Take a cutting

As we start
another day,
as we ask what did we say,
and I know when we have had enough,
and I will know when life's too tough,
and we will know when things won't work.
We came here
as a pair of people
can we leave
as a group a friends,
can we be such a group of friends.
Leave our enemies wanting more
wanting us as their own.

And as it falls
it grows back again.

Put your arm
around my shoulder,
warm your hands upon my hands,
your pain is not getting younger
and we will help as long as we can.
Such a wreck
I can be,
when I see what's become of me,
and i know that I can not let go
to what I wish I was,
but I know they all help me
with who I am.
Larger everyday
is the hope I have in people
we forgive and see fault
as a part that can be healed.
Find it in you
to say raise your head,
we are two of equal ground.

And as it falls
it grows back again.

And in a flush of the
finger is death,
so weak and brittle we are,
to let what can hate
become part of our hate.
How little we can be,
how much we must see that
what we can do can be the
strength we all need.
We have seen it all come down
we have seen it all fall,
and we see now it can
grow such a prettier leaf.

And as it falls
it can grow back again.
And as it falls
grow back anew.

The Origin of Love

When the earth was still flat,
and the clouds made of fire,
and mountains stretched up to the sky,
sometimes higher,
folks roamed the earth
like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
out of one giant head
so they could watch all around them
as they talked while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.

The origin of love.

Now there were three sexes then,
one that looked like two men
glued up back to back,
called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
was the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
was like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
part daughter, part son.

I am the origin of love.

Now the gods grew quite scared
of our strength and defiance
and Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
with my hammer,
like I killed the giants."
But Zeus said, "No,
you better let me
use my lightening, like scissors,
like I cut the legs off the whales
and dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
and he let out a laugh,
said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
into great balls of fire.

And then fire shot down
from the sky in bolts
like shining blades
of a knife.
And it ripped
right through the flesh
of the children of the sun
and the moon
and the earth.
And some Indian god
sewed the wound up into a hole,
pulled it round to our belly
to remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
gathered up a big storm
to blow a hurricane,
to scatter us away,
in a flood of wind and rain,
and a sea of tidal waves,
to wash us all away,
and if we don't behave
they'll cut us down again
and we'll be hopping round on one foot
and looking through one eye.

The last time I saw you
we had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
but I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face.
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
that the pain down in your soul
was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
cuts a straight line
down through the heart.
We called it love.
We wrapped our arms around each other,
trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
such a long time ago,
when by the mighty hand of Jove,
it was the sad story
how we became
lonely two-legged creatures,
the story of
the origin of love.
That's the origin of love.


Hedwig and The Angry Inch

The devil within

For the greater part of the last forty years I have been a liar. I won't forget that. I have lied to friends, lovers, bosses, sisters, parents, strangers. I've felt comfort in being what others don't know. Most of my lies aren't little lies, but they are how I am with people. Every person I am around I am different with them, and every one I am is a lie. It is not me. Nobody knows me. I am not sad about that, I actually think it is humorous. How could I fool the world for so long? Well, it is because, I am that good. I am good at life. So. I have done whatever I wanted to in it so far. I am sixty four years old. I am worth over forty million dollars. I have a wife who I do not love. I have just retired. I am the picture of health. I have everything I have always thought I wanted. So why do I feel like I am missing something?

It's not loving my wife. I have never needed love. Such a silly thing it is. To be in love. It is funny just to say, let alone put hard thought into. I mean, come on, love. The idea of being fully committed emotionally and mentally to someone else, being there for them always for everything, being what they need, living with and through them, having all of your best moments with just one person. That kind of responsibility for someone else is too much for one person. Having someone have that dependence on you just makes them weak. Love makes them weak. And there is what love can do in the end. How can you love someone who is weak like that. It's sick. So, I don't love because I don't want the responsibility, and I don't want someone weak around me. Yes it makes sense the powerful need the weak around them. But they should be beneath them, not bound to them. It's not a profitable enterprise, love. I just don't see it always getting better. I can't see it ever even being good. I wouldn't invest in such a reckless idea. And if I wouldn't, all those who do are fools. Fools for love.

It is part of my lies though. I do have to tell my wife I 'love' her. I have to tell my son I 'love' him. I have to tell his wife and their kids I 'love' them. And I don't even feel sick when I say it to them. That's how good I am. They actually think I do love them. Not one of them have doubted it for one moment of any of their lives. That's another thing that drives me mad and makes me think love is such a weak and reckless venue of emotion. These people believe fully, and find comfort in the 'love' I have for them, and their love for me. Fools. They can't even see I just say it to cause me less problems. Yet, it sucks them in, and it makes them feel safe and good. So I am a great person for giving them that safety and all those good feelings. I am fucking King of the nice.

I was honest once. I didn't tell one lie, or act out anything that wasn't my true self once. I had my granddaughter in my arms once. For about twenty minutes I held her. No one was around and I gave it to her, I told her everything. I was myself and I talked about what I wanted, and I told her what I wanted. It was amazing. This little thing, no older than a few months, I don't remember exactly, and she was the only one to get the chance to see who I am. Her reaction. She puked, just from what I said to her, which made complete sense to me. And she doesn't hold it against me at all. I think she knows though. She doesn't seem to like me as much as her older sister does, but, honestly, I do not care. I still tell her I love her, but I don't really ever care to see them. Little curly haired leaches, sucking the life out of their parents. That's why my wife did the raising of my son. He was a needy thing as well. You can tell how needy he was just by looking at my wife. Man she is all dried out. But she doesn't know it, nobody can see how dried up and weak she is now. That is because of one reason. It's because I am the King of nice. It is because I tell her I love her.

It is because I lie.

The same old story

Nothing I do is new. It's all an old story told another way. Nothing is mine and mine alone, it's something we have all already known, just twisted to fit, me. It's the subtle changes that persuade our thoughts. And all can be seen as better or worse, just spoken of in a different way.

The more we look alike the more different we see ourselves, we are not just all faces with similar smiles. We all live on the same earth, but we don't all live in the same places, that is for sure. Some of us are scared, some of us think we have a strong hold on the world, some of us are afraid for each other, some of us are there to take care of each other, some of don't care, some of us do nothing but give everything we are to care.

Some of us kill. Some of us save people's lives. Some of us keep to ourselves, trying to attract the least amount of negative life, but losing ourselves to our own solitary defeats. And I swear that life is not best lived alone, you need to make people a part of your life. Some of us believe that. Some of us have our own way. And that's OK. It's good to think for ourselves. I think life is better with other's in it, even if only briefly.

So it's nothing new. You have heard it all before, you have heard these words so many times, just maybe again in a slightly different way. I'm not sure if there is anything new in this life. Maybe I'll find it, but for now I'll spread the messages I have heard, I have seen, and I agree with. For now.

Nana

And old Billy knelt at the side of the road,
and buried that locket and flower in the sand,
covered it up with a rock on the top,
and sealed it to earth with a tear,
sealed it until he was dried up.

He kicked the dirt off his boots,
and he fixed his old hat,
and he smoothed his suit out in the sun,
and said a prayer to the sky,
said a prayer about what he did lose.

How can a sad man look so proud,
when looking back on a life like his,
the one he loved she has now withered and died,
and he's left to make it now for himself,
left to make it on his own.

He said his goodbyes to his daughters and sons,
he has said his goodbye to his church,
and he's on his way down his last dried out road,
and he's spitting at the sun,
he's spitting at what takes it away.

He awoke to see his love still lay still,
three shakes and a kiss couldn't rouse,
and his warm hands on her chest not enough this time,
to break her from her sleep,
to wake her from her last bit of sleep.

The hope in his eyes has given up for good,
and the sides of his mouth hang low,
no more sweet words of life ever sneak through his lips,
he says it's about time that he moves on,
says it's about time he gets gone.

He waves to me standing my back to the sun,
he waves to the fields and the mountains and streams,
he waves to his past and to the times he has lost,
he waves to his lover looking down from the sky,
to his lover looking down keeping eye.

Dressed to the nines he buried her flower and locket,
in the same patch of earth where he got on his knee,
and looked to her eyes that said yes to the future,
and rustled his hair with both hands,
she rustled his hair with both hands.

Oh Papa.

It was the first day I was on my own. I wasn't on my own for long, only for less than an hour, but I still remember that hour and what it meant to me, and how i was cold because the blanket blew off of my feet. I remember how cold my feet were and how I cried because of the wind. I wasn't old enough to be left alone. I wasn't old enough to be forgotten. Is anyone old enough to be forgotten? Maybe. I'm not sure of it though. But, I know when I was only three months old, I wasn't old enough to be alone. And there I was alone in the wind, and cold, for an hour, outside of a hospital, scared of the sirens and the smell of the sick. It was not my happiest hour.

My mother was not a poor woman. Actually she was a lawyer. I came to find that out much later in my life when she searched for me for forgiveness. She told me she was a lawyer, and she wasn't married and didn't have a boyfriend. She said she didn't have time for a lover, but she wanted a child. It didn't make sense to me why she thought she would have time for a child and not a lover. So she got pregnant. And just over nine months and three weeks later I was born. But it did prove to be too much. She said I cried more than most babies, and that I wet and soiled my nappies more as well. I didn't know how to take that when she told me. What was I suppose to do at two and three months of age, hold it all in. I needed patience then, and she was a lawyer who didn't think she had the energy and time for a lover, so patience was not her strong suit. I didn't forgive her. I told her I didn't know her and never needed to know her. I told her to just forget me, because I forgot her years and years ago.

The day she left me at that hospital was so long ago, about thirty six years ago. I am someone different now. I don't cry anymore and I can take care of all of my toilet needs on my own. So my blood mother would really like me now, but she will never have that chance. I had a great childhood. I had great parents, the best I could ever hope for. I had the best brother and sisters. I just had the best family. It was a family where everybody belonged and had a place.

I have my own family now. I have a wife I was so lucky to have fall in love with me, I'm still not sure how a person that wonderful actually and truly exists, but she does, and she is my wife. I have two beautiful little boys, and still hoping that next one is the little girl I have always dreamed about. I guess we will know in another six months. My life was wonderful up until about two months ago. My mother passed away. She had a great life and a great family. She died peacefully in her sleep, which was good. But, nobody saw it coming, she was only sixty three years old and didn't have any illnesses or weak moments. But, she died, laying next to my father, the way I'm sure she would have liked to.

My boys still don't understand why they don't see there Nana anymore. She would come over every weekend, and sometimes during the week, with her husband, their papa, and spend lovely days with them. Sometimes the whole family would spend that time together, but my parents really loved taking their grandsons out, and my wife and I enjoyed our alone time together as well. They don't realize she is gone yet, they were at her funeral and all, but they just aren't old enough yet. What they do see is how much no Nana means papa is sad a lot. And my dad is sad all the time. His wife's death has hit him the hardest, and that makes sense. He lost his better half in life, the woman who has given him everything he had ever wanted, a family, a life, love. That is gone for him now. He will never have that again, not even in his memories. I know this because he told me this.

And it is so sad to see him sad. Not even around his grandson's can he smile like he use to smile. He can't even fake it. He loves those boys, he still loves all of us, but the one who held mostly all of his love he lost. It's gone. They were such a part of each other it is as if my mother dying has caused my father to lose himself. he is not the man I grew up with, the man who taught me it is OK to be sad, that there are times you have to stick up for yourself, there are moments when you have to make the right choices even if they hurt you, that when you have a girl you respect that girl and give her your everything, that you take care of what looks up to you. That man is gone. And now there is a dark, sad old man who is losing his will.

I had a really bad moment with him last week. He came over to be with the boys, he still comes over every weekend because that's what he wants, and that is what Nana would have wanted, but the boys don't want to go out with him because they say he just sits on a bench when they try and play in the park. He never laughs or plays with them anymore, and they are a bit scared of him. The last time they left they both cried and didn't want to let go of me and their mother. We felt so bad when they left, but we knew even though papa was sad, he needed to spend time with them. And last week when my dad came I told him they should spend the day with them at our house around us as well. He said he wanted to take them somewhere but the boys didn't want to go, and I told him that they were staying at home that weekend. I had to tell him that he was scaring them.

That was the first time I saw my father cry. I didn't see him cry when his parents died, and not even at Nana's funeral. Not once did I see him cry, until I told him his grandsons were scared of him. It hurt me so much when I saw it. I tried to apologize but he just turned and left. I have called him three times a day for the past week, but he doesn't answer his phone. I drove to my parents house to see him and he won't answer the door. I've talked to my brother and sisters and they say he won't talk to them either.

He is alone. He has been left alone, and I took away from him the last thing he had connection with. I had put him in a basket in front of a hospital in the wind. He is cold and alone and I did that to him. I know how that feels, and it isn't a good feeling, the worst feeling in the world. So today my wife, my boys, my brothers family, my sisters families, and I are all going over to our parents house and we are not leaving until that old man is loved again. You can never be too busy for the people you love. Never.

A simple little joke

On the first day we spoke you told me of a joke of the past atrocities there've been. I did not smile, I couldn't laugh just like a child, I was thinking of the poor children and the men. And all the sons and daughters led to their own slaughter, how could you laugh at the expense of all that death? But you apologized because of the sadness in my eyes and said it's just a joke and nothing more.

That night as we slept and I felt you as you wept, it was the first time we were not eye to eye. I couldn't leave it at that as we lay there back to back, and I rolled around and took you in my arms. That was before you knew of me, and my heart for those who fell. That was before I knew of you, and your heart for those who fell. Your such a girl, and I'm such a boy, and people are fallible and cruel, but not me, but not you.

As we laid in dark we touched, we searched, we cut our loss, and decided sometimes a joke is just a joke. And I gave in a bit as you cheered up a bit and we both felt like the world would spin for us. And as we were a touch on the tired side, and as we were a touch on the loving side, and as we were a touch on the crying side, we spent our night in each others arms.

As it falls

I’ve heard people say before that there is a moment that happens in life, and it’s not always a moment you want to experience. It is a moment of sufficient emotion and intensity of reality. It is the moment where, as people say, your life, it flashes before your eyes. Such a moment I wish never existed for me, that second where something must be wrong because if it wasn’t, it would just be another moment. But something is wrong, that’s why you see the life you’ve had. The memorabilia of recollection, the stored up sections of a great life had; happy sequences of childhood play, a first kiss, a laugh that lasted hours. The things you want to remember you see again before life ends.

It was nearly something like that. But. I saw nothing. I felt everything, I felt my brittle body unable to move. I felt dirt and splintered building in my hair, on my clothes, in my eyes and mouth. The taste of devastation on my tongue. All had crumbled, and within that mess, was me, left solidified, tangled in rebar and the falsified sense of human progression. You would think by now we would have changed ourselves. We would have managed to overcome the chance of disaster. But here we are, in what once considered the future, still stuck in the rubble of a shivering earth.

I heard the thunder in my ears, on my arms, in my stubborn breaths. It was hard to breathe. Every inhale an exertion, every exhale excruciating and old; hoarse and stagnant in the lack of air. My eyes were open, but I had never seen darkness so, well, dark. Black would have had night terrors there. And I was immobile, not completely, but nearly. I could move my left hand. I could shift it a few centimeters left and right. My wrist wasn’t broken, but it was close. I could feel blood on my body, my back and legs, in my socks, filling my shoes, down the back of my neck, and in my mouth. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t scared, life was muffled, and it didn’t flash before me, because I was in a dark place. I couldn’t see it. Nothing flashed, not even the pleasant times.

And the thunder was strong. The pounding in me stronger. I could hear the streets shift and the buildings come to rest upon me. I thought of my wife. She was such a wife. I thought of my three children. They would have been in school now. The school was small though, one story tall, so they would have more of a chance of survival. I passed my time with that thought. My wife would be ok. My kids, safe and in the arms of their mother, happy for the touch of a loved one. I comforted myself that maybe I was alive. Maybe this darkness was just that, the lack of day, the absence of light, not the beginning of my end. Maybe I would see them again. Maybe.

The heat didn’t subside for hours, or days. If there was a sense of shock, I was in it. The thunder soon became a low humming. It sounded like shattered rock and sledge on concrete, the sounds you wouldn’t want to hear from below. If you did, it meant you were below. You were trapped. And I was alone. Seconds before it happened I know I was with Guillame. We were walking together, talking about the later half of our day and the building project we needed to get underway. He was gone now, or so I assumed. Death was around me now, the smell of it unmistakable. The death of my friend surrounded me, I was a part of it. I could taste it with every burdened breath.

And how sweet that breath was. There was no light, so I figured no air. I could hear the thumping above, the pitiful hope for survivors, the last chance for me. But the air stayed fat and swollen. It remained sooty and thick, but it still came. I thought about how I may have been breathing the once last breaths of the dead, of Guillame, of my friend. The same breaths he ended life on, but I couldn’t. I needed to stay positive. I needed to keep what hope I had alive. But there was little, the blatant rescue noises I heard from above were thousands of miles away, tons of buildings away. I was but a flake at the base of an avalanche. I was alone. I was dying. Or, I was dead.

I thought again about life; about the absence of its flash. I thought about how I wasn’t remembering the good times, the birth of my children, my wedding, my wife. I didn’t see any hope in my mind, either I had given up, or I was working purely on faith. A faith that is beyond prayer and reasoning, but a faith of pure survival. A faith that extends itself to the one ready for it, the one who desires it, the one who needs it most. Not a faith of graces or of seductive prosperity, but just the faith that I can have another bad day. Today would have been the worst. How I would give anything, to have more bad days. As long as I had that chance, today would be worth it. If my bad days found themselves still high on the list. The bottom of the list would be stuck under a building, nearly crushed to death, suffocating slowly with rescue workers ten meters above my head all because of a fluke of nature. A sudden shift in tectonic plates, the earth’s grumble of defiance, a grumble of non-cooperation and boldness from the land itself. Disobedience. And I was in the mix of it. In the middle of the hell that had become real.

Life didn’t flash before my eyes because I wasn’t sure what I was still fighting for, or if I needed to. Hope was gone. The shouts of the saviors were still a low humming thunder. There was no little hand through the hole to pull me free. Or, at least not yet.

Let us lay, let us lay, let us be

I've seen the other side,
of you my love tonight,
and there is so much more,
than I should know to store,
of you my girl, how much, much I do adore,
grab a hold of me,
and kiss me so discreetly,
don't let me escape,
I'm in disbelief,
and I'm standing here in wait,
until you grab a hold and say,
let us lay, let us lay, let us be.

How we started new,
and then started to bloom,
the flower of my heart is no longer worlds apart,
she is just along,
the words within my song,
and she'll forgive me if all I do is start,
talking of the love that I hold for her,
and then I am the fool,
after all these tears have cooled,
and given me the hope
that I can't seem consume.

Just give us a new ending,
the first part of our mending,
and I will give myself,
through your sickness and my health,
and tell you that I love you,
and show it as I discover you.

Some little things stay so small

started so small with a chance to grow,
should have been getting bigger by the day,
but i couldn't give you what you needed,
and there you were dormant and alone.
Just waiting for that one day when you let life in,
and started your upward heave,
leaving the earth behind,
with ambitions of the sky.
And one day you would bloom,
and hear the songs of the mockingbirds,
when the dew is soaking up everything it touches.
You would be my inspiration,
you would be my hope for this year,
to see you fighting your fate.
You would make a hard man happy that day.
The stains would wash away.
You would love the wind blowing you around a bit.
You would love what the sun can be.
Just try a bit harder, just a little bit,
so you can taste the sweetness that is life my would be friend.
Give yourself a chance,
give yourself some direction,
give yourself a sense of need.
I'll give you three days to make your decision,
and then you're up with the weeds.

Plum tree grow

It's tired. My body. It is more tired by the day. The ice cost me three dollars twenty. three dollars twenty, for ice. Ice for my knees. I am not the man I use to be. I still have my strength. I just don't have the body to hold it. Just a bit less capable by the day. See, I work at a nursery. I plant, grow, uproot, and pack up sapling trees. Plum trees mostly, but pear trees as well. I also carry the new loads of fertilizer and soil from where they are delivered to where they are stored. I carry them to where I plant the trees as well, so the seeds have the very best chances to grow strong.

I dig holes and just fill them back in. And if something grows from that once empty place, I have to pull it out and ship it away. That makes sense to me. It sounds just like me. When I've been a part of something that has a future, I ship it away. That's how my friends would describe we if I had them. I swear they would. They sure would. my hands never seem to be clean anymore. The cracks hold the soil and the stain of it. My hands have been dirty for some time now, years it seems. They just never rid themselves of what they are and what they do. They hold it on them as if being punished, as if it's their fate to always be unwashable.

I live by the means I have. I have a humble little house, but it is mine. The house stands sturdy, and that is good. The roof is a bit old, it dances in high winds and storms. The weatherboards could be replaced but they do still serve their purpose. my shed is still standing, still fill with past ambitions and half finished dreams, rusting away, untouched for too long. my front stairway is only missing two bricks, and they are not important bricks, just the corner of the top layer. My favorite plant sat on those bricks once, until they fell and it fell. The clay pot it was in shattered, so now it's out in my back garden.

It's a small garden. Some flowers and succulents, but mostly just tomatoes and cucumbers. I love cucumbers. Tomatoes are good as well. I like to pick them just before they are ripe, just before they are ready to be their best. I'm not quite sure why, I just like picking them then, before they should be. I don't really want to taste how could they could be. I don't want to like them too much because cucumbers are my favorite. I do not want to have to have a new favorite. I wish I had a plum tree. I tried to grow one once but it didn't take to my land. The soil wasn't good enough for it. It needed more than my land and I could provide. Funny, that's what my wife said when she left. Not about the land, but about providing.

I have an old canoe in my garden. It was a good canoe. I use to paddle it in lakes. I loved to paddle from shore to shore, and from bank to middle and back, no matter the day or weather. I loved to paddle that boat, it was one of my most favorite things to do. It ran through all its patch jobs two years back and couldn't hold its float anymore, so I planted it in the garden. That's what the tomato plants grow in. I think it looks like a second chance for something that could be given up on. I think it's better for it to stick around and have some good, not just be discarded and forgotten. It made me happy once. It does now again.

I use to have a small anchor for it. When I took it out on the lake during a big storm I would just set the anchor and stay there floating in life's furry. Just tacking a battering, and being nothing but clean on the other side of it. Clean you know because I would be rained on. I think that's clever. I like clever little thoughts I have like that, keeps me thinking. I didn't want to put the anchor in the garden though. I really don't like the idea of being held down. See in a lake anchors don't hold you down, they just try and keep you still. That's ok to me. Being still. But in a garden it would just look like it was holding things down. That seems pretty silly to me. To have something that looked like it was holding down when you are trying to help things grow. It wouldn't be a good thing to have.

I use to have a problem with rabbits and other little critters in my garden. So, I made another garden, much closer to the field out my back property. Smart, I know. I planted vegetables and plants critters like rabbits like. I planted carrots and asparagus. I planted some lettuce and cabbage. I don't like lettuce and carrots and stuff like that so it's better that the critters eat those and not my cucumbers and tomatoes. I saw a rabbit though, two days ago, back in the cucumber and tomato garden. I guess when you are given what you want, sometimes you just want something else. When people keep for themselves what they want, and give you something they don't want in return to keep you happy, it doesn't always work. It's ok though, I have a shotgun.

I got a letter from my son the other week. It was a good letter, first one he had sent in months. He apologized not coming home for the holidays and not telling me. It was nice. I wasn't sore at all about it. I know he is doing well for himself at school. He has got a plan, and he needs to be sticking to it. It's good to have a plan. A plan with a future more than gardens and the same nursery job for thirty years. I'm glad he didn't come home, he needs to be working at his future. I sent him a letter back saying just that. 'Don't worry about me,' I said 'I've got everything under control.' He's a smart kid, real smart, in the top fifty of his high school when he graduated, real smart kid. He's got a future. A good future ahead of him, no reason coming home for a lousy holiday to ruin that chance. No reason at all for that.

I reckon when you've got a plan, and it's a good one, you have to stick with it, or you just lose your way. It's like a garden, if you water it for a while, and then stop watering it, how do you expect to grow anything. That's just silly to think that will work. You have to stick with it, put in the effort, get those hands dirty. just hope you can get them clean again someday before you stain the cracks.

Stubborn thumbs find a way

At the end of the road, the signs don't say where to go. And to the left is a hole, and to your right nowhere to go. But, you can't turn around, you've walked that way before, and hard as it is, you must continue on not knowing the way to go.

At a sign that says stop, you take a seat and rest. You weigh out your options and hope for the best. In one hand where you are, and how you are, and where to go from here. In the other, you left open, as if a choice to make, either here or either there, nowhere the final place.

I know it's not a way to live, not knowing when to slow down or speed up and get through it. But it's better than not knowing at what point you'll call it quits. So hold your head up high and stare directly at the sun, your eyes were meant for glaring and the road was built for thumbs. So keep fleeing on your way, not knowing your direction. Walking a lonely little road, still searching for that one connection, to where to go from here. What to do right now, how to be what you were suppose to be. And you will find it doesn't matter, there is no right way, no simple way to find where you are going. Just keep your feet moving and be ready for where they are going.

Just to empty. But a bit of hope.

In all the empty places, we find what fills them full.
We find that we can be the ones to fill this lonely space.
Changes the mood when there is more than one, now two,
and i will never forget what that means to me.
What is means to be close to you.
And I will recall everything that is inside me,
my thoughts can't hide for too long.
If they hide so well it is only time till I drag them out,
kicking and screaming,
and release them so suddenly,
and then I will scream, as if no one can hear,
as if no one can see me go insane just for a bit.
Such a silly little time where i don't know what to do,
and I'm not on my own, but I'm alone just now,
how wonderful it will be when I'm making a change for us both,
I'm here just passing along, in the only way i know how,
even if it is the one and only wrong way,
it seems to be working as of now, so it is a path i will tread,
for now, it's the way that leads me slowly to you.
The ground has frozen over, and our steps have been blown away,
it is a blind faith that keeps me walking straight,
to where i hope you will be.

Source of Fiodore's anger

Dinner is over. Now it is drinks, and what is hoped to be casual conversation. Still in Syggey and Gretch’s place. The table hasn’t been cleaned yet. There are now two candles burning on it for their scent and their dim lighting.

Carole. Gretch. I love these paintings. Where did you buy them?

Gretch. I actually painted those. About four years ago. When I first met Syggey.

Carole. Really? They are really good. Well, I mean. I really like them. You are talented.

Gretch. Thanks Carole. I have painted though in a while. I’m not sure why. I really like painting. I guess we’ve just been busy lately planning the wedding and all.

Carole. Hey Fiodore. Did you know that Gretch painted these?

Fiodore. One second Carole. (putting one finger in the air as he continued his talk with Syggey)

Carole. (To Gretch) I think he will like them. He likes art.

Gretch. Oh. Good. (Fiodore and Syggey join the ladies. Thoren is just standing to the side looking at records).

Fiodore. What were you saying Carole?

Carole. I said that Gretch actually painted these. I told her how you really like paintings and other art.

Fiodore. (Looking at the paintings). Yeah. Not bad Gretch.

Carole. Come on Fiodore. Not bad?

Fiodore. What. They are not bad. I mean they are good for this wall, but I wouldn’t spend thousands of dollars or anything on them. Not bad though.

Carole. Fiodore!

Gretch. It’s fine Carole. It’s just a hobby. I know I am not a professional, like some people.

Syggey. I like the one of Mean Dean. That one is my favorite. He looks perfect in it, just how he was. Playful, loving. A bit of a trickster. You can see that in his eyes. But, just a happy and good friend. (Syggey takes Gretch’s hand).

Carole. Oh yes, I love that one to.

Fiodore. You love it. You have seen it for three minutes. How can you love it?

Carole. Well. I’m not in love with it. But I think it is really nice.

Gretch. Thank you Carole. That one is my favorite as well. I am happy with all of them. But that one is my favorite.

Fiodore. Oh. I guess it is good to like your own art. I mean if you didn’t you wouldn’t hang it on a wall to show everyone.

Syggey. It’s not there to show everyone Fiodore. It’s there because I think it is really good, and I asked Gretch if I could hang them. I like to see her work and her talent. I could care less if people look at it. I don’t much care what you think of it Fiodore. I like it there to see.

Fiodore. Well. Thoren. What record are you looking at there. (Fiodore joins Thoren).

Carole. I’m sorry you two. About Fiodore. He just hasn’t been himself these last few weeks. He seems a bit angry at something.

Gretch. He is a being a bit of an ass.

Syggey. Gretch.

Gretch. What? He is a bit.

Carole. It’s fine. I know. I think he is having trouble at work or something. He doesn’t talk to me much about what he is feeling. I just hope it is something he will get over.

Thoren and Fiodore are now our focus.

Fiodore. This is kind of a boring night, huh. Wouldn’t you say?

Thoren. (Shrugs his shoulders, still looking at the records. He pulls one out.)

Fiodore. I mean. Everyone just seems to be angry at something. It’s not really a good time.

Thoren. (Doesn’t seem to respond)

Fiodore. You don’t talk much do you? I like that though. A thinker. I like thinkers. Don’t worry about what you said at dinner. I don’t really care. You use to date Gretch, huh? That must have been difficult. She is kind of uptight and tactless it seems.

Thoren. Not really.

Fiodore. Well. I mean she just seems like she is a bit mean and moody. One of those people who argues for the sake of arguing. Just to piss people off you know. You know what I mean?

Thoren. (shrugs his shoulders)

Fiodore.Yeah you know what I mean. What record is that? Man that girl is gorgeous. I saw a girl like that a few days ago. Well actually it was a few weeks ago. But I saw her again the other day, if you know what I mean.

Thoren. (Nods, as if he understands.)

Fiodore. Hotter than that one there though. (Pointing to the record). Much hotter. She was perfect man. You would have liked her.

Thoren. Perfect?

Fiodore. Oh yeah. Not one i-m-p-e-r-f-e-c-t-i-o-n.

Thoren. Not one, huh?

Fiodore. Nope. Not any part of her. (Gesturing with his hands that he is feeling her whole body)

Thoren. The world is imperfect. You know that right. Example given. A moment. Two people, previously unconnected, connect, for a second or maybe two. A shameful connection. A locked eye. An understood urgency of acceptability. A lustful sequence soured by the rot of morals. What was lost there? Nothing gained, except the now knowing of a glimpse of harmful seduction. A chaotic shock of mere magnetism. The wrong ideas had. You are engaged in a catastrophic circumstance, with no pleasurable outcome for the majority. You are filth. You are a dog. You are unwanted and spat at for a glimpse. To me that is imperfect. That is the world.

Fiodore. What the fuck are you talking about man?

Thoren. Never mind. Just forget it.

Fiodore. You are weird man.

Thoren. Well at least I’m not an asshole. Asshole.

It's what you see.

I can't feel weak for myself because I've given up on all the problems i have caused myself already. I know I've messed things up in the past, loves, friendships, family ties. I have given up too soon, or so many have said. It is my fault. I take it. what else is there to take? Moving on time I think. I've been through a lot myself as well. I have seen my parent separate and re-marry, I have seen two of my parents, both my blood parents, to the grave. I have lost a sister. I have lost a fiancee to infidelities, hers, what else can I give before I start taking?

I can't apologize for wanting to start over. I awoke during the blue moon, and it made sense, there are second chances, and i will give myself one. Here I am to start over. Stop me if you may, but good luck friend, I'm already beyond reconsideration.

People often talk about coincidence. I did believe in it once. now i feel. Coincidence is just bad luck. You think, at the time, that that moment is the most important, one that means something, or else it shouldn't have been had. A coincidence, that it has happened in a way you may have seen it before. I have never been a part of a coincidence and for that I am thankful. I want no premonitions. I want no foretelling. I want what it is, and I want the ability to make it my own or manipulate it into what i need.

You can't do that though. You can't change life, but you can manipulate it. You can put yourself into it to the point you manifest it into something that works for you. Maybe that is the coincidence. When you engage in a situation you have the ability to control. It is like a forced coincidence. You control it. Well, not coincidence then, but it makes sense to you, and you can be a major part of it. I know that I will be ready for that. If you are ready. then that is great, but I see you are not there fully. And that I hope to show you my love. The first thing I do is look for you when I know you are not there, hoping you just showed up to surprise me. That is the love I need.

And I know for now I only get a small piece of you, but I know there will be that day when time gives up on itself, and i get you all to myself. And all else will pale in that moment, nothing will hold itself, never hold a bright light, never hold the sun to us. In that moment it will be nothing more than you and me, because there will be no reason for anything else. it will be you and me, and we will light up this fucking world on that day, and every day to follow.

These are the parts of me that make me weak. the parts of me that pine and want. the parts that wait and expect more. the parts that give themselves to you. And I am good with that. I will be vulnerable for you, I will be left useless for you. I will destruct myself for that chance to have you through and through. Just because I claim to be a man doesn't make me indestructible. I am fallible like all else, even more now that I am affixed. Now that I am indebted. Now that I know who I was made for. Now that there is you. I will be there for you again and again. Because you are everything to me.

I would fly across the sky to find you wanting, something more than there is without me. I would crawl across the earth to be trembling at your feet. In a world where things can be so terrible why can I be so lucky to have found you? Why have I been so fortunate to have made you so close, and me for you. Everyday I hope for a chance to prove to you my hope for us. And everyday I forget how I'm going to do it. And the very next day I figure out again my way to be the one for you. Just to hold your hand, in front of our friends, that will be the day, when I can say I love you.

Punchline

"I feel it is a comedy you have been lacking."

"A comedy. You think I have not been comedic?"

'Well, you have driven a laugh, but, you've done the driving. I mean it's not exactly a secret you are a sad woman."

"Sad. Are there tears in these eyes? Do you see a puddle on my floor? Do you see my handkerchief soaked and withdrawn in shame? Do you see me overwhelmed by what I have given?"

"No. But-"

"But what? What is this idea of sad? The idea of the absence of comedy? This infuriating accusation of detriment and writers belittling? Anyone can write a sad story. Not everyone writes a comedy. I am laughter. I am fucking comic number one. You haven't seen it because you haven't seen it. That's that. I can't make up for your lacking in concentration and satirical connection. Have a laugh you shit. You would if you had any attention and fucking attempt."

"I'm not saying you are not funny. It's just that, most people don't see the joke. You know what I mean?"

"Do I know what you mean? Please! I wrote what you know. I've seen your pathetic opinion. And please say I am not funny, that would be the first thing you would be right about. I am not funny, but what I give is funny, what people see and read is funny. I am not funny. It is funny. Most people that don't see the joke are the joke. And there is the funny, you shit. Are you keeping up or should I slow down?"

"No. I am here."

"I don't care if you're here. The funny I give. If they don't see it then it's their problem, not mine. I didn't raise them to be such unimaginative and thoughtless gits. I'm not to blame for there ignorance."

"But. I. I think if you just ease it, out to the audience. A bit. Make it, well, not simpler, but more realistic to see."

"Realistic. Rea fucking listic? Can I get more realistic then the humour in death and loss? Can I be more funny then what could have been, but really what was? I don't write the jokes, I just give this life's versions of them. You don't get them, so don't try to. Don't make me 's i m p l i f y' them, shit. Just. Be gone."

"I have to be here."

"You have to be here? You have to be here. You have to be here!"

"It's my job maam. I have to be."

"Then there it is. My conclusion. my punchline for the common folk. You are the joke. There you are. What could be funnier? You here, being the sadness. Being the joke that could have been better, but is just distant and lacking of anything wanted."

"I quit. How's that for funny?"

"Quit. What the shit do I care? I've just written my final thought. Why do I care you quit?"

"You don't need to care. I don't. It's just a joke right, sadness? I guess so. So many people already know this joke then. Maam. You have AIDS is a pretty good one then. Good luck with that joke."

Strength in you

How simple my heart and how unlucky my time.
this is me and how fragile am i.
My power you've struck and my light is a light,
here we are to face our future.

Again with a hand you've pushed back again,
not from a fight but more from a chance.
You've said that things are now nothing.
And as I remember that's not what they've been.
And you have now said that we've past our best.
I am still here and you are still my. you are still my,
still my little light.

The pace it has slowed since you've let me be.
I can't catch up to what is behind me.
And I can't slow down as I charge ahead.
Where is the best time to lay down for it again.
All my words are no longer words.
All my thoughts are no longer thoughts.
They mean something else and you know what that is tonight.
They are what you want and they are why we seem to fight.

Start today and we will start today.
Continue from here and we are at square one.
I am here. And I am always here.

Get on yourself

I would conclude it is the matter of questioning I find myself in lately. Nothing that I have overlooked in the past, but something i have tended to avoid based on it's inevitable consequences. How much can you question before, ultimately, you question yourself. Is there ever an honest question you can pose to yourself? Most i figure are either half hearted or just lacked in punch to prove something to yourself. And that's what it is about hey, to prove or show yourself something? To be or answer to something you do not always take comfort in confronting. So is this a dilemma or just a chance? Will someone ask me a question or is it up to me to press?

If you could ask yourself one honest question, the one that presses at your innermost self, the one that you would be so frightful to answer in front of any audience, including yourself in your head, because you fear the truth, what would that question be, answer it for yourself today, feel better or feel worse, but feel something,please, what is the answer, but more importantly, what is that question for you?

And that is just a start. A good start, but no ends to means where we are meant to be, so build it up, fulfill yourself once so you can challenge yourself again. You have answered the question you want no one to know or ask, it's over, you've done your time, you have taken the judgement of the mind, now move on, what is the next challenge you have placed for yourself? Line it up and knock it the fuck down, it's time to stand up and get even with the bastard within. Get even with the hate you have for yourself, get rid of it. And if you have no idea what i mean then I am a nut, and leave me to my own self criticisms. But if you have done what you do not wish to share then at least share it with yourself and be rid of it. It is a new day. Today is the first day. So grow up you lamenting shit.

Soon it will come

Who's decision is it to live fast and die young? When can you say you have had a full life and be given the confidence to concede? Is it when you are littered with so many lonely hearts you can no longer doubt you have found the one to have back? Is it when you are given the time to figure that you are what they need, and they are everything? They are what you need. There is no doubt in the one you love, if you question it you are then a fool. Not a fool to be forgotten, just a fool to think twice. Go with it, take the spin and ruin yourself either in the mess of love or the mess of mistake. I will never be in the pile of regret, in the pile of hopeless loss and giving in. Let me grow through you, and I know, we will grow.

Take my hand, and with it I come to give you what I am. What I was, what I am, and what I can be is me. take it, or tell me to piss off as gently or as crass as you see fit, but give me yourself. You've wanted it, well here it is, take it or spit it back, bu tell me now what it is you want, because I'm giving you myself, and all I want is you and yourself in return.

I'm not living fast to die young. I'm living fast to find you when I'm young, so I I can have you, you can have me, we can have what we want for longer than we deserve, because who says we don't deserve it now? Who says it is not our time to love? Who says it 's not you, and it is no time the world has been hoping for? That little love story in everyone's mind can be what we are, or at least what we can be?

I'm scared. I hope you are too. It's better to be in it with jitters, it makes it more real, more of a chance rather than a dream. More than an effort rather than a hopeful destination. more of you and me, and less of just one of us on our home. What's your take on it? Do you see an end, or do you still just see what may happen now? I push myself to believe it is the smiles that you hold, and the sadness is just the future pushing itself through today's waiting. The tears are a flow that will soon bring us together, the only waves I will ride, the beauty of you is the path I take now. I will not be forgotten. I will not be overlooked in my attempt. I t is you I want, I need, I am coming for. It is you. You are for me, nothing else, no one else. I am the man that was made for you. You are the one who makes me beautiful. You are the one that makes me weak.

I'm left driven to the soul of myself, to the work that must be done to see you again. If it were tomorrow I'd give myself to the blade that has split us once before, this time though, it is my doing, it is one me. And since it is, when it is is in the books, and must not be forgotten. I stole your heart at the same moment you stole mine too. It doesn't make sense how soon this has come but all I am is happy it has happened so. And for that I applaud those who make the rules. And to them a thank them. And for you a thank you. And for me, you are my thank you. You are everything.

Less than half now.

What can you say to a girl when you can't say I love you?
What can you say to a friend if you can't say goodbye?
What can you say to a boy if you can't say good luck?
What can you say to yourself if you can't say wake up?

just say what you feel,
say it to the one.
you're trembling at their feet
you've let yourself undone.

What can you say to a seed if you can't ask it to grow?
What can you ask of winter if you can't ask for the snow?
What can you say to the future if it can't start today?
What can you ask of a love if you can't ask them to stay?

just say what you feel,
say it to the one.
you're trembling at their feet
you've let yourself undone.

How do you say I want to be closer to you when you're so far away?
Why can't I get you off my mind, you're not just a woman?
Why don't I realize what you do is what I need you to do?
How can I see what you give, who you are, is what I need?

Thoren's attraction

Five friends at a dinner table. All brought their own dish, except for Syggey and Gretch, who live there, they made three dishes together. There are three paintings on the wall. All three were painted by Gretch. There is a dog bed in the corner of the room, empty still. Two couples and a friend. Syggey and Gretch are a couple. Fiodore and Carol are a couple. And there is Thoren, Gretches ex-boyfriend and Syggey’s close friend.

Fiodore. Pass us the wine will you Thoren? Wine is passed. So I was walking down Madbury today.

Carol. Is this the homeless story again?

Fiodore. Yes Carol it is. You have heard it. No one else has.

Carol. I’ve heard it twice actually, already.

Fiodore. Shush. So there is this-

Gretch. Carol. You let him shush you?

Syggey. Gretch. Please.

Gretch. What? Are you defending him?

Carole. It’s fine Gretch. I was just pushing him.

Syggey. So you’re on the street Fiodore. There is a homeless man?

Fiodore. Thank you Syggey. No. A homeless woman.

Gretch. What was she wearing?

Syggey. Gretch.

Gretch. What? Can’t I ask questions?

Fiodore. What? What was she wearing? Who cares?

Gretch. How do you know she was homeless?

Fiodore. Because she was filthy and sitting on the street with a sign that said, ‘please help the homeless.’

Gretch. Oh.

Fiodore. Can I continue?

Gretch. Sure. So there is a homeless girl with a homeless girl sign. Continue.

Fiodore. Thank You. Thoren passes a bowl and a bottle of wine to Syggey. Yes a homeless girl. With a homeless sign. And, she asked me if believe in God.

Syggey. Well that’s a loaded question.

Fiodore. Yes. Yes it is. I agree.

Gretch. What did you say?

Carole. Listen to this.

Fiodore. Say. I didn’t say anything. I walked away as fast as I could.

Syggey. You walked away? That must have put her off a bit.

Gretch. That’s a bit cold. Were you scared of the question?

Fiodore. Scared? Put her off? What the hell are you two talking about? I didn’t want to talk to a homeless woman. I don’t like homeless people.

Gretch. You don’t like homeless people? It’s not their fault they are homeless. How can you not like homeless people?

Fiodore. Sure it is. I have a job. You have a job. Syggey had a job. Any one of them could get employment.

Gretch. Do you know that most people who are homeless, yes they are people first mind you. But most people who are homeless have psychological problems?

Fiodore. Great. That’s perfect. They’re crazy. Get them off the streets.

Gretch. Excuse me.

Carole. They can be a bit dirty.

Gretch. Carole.

Fiodore. Gretch listen. I don’t have a problem against homeless people, or people who are homeless, whatever. I just think, I leave them alone, they can leave me alone.

Gretch. Of course you leave them alone. You don’t need anything from them.

Syggey. It sounds like he could have used that conversation.

Fiodore. Look you two. I came here for a nice dinner, not to get scolded because of some homeless bitch.

Gretch. Oh. So she is a bitch now? Because she wanted to know if you have the love of God in your life. A bitch.

Fiodore. Carole. Can we go please?

Thoren. Was she attractive? The entire table looked at Thoren.

Fiodore. Excuse me.

Carole. What?

Syggey. That’s a good question. Would you have talked to her if she was really pretty?

Fiodore. What?

Thoren. No that’s not what I was asking. Was she attractive to you? I think homeless people are attractive.

Fiodore. No Thoren she was not.

Thoren. Did she ask for money?

Fiodore. No Thoren. She did not ask for money.

Thoren. So what the hell is your problem then? She didn’t want your money you didn’t want to fuck her, and your story sucks. Can we eat now? By the way Gretch and Syggey, I heard Mean Dean died last week. I’m sorry to hear that. Pass us the pees, will you Carol?

Gone again, friend.

I'm not sure why you left me,
I was only telling the truth.
Maybe I don't see what I'm saying,
when I'm being myself with you.
I thought this second chance,
would bring us closer again,
and bowing out is something
I've never seen from you my friend.

I remember a night
in the front of your truck.
The chimneys fell as lovers blazed
and with any luck,
that's how I'll remember our days.
This is crazy.
A second goodbye before hello was made,
You can take the game,
I never wanted checkmate.

Everyday I could meet you.
Everyday a new hello.

But as you wish
you have your time,
take it all.
It is your
LIFE.

Such a pretty thing.

I've held you on the end of my cherry pole.
And I couldn't leave you left tonight alone.
And I am fully aware of the mess I've gotten in.
And I accept it, and I want more and more.

You're just a Lady slipper,
and if I pick you I will be charged,
so subtle in your beauty, and colourful in your base,
I'll be punished for my specific taste.

I've seen you in a market just wandering around,
buying pretty things for all the boys and girls.
We've been getting cozy through our late night talks.
A life of rendezvous around the clock.

It's a fit I've had about where I'm going.
It's the state of mind about where I've been.
I'm letting myself down to the ground girl,
I'll be there waiting for more.

This is the truth mama. Just she.

My baby red came,
back to paper,
back to where I can see you again
from my mind, I'll let it take.
From my mind, I know you came.

And there you are,
at the end of my pen,
and behind all the walls,
the pain is the same, oh the pain is the same.
You have never felt my love up close.

There is so much more I need,
so much from you.
I need to know, or maybe I don't.
But it's better to have you. It's better indeed.

I've damaged myself.
I have let life have its way.
And I speak of myself, and I know what I need.
What I need is hidden in you.

The page stained with ink,
my thoughts all to see.
I'll give them to you, they are all for you,
be kind to give them back to me.

I find myself down,
Making pictures in my head.
Happy days with you, happy days through and through.
All that is left is the life I have bleed.

And the weather is wild, yes
for my only child, I've come to bring you
a little bit faith, a little bit of faith,
a little bit of how have you been
since I've held you in my arms?

I've damaged myself.
I have let life have its way.
And I speak of myself, and I know what I need.
What I need is hidden in you.

Glimpse

"The world is imperfect. You know that right. Example given. A moment. Two people, previously unconnected, connect, for a second or maybe two. A shameful connection. A locked eye. An understood urgency of acceptability. A lustful sequence soured by the rot of morals. What was lost there? Nothing gained, except the now knowing of a glimpse of harmful seduction. A chaotic shock of mere magnetism. The wrong ideas had. You are engaged in a catastrophic circumstance, with no pleasurable outcome for the majority. You are filth. You are a dog. You are unwanted and spat at for a glimpse. To me that is imperfect. That is the world."

Thoren to Fiodore.

A new direction

I met her in the winter, and the sky was falling in little flakes. And I didn't have a coat on, just long pants and a half sleeve white shirt, and I was making some hell out of the night. She was bundled up, hat, gloves, scarf, and little red nose. She was walking with her friends, leaving footprints to follow through the maze that was our city. And a suitor like me had better pay attention to the marks that were hers. All those little imperfections that lead to intimacy were staking claim on the night. And she was imperfect, and I was nowhere close to a prize. And she saw me chasing snowflakes, and I saw her shake her head. She kicked a pile of snow in my general direction in a playful mood, and I made an angel for her until I was wet and shaking. I caught a few flakes as they tried to settle and I blew them to her from my place near the last street light, and how much she loved that, how loud she laughed.

And I watched her walk away, with her friends and the night ahead. I watched her awkward footprints as they covered themselves with snow. It was a comfortable moment to see her leave, and then the trace of her leave behind her. As if there was nothing left for me to hold onto. Nothing left that I could use to see that girl again. And I spun my little circle and rubbed my hands up and down my arms. My fingertips were red, my ambition now was dying, and I retreated to the only place I know. A forgotten little place on a one way street. The only one way street that brought you nowhere. Even the end of it wasn't a place to go. It ended in a fence, no place to turn around unless on bike or foot. An old hole to get lost in, the last place to get lost anymore.

And I saw the dim light, the open sign still hung to the left, the patrons still the same, two old men, three old ladies, two young hipsters, and a wild man with nowhere to go and no one to know, me. And i got that bottle of poison, and I popped me a pill, and the cold of that night left me again. The old box of music played those low blues that they ought to play on such a night. No one in the place with a head held high, no one as high as that girl in the street. And I stood silently in the middle of the floor, and I rocked my body to the old soulful sadness that took me over, and I killed that poison like I was its poison, and it died within me, but took its hold. And I made a friend with a mirror in the place, I saw me standing there looking back in shame, and I knew that I needed a little more to my night. I needed to follow tracks that did not exist, not anymore.

I payed the grave digger her due, and longing to leave, I went out to find those empty footsteps to follow. And under that street light I saw a paper taped to the pole. In big black letters I saw my past written by someone I never met. 'My burdens are my own.' And when it comes to you, when you feel the moment in your blood, that's your chance to live forever in that moment, and for yourself and yourself alone you make a choice. And most often that choice takes you down the wrong path, but it is still the path you want to follow. The one that will hurt you. The one that will kill your hope. The one that drags you down. That's the one you choose. that's the one you need to prove you are more than human. You are broken, but hell you still work.

And there I am, with so much before me and so much above and below. So much in my body I have to let take over, so I can lose myself. And this is my life. And this is where I am. And though it's winter, I am darker than the night, and lighter than the sky. And I'm colder than the snow. I think it's time to celebrate my imperfections. Oh how many there are. A folder of fallies. A mass of mistakes. A pile of problems that ca't be solved, just forgotten. And here I am a lonely man on a lonely night, and the girl that could have changed me has gone away, and I'm silently ashamed. And as clear as I see it, as easy as I know what to do, I do nothing, because what you deserve I don't deserve. What you need I can never give you. Who I am is wrong for everybody becuase who I am is the same man my father was, and his father before him. I'm lost on that path that has no tracks. I can't see them, but I can't seem to take that step away. And I see you, and want to follow you anywhere. Or I am wrong, and that was me.

And so many lost footsteps to follow. All the snows have covered all the tracks, but the tracks, still, were once there, and just because you can't see your direction and your future, it doesn't mean you can't follow it. That's how I made my escape. That is how I lost control of what little control I had left. I found her, and she took it from me, and now it's hers. I made my great mistake, and I'd make it everyday.

You know this is for you.

In the morning light,
I hope your still holding on to a dreamers life.
Say good morning sun
and thank the sky for your sweetest memories.
I hope I comfort you
in your hours of need,
and i help you sleep like that baby girl,
in her hands she holds the world,
and makes this life one of her nicest dreams.
I'm holding on to you.


Tick, tick, tick,
the clock won't stop it's tick tock,
and every second is a second more,
a second time for me to plan my way to your heart.
It was a difficult day,
this day before,
your feelings were sad
with your heart on the floor,
and there's no excuse for me to just let you cry.
I've made a choice
and given you my voice,
you can have the rest of me in time.


Today I spent my day
laying around,
listening to some of my favorite songs
on my bed on the ground.
I had on my sweatshirt
and a picture of you in my head,
there are so many reasons I have to be better for you
then be better off in my own little world.


It's only eight in the morning,
where you raise from your evening rest.
There's a little girl out there waiting for your best.
And you must be the one
who she smiles for today.
And in your waking life
in the life that keeps you alive,
I'm always here for you, a million miles away.

This is this.

It was a return ticket. It was in my hand now, crumpled in my fist. It was there until I dropped it on the floor. I wasn't going anywhere, not without Kris. It was one of those relationships you just don't see happening. We were close friends for most of our childhood, but never saw this coming. It was just a day, like any other day, when these feelings began.

I was home for my brother's funeral. he had leukemia for three years. I never really got to know him all that well. I was nineteen and he was seven. I had left for University two years earlier. I liked him when he was a baby and a kid, but I was never really his big brother, more of a distant uncle, or not so close friend. But, that's why I was home, for my mother. Not for my father. He had been gone for five years now. he just turned his tail and ran, ran, ran. Bastard is still probably running. He knows not to come back, not after what he did to my mother, and after what I did to him. I remember the last thing I said to him. I still love it when I hear it play over and over in my mind. "Just remember. It was this little faggot that beat the shit out of you." Classic line for a fourteen year with sexual narcolepsy. Whenever I wanted to use my tool, the feeling just seemed to fall asleep.

It came to life four weeks ago, when I saw Kris again. It happened without expectation. We said hello, Kris picked me up at the airport, and we hugged for a moment. I blamed it on the sudden pressure and elevation change, but the pole busting in my jeans was for Kris, and I think Kris knew that right away. After the funeral I didn't return to University right away, some grievance time I told my professors. Grievance time turned into exploration time. And explore we did, every part of each other.

It started three days after my brother's funeral. We were both a bit loose from the bottle of wine I stole from my mother's house. I think she knew I took it, she didn't care, she was just so thankful I came home for so long. Kris and I had finished the bottle. We were at the airport, where kids would go to watch planes land and take off. We were standing on the hood of Kris's car howling like dogs. We passed the bottle back and forth, I could taste Kris on the mouth of the bottle, and I wanted more. We passed the bottle and then passed eyes at each other. I wanted to kiss Kris. I never thought I would ever want to kiss someone like that, someone so similar to me, someone I had known my whole life, from when we were just little kids playing together. Before I had a chance to say anything, Kris grabbed me and kissed me hard and long. And then kissed me again.

That's how it went for the first week or so, just kissing and figuring out each other's bodies with our hands. We felt nearly the same. It was like touching yourself, that's how natural it felt. That's how good it felt. By the end of the first week our clothes were the first things to start going. At the end of the second week it was our inhibitions that went. By the end of the third it was our belief that what we were doing was wrong that went out the window. That fourth week was what it needed to be, long, deep, and full of our love for each other.And I was meant to leave at the end of it. I was meant to turn our love into a goodbye. We didn't tell anybody of our sins, how could we, no one would have understood, just us.

And I was standing at the gate. I had my ticket in my hand. I didn't even feel myself crumple it up and drop it to the floor. My body was making the decision my mind was too scared to make. I turned my back to the gate and ran back to the car lot, where Kris had dropped me off with a great kiss. the place where we got all the dirty looks from all the people who thought we gave a shit. The place that I should have never walked away from in the first place. I caught a train back to the station two towns over from ours. From there I ran to Kris's house. I was a mess when I got there, sweaty and crying, and stinking of love and passion. I nearly banged the door down, and I was screaming Kris at the top of my lungs. I needed Kris. Kris's dad answered the door and stood there looking at me. I told him I needed to see Kris. He asked why. I saw Kris coming down the stairs behind Mr. Behkate, Kris's dad. Kris was so happy to see me and ran into my arms. It happened there in front of Kris's dad.
"I am here for you Kris." "I am here for you to." "Kris. I love you." I saw the shock in Mr. Behkate's eyes, watching me there with Kris in my arms. "
I love you to. So much.

"I did love that girl. Still do.

Dacklin loses his head

And so it is. And so it had been. And so it would have continued. It was a great day, one of the best days Nin and I have had in years. She got over her early morning tears and worries. I made Nin her favorite breakfast as a little bit of an apology. Two scrambled egg stuffed crepes with a melted sharp cheddar cheese along the top of it, homemade, extra pulp orange juice, and one piece of dry rye toast. She seemed thankful. She was off for a shower and I was going to try and sleep for a few hours.

Nin came in our bedroom from just having a shower and let her towel drop. She crawled up through the sheets from the foot of the bed. She started on my legs and continued up me until her mouth was on mine. It took her twelve minutes for the journey. She worked her way back down, prepping me for what she wanted next. She spun on me, her head on my stomach, and inched her way back up until her head was next to mine, her back against my chest. She did the work, that's what she wanted. She made me touch her when and where she wanted to be touched. She made me kiss her when and where she wanted to be kissed. I let her own me for as long as she wanted. She was what I wanted. And then I slept.

I awoke three hours later in a magnificent haze. My eyes were open, but I was still settled and pacified as I was three hours before. I could still taste her in my mouth and feel her presence on my skin. I had a shower. I shampooed my hair. I conditioned it as well with a coconut scented conditioner. I felt smooth and touchable. I walked down our stairs and out onto our back lawn. Nin was sleeping in our hammock, she still had her night gown on. She had fallen asleep listening to music in the sun. Her night gown was open at the chest and I could see her, looking lovely and seductively peaceful from twenty paces away. I walked to her slowly and greeted her with my body. We rocked for another hour in each other's arms.

When we rose, we dressed ourselves and made are way to the car. We didn't make it right away. We fell in love again in the hallway, against the wall and on the floor. It was good to be in love with her, and loved by her. The day was moving on well, and I told her it was going to be her day, our day, but she made the limits, she made the decisions, I was hers from then on. She wanted to go food shopping, leave it to a woman to want to go food shopping at such a time. But she didn't want to shop for our house. She wanted to shop for a weeks worth of food. She wanted to go on a drive, a week long drive with me, and she said we needed food for the road. So, we went food shopping.

I only like shopping on the outer rows of the food shop. I liked the meats, and cheeses, the vegetables and fruits, juices and wines. Nin liked the middle rows, the rows of boxes and snacks, sugared sweets and pastas, spices and soft drinks. I let her lead. She chose everything from carrots to raisins. Everything she ever wanted to snack on we bought. She told me when she was a little girl her father always made her cucumber sandwiches, so we bought some bread, cucumber, mayonnaise and salt. She said she wanted sun chips, so we bought her a french onion flavor. She wanted fruit, so I bought her a watermelon. She wanted a pie, so I bought her three. And last, but most importantly, spaghetti O's. they were Banning's favorite and Nin wanted a few cans. We wouldn't have even had the chance to eat them on the road, unless we brought a can opener and some way to heat them up, but we had them with us anyway.

From the food shop Nin wanted to go home and do a quick pack for our drive. "You've got fifteen minutes before you're back in the car." She said. And she meant it. I had two glasses of water, went to the toilet, and then sat in the car with all of our fresh food. Nin locked up and came out four minutes later. My favorite song for her was playing on the radio. When she sat in the car I sang the last of it to her. After a kiss, she asked, "You didn't pack anything? I was upstairs the whole time. You never came up." "Nin. All I need is you."

We were off. She said south, so I drove south. She said west, so I drove west. She said north, so I drove north. She said faster, so I drove faster. She said cruise, so I slowed down and let her put her head out the window and breathe in the first breaths of our new love. She said stop, so I pulled over into a dirt parking lot with a fruit and vegetable stand. She jumped out, asked me for some money and ran off. She bought an armful of flowers and ran back to the car. She jumped back in and told me to smell them. I did, they were sweet and smelled of my childhood, the fields I grew up in, the wildflowers i would hide amongst. I thanked her. She thanked me back. She said right, so I went right.

"I threw up this morning again." "Again. Nin. Are you feeling alright?" "I feel perfect." She said

We were in the fourth hour of our drive. It had been four perfect hours. I had completely forgotten about the night before, and the crash with those pour kids, and that unlucky man. I had forgot about the two lovers dying holding hands. I had forgot about my job and my son. I had only thought about Nin, and how much I loved her.

The gates went down at the train crossing. "I want to get out and feel the train pass." "Nin, stay in the car. I don't want you out near it." "You said today was mine. And I want to feel the power of it." "Nin. Stay in the car. Please." For some reason I was worried for her. I never liked trains. I locked the doors. "Let me out Dacklin." "Nin. Please. No." She unlocked her door and stepped out. I opened my door and stood up. "Nin, get back in the car." I was watching her. She took about four steps toward the gates and stopped. She swayed for a moment and shook down to the ground.

I ran over to her. She was on the ground. Her legs were beneath her, bent like a lady. Her legs were bent at the knees, and her feet were tucked together off to her right side. Her left arm was straight and holding the weight of her upper body up from the pavement. Her head was slumped down, but then rose and turned to me. She was crying. That's when I knew I loved her again. "Nin I am so sorry for yelling. Are you OK?" "Yes. Wait. I'm fine Dacklin."

He bent down to help her up. Before he touched her, that one last time, she told him that she was pregnant again. She had been for the past two months or so. It happened on one of their good nights, when they still had the taste for each other.

He stopped and stood straight. He looked at the sun for a moment and then back down at Nin. That's when the smile came. That's when the train came. It rushed through the intersection on the other side of the gates. The front car hit a hub cap on the right track. It had fallen off an old Buick Le Sabre twelve minutes earlier. The hub cap nearly took Dacklins head clear off. It entered at the top of his spine between the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae. He fell dead at the feet of his future.

So save us.

I just can't afford to, try to hold onto.
You're the one who has got my name on the tip of your tongue.
In these days we must commit, just to see if we deserve it.
And we know it's alright to hold on this long.

I'll pick you a flower, and we'll kiss for an hour,
And at the end we will run along the waves and lay in the sand.
And I'll tell you, and the words will, they will heal you.
From that day on, from that day on, you, the girl holding my hand.

I like the way you talk, for hours about yourself,
I like the way you listen and hold onto every word.

And all the people dancing, in the streets romancing.
It's time to burn down this world one last time.
For no other measure, we will do it for pleasure.
There is chaos in our hearts, oh yours and mine.

I like the way you talk for hours about yourself.
I like the way you listen and hold onto every word.

Off you go child. Can't look back.

A would be soldier. No, a would be nothing. I told my parents I wanted to be a soldier. I told my friends I did. My brother died in the war. I said I wanted to fight for him. I didn't want to fight, I just wanted to be with my brother again. He was my best friend. We helped each other through everything, all our hardships we fought together, we figured them out together. Now he's gone. Buried with the flag of our country. the country he fought for. The country that still fights. For what. For nothing I think. Just to say they are fighting bad people, making this world better. They are just trying to make themselves look better. I can't believe it anymore. It was just an excuse to leave. To get away from what I knew and what I lost. I would trade everything to get my brother back, but I never can.

It's winter now. I use to love the winter. My brother and I would always build forts in the snow, like we thought Eskimos would do it. We liked building them. We liked hiding in them. I haven't built a snow fort in years. Me and my brother, we kind of grew out of it. Grostin was four years older than me, now he will never have another birthday. I would bring flowers to his gravestone every chance I could before I left. I hated going there and seeing dead flowers on peoples stones, so I would always bring fresh ones, as much as I could. I hope he doesn't think I've forgot about him. I haven't. I just had to get away. It's winter now.

I packed up the little buggie on the side of my motorcycle, and the small tow trailer I had made for it, and just headed west. I didn't care where I went, I just wanted to be gone. It's cold in the winter, colder than most people think. Fires don't even keep you warm at night, not where I'm from. It's cold riding my motorcycle in winter, colder than I expected. It's just been cold lately. That's why I am headed west, west and south, for warmer days and nights. I hadn't planned it out much more than that.

It took me four days to get out of the snow and the cold. It was difficult driving in those conditions, but I fought it out, I made it. All that mattered now, was that I just keep going. That's when the storms came in. Three days of storm. Three black days of the hellish weather I had ever seen. Sky black like the smoke from an old coal factory. You could taste the electricity in the air. The lightning kept you awake, a flash every moment you thought there couldn't be another. the thunder kept you scared and on edge. It would shake the soul, and then spit on it when it was week. There was no nights or days for those three days. Just hell.I did nothing but hide under that cross bridge. I hid under that bridge for three days and nights. Sometimes I didn't know what to do, but just hold on. I wrote a poem for my brother on the concrete walls of that bridge. It wasn't perfect, but it was what I missed about him. He's been gone too long.

On that fourth day it was clear when I awoke. It was early. There was a crow watching me, yelling at me to wake up. I yelled back at him and he just sat there intimidating me, showing me he was the boss. He did. I had my coffee and I left. My gloves were wet but I still wore them. My brother gave me those gloves, the kind that didn't have full fingers, just up to the first knuckle. I thought they were so cool. When I pulled out from the bridge I remember running over some small white flowers on the side of the road. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it broke my heart a few hours later.

The sun was hot on that road. I packed my gloves and my coat away and was just cruising in my long sleeved long underwear top and jeans. I took my half skull helmet off as well, I wanted to feel the warmth again. That's when I started to cry. I had been thinking about those damn white flowers and how pleasant they looked. I thought about everything they had went through. They were there for the same flood rains, the same black clouds and lightning, the same electricity and thunder. They didn't seem as shaken up about it as I was. They were there for it all. They suffered the suffering mother nature dished out, and smiled on the other side. they withstood life's best test of survival, they dealt with so much, they fought for themselves to live, and when the sun finally came up, I killed them with a hasty departure. Poor things. After all that effort, after all that darkness, it was the light that killed them.

You do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts.

When I was younger my mother punished me by sticking my hands in boiling water. I don't like my mother much. I was happy when she was reported for child abuse and sent away. My father wasn't all that much better. he wasn't my real father, he was my second step father. He never hurt me and my little sister physically, but he only cared for us as much as the state made him. There was no love, no friendship, no relations besides he had a place to live, and we lived there. I guess you could say we were a broken family.

My sister was three years younger than me. My mother never punished her like she punished me. My mother would just take her toys away and throw them in the garbage, and never give them back. But to a three year old, I guess that was a pretty severe punishment. The sad part was, my mother knew the water hurt me, that was the point, but she never thought it would scar me for life, physically. She would tell me when I was crying to 'stop crying, it's for your own good. You know this was your fault Ernesto.' I didn't understand how it was my fault. If i did bad on a test at school my hands would go in. If I forgot to lock the door my hands would go in. If I got beat up at school my hands would go in. If I broke something in the house my hands would go in. If I forgot to clean the dishes, or didn't clean them on time my hands would go in. If my mother was having a hard day my hands would go in. I guess I did a lot of things wrong when I was a boy.

My step father would tell me that it was my fault as well. He said it was my fault my mother punished me. It was my fault she was taken away. It was my fault she had to make those choices. My whole life has been my fault. I accept that. I just want to change my life from being my fault to my choice.

My hands have always been tender since I was seven, when I had the last of my punishments. I can't hold onto things very well, like pencils and books. My teachers are always yelling at me because I drop things all of the time. I'm not suppose to tell them why my hands are the way they are, my step dad says it's not right to tell them. He says it is not their business, and I shouldn't look for pity for something I deserved. So I take it. I drop things and I take it. I get yelled at for my terrible hand writing and I take it. My step father laughs at me when I can't hold a fork and knife right and I take it. I take it all. I am an eleven year old boy. What else can i take?

A world of gray

I've found myself floating through my days. I've found myself dreaming but I am not weak. I find myself chasing the times I can not have yet. I've gotten lost in a world of gray.

I have a secret, one that can't be talked about, not by you, not by me, not by anybody listening on the outside. Our lives aren't on such opposite paths, we weave our way here, and walk along there, and I see you in the distance, you can hear me call your name. In this instance I'm lost in a world of gray.

I've forgot the reason why I came here to stay. I've looked past the time I am spending away. I'd think twice again everyday about where i go from here, where I am off to next, where this trip will take me. Every stop just closer to you, and I'm happy to say, I'm tangled up lost in a world of gray.

I will bring you songs and stories of my days. You can cut your hair I don't care what you look like, just as long as you're the one that keeps me up at night. You're the girl in my dreams, the one in the morning light. I have made a promise, it's a promise I want to keep, even if it is for seven small days. And I'm glad to say and scream into the night, you've got me lost in world of gray.

And I'm here on the other side of this beautiful ball, and I haven't slept in weeks. But I'm never tired, never down enough to not say hello. And it's a day, a day we came out to this blasted place, children of bonny and Blythe, a young girl and a young boy happy, happy and gay. That's why it feels so right to say, no matter where i go, where i am, what I've done, I'm lost in a world of gray.

My own reflection

I started my life when I was thirty two. It was on a dance floor in the south side of town. I had been there for two hours with some friends of mine. We were having a grand old time. I accidentally bumped into the girl. I was the reason she spilled her drink, even though she wasn't meant to have it on the dance floor in the first place. that's what started the altercation. It was the first fight I had ever been in. I didn't want to be in it. I wasn't there for that reason. I wasn't there to get stabbed in the bathroom. Laying on the bathroom floor in my own piss and blood I decided it was time to move away from the path I had been travelling. It was time to grow up. Sometimes you need a jolt.

I had been working in retail. Working a fast life. I was the manager of a swanky clothing store. I had a nice, fast car. I had a girl whenever I wanted one. I had a pocket full of cash and blow. I was ready for anything. Except that. I was not ready for that. Opened my eyes a bit. So not only was I stabbed, I was arrested for the drugs. I tried to ditch them when I was at the hospital when I remembered them, but the police officer who was there interviewing me saw me. I thought he wasn't looking through the window, but he was.

So there I was, three knife wounds in my lower back, thirty six stiches, and handcuffed to a hospital bed. Not the best Tuesday night I had ever had. But that was my past. That was when I was young and untamed. When I was wild and on the go. That was before I realized I was poisoning my own life. There was no reason for that way of life, it was just my life. I was suffocating slowly, and I didn't know it.

I talked to my father. I asked him to be honest with me. I asked him what he thought about my life. He looked at me and did me a favor. He said he was disappointed. He said he had been for years. He looked sad when he told me, like he was breaking my heart, but it was good to know. He did me that favor.

That night I laid in my bed awake. I was conflicted and ashamed with my lack of accomplishment for my age. The life I had was the only life I knew, and now I wanted to tear it down, start from scratch, have something that would last. I didn't know where to begin though, so I began like I thought I should begin. I abandoned every one I had in my life. I didn't say goodbye. I just left everyone. I found myself unexpectedly completely OK with the decision. I just left, and I am still gone.

I haven't contacted my past. You can't when you are searching for your future. You can't dwell on what was, you'll lose sight of what can be. I've been gone from that life for three years. I am living on a farm now, half squatting in a barn, but the farmer knows I am here, as long as I don't cause him any problems, he's OK with it. I met him three weeks ago. I met him at a graveyard. I met up with this sixty something year old lady named Grier at a local pub four weeks earlier, after I saw she was looking for someone to take over her business, and I called her. She had been a grave digger at the local graveyard for the past twenty three years.

I loved the idea of it. It was a job that I could do on my own. It was a job that provided a service. It was a job people needed to be done. It was a job. I was just getting into the position, I had been there for two weeks and had only dug two graves, not a very busy job. the rest of the time I was more or less a caretaker for the graves, cleaning the old rotten flowers and holiday decorations. It was just after Christmas. I felt like a damn fool pulling all of the wreaths and decorations off of the stones and throwing them in the rubbish. It made me feel sick and powerful all at the same time. Like I had a decision that I had to make.

It was the farmer's wife who had died. She had died two days before the new year, three days before her sixty seventh birthday. The farmer I guessed would have been around the same age. He didn't cry at the service, that I remember well. That and the fact it was just him there along with the priest, and me standing in the background ready to fill the dirt back in.

I liked reading the memories people would have engraved on their loved ones stones. Some just had names and dates of life. Some had names and something nice like 'we will miss you always' or 'in loving memory of a mother and grandmother' or 'a man of men' or 'too young were you taken, yet beautiful you were', stuff like that. I always take a moment out of my day to read the wife of the farmer's stone. I liked that one the most. Everyday after my lunch I would sit by that stone and read it once, and then move on with my day.

'Rona. You were a wife. Loved by your husband. And will be still.'

I remember the smell of the pine box she was set to rest in. I smelled it before I lowered it to its last place of rest. Those last six feet of life. I wondered if the dirt being thrown on her sounded like thunder, and when it was done, if it was just a little bit darker down there. The farmer went right back to work.

Davin or Karita.

You had been sitting there for hours. I had been watching you from across the road. From my window three stories up. I was watering my plants when I saw you there, with a flower in your hair. And a brown paper bag by your feet. It must have been filled with your favorite foods. At first you looked happy and awaiting. A few minutes later you looked at your watch. After an hour you looked puzzled, but still you sat with all the hope in the world. He would never come. He was the one that made the news that evening. He was the one hit by the bus. He was crossing the street with an armful of flowers. I could only assume he had bought them for you. You looked at your watch, and then walked to the phone booth. You made a call. Twenty six minutes later someone picked you up in an old, green Chevrolet.

The first night we spoke you had been crying just before. It had been seven months after I first saw you on that stoop, but I knew it was you. I remember the first thing that I said to you, like I just said it a minute ago. I said 'so you work here?' Which, to my defense, was by far the most stupid thing I have ever said before. I hate when people do that; notice something obvious and form it into a question in which the answer is so observable. It was a horrible first line, but it worked. I think you saw my embarrassment and were just acting polite. I was happy you forgave my horrible entrance into your life. You had been crying just because you felt like you needed to cry. Though, nobody wants a sad food server, I wouldn't have asked for any other person to be the connection between me and dinner.

I'm not sure if it was that you felt sorry for me, or if it was the note that I left for you on the bill, and the napkin because it all didn't fit on the bill, but whatever it was it worked for me. You never did tell me why you decided to call me. I had never asked.

It took me four months to tell you that i remembered seeing you before I met you, that day you were waiting on the step. I expected your reaction to be a laugh or a slightly shocked face that I would have remembered you for seven months before i met you, and to recognize you from so far away. It wasn't shock, and it wasn't a laugh. I had never seen you so sad before. I had never seen you cry with your whole body before. I guess it was good that I waited until you loved me to tell you, if it had been that first night in the restaurant that would have been the end of us. The ending before we even began. You told me about Nathan, your once fiancee, the one with the flowers. He had asked you to marry him three days before the accident. I didn't know how to comfort you or change the subject, so I pulled you close and stuck my tongue in your mouth. That seemed to work. You stopped crying and you never brought it up again, which was good for me because I didn't like talking about dead people. I guess I wasn't very loving and caring back then.

And that was the weight of the world on us. Our past 'big decisions' seemed so small to us now. We had an apartment. We had a dog. We had made a commitment to one another. Life was easy and lovely. We shared money, a toilet, and a bed. After, you said we had made a good decision. It wasn't really our decision. You made it, and I just supported your decision like I thought I should have. I was wrong. You wanted me to disagree. You wanted me to show you that I wanted it the other way. you wanted me to care so much about it that I changed your mind. I did care that much, but I didn't feel like it was my place to change your mind. I've never been in that position before.

I knew you wanted to be married. And we are married now. You wanted to have a career, and we both have careers with promise now. You wanted us to have our own place, one that we owned. We have that now. You wanted to have children. And we have three now, two young girls and a very clever boy. But. I can still see you are sad when you look at our family pictures. I can see in your eyes that you think there is someone missing. I had already started thinking about names. I was so excited. I know it was only nine weeks old, but it made me feel good to think about what we could name him, or her. There is no next time for a decision like that. I'm sorry I didn't change your mind, but look at us now. Would we be here? Would we have all that we have now, this wonderful house, good jobs, great family? Would it have mattered?

Happiness can be more than what we are made of, what we have been. Maybe it's in us to do better for what we have, in the memory of what we chose not to have. My grandfather once told me there are decisions that have to be made, and decisions that are not suppose to be made. Maybe we messed up. But as we are just people, and people have their flaws, we've done well. The fortune we have in our family proves that everyday. And on that morning, when I held you in my arms, we had never been so close before. So we have that. We will always have the comforts of each other. Even though we ache sometimes. We still have that comfort of each other.