’m still alive.

The pain I feel is unexplainable. I’m so tired and frustrated and I feel like it’s all just too complex to deal with. Too multifarious for me to understand…and the therapist would say, “It’s not, it’s so common and understandable, and you can do this…just keep on keeping on.” But he’s wrong. Clearly he doesn't understand…I can assure you…I am dying more every day.

Oh, wait, I’m a “survivor”, right? I forgot. I have tried to collaborate my shattered thinking to form some rational simplicity from my emotional intricacy. I’ve tried to understand. But my mouth forms words my brain is unable to process. What I do understand is that the human mind and body shields a child from the horrible truth so the child can survive. She can survive but not realize how she has been shaped, altered, wounded, until she grows up to become a woman and it gets so bad that she feels like she’s nothing, nobody, worthless. I understand that because I had no idea how much he really shaped who I am today. I feel nameless, fragmented, unlovable because I cannot love myself. He cut me into pieces…so many pieces I don’t know which pieces belong to “me” and which belong to “him”. I cannot sort through them.

See, now I am afraid that the only way I see this working for me is to shut down completely. I really do not know how else to do it, the “feelings” are just too big and overwhelming for me right now. I barely make it week to week, day to day, really. I do not have a good support system in place right now. So much is happening inside of me and I don’t want to rely others, I don’t want to “count on” others for support…

I’m struck by how little my life has become. I am afraid and I can’t even tell anyone. Afraid and overwhelmed by what goes on inside my head and my body. So big, so real, so much stronger than what is outside of me. So sharp…I feel it, cutting me, stabbing me, with its serrated razor-sharp pieces. It’s painful…

it's so strange how fear strikes
gently at first, like morphine
it dribbles through you, you bottom out.

and then when you are dry and cracked
it soaks into you like gasoline to driftwood
the sound of the birds become dull
and then you panic about your panic
because the birds see everything and you need them
when the wild beasts come
need them to listen, so you can sit still and hum--mmmmmm
dear forest, can you block the taste out of my mouth
block the sound of talk radio voices whirring through the channels
pineal staticky as a black hole, so you say
vacuum packed emotions cemented in nothing
compressed trash dumped into the same landfill
and suddenly your cup runeth over with the poisoned caviar
and you ignored that ******* caveat when you were young
the bed you make you lay in it, you dug your grave and then fought them
all the way in, i guess that deserves another personality pathology

words and pictures and angels that george carlin doesn't believe in
but i don't mind i still mostly agree with him
except quietly poking that thought to the back of my mind
to recirculate and well i don't want to forget it in too much time
but angels, there are some things you can't describe to people
that eventually make sense, and some that make you stop
before you start because, you have to see quezacoatl to believe it
and i understood after all those nights of john darnielle
soft voice meant to carry, snakes, destruction, and ripe plums

there are some little devils and some little angels
they don't need a medium, just an invitation
a little thought, blind intention, unconscious manifestation
and only then can they live
hocus pocus **** whatever,
illuminati is distraction,
these aren't legends they are presently presence
essence and breathlessness and aristocrat embezzlement
i'm not worried about the devil
i'm worried about the people who crouch to his level
leveraging him on their shoulders
parasitic loaner, bankers thirsty to sell us
everyone's just looking at miley cyrus
welcome to america, this is a ******* mess
i might overnight some toy blocks by UPS to congress
if they learn to count 1 2 3 but in millions
perhaps it'll dawn on them how much ******* debt we're in

so some nights i let the crackle overwhelm
and sink into the consciousness
and let the shadows prowl around
because pajama sam keeps demanding
not to be afraid of the dark now, for my art, for my heart
there's a world in there and sometimes you have to fall
to know what's life when you come up for air and see
this show is so debonair i can barely bare to read the latest
it's all so plasmatic, phlegm and smoke and paper
burning cities, smoke and mirrors, moving more paper
the only way to act outside the script is to stop acting
and it's the roughest road to choose
but it'll be worth it when you can actually rest in peace without dues
reality isn't real is it, blue collar is another word for slave isn't it
9 - 5 is another expression for consume, a check goes in a box
but we assume it's fair work for pay
we are each a stock, worth about as much as a tea bag
to a party of executives in hot water

and the man outside keeps screaming
something evil is hidden in the depths of the news page
slipping through slack fingered open mouthed people
somehow we're still clueless in the information age
we see it, we read it, we feel it, helpless
we sit in our desk chairs and wonder what next
and the devil sits in our ears whispering don't worry
i know what you're expecting of me
i'm coming, if that is what you all collectively believe

i turn to quezacoatl and all he will murmur
is
what are you going to do about it
the collective has power
waiting for a fateful hour like
a wave puffing up it's chest
oppressed does not mean suppressed
and politics are liar language
money is bluffing to keep us thinking we're nothing
once you've seen what hides in the dark
the light glows brighter in comparison
keeps you safe in the early hours of morning
when you listen

we are the change
we are absolutely everything

Every morning is an outcome of a dark night,
Keeping this hope up, I'm still standing in the fight.
I feel complete when you are start and end of my day,
Without you around, I'm simply fading away.

When people raise their finger on me,
To you, I desire to flee.
When I'm judged, misunderstood, accused,
In your light, I want to be fused.

I accept that I am not a good person,
So what? I'll be given scars in black, red and crimson?
I am suppressed the every single time,
Is it always my crime?

How for them it can always be so fine?
Can't they see me, feel me, ever whine?
I just want to be happy, feel the breeze with a smile,
I want you to hold my hand, in this meanwhile.

My disability to express what is inside,
In my life, is bringing the disastrous tide.
Today I feel, the solution is to end this,
Maybe peace comes, when heaven gives me a kiss.

I am into this turmoil,
Where are you? Come wrap me in your foil.
Take me into a different world,
Then all the sadness in trash will be hurled.

When one feels alone in crowd,
Because of the pain, one wants to shout out loud.
When moonlight becomes the brightest thing,
Somebody else of your life becomes the king.

Maybe it is the most beautiful scene,
But how can you expect love from the mean?
Is it right to always in the flow yourself to blame?
I swear, Life! is the roughest game.

My mistake, I am not able to determine,
Perhaps this is what is making them win.
My tender age, my shaken phase,
Makes them think I am an easy chase.

Nothing is capturing my mind,
Now is when I want you to come and (me) find.
Only you can lift me from this situation,
I want you. For this I've no explanation.

You're that invisible power, the magic,
The only one that can take away all that is tragic.
Nobody knows who you are, including this heart,
But I so wish to be on your priority chart.

What goes in me, one fails to understand right now,
I want answers to what, when and how.
What is keeping me so down?
When will they stop wearing my life's crown?
How cannot seeing all of this, I now frown?

I want to end this in any way,
In between emotions, I no longer can sway.
For myself, I want to breathe once,
God helps all and not just nuns.

Shower your blessing on me too,
You're not God, so to reach you, there's no cue.
Just lift me once, high enough, so they can see,
That I am happier when set free!

Final Curtain
This is going to be written from raw emotion beware you might find bits of skin and even specks of
Blood and I might even shout at God he knows all about that He even on occasion repented of what He
Had intended to do you have a friend killed off its not pretty in fact it is messy I’m going to paint a
Picture with words give it structure depth and the rich pathos that it demands first some of those in
Attendance I can’t qualify this but I believe something this important God sends a painter to catch the
Private the sacred facts on the richest canvas and the paint has flashes of brilliance even though the
Colors are somber and dark to the side and the edge we would call it sinister Steve Jobs spoke of it as
Necessary nature a cleaner making ready for the new Victor Hugo called it the great cutting that would
Bring a greater growth and a show that would be stupendous dwarfing the first I suppose showing its
Inferior make up when compared to the future so there he stands the grim reaper first your eyes are
Frozen on the scythe even in the quiet softness it gleams they use to say there is a knife that will cut
Bone well what about a blade so sharp it cuts through flesh separates the soul and leaves no outer
Evidence of its work if that isn’t bad enough then everyone avoids eye contact with Grim what if he
Nodded recognition and gave you a sick smile saying you’re on my soon to do list thankfully there are
Others to observe one man stands with a violin he too is dressed in black he slides the bow slowly
Across the strings the sound it makes gives ultimate pure voice to the occasion sadness intoned by the
Richest quality it is sound but is liquid as the tears in the eyes of those attending then at his side the
Man raises the trumpet later he will blow taps my mind returns to what Winston Churchill said go ahead
Bugler today you will play taps but know I will be waiting for you to play reveille at the eastern gate that
Horn with its powerful soft tunes not only fills the parlor it penetrates all open places and it causes the
Curtin of time to draw back and you view life as it once was the street the housing is crystal clear and we
Are young again Kenny and my sister Evelyn and Willie are shown as they were Kenny had a laid back
Cool that made it nice to be around him sorry my sister put spice into life she was a hell raiser by this
Well you decide can’t and won’t tell you all but she left Don Scarlet cooling his heels while she stole his
Police car and a bouncer at the club Avalon had a hot ride home or didn’t he messed with her so she set
His car on fire then when she left this world her car hit the pole in Rosemond knocking all the power out
For over an hour the roughest for me was the funeral she had them play country music no not all my
Rowdy friends but a little Jones it had a defiant tone is all I know then Willie boy he was the leader of
Our street I respected and loved him then and still do they are a dying breed as is evidenced by the cold
Stones that mark there resting place this brings to mind as these days are in view back then you didn’t
Have the mind set of setting goals and especially contemplating future death but for the life of me I
Never once went to play at Price cemetery or at mound or the East we should have collectively pooled
Our money bought Black Desert as a resting place well for those that had a rebel spirit any way that is
The trouble they wouldn’t let the town grow and then you have political correctness and the big duffer
Environmental sensitivity took a way Black Desert the slack pile oh the wind is blowing the ash where
Were they when you ran out side at the housing to get the fresh snow to make snow ice cream to late
All Those chimneys spewing coal soot the snow was lightly back all you did was scrape off the top grab
Some and you were good to go the artist pulls you back in the only lights are over the coffin a lone man
Stands you can see he is lowering the lid a whisper goes out by Kenny outside the long black limo you
Want to say listen friend you have a youth of the fifties and a man from the sixties back there why don’t
You speed up at one of the corners he used to be a bad hot rod fool give honor where honor is do so
Grim turns to go everyone watching the direction he takes funny they all have some where to go in the
Opposite direction the painter continues to put finishing touches on this masterpiece that catches the
Essence of the life that has ended a window a door in the painting stands ajar the final parting is left for
You to process the life at the starting point that you knew up to its conclusion the musicians place their
Instruments back in the cases briefly they give a half hearted smile to one another but the one with the
Trumpet gives a few powerful blasts as if to put a powerful vibrant period at the fitting end of the story I
fell terribly short that is understandable Kenny told the story by his life thanks for being part of all our
lives Kenny

Clear your hazel gaze; you are completely submerged in an underwater paradise, suspended in the motions of the current. No, you're not drowning, I've given you enough endearment & sustenance for you to breathe on your own- even in the abyss of my oceanic heart.
Of course, you always knew you could dear.
So smile & sail along the swaying tides of teal, graze my shipwrecks with your gentle hands & kiss along my roughest of reefs. Find a mermaid with an elfish face, maroon hair & red lips to taste. Feel no limitations of world above the surface, staying in this place with you forever would be oh-so perfect. The albatross of our concrete lives, lived out in cities made of glass and steel, would never be found in a place such as this- we are forbidden to sustain ourselves through more of such unhappiness.
For down here, we simply float on.  
We can get high in the waves, and sing all of your songs. For the water lifts all the worries we may have, in times when we are not strong.
You dove into me, simply chipping away at the stoical walls I've fashioned over time. The fortress comparable Alcatraz, I built to keep my demons in and every single soul out. But you, the flighty sea spirit (believe me we are birds of a feather), made your way to my castle among the waves; soaring over all misconceptions & doubts.

The day shook itself, sniffed the air and sprinkled sunlight on my face
I woke,washed,said grace and breakfasted on hand caught trout, which had rested in my summer house down by the lake.

I took a moment to spread my eyes and fell upon this freshly fried and salted feast I had made from scratch,as indeed I had made the thatch which kept the house cool in the middle of the noon.

Very soon, my roving mind opened up to find a trial to test and undertake,would I bake some bread for the later evening meal?
In my zeal I did not see the winter creeping up on me,before I passed two more full noons the moon had shed its happy mood and food was in a short supply.
I used to cry at this awesomeness that left me in an awful mess,
but I learnt to do and mend and tend what needed tending to and now the summer's through,my larders full of food enough to see me through the roughest stuff,that the season which is about,will throw at me.

I see an end,a beginning too,the stories we are told run through the central core,
we want ,then we must do much more
we need, and what is needing for? but to fill our fears with sand and stand alone with bellies full of stone,solid,stolid
in the thick of things that seasons change to bring we fend off everything that hurts the soul,
and in the maypole time when spring is feeling kind of fine and the larders bare,
Mother nature's there to fill it up again.
A bit more planning a bit less pain
less to lose and more to gain
the same each year as it has been
for ever.

On the paint chipped pavement we went over the rules:
NO cherry bombs, NO bobbling,
NO lower-ballers, spin-tops,
chalk walkers, twenty fingers,
and especially NO  skyscrapers.
So for a few minutes we played as raw as apple skin knees,
it was the roughest, toughest, hard-nosed game
of four square any fourth grader has ever seen.
But it was all over when someone crossed the line.
There was fussing, cussing, and an accusation of the mustnt’s.
Eyebrows adjacent, we argued and clawed like kilkenny cats,
we were breaking rules, we crossed the chalk.
We took sides and worst of all,
the one crucial act that we regret,
we slammed the ball down.
It towered overhead like window washers
and landed on the school’s roof.
We stopped arguing. Nobody won that day.  

© Matthew Harlovic

Turns out the King of the Projects
couldn’t even tie his shoes.
Couldn’t draw or make love.
Hell could barely even read
and definitely didn’t know how to sing the blues.

Turns out the King got his crown
after two and half games of basketball
on the weedy court at sundown
the day before his tenth birthday.

Turns out the King was the roughest,
toughest, scabbiest fourth grader
in the whole **** grade, raised
from good Somalian stock and
willing to sucker punch kids
darker than he.

Turns out the 4 ft 5 King of the Projects
stood mighty tall over the
class pet ferret, ephemeral
creature of habit,
watched the
rodent with eyes peeled as if the two
shared the same beating
heart boombox.

As it turns out,
every day at noon we had music
but the drums were always
taken by the King who
pounded a steady beat to the
shake shake shake of
the music teacher's 'script
of benzos, eyes still glued
to the ferret, seeking a ritualized dance.

Turns out the class pet escaped last week.

Turns out the King stopped coming too.

Shame really. As the teacher, I felt I had
to have something to say to him.

Turns out I was just as scared as he.

The Burning in Connecticut  
                                                                        Precious Treasures

In her eyes you could see the flames burning in her scream you knew what she was losing no greater
Treasure could you ever measure living dolls were perishing grand fathers love and daring only added
More tragedy he and grandmother would add to the costly toll Christmas bells changed their ringing
From joy to agonies deepest tone heavy are the bellows that deliver the souls of the very young and old
To heavens shores through tumult and storm that bore the scent of ash mother has gone to the farthest
Regions of knowing she mercifully blacked out pressure pain to great to walk this thin mortal strand
You know every part of the human design outward and inward is subject to your hearts questions her
Daughter’s and parents were embodied in mystery while conversation and touching was how you
Communicated now the soul causes the body to fall back in the shadows imponderable yearnings now
Will be the language expression divided by earth and heaven believing will be the gifted ground you will
Stroll on together and heartfelt talks will resume after a walk on sacred tears that will be the spray as if
It was from Poseidon his self as you bear many days on the roughest seas anyone will ever know but in
This tragic mighty upheaval you will encounter one who has walked the sea before and as he reaches
Your sea tossed vessel and puts his hand on the rail in the darkness a flash of lighting will shine on his
Hand and you will see a nail print it indicates one who too has suffered great pain loss and sorrow and
Still is in its throws today as countless ones lose their way and some will lose even their heavenly home
Because they let wayward ways rule their days of opportunity with his coming you will know the
Sweetest peace greater and stronger than even your pain I found this to be true personally I lost all of
My immediate family in a short span of time the comforter filled not only my soul but the building I was
In with a peace we didn’t want to leave it His presence and peace weights the very air stillness flares
Truly pain’s crashing waves will give way to the ebb and flow of his pronounced love you will carried
away in the sweetest under tow that any ever know you doubt that you will ever be able to find a
Habitable isle where even a semblance of happiness can be found you will see it with clear eyed clarity
It will not contain dark brooding shadows as you now know that seem without end the star maker will
Will walk in your life and burst of sunshine that will not be the ordinary kind but the special rays that
Meet and dispel sorrow’s grip you will carry them forward not in a dark confined cloud of dismay but
One of lightest and brightest clouds that render every moment of their lives in positive suggestive notes
With a loud refrain not one that spills and fills you with gloom remember they walked into glory having
Their hands held by grandfather and grandmother their home going was on the celebration of his birth
He gave me these words to write people fail at times to know he is not in a far away manger but he is
One with us ever waking and sleeping moment He is abiding to some he walks by their side to others
He lives in their hearts by his spirit God bless and touch you hurting one the children found that fairy
tales are more real than they could even imagine

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
and that of the hurricane.
Tumult whispered white,
both Aeolian and corporeal,
strummed on strings of solemnity;
the ugly undertaker of buried roses
labeled as wary victims of feel-good graverobbers.
All bled emotions are this.
The Louvre's flashbulbed flecks;
the notes woven within coke lines of symphony;
fingerpainted twig-men crafted by bright-eyed smilers;
this juxtaposed disgrace.
All Beau Sancy in the roughest granite jewelry box
with graffiti scribbled laughing like urban Sanskrit .
"I am become death" dripped in blood through the keyhole
so it now mimics a cherry popped in microwaves
unlocking discomfort, yes,
and crimsoning the cocoon of the diamond.
Peep, Tom, at the glittering Godiva within
and watch her grow in the sacrifice of poetry,
for only in the presence of forsaking and death
and anguish and discomfort
and pain
can she grow to break the eggshell walls.
Tears cut canals in Time's beard
because he consigned the memory of the shattered horrendousness
to oblivion
instead of honoring their homage
and paying respect by dropping tulips and gunships
into their graves at noon's meridian.
Opal eyed reader,
you do not understand.
My eggshells conceal themselves
within individual hells
of purple prose,
more of a lavender in my eyes.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

In this place full of preferences

I be the despicable one

To who wants someone like me

I can't find

I don't know many who would date

This kind of black guy

Or so the excuses go on

But I myself shun the gavel

For I repel the attraction of the darker brown

It's frowned upon

But past experiences give me a shivering nostalgia

So be in and out the gruesome

Actually

It's actually nasty

I lost hope in people

When I found out I was ugly

Because I have gap teeth

And god don't like ugly

Words I didn't understand

Sent me in a negative spiral

to place where i hated people's faces

And every other man

In many places

Of many spaces

To the old proverb

Don't judge a book by its cover

But I see so many random faces

To read the proverbial book

What my eyes seek some say

Condescending it may

Be seen right betwixt

A rock and a hard place

Still running in place

To make haste and waste the meaning of what it is to taste

Now I see we live in side the belly of a beast

And the roughest of diamonds deposit gold into the tree where only the tall can reach,but tell the short not to touch

And two birds in the bush is worth viewing than the one you can touch

Through the plot and good intentions scheming  

Am I a decent human being

I get these headaches that start right behind the middle of my eyebrow, swoops down into my nose and then swings up and pings off my forehead.

They call them “sinus headaches.”

The word sinus in italian means canals. And when I think of that, I can’t help but think of little gondolas with Italian men singing to me as I look at the stars. It doesn’t make the headache go away but it really makes me wish I were in Italy.

It’s funny how when things get rough, we instantly gravitate towards escaping to foreign lands. A headache certainly isn’t the roughest it could be, that’s for sure.

But escape…that’s a double-edged sword. Escape isn’t what it promises. While the idea of sipping pina coladas poolside, or meditating in a forest far away may seem like perfect, what does that really resolve? It means that whatever made you leave is still waiting for a resolution. Even worse, it probably grew in size. Bills become bills plus interest and late fees. Arguments turn from “how dare you say that?” to “how dare you leave after saying that?” When you leave, you leave behind a mess with the assumption that others will take care of you, but instead, frustrations rise and you break ties.

Whenever I get sick or nauseous, I immediately start thinking of my own personal Nirvana. I visualize the image of myself in this beautiful place relaxing and breathing in that maple tree air and hearing the river waves around me.

That’s nice, right? And that’s ok. I think we’re all allowed our mental escapes once in awhile.

But actual physical escapes? Those hurt others. And no amount of river wave will fix that.

Like a soldier standing strong in my composure
Your gimp with a crippled posture
Im a killer with compassion
Compare me to a flower full of venom
Beautiful till i take hold
and paralyze your emotions
Break down what you are
To over power you as a person
Step out of line
Ill smash you to pieces
Talk **** out your ***
But i can read faces
Dont try to overcome me
Just embrace the opportunity
To be in my presence as requested
and respect my punctuality
Because its just proper etiquette

Eat what i feed you
Just remember my warnings
Try to become me and fail
Its just in my genes
To be toughest, roughest, and hardest

Make my friends list
Your covered, no matter the situation
Even in a war of wrong reason
Ill fight for my brothers
Who can prove their allegances

today I realized that I'm perfect with who I'am
atlast in my life I know who I'am
What things im good at and what I need to work on
IM NOT PERFECT
infact im fragile and weak
I'm scared of knowing so much about myself
It's the truth
I KNOW who I can become
either good or bad
I know what the future holds
for my good decisions or my bad
If only today myself could talk to the young boy who struggled so long
trying to be someone he was not.
I'd tell that boy to not follow the crowd that he thought was so cool
That to listen to your mother
to stay away from the drugs
even if the other kids called him a loser for not playing along
The really unique kids are the ones who dont follow the normal teenage rebellion
the real rebels are the ones who study hard
hang out alone
and even wish they could go out and get hammered drunk and puke everywhere
or sleep with a random girl not for love but just for ***.
But they dont
I want to tell my rebel self to be a true rebel like those kids
the kids who later on in life
will have money to go out and enjoy the things I enjoyed as a rebel teenager
to be able to hang out with there grown up friends and to fun doing grown up things.
Instead I'm a 24 year old sandwhich artist
the teachers always said keep partying you'll look back and regret these days
I told them they'll regret saying that when I make it big
years of writing
years of sitting up late with a bottle of ***** and a lit cigarette
like my life a long ash forms off the cherry as it burns waiting for the whieght of itself to break off.
I KNOW who I'am
I'm a voice for this plugged in generation
I'm the sticky **** on the bottom of your shoe
I'm the viper in a room full of gardner snakes
I'm the demon with a halo
a hybrid of a soul
hell hound instincts
but a butterflys swagger
soft but hard
sweet but sour
I'm the reason for a middle
im the reason why things stay balanced
for not for people like me
the Balanced
the Beaten
the hardened and the Understanding
the Counter Attack
the person who has seen the roughest parts in life
has been down to pennys to his name
Im here to tell you dont give up
because even during the rain the sun can shine
those days amaze me
when its pouring but sunny
Does it make since no
but do we watch in amazement when it happens
yes
That my friends is me
thats who I'am

A woman receives a blossom
of the one meant for her but once.
But I, like heroine of ages past
have not one love but two.

Just as a mother loves both her children
but in differences and personality
so do my loves vary so
like the flower and the ****.

The ****, feisty and strong in nature
blooms from the cracks in broken roads
unwilling to die or burn from the Sun's heat
beautiful to no other eyes but mine.

It grows in the roughest of spots
and yet your appeal blinds me
the hardy soul who touches mine own
yet a flower be you still.

Daffodils, daisies, beautiful and stout

The other a flower of delicateness
thin little petals unfurling in a ***
nature at its most gentle
to be easily torn and ripped to shreds.

Beauty is obvious in truest form
much love is needed to keep you well
the water of the heart dribbling from the brook
to make you flourish.

Can I not keep you both to me
to keep your loves in my vase on the window
to display all those perfections to the earth
and to keep you both in my arms?

No, it will never be so simple, will it?
So I must choose to survive
I know not to choose rashly
but, conflicted of mind, I stare deeply into the garden...

We don’t smoke Marijuana
We don’t take our trips of LSD
We like to just live right here
Where the air’s fresh and life is free
We don’t make lovin’ to make a party
We don’t need to get with to get some fun
We just prefer to hold each other’s hands
And go fishing in the sun
We don’t go round bare-chested
We don’t wear skimpy clothes
Roman sandals are a nada
Leather boots are still à la mode
We don’t need to go out getting drunk
Here even Squares can have a ball
Going to the shops is still an event
White lightning’s still the biggest thrill of all
Down here football’s the roughest sport
Long, shaggy hair definitely won’t be seen
A large patch of open land is our campus
And Kids down here respect the village dean
So please forgive me if I don’t understand
Forgive me if I feel a little out of place
I’m just proud to be an Oakie from
Down there we slow the pace.
Yes I’m just an Oakie from Muskogee
Yes I’m proud to be an Oakie from Muskogee

For you I'd climb the highest mountain
I'd sail the roughest sea
But when the sun sets in the west
I'm not sure you'd do the same for me

In my forty + years of living, I quite realize that....

Life can be hard and brutal, but life can be equally beautiful and amazing.

I've learned that loving others and liking others are two separate things. Sometimes, I did not like some people in my life...but I love(d) them very much.

I've learned that no matter what my circumstances are, to always have hope. I love the concept of hope. I fight for it, if I have to. And if only I find a flicker of hope, I'll ****** onto it for it to keep me going.

I've learned that forgiveness is vital, is important to living, but that doesn't mean I have to be friends with the one I forgive. Forgiveness is just as much for me as to the person I extend it to.

We don't always get what we want....sometimes, we have to wait and wait, and learn the hard way.....and that can often produce the most growth................the pain, the agony, the unsettling feelings.

I mean we surely can grow during the hardest times, the roughest times. I most certainly have, and have matured much more from when times were uncertain. None of us are entitled.

I've learned sometimes...you just got to do it! Like when I traveled to Britain...I'd rather say I accomplished a dream than "almost".

I had almost mastered the art of making my way through life without making too much noise.

I had spent the last 6 years mostly alone.
Concentrated all my efforts on trying to stay out of prison.
Worked on the writing and the poetry.
And doing all I could to just be forgotten.

I had kicked up enough dust in my early years to spend the majority of my adult life behind bars.
Came home with more tattoos, another strike and a
Monkey on my back.
I was home with greying hair, a bullet in my hand that hurt like hell, an ex wife who hated me, kids who didn't know me and friends who had forgotten all about me.

I move as low to the ground as possible now days.
I went out only when I had to.
I was just trying not to be noticed.
Hoping that maybe they'll forget about all the bad I had done
and just let me grow old in silence.

I spent  my 43rd birthday in a coin-op laundromat that reminded me of a crude jail house day-room.
Concrete floors, metal picnic tables with a large tv bolted to the wall .
Nothing was made for comfort and everything had some type of a lock on it.

She walked up carrying what looked like everything she owned.
She struggled with the door and the laundry in her arms.
I quickly stood up from my seat on the cold steel bench and offered to relieve her of some of her burden, to which she shyly obliged.
She was far to pretty to be alone and I was half waiting on a boyfriend to appear.

Nobody ever taught her how to be polite.
She didn't know what being gracious even meant until she met me.

She'd say " Don't blame me I wasn't raised right", it was our lil joke but a joke that was far  to real.

It was her beauty that saved her.
Her body was what most women would never have.
Men felt a burning desire at the sight of her.
Which she used to her advantage when needed.
It's what helped her get by during the roughest of times.

She wasn't a ***** but they didn't know that.
By the time they had realized she wasn't giving what they wanted she would have already packed her things and left for good.

Men would promise her almost everything when all she really wanted was something to call her own.

Her front tooth was chipped from a fight with an ex boyfriend.
The minor flaw only added to her rare type of natural beauty.
Light freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She had scared up boney knuckles and always wore thick silver rings on 4 of her fingers.
Naturally long eyelashes and acne scared cheeks she'd hide with cover up.

What she knew of the world was almost comical, she hadn't been anywhere and wasn't planning on going anywhere any time soon.
What she lacked in social skills couldn't compare to what she knew how to do in bed.

I gave her a safe place to rest without having to worry.
She gave me reason to shower in the morning and comb my hair before bed.

We played chess which was a surprise to me when she asked me if I played.

I introduced her to  Bukowski, Dante and Virgil.
She brought a strange type of warmth to my otherwise cold lonely apartment .
Our time was a break from the isolation and a reminder of how it was to be with another.
She brought back memories I had long ago forced
myself to forget.

Her only rule was that I never asked about her past.
What she wanted me to know she would share on her own.
My only request was that she never asked me to stop using
and when she felt it was time to move on ,she wouldn't take the time to say goodbye.

she paints ugly things in pretty colors
she runs with the devil and whispers with the saints
she is a good girl in bad times
she's a angel in disguise
you can find her riding shotgun
in the roughest part of town
you can find in her the softest heart
she is a flower blooming in a field of thorns
she is a woman to be reckoned with
and a force of nature to be feared
but she will always be kind and gentle
she paints ugly things pretty colors
and gives them happy homes
she really is an angel in disguise

Down from the icy Sawtooth crags
and through the winter-laden landscape,
the wind eventually dips to the canyon
and creek we loved so well as children.
Continuing on, it threads through the
hollows above the creek, sculpted even
today by stooped cottonwood trees.

Twisting above granite outcroppings
and lava boulders, the wind courses
through the giant arteries of this canyon,
passing among quaking aspen, river willow,
and gnarled cottonwood, shorn rudely
by now of every dryly-veined leaf.

At ancient volcanic escarpments the
wind bears south, scraping hard along
canyon walls. Upward it moves, out of
the canyon, slowing and sallying about
the hillocks, the gullies, the poplars
until it finally comes to stir ever more
gently, warmer even, my dear brother,
around your gray marbled headstone.

Primeval of days, this very same wind
blows for eternity upon eternity, polishing
and purifying even the roughest of
the earth's elements and impediments.
This said, at this hill's crest where you rest,
there is no need of further refinement. Feel
how the northern wind quiets for you,
as if it knows over whose stone it passes.

--

It’s been a while
I forget how beginnings go
I’m so eager to start running that I forget to tie my shoe laces
Maybe that’s why I’ve never won a race
I couldn’t remember how to start and I didn’t bother taking the time to learn again
So once I skipped right to the middle, throwing in all the ingredients, trying to bake something without even bothering to look at the measurements
Too much contact, not enough connection
The ending came too quick
And i was left with a mess i’m still trying to clean up
I’ve found myself facing never ending beginnings
Where you’re left hanging onto anything because it’s just about to happen, like the tempt of a sneeze
But all you get is teary eyes and wasted tissues
I’m a collector of stories
And I’ve only ever found pieces and rough drafts
I’m not sure how beginnings go, or how the threads would unravel into a book
Because all i have is my patch work quilt of Once Up A Times and Middle Chapters
Maybe You’ve had a beginning, middle, and end before
But by the time you’ve reached the end and found yourself facing another beginning
You might forget how they go too
Maybe it’s been a while
So let’s paint a picture
There doesn’t have to be any rules or guidlines
We’ll paint ourselves a sunrise
A perfect beginning
Because as it comes up, even the Sun isn’t sure of what it’s about to face
And we can paint ourselves a river
With whirlpools and rocky edges
Stretching far and long
Because our middle will have power to split mountain ranges and the strength to make it through the roughest terrains
Let’s curl up under blankets with flashlights
Cause the world is a dark place and I’d much rather stay here and make forts out of sheets, where the only demons we’ll find are shadows cast from out flashlights
I’ll whisper you lullabies, just promise to keep holding me tight
Babe with you here, my universe doesn’t need to be anything bigger than this mattress
I’m a collector of stories
But i’m not quite sure how to write one
So let’s stay here and not think about endings
I’m not sure how they go
And i’m hoping i won’t have to know for a while

He hates sunrise
because the lovely pale glow of each ray
is a beautiful dagger pointed straight at his heart
the tip an inch away
from drawing the life out of him
you are the life in him
and he hates you so.

He hates anchors
because they don’t let
even the biggest ships glide along the waters as they please
and you don’t let him glide along as he pleases
you are his anchor
and he hates you so.

He hates the wind
because without it
he would have no direction
no strength to move on
you are
and you aren’t his wind
and he hates you so.

I have watched him
sail the hardest seas
cut through the roughest waters
brave the wildest winds
but you…
he doesn’t know how to deal
with the pain of missing you.

Would you beat your body with your own fists?
Would you scream aloud at yourself for what you did?
Then why do you let your thoughts take control?
Why do you so easily allow your anger to take the fall?
There's a fine line between love and abuse.
That's something we should explore and choose.
It's so easy to taunt ourselves with the things we lose.
It's what we do, whether we beg or refuse.
The truth is that loving is the hardest part,
but cruelty is the roughest.
If the world was perfect,
we would acknowledge the distinction between the two.
We'd live happily as self-love makes the rules.
We would bend and break as we always do,
but the consequences wouldn't offend us as much
or be as crude.
There's a fine line between love and abuse.
The difference is the flight we take,
the ride we want,
and the weakness we fake.
It's a lifeless game,
this life we live.
So when you sin and sin,
will you beat your body with your own fists?
And when the times get hot and out of control,
will you talk yourself out of grace and forgiveness?