Scratch the Itch Made to Regulate the Savage

Scratch the itch made to regulate the savage.
Noxious cloud shrouded minds fallen from prime.
No, you may not think.

No solution for perpetual leaks.
The waters swell, green with infectious slime.
Scratch the itch made to regulate the savage.

Sanity is not worth the self it seeks.
We try and make light our internal grime .
No, you may not think.

Feel fever’s chill and count your manner meek.
Lay still, shiver with soaring sleepless time.
Scratch the itch made to regulate the savage.

Forced to fatigued quarantine and the weak,
Containing contagions breeds patience sublime.
No, you may not think.

Even the strong bend knee to kiss death’s cheek.
Remind them of the price one pays for life.
Scratch the itch made to regulate the savage.
No, you may not think.

Why I Tell Stories

Telling a good story is like searching for the sun in moonshine

Your proof of experience is whatever light you can confine

In that moment of searching
Is the light of the sun in actuality circling
But only an affected reflection at best

The blinding truth of that sun
Exists for only a glorious passing moment
And only in your mind
Before your pupils constrict and your gaze averts with changed perspective
You were born in the light
You remember the sun
But the illuminated innocence you inhabited was childhood
In the shadows of maturity
You must be reminded of that light
So you continue to search for the sun in the moonshine

You know the horizon will never yield and break into pure day somehow
You accept that twilight is the best you can hope for now
The truth of that moment sinks into everlasting night
The moonshine ebbs from full to crescent light
When the waxing starts

For a moment you realize what you’ve found
You decide to capture what light you can
While the moon still shines enough
Floods the landscape with ambiguous blue light
It shines the warmest blue
Breathes the coolest hues of night over your skin
You race to seize the light
With whatever you can
Pencils
Pens
Paint
Clay…

In your frenzy the light wanes away
You find a camera to take photos of decay
To see the truth you must look with your eyes
Artificial flashes only tell lies
Without the flashes the images blur

In your fear of losing the light
Adrenaline kicks in
Your mind slows the world down
Instinct commands you to lay your tools aside
You are the best instrument to capture the light
You wonder how you had forgotten
You were born in the light
You remember the sun
But in the shadows of fear
You must be reminded of why you are here
So you search for the sun in the moonshine

You sit directly in that ethereal ray and absorb it
The stillness makes the moonshine seem more brightly lit
You become the story as you carry its light inside
It is still far from the brilliancy of that far away sun astride
You know is on the other side of everything

The people around you can now see the moonshine
They see it in you
You share it
You have to
You pour it out until you are empty
Using the tools you so frantically searched for
When the story is over and your pouring is finished
You leave your empty tools and look up
Searching the moonshine for the sun again

To the Girl with the Pretty Eyes

You're so very sweet,
You're affections are ill aimed,
You can do better.

To the Girl I Never Really Wanted to Erase

I still pray for you sometimes when my mind wanders to loneliness and I think of you.
I hope that your life is going well and that you are happy.

I pray that you find someone that can love you the way you wouldn't let me.
I hope you still think of me when your mind wanders to loneliness and asks what if.

I pray that though you excommunicated me, you never forget.
I hope that your hands are still soft from gentle use, uncalloused by hard realities.

I pray that I can find another that looks at me the way you did before you kissed me because I'm tired of being disappointed that the kiss has ended and I'm not just coming up for air.
I hope that you've stopped being a trigger happy Sphinx wrapped in a labyrinth of rubix cube chainmail shooting wildly at your past hoping to fend of the hurt a little longer. I tried to get close to you and you fired at me..

I pray that you chose to dismiss my affections because you knew you weren't ready to reciprocate them, because you were choosing not to hurt me more. I'm not sure how I would have taken the alternative that I just wasn't good enough.
I hope that one day we recognize each other on the street in passing and smile.

A Son's Tribute

I want my kids to come with scraped knees from playing kickball with a little too much kick and not enough fineness.

I want my kids to embrace their snaggle toothed grins with all the pride of one who secretly and discretely sticks their tongue out at others through their snaggle tooth gap with their mouths closed.

I want my kids to all have six packs by their 10th birthday party because they laughed too hard for their little bodies to handle, too often... 

and yes they will all have 10th birthday parties. You first decade on this earth is an exceptional thing to celebrate.

Side note: Everyone deserves a 10th birthday party. If one has never had a 10th birthday party, one should throw a 10th birthday party for oneself. Invite 20-30 of your closest friends to your house on a Saturday afternoon: about the size and timing of an actual 3rd grade class 10th birthday party. Bake a homemade cake, your favorite flavor, and decorate it to your liking. When said cake is brought out and everyone is singing, thank God for games like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and chicken limbo. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING! Only put 10 candles on one's cake. This is one's 10th birthday party after all. Light them, blow them out, make 10 wishes.

I want my kids to smell like good sweat and fresh grass on a daily basis every summer. The kind of smell you can only acquire from spending your day fighting off the evil emperor ninja samurai mummy necromancer alien terrorist from the secret wardrobe under your parent's bed that led to the magical world of Hyrule.

I want my kids to come with favorite bedtime stories they've memorized by heart.

 I want them to gnash their terrible teeth and roar their terrible roars with Max.

I want them to have a hard time choking down the fact that the whos in whoville just accepted the Grinch into their town after all he did so that they never forget their first lesson in forgiveness.

I want my kids to sing the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air every time it comes on. The original version.

I want my kids to know that their father loves them even after they are spanked and to know the difference between discipline and abuse, because I did and I couldn't be more grateful.

I want my kids to have long talks with their mother about important things while sitting on the kitchen counter.

I hope that my children still respect me after I cease being superman and they see my tragic humanity.

I want all of these things for my Children because they are the things I experience or wished I had in retrospect.

And though I am anxious about what kind of father I will be in the distant future, I know that if I turn out to be half the man that my father is, I know my kids will think of highly of me as I do my father.

Ways to Spell God

I spell God: L.O.V.E. with a capital PASSION.


But sometimes i like to spell it L.I.F.E. with an apostrophe BEAUTIFUL


and depending on my mood, I might go with L.I.G.H.T.-O.M.N.I.P.R.E.S.E.N.T.


I spell God G.O.O.D.


On the days when I forget myself, my favorite way to spell God, and probably the most important way is: S.A.L.V.A.T.I.O.N. with an accent mark on the GRACE.


Other ways to spell God:


OMNISCIENT 


OMNIPOTENT


ALPHA-OMEGA


GENESIS'REVELATION


(I AM)


FAI(nvisible)TH; the "nvisible" is silent.

On Losing Best Friends and Salsa Dancing

To say that I'm going to miss you terribly

will be the biggest understatement that has ever left my lips.

To say that I might cry when you leave

is the purest truth I've ever told. 

I wish you weren't moving so far away.

We met in a Salsa class;

I was introduced to you by your sister

who came to me imploring me to dance with you in proxy of someone who had to ditch for some reason.

From there it's all history.

From the moment we met you enchanted me

and I have to admit.

I totally had the biggest crush on you.

I couldn't help it.

You were just too beautiful.

But your interests were in someone else

so we settled into an instantaneous close friendship. 

For reasons I still don't quite understand

we've always clicked.

Always gotten it.

Always understood. 

You trusted me without knowing why

while I was still a stranger to you.

We told everything there was to know about ourselves

as if we were trying to make up for lost time

because we'd just always been best friends

and never knew it.

We could talk about absolutely everything

and absolutely nothing forever it seemed : )

And we laaaaaaaaauuuuuuugggghhhhhhhhheeeedddddddd.

Oh, did we laugh.

We laughed until

We couldn't stand

We couldn't cry anymore

We couldn't breathe anymore!

We haven't ever really stopped laughing

and to this day

there's no one I laugh with more.

Smiles and chuckles of every kind are never scarce whenever we speak.

Once we get started, there's no stopping us.

Our simultaneous laughter only makes the laughing harder

until it's a near impossibility that we'll find composure again.

I will miss going to your house. I will miss your family.

I will miss spontaneous hang out sessions

And your Puerto Rican slang lessons.

I will miss your honesty and your endearing eyes.

I will miss your quick wit and impersonations of the people you tell stories about

Most of all I will miss being in the presence of one who is willing to share all of the best and the worst moments of their life with me.

I can’t tell you how glad I am that we met that night

That warm night at CHS in the cafeteria.

I can’t explain just how much you mean to me.

You are one in 7 billion and I hope that we’re friends for as long as we live.