The past days have been
empty
and agitated
and long;
a never ending day
that becomes dark later on,
yet too scared to meld
into night.
The sun has been up,
stressing,
worrying,
wondering
when the moon
will take her place.
But maybe it's just me,
too hectic to notice
that the time changed,
but I didn't.

One of my deepest worries is if anyone will ever love me.
If anyone will ever want to date or marry me?
I can't imagine anyone ever worrying if I will go out with them or,
if I will marry them.
I can't imagine anyone wanting to get to know me better.
I can't imagine anyone having a crush on me.
I can't imagine anyone looking at me and thinking,
"****, that girl is beautiful"
I can't.
Sometimes I wonder if I can't imagine these things because they will never happen.

Oh how I miss the days,
Back when renting a movie was something of a special occasion for us.
We'd all look for what we wanted to watch,
And cram around the tv for a family movie night.

Gone are the days when the whole family was around,
The days when I could wrap myself in a blanket and watch cartoons,
Not worrying about grades or who was popular.
A sadness that has become families over the years,
That was not there in my childhood days.
Oh, what I would do to go back.

there’s something incredibly annoying about it all, this urge to be better than good enough, the columns of highlighted plans, battle strategies for a eclipse that’s unlikely to happen, picturesque visions of murky scenery; as if we’ll be here in a century or as if it will matter what lips skin eyes we had or the number we got on a test in junior year. it’s all sinking by so fast and you and i both spend the better of it worrying our insides raw and closing our eyes, preparing for the final blow – as if that hasn’t already whistled by with the christmases. they tell us to get our numbers up, they yell to have fragile figures and stand out be different, as if that’s even tangible now in this phoenix cycle where 98 percent is the new 2 percent and different is the norm so to be different would be to be the norm and all we can do is shrug our hearts up to meet their pleas. but it’s so so hard in a world where everything wrong and wicked is romanticized by screens and statistics are emphasized by angry mustachioed men from behind beautiful architecture and our skeletons groan under the weight of it all, as if as if. you and i are stuck in this fork between dusted roads and they know it, they say they were there, but how is anything the same three decades later when it’s added to this spider web of standards? so we are lost until the new sands come and when they do we will already be in the next desert over, spinning in the next yellow kaleidoscope until the day we mix with the sand ourselves; and do you see what i mean: numbers and pictures and this is our life.

Goal-oriented is what you are.
You are ambitious and highly pragmatic.
Since you rely on structure and form,
It drives you crazy if life gets erratic.

Capricorns, when they are young,
Often appear mature and engaging.
When they reach middle age,
They seem to defy the process of aging.

Since you like to be in charge,
You like both control and authority.
Your willingness to accept
Responsibility is a priority.

As long as you believe that you'll
Succeed, you will persevere.
But know that you can also be
Lazy when your goals aren't clear.

Though out-going and competitive,
One thing that makes you apprehensive
Is a lack of confidence,
Which can also make you defensive.

Wanting to be admired and respected,
You hate to appear ineffective
And weak, and since you fear rejection,
Winning is your major objective.

In fact, so determined are you
To win, that the thought is vexatious
For you to lose, so when you do,
It's difficult for you to be gracious.

You always want to know where you stand,
So you like to plan each move.
Anticipating gains and losses
Helps you to stay in the groove.

Your love of structure applies to traditions;
You have the need to protect and preserve.
Despite your good sense of humor,
Being teased strikes a nerve.

Dedication to duty guides you.
Even though you have the ability
To reason well, worrying
Can put a strain on your tranquility.

When first dealing with others, you
Can be reserved, but in the end
After you give your trust, you prove
To be a loyal and steadfast friend.

Just be careful that you do not
Turn into a workaholic.
Stifled self-reliance can make
You pessimistic and melancholic.

Because of your hard-working nature,
Mundane tasks are no big deal.
But the loss of self-esteem
Can be your Achilles' heel.

You will accomplish marvelous things
If you can balance work and play.
Let your cautious but warm heart guide you.
Plan for tomorrow, but seize the day.

- by Bob B (12-22-16)

you put my mind through hell
you're killing me, man
but all you care about is who's having *** with you tonight
I constantly thing about you
but you only think about getting laid
your love is actually a drug to me
its toxic and im dying
but you're too busy
worrying about who's gonna be
******* you tonight
to see how much you're really hurting me.

We talk again
5 months later and sadly,
nothing has changed.
You are so oblivious
how crazy in love i am with you,
you share with me the girl you wanna bang.
Do you have too much respect for me,
or do you think I'm ugly?

I'm missing you
and I bet you're feeling nothing.
I crave your cigarette tasting lips
and I want them for myself.
I am so jealous of all the girls
that you share your beautiful body with.
I am so sad on this August night
because you still aren't mine.

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret,Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)
This year has had plethora of public worries in Africa over broken English among the young people and school children. It first started in the mid of the last months  in Nigeria, when the Nigerian government officials displayed public worry over the dying English and the strongly emerging slang known as pidgin English in Nigerian public offices and learning institutions. The same situation has also been encountered in Kenya, when in march 2014, Proffessor Jacob Kaimenyi, the minister of education otherwise known as cabinet secretary of education declared upsurge of broken English among high school students and university students a national disaster. However, the minister was making this announcement while speaking in broken English, with heavy mother tongue interference and insouciant execution of defective syntax redolent of a certain strong African linguistic sub-cultural disposition.
There is a more strong linguistic case of broken English in South Africa, which even crystallized into an accepted national language known as Afrikaans. But this South African case did not cause any brouhaha in the media nor attract international concern because the people who were breaking the English were Europeans of non British descend, but not Africans. Thus Afrikaans is not slang like the Kenyan sheng and the Nigerian pidgin or the Liberian krio, but instead is an acceptable European language spoken by Europeans in the diaspora. As of today, the there are books, bibles and software as well as dictionaries written in Afrikaans. This is a moot situation that Europeans have a cultural leeway to break a European language. May be this is a cultural reserve not available to African speakers of any European language. I can similarly enjoy some support from those of you who have ever gone to Germany, am sure you saw how Germans dealt with English as non serious language, treating it like a dialect. No German speaks grammatically correct English. And to my surprise they are not worried.
The point is that Africans must not and should never be worried of a dying colonialism like in this case the conventional experience of unstoppable death of British English language in Africa. Let the United Kingdom itself struggle to keep its culture relevant in the global quarters. But not African governments to worry over standard of English language. This is not cultural duty of Africa. Correct concerns would have been about the best ways and means of giving African indigenous languages universal recognition in the sense of global cultural presence. African languages like Kiswahili, Zulu, Yoruba, Mandiko, Gikuyu, Luhya, Luganda, Dholuo, Chaka and very many others deserve political support locally as well as internationally because they are vehicles that carry African culture and civilization.
I personally as an African am very shy to speak to another fellow African in English or even to any person who is not British. I find it more dignifying to speak any local language even if it is broken or if the worst comes to the worst, then I can use slang, like blend of broken English and the local language. To me this is linguistic indicators of having a decolonized mind. It is also my hypothesis that the young people who are speaking broken English in African schools and institutions are merely cultural overtures of Africans extricating themselves from imperial ploys of linguistic Darwinism.
There is no any research finding which shows that Africans cannot develop unless they speak English of grammatical standards like those of the United Kingdom and North America. If anything; letting of English to thrive as a lingua franca in Africa, will only make the western world to derive economic benefits out of this but not Africa to benefit. Let Africans cherish their culture like the way the Japanese and the Chinese have done, then other things will follow.

I miss the feeling of pure happiness I got when I was able to run around in the rain and not get in trouble for dirtying my clothes.

I miss staying outside on warm summer nights with my brothers catching fireflies until we were forced inside.

I miss jamming out to "heart and soul" on the piano with my dad, thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.

I miss my grandma telling me not to roll down the hill with no shirt on because I would be itchy. (But I did of course anyway. Several times.)

I miss waiting for the heaviest snowfall, and going outside for hours to build a snowfort. (Even though we got cold and kicked it down anyway.)

I miss being carefree. Only worrying about what mom was cooking for dinner.

Most of all, I miss how much more the little things meant to me.

I long for those feelings again.

Dear Daisy,, age 8, family fruitcake:
Keep at it, but don't feel proud about it.
Just keep going, because it's working.

Dear Daisy, age 11, addressed to boarding school:
You will learn something from this torture.
You will learn about forgiveness.

Dear Daisy, age 13, subject- your disappearing acts:
You are not ugly or undeserving or fat
or anything that she told you. I know you feel alone
but you could tell someone what's going and speak out
because you're not stupid if you open your mouth
and you ought to be more like what you want, not a clones.

Dear Daisy, age 15, congrats on the weight lost and gained!
You went through hell, and yes, you proved it
you can starve yourself, harm yourself, and tell lies very well
but you put the ones who love you through hell too
and you're lucky they love you anyways and for any whys
so just don't do it again.

Dear Daisy, age 17, subject: stop:
It is not your body that did this and  you did say no.

Dear Daisy, age 19, to UCL halls:
He deserves better and he's not right for you
and you're not the girl for him, you're pretending to be her
and you know it too-
You love him so much, so let him go.
That would be the kindest thing to do.

Dear Daisy, age 21, to Amber Ward, High Mental Health Institution:
You've been losing your mind for more than a year now
but you have looked and seen it's actually been far longer.
This is real now, and you haven't a clue who you really are.
With these new eyes, you can see you've made yourself up
since you were younger,
and you believed your act until it became true.
Don't look back and don't pretend you have't realised
what you can't un-see now, even though it was easier
back then when you didn't have to care.
And who knows? Maybe you will always feel this-
anxious and confused and scared,
but at least you're not fictional. You can become fact
so don't look back. That's the cowardly thing to do.
Just keep at it, like you did when you were 8
because it will work, and it will this time too
but then you were doing it for everybody else
and now, who the hell are you?

Dear Daisy, received yesterday:
don't stress and lose sleep for worrying
because you've got a Masters waiting and you don't want to get ill
and don't worry because tomorrow may be unthinkable
but it's coming. It always does,
so calm down and sit still.

With the wink of an eye and a flick of your flame, another Marlboro finds its way from your pocket to my lips. Breathing and burning, smokesighs of relief--

I am too far gone to remember your name.

     But the warmth fills and soothes with every intake of breath. Have another shot--or two...from who? Well now I am ready to take a shot at you, Cute Boy--also known as Law Student From Argentina--and although a small something-someone begins to question me, voices just drown in the buzz towards the back of my mind...where everything sinks. sinks. is siiinnnnking. I feel the full force and am loving the fall. So instead of worrying myself over the (now incoherent) blare of your accented voice spilling questions to my ear...
                                                 (Flash another stupid smile, giggle just
                                                   a little louder.
                                                   It's too late now for the answers to matter.)
I let my head turn over 'til our noses touch.
I brush too close,
you're warm and dark...
And I've already
   given
           up.

"I admire you."
--your words that stick out. The last I remember of--oh, hey now...
(a darkly pleased smile currrrls upon my face):

     Let your hands hold me steady at the small of my back while I lean, a little sloppy, into fresh new lips and learn your strange kiss. Somewhere along the way my fingers comb through your hair...it's almost automatic, the way I move; and I feel the same overwhelming loss of control. The only difference is that I don't know you. Nevertheless, in the next few breaths your lips look to my neck in a soft caress...but for only a moment.

     Because perhaps that's when my sister at last pulls me away; oh, she takes such good care of me. I almost forgot just how much I have missed her...ah.
only
in
passing. because--

     For tonight, my dear, I am far more concerned with guiding my tongue back to yours. (So I do.) And darling, that lovely bottom lip--you just might find it caught in my ravenous bite. (Gentle, now.) These teeth will make you mine. Oh, now if only we were somewhere else, I'd let you--

twenty-nine?
oh.
"eighteen? wow," (and that was a lie...)

I guess, I guess this
should feel wrong?
but still
my smile remains for a while...

     and so do you.

Remembering all my yesterdays
haunt my perplexed youth and the future of my adulthood
I want to remember the innocence my hands once grasped
and forget the bitterness of past
I play all day - with the idea of a better world
filled with literature and tea and no ***** words
pink frills of hope and cold rain on the window
I am no longer a little girl - but i want to be
not worrying about sizes, but if the streetlights are on
Today I wear black tights with ripped seams
but tomorrow these years of being misunderstood and chronically confused
will be a mere memory

I

In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal
sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky
        waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart
worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in
        the night-time red downtown heaven
staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering
        these thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty
        of our lives, irritable baggage clerks,
nor the millions of weeping relatives surrounding the
        buses waving goodbye,
nor other millions of the poor rushing around from
        city to city to see their loved ones,
nor an indian dead with fright talking to a huge cop
        by the Coke machine,
nor this trembling old lady with a cane taking the last
        trip of her life,
nor the red-capped cynical porter collecting his quar-
        ters and smiling over the smashed baggage,
nor me looking around at the horrible dream,
nor mustached ***** Operating Clerk named *****,
        dealing out with his marvelous long hand the
        fate of thousands of express packages,
nor fairy Sam in the basement limping from leaden
        trunk to trunk,
nor Joe at the counter with his nervous breakdown
        smiling cowardly at the customers,
nor the grayish-green whale's stomach interior loft
        where we keep the baggage in hideous racks,
hundreds of suitcases full of tragedy rocking back and
        forth waiting to be opened,
nor the baggage that's lost, nor damaged handles,
        nameplates vanished, busted wires & broken
        ropes, whole trunks exploding on the concrete
        floor,
nor seabags emptied into the night in the final
        warehouse.

                II

Yet ***** reminded me of Angel, unloading a bus,
dressed in blue overalls black face official Angel's work-
        man cap,
pushing with his belly a huge tin horse piled high with
        black baggage,
looking up as he passed the yellow light bulb of the loft
and holding high on his arm an iron shepherd's crook.

                III

It was the racks, I realized, sitting myself on top of
        them now as is my wont at lunchtime to rest
        my tired foot,
it was the racks, great wooden shelves and stanchions
        posts and beams assembled floor to roof jumbled
        with baggage,
--the Japanese white metal postwar trunk gaudily
        flowered & headed for Fort Bragg,
one Mexican green paper package in purple rope
        adorned with names for Nogales,
hundreds of radiators all at once for Eureka,
crates of Hawaiian underwear,
rolls of posters scattered over the Peninsula, nuts to
        Sacramento,
one human eye for Napa,
an aluminum box of human blood for Stockton
and a little red package of teeth for Calistoga-
it was the racks and these on the racks I saw naked
        in electric light the night before I quit,
the racks were created to hang our possessions, to keep
        us together, a temporary shift in space,
God's only way of building the rickety structure of
        Time,
to hold the bags to send on the roads, to carry our
        luggage from place to place
looking for a bus to ride us back home to Eternity
        where the heart was left and farewell tears
        began.

                IV

A swarm of baggage sitting by the counter as the trans-
        continental bus pulls in.
The clock registering 12:15 A.M., May 9, 1956, the
        second hand moving forward, red.
Getting ready to load my last bus.-Farewell, Walnut
        Creek Richmond Vallejo Portland Pacific
        Highway
Fleet-footed Quicksilver, God of transience.
One last package sits lone at midnight sticking up out
        of the Coast rack high as the dusty fluorescent
        light.
        
The wage they pay us is too low to live on. Tragedy
        reduced to numbers.
This for the poor shepherds. I am a communist.
Farewell ye Greyhound where I suffered so much,
        hurt my knee and scraped my hand and built
        my pectoral muscles big as a ******.

                             May 9, 1956

Being gullible is my only regret.
Worrying about you so much.
Constantly thinking about our last encounter.
I thought we were so happy.
Especially because you gazed at me with such kindness.
But then ignoring replaced love.
My sunny days were drenched by saddening storms,
And my smiling slowly slipped away.
Tears stain my favorite dress.
The flowery one you always loved.
Darkness brings me tissues
As the last remaining sunlight
Starts to fade away.

I have spent hours contemplating the right way to express the things in my mind.

But no combination of 26 different letters can even begin to explain what this is.

No form of imagery can show the world the things that I see in my head.

No similes or metaphors can bring people to tears like my own thoughts do to me.

No adjective can describe the voices I hear, telling me I'm worthless and insignificant.

And even if I could extract my thoughts and play them like a movie, no one would see it the way I do.

No one would see them like their own, and interpret them like I do.

It's all up there, created by me, but someone ******* hacked my brain and put a password on it,

For when I try and scream out for help, or when I try and write it all down, I keep stopping, and overthinking, and start worrying that it's not right.

Whether I want people to see the things I see in my head,

Whether I want them to be brought to tears,

Whether I want them to hear the voices,

Because If I were them, I wouldn't.

I catch glances
As I walk through town
Daughters
Out with their mums
Who pretend to look off in the arbitrary distance
As I scan them
From top
To toe
And then the glances of their proud mums

Old women who huff
As I have the demeanour
Of a stargazing ******

The odd freak
Who cheers me on with his eyes

Machos, who like to hold the gaze
Which I like to hold right back
Thinking of my father in a coffin
To return a calm, worrying stare

Sometimes a fleeting beauty will appear in a metro window
And both knowing of the ephemerality of our encounter
We **** with our eyes
Before she is whipped off
Down the dark tunnels

I can hold a gaze with almost anyone
People are fascinating

I can hold all these gazes
Until
Some men stare back
And I melt

Go ahead and lock your gimbal
Hurtle that spaceship
Right into my stable space station
At least I installed shock absorbers
But ****, keep running that engine
And you'll be crashing into me
At escape velocity
Till we're both hurtling from the solar system at the speed of light
(Different directions I might add)
So you keep burning that fuel
And see how long it takes
For me to lose this game of chicken.

I can't take it anymore
I can't take it anymore
So confused
Cut and bruise
I can't take it anymore

Why are you so confusing?
We're there for you but you just ignore us
Then write poetry about how WE left YOU
When it was YOU who REFUSED to let us in!
We tried, over and over and over and over
Crying for you to let us help you
But you just rolled your eyes and WALKED AWAY
Now I'm reading your poetry and
I'm seeing the lines that say that
We left you when you needed us most!
LIES

WE spent endless nights awake, worrying
And EVEN NOW you're still always on my mind
BUT THIS IS YOUR FAULT
Pretending around your friend, your real friends
And putting all your trust in fakes and internet friends who
DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU

WELL I'M DONE
Count me out
I refuse to be a dumb follower
Like I have been for YEARS
Following you around like your a queen
Listening to your little problems,
And spending MY time trying to fix them.

WELL I have NEWS for YOU
I have problems of my own,
That I keep inside because no one asks
And I learned to hide.
Serious problems,
But would you understand?
Its all about your 'stupid parents'
and stupid bands.

I'm over you,
And I'm staying away,
So learn your lesson
And learn to deal
Because you don't want me
Or anyone who ACTUALLY CARES.

And I'll be over here,
Worrying and missing you,
Watching you from a distance
Watching as you get worse and
Someday I'll find you broken
Maybe you'll find me
And You'll need me for
The first time.

And I'll be there.
Because I still care.

Watching The Signs Of Aging

Watching the signs of aging;
Ultimately,
Finally
An end.
Notice, I don’t say THE end.

Not a film, a flimsy bit of flimflam,
A clouded artificiality, life imitated, intimated.
As stated:
A downgrading: witless and insensate,
Thinning at the temples,
Eyebrow hairs a crazy zigzag;
Tummy more rotund and round;
Fingers, which, however trained
No longer want to grasp or grip.
Compression of the whole foundation
Underscore the downward trip.

Aging signals watched with care –
Obviously there!  Involuntary!
Glasses that you never needed;
Tender spots you never heeded.
Fragile scenes that make you weep.
Couplets which you once thought cheap
Resorted to, which you now keep.

Compensations: pensions, patience;
Many words that end in –pence
Because, and just because
All signs become a Santa Claus:
Signs of good –
That is, when you are in the mood.
Stiff fingers finding newer ways to play piano, open jars,
The mental auto-search a galaxy of syndrome-stars
Bursting unused.

No longer worrying ‘bout standards,
You’ve your own.  
No need to join
The middling crowd,
The mediocre: in reality, the herd.
Small ambitions,
Minimized conditions
All good and fine, but still
Signs of aging ultimately will
Win out.

Watching The Signs Of Aging 12.5.2016
Circling Round Aging; Birth, Death & In Between II; Bath Book II;
Arlene Corwin

desire: someone fierce to be in my daily life

i feel weeks turn over and blow away

leaves under a tree.

what am i doing?
i'm sleeping in late
i'm working on a career
i'm doing smart, sensible things

i'm worrying like Thoreau did
that i'll die only to realize i never lived.
it's not what you do, it's how you do it
i'm doing things in a lesser shade of the vibrance i once

blossomed under

desire: someone fierce to be in my daily life

so that i don't forget what it feels like.

Everytime something happy happens,
I find myself worrying about
What might happen next.

For example, twas an early day,
Writing ******* poetry with words like "Twas" "Was" "is" or "as"
Things seemed to be deemed good
For at least a week or two.

Low and behold,
The wound.
The inevitable part of life that Happens when everything
Is goin' good.

So twas' the night before the wound,
A jaded child lay
Unaware of the doom.

He was late.  He rushed forward.  All he could see was a crowd of people standing near a lady.  Her sister he guessed.  Dark sunglasses adorned a cherubic face.  Her red nose was a clear give away, that she had been weeping.  They had closed the grave. He was late. He didn't get a chance to see her one last time.

How could it be possible?  She had met him a few months ago!  She looked fine. He received a message from her sister.  She was dead. It was her funeral.  He could hardly believe it. How did life change in a mere few months?

Her sister was speaking to a group of young women, her friends, he gathered.  They were speaking with her sister. He overheard them say "But she never told us! She called us and said we should go camping and planned the whole trip at such a short notice.  We had so much fun! But she never told us."  

Her sister replied, "She was informed 4 months ago, somewhere at the end of Jan, that she had a few months to live.  She had developed a lung complication and it had taken a turn for the worse. The medication had stopped working. She didn't want any more doctor visits and stuff. She refused to get treated. She decided then she would have fun and live the last few months of her life, memorably.  Surprise friends, meet people she never made time for before. Make happy memories.  She lived her last days simply wanting to be happy.  She met most of the people on her wish list. Except a few who were away."  

Hearing that, his heart sank.  He was one of those she paid a surprise visit to. He remembered that day. He had been avoiding her. He recalled the surprise visit to his house. He was home that day. It caught him off guard.  He was in a spot and didn't expect that she should drop in unannounced. How upset he was! He recalled those words.  Angry words, he had lashed out at her. Then he didn't hear anything from her afterwards. Now it sank in him.  She met him at the end of Jan.  She didn't have time.  Why didn't she tell him that?  She hardly said anything at all.   He was angry with her, again, even now.  Why? Why? Why?  He approached her sister and introduced himself.  "Hi! I am John".  At that his sister interrupted him, "Oh! I have a note for you", With that she took out an envelope from her pocket and handed it over to him.

He was dazed. His sister turned her attention away.  He held the envelope in his hands, shock, disbelief, he couldn't explain what engulfed him at that moment.  He had always, avoided her.  She was irritating, a pain, he thought. She had issues.  Unresolved issues.  He remembered the time, she whispered to him, that she was in love with him.  But he ignored her.  Pretended that he never heard it. She wasn't his type. He opened the note.  It read.  

"Dear John, By the time you receive this note, I will not be physically present in this world. I am sorry for dropping in unannounced at your place, that day. I am really sorry. I realized you were upset, but believe me upsetting you was the last thing I had in mind.  

You see, I had been having issues with breathing for quite some time.  My sickness made me depressed.  A lung infection I caught on, turned into a complication. I was hoping to get better.  I never thought, that it would be the end of me.  But when the doc told me I had a few months to live.  I was shocked.  I asked myself.  What is the only thing you would regret leaving behind. And then I saw your face. You my dear friend, are the 1st person I will regret leaving behind. Not having spent time with you. And not spending time with people who have loved me irrespective of my so called "issues", these are the ones I will regret leaving behind.

So I decided to let the end of my life, albeit a few months, be the happiest days of my life.  And for once let me control what I choose to do with my days, rather than living a schedule of must do things and tasks and priorities.  You see, we have a choice, yet we choose to focus on the priorities that don't add any value or meaning to our lives.  Day and months pass by in meaningless pursuits.  We miss the opportunity to love and share our love with others.

You were in no doubt that I loved you, but I respected your decision. I don't resent it. I chose to give freely and to grow every day by being richer in the experience of just giving for the sake of it. I stopped worrying about how my actions will be interpreted by people around me.  Seriously, they have no clue about my journey and what it has taken me to keep myself alive.  

Having decided this for myself, I've spent the best days of my life in the last few months.  I am truly, happy and satisfied.  The only regret I have is that I didn't get to create a happy memory with you that day.  I also understand completely the reasons you gave me. But it doesn't matter now, does it?  I cannot create any more memories from my grave.  

Love ya always "

He closed the note. Yes, he realized no more memories, no more sorry.  You can't create memories from the grave.

In between the desks
there are whispers,
whispers that seem too loud for my ears.
Abstract secrets and ideas shared
between friends and strangers
within one foot of emptiness
that we call personal space.
The space that has us worrying
about the amount of breath mints in our backpack
and if our breakfast could be stuck in our teeth.
The space that is irrelevant
when surrounded by the people you love.
The space between the desks
that is uncomfortably necessary.

Anxiety
Blaring.
Coinciding
Depression.
Endlessly
Feeling
Gross.
How
I’ve
Just
Kept
Living’s a
Mystery.
Not
One
Person
Questioned
Reasons,
Sensed
Trouble,
Understood
Vulnerability and
Worrying,
‘Xtrapolated
Yesterday’s lack of
Zeal.

I worry about the future,
I worry about the past,
I worry about worrying and
How long will worry last.

I'm happy with my family,
I really love my wife.
I'm happy being happy
I really love my life.

It all boils down to perception,
Am I worried, happy, sad?
Step back and see you have all you need and enjoyed the things you had.

Don't worry about the future,
Don't worry about the past.
Don't worry about worrying,
Smile, laugh, cry, it's all part of life's blast.