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This is the life I have chosen,
And you won't hear me whine about it.

Yelling, sleepless, sunbeam smiles,
It's all of a one, and fuller and better than I deserve.

Sometimes it is a cage, but isn't all love a cage of sorts?
Heavy bars of responsibility.
This life is the whip that trains me into my best self.

I could leave of course.  Nothing is actually stopping me.
I am free to walk away and be utterly destroyed
While
Doing
Anything
I
Want

My appetites king, queen, judge, jury, and even god.

With great relief and a thankful countenance
I tuck the key back under my shirt.

Be careful, or not.

There are certain phrases that cross my lips so often, as

to make me pause and ask myself

is this my job?

Be careful.  Be quiet.  Be polite.  Be nice.  

Where is it written?  Tell me please.  Who has decreed that

this be my constant belligerent mantra?

Is it not just as much my imperative

to encourage risk

to teach the noisy shout

to cut with the sword that which needs cutting

Be careful, or not.  Take the risk if it is the right risk.

Learn what quiet is.  Let your shout come from the place of quiet, 

and let it be a mighty shout.

Politeness is often nothing but a disguise, and being nice is almost never enough.

Choose kindness and authenticity instead.  

These are the wise words I wish crossed my lips more often,

but I get so tired,

and the moment has passed.

Superman

-->

There’s a little girl with a superman cape that needs me

Her chocolate eyes melt into tears of disappointment

As I turn my back and open the door.

Her cries echo in my footsteps

In the creases of snow

and I hear her in the jingle of car keys

the creak of the door

and the hum of the engine

I see her eyes in the headlights

as I wind through banks mislaid automobiles and crippled intersections

I feel her lips tremble as my hands shiver off the cold

And I kiss her goodnight from miles away

With a dragon’s breath

Warming the world with my life

Pushing the winter back

Before sucking it in again.

No one else gets this.

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No one else gets this,

These chin nuzzled mornings

Grasping fingers pulling eye lids apart

Those epic smiles and unrestrained glee

Candle eyes and winter worn cheeks

the dependence on these arms to stop falling bodies

and the ability of these hands to heal, teach, soothe, create, fix

No one else gets this,

In the predawn darkness I pour sleep into the past

Never to sleep again.

Instead, with undead slack jawed grunts,

I pull shit cemented cotton from the reddened ass crack of a banshee

I scrape out the hidden veins of excrement from fatty rolls

And rewrap the soiler in new cotton so we can do it all again.

No one else gets this,

The cheek breaking tooth parade

The rainbow rendering, santa shaming, eye twinkles

The most joyfully incompetent game of hide and seek-

As she tries to hide her diapered ass in a cupboard too small

And giggles in anticipation.

No one else gets my chorus of “PAPAPApaPAPAPApapaPAPAAAA!”

Because she belongs to me.