I cried a bit. Which is silly really, because it wasn't real at all. Then again, neither were the tears.

Papa, time to get up, he yelled, tugging at the covers. Huh? I plucked my tongue from the roof of my mouth and swallowed twice. That sh** taste didn't leave; it wasn't even lessened. Papa! Here I got a kiss for you, he planted one on the back my unshaved head. Gettup breakfast is ready, he shouted. Uh huh, yes, I replied burying my face deeper into the pillow.

After jumping on me, pulling blankets off me and tickling my toes a bit, I got up.

I pulled on old clothes. Blinked copiously. Wiped drool from my lower lip.

I wasn't sure why I was sad, not just tired but sad. I don't often wake up sad. I wiped my eyes. No tears, just crusties, sand, some goobers in the cracks. I was downstairs in the bathroom when I remembered. I was crying, weeping, sobbing, when was that? I remember my body shaking, my lips like little leaves in the wind. I remember Michael's hand on my shoulder as I fo0und the end of myself and sobbed. I sobbed so hard even he looked surprised. He'd put his hand on my shoulder and then walked away.

And then I remembered. In the fog of him walking away, was a little boy yelling, Papa, Wake UP!

So I can't remember the last time I cried in a dream, but although my pillow was dry this morning, I had that feeling, the release of having a good cry. Which is a bit foolish, because none of it was real.

Journal Entry

3-22-10
7:51pm

By the time I reach the far cover of this journal I will have changed. (By the time I reached the end of that sentence I had changed.) Some changes will have been for the better; I will have learned more about myself, strengths and weaknesses, my body, my soul, women, my King, I will have aged another year, I will have become more skilled at various tasks and arts, and so on. I pray that far fewer will have been for the worse, though i know that mistakes will have been made, some for the first time, others the many-thousandth, and still others the last. I will have hurt loved ones and neglected strangers. I will have built barriers where bridges would have proven a better fit. I will have let down a great many, and will have been let down by the same. So much could be said, and with such unwavering certainty, of the effects this world will have had on me and I, in return, on it, for it is a matter of fact that I am inconsistent.

You, on the other hand, are anything but. You simply and terribly Are. Though my eyes will have been taunted, tinted, tainted by many a flashing thing, when they meet Yours they will find them freshly familiar, ancient in the most groundbreaking of ways. I am a choppy sea, and You a raging glass, a mirror in a hurricane. I am at the mercy of the hills and valleys alike, You are the Holy Redistribution, the plains of staggering heights and gaping depths.

I put all hope for a better tomorrow, a stable and worthwhile today, and a redeemed and utilized yesterday in Your broad hands, oh God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hope of John, life of Paul, muse of Lewis and Weiss, mystery of generations. My awkward frame rests and rejoices on Your edgeless plateau of gracious and generous peace. For You Are.

May it be so.

the deed never done right

this was new

he never let conscience or forethought creep in
he stabbed, he wiped his blade, he moved on

wouldn't slow down long enough
for it to sink in
moving quick, eyes darting, nervous
but never brave enough to admit it

i can feign it good enough to get close
and deal the blow
he thought

and he did
almost did
victims were always left maimed
the deed never done right
the dull, clumsy efforts of a novice

but now
he planned it
the angle and location of the blade
the distance to and from
the amount of strength and emotion it would take

yet

still he stumbled and fell

plunging his blade in
to strike an artery

once again he had floundered
just nicking the vein

I used to walk.

I used to walk lazily across your valleys and plains,
all was flat and easy, your beautiful summer broken up with brief blasts
of winter's mischief.

Somehow you've changed. Now you are mountainous.
You are as beautiful still, but now also cold and dangerous.

I tried to climb for old time's sake, but now I lay dying, broken backed, busted.
My breath comes in ragged gasps from a pierced lung,
and I don't know what to do.

Never Sleep

Have you ever kept your eyes closed and allowed the sensation of a quite room fill your heart?

Breathe in the air, a mixed fragrance of stale body and fresh water flowing in through the cracked window. The blankets making it a bit claustrophobic and yet your feet sticking out of the bottom of your covers just enough to get to breathe and for your mind to be at ease. I could feel the bed head catching drafts of fresh air as it circled my room, and with my eyes closed I can almost see the swirling of air, that had been around me all night long as I slept, or at least for the few hours I actually was able to. The warm air rising and the cool air falling to the ground, fighting dancing overhead.

I opened my eye and could see the gray dull light illuminating almost from the walls, but originating from the dull light outside passing through the white blinds. But as each little breeze caught the shades, the orange of a rising sun sprinkled into the room it seemed like magic, that we get to experience the color, that we get to see those hues.

I went to bed anxious and I woke up anxious, my heart beating fast, or at least it felt like it. As I took my pulse I couldn’t even tell if it was beating at all. I threw off the blankets and sitting on the bed placed my feet on the ground. I could hear the cars passing by a few floors below my apartment; puddles splashing, sand and pebbles crunching. Maybe too some voices off in the distance, or maybe just distant TVs. I kept waking up to that gray light that bleeds in through the drapes. With the orange lines of light stretched across my floor and the sticky gross hot feeling from an anxious sleep. The feeling came from somewhere in my chest. I knew the fuel that feed it was in between my ears, but nothing could stop the flow you’d need to put the fire out. Both working in a synergy I could not control. I took a deep breathe and closed my eyes trying to remember to relax my shoulders and concentrate on the breathing maybe I could just calm myself down with the old tricks my mom taught me, but they hadn’t worked in years and I knew it would be temporary.

I rose and walked to my door, the head ache was horrible, and the pounding of my heart increased, somewhat arrhythmic, but after a few beats back to normal, though the pressure in my head did not subside. I opened the door. The blue light shown from above the sink, forcing me to squint. I stubbed my pinky toe on the door frame and swore under my breathe. As I walked to the bathroom, I couldn’t decide, do I pee with the light on or off, was I awake enough to not pee on the floor, or did I need the light? One of the toughest questions that early in the morning.

As I turned on the water and pulled the metal thing to start the shower, my eyes fell back to the mirror. I had one of those moments, where I could not tell if I looked my age or not, if I thought anything was looking back, or if I thought reflections in mirrors were of any reality at all or just mere color I was able to experience. And then I remembered...

Today was the day. “Oh Crap!” I thought the air missing from my lungs, my eyes bounced around the bathroom. I had totally forgotten, that this was the first day of the biggest adventure I would ever take. The beginning of foreign travels, of mistakes and successes and the making of some of the best friends I would have, yet I didn’t know that yet, and the “Oh crap!” that was from the realization that I hadn’t packed yet. But first I have to back up, first you have to understand how I got there, standing in front of that mirror a bit dehydrated, engulfed in that feeling of great expectation and utter fear.

* * *

skin

Skin, a thought.

you are altogether other,
you will not do, but to be you

i've tried on another skin
too slippery, oily, to be in
it slithered, it slack, it slumped
and i gave it back and humped on after another
i found it chaffed
i licked, it molted
but i kept it,
it sprouted
i wrapt it as one does
it grew cankerous and then some fuzz

a stray dog
with too many teeth
and not enough ribs
slobbered and chomped my chaffing skin
and ripped me clean

naked i protested
i set up a committee
and i, er, WE agreed
there must be a skin that could not be knocked or bleed
could be slick and sweet,
with large feet and probing eyes,
made for probing and batting lies
with lips to lock
and chest of barrels
and fists for querrils
and a set jaw for Gerils...

but the Dog came back
and broke up our agenda
bloodied our ears
embodied our fears
till we saw the mutt
drew us in and out
not willing to sit past

boney and bloodied
we walked on owned toes
wiping owned nose
dressing wounds with reality
holding bruises with clarity
(and by we, i mean me)

and we found, feckless and fearful
the sun did not burn us
the gazers did not haunt us
our own, did not roll us out with the empty bottles
we walked in skin
and owned the ones
we found ourselves in

A Bit of Good News

Things are right, especially when they're not, and that's a bit of good news, isn't it? That I can wash my hands in the river of peace, resting on bended knee, even in the depths of August drought?

That I can embrace my jealous lover and be embraced with unmistakable passion in return, even as I hear the echo of the only two feet in the room reaching the only two ears.

That the very same mouth which only yesterday spoke fallacies as fact and fictions as Truth can today produce words as True and bold as the red on a fallen soldier's pierced lapel.

And this not of my own strength or wisdom, this not borne of my own devices or desires, but given unmerited and received ungracefully from a source whose reserves supply races, nations, kings, and beggars alike.

Not an ounce of good am I capable of producing on command, yet fruit grown out of the dead and buried seed presses through my branches and grows too large for my arms to support, for it is meant to fall.