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.