Boom !

A different route home today. I don't know what made me. Got off work early. Driving home on a summer day. Sky is blue with patches of puffy clouds. There are cars in front of me coming to a stop. In the street I see there is a Momma duck getting her ducklings across the road. Not little chicks, they are bigger. Size of small kittens. Maybe 5 or 6 altogether. But there is one, on the end. It's hurt. A car must have just hit it and kept going. but now everyone has stopped. Including me. The little duck in the road is flapping it's wing. part of it crushed by the rushing tire of a ton of automobile. Someone driving in a rush, someone not paying attention. Maybe a mistake. The Mother duck she gets all the others across but she keeps going back into the middle of the road to help push her injured baby. She goes over and taps it with her beak. She taps and runs back to the side of the street, then goes back and taps more. Over and over. but it isn't coming with her. It can't. It's dying.

This breaks my heart into a zillion pieces of shattered glass. Us just sitting in our cars. Watching. My chest hurts. I start to fucking cry. I'm in my truck. Crying. Weeping. Sobbing like a baby. I can't stop. It hurts so bad my throat burns. Acid in my stomach. my eyes wet. Chest heaving. Through tears I see someone get out of their truck, cradle the little duck and carry it across the street. A saint. It flaps it's wing it's crushed body. The last of its strength. Now everyone can move back into traffic. some people are beeping their horns. They want to get going to wherever that is. Fourth of July weekend. Important things.

I move out along with traffic. But i can't drive like this. I have to stop. I pull over, turn up the radio and cry some more. it's pure, it's from somewhere deep. I don't know why god wanted me to see that. I never go that way home. Maybe it's like the Tin-man. I have a heart and I've had it all along. I can feel. I can feel it explode and hurt and I know I'm alive. So many things I've tried to shove down. Forget. Erase. Move on and be numb. There are emotions you can't escape and they found me. Things I've have to own up to. and I am sorry. I am. In this transition from becoming boy to man. Finally things start to become clear.

I've been missing my Dog Dallas again lately. It's been 8 months since he's gone. I miss coming home to him. Miss him by feet touching his soft fur at night in bed. But, I am lucky enough to have a girl who truly loves me. Someone who understands when I bolt up from sleeping at night. Who doesn't try to take the place of my hurt. But lets me. Let's me feel.