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.

a pretty girl so tired

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond the grasp, but if you will sit down quietly, it may alight upon you.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

the big kids would stand on the back bumper of the ice-cream truck. harass the poor old driver. One day he got fed up and pulled a shiny silver gun. I saw it. So I know it's true. Some kid went and told his Mom and the cops came. Eddy. Eddy the Ice-cream man, that's what we called him.

screw balls, push-up, astro pops, Italian ices. Eddy. Red faced, with veins in his nose. Always sweating. wet towel wrapped around his neck. He didn't seem to like kids to much. nickles and dimes and dirty pennies with the year 1977. I have my Smokey n the Bandit shirt on and a small transistor radio is strapped the handlebars of my bike. Eddy is in handcuffs. He is ushered past me. Hands behind his back. As he passes, he says to me I'm sorry kid.
Those damn kids. he mutters to himself.

cop is looking at the shiny gun. He clicks it and a bullet falls to the ground. One in the chamber! He yells to his partner. Everyone is outside their houses now. Even those who never buy ice-cream.

My ice-cream it's started melting all over my hand. Eddy's truck is parked in the grass by my house. The music is playing. Pop- goes- the weasel. over and over.

One cop yells to the other. Shut that racket!. The bigger kids started laughing. riding their bikes along side the cop car. Eddy in the back , his head lowered to his chest.

it's enough to make you crazy....the cop says.

and then she wanted a reason why

you say it a lot. you say it until your blue stars in the face. you say it and it's to late.

you write it and it makes no sense

you read it and it's

like some kind of dream

it's done. already? you stare at the night sky and wonder

where did the time go

wonder if you'll ever make it back home again.

It will be a long summer. July is going to be bright with explosions and light. Light fuse. Run away. The A\c is cranked I tend to stay inside. sometimes I'll go out for a run, or play my drums in the garage. one light bulb swinging from the ceiling. I pretend. I used to be good at that. pretending. I pretend I am in a band, that I am good. people think I'm good. I used to be good at pretending. not so much anymore. I try. I tried. I can say that.

so i told her that we would get married in October. I don't think it will be much cooler out, but it's my birthday and Halloween. She said that's all the time she'd give me otherwise i was taking to long. I think the costume thing is corny. candy corny.

sometimes you just have to listen. sometimes things are greater when you wait. sometimes not.

the thing is. I can't wait.
I didn't mean for it to end like this. that's what I always end up saying. but I think it's best.

i remember you best in winter. hands cold, cheeks red. I remember football season and making cupcakes. winter is when I've always loved you most. It's going to be fun. something about me. I'm going to warn you. Don't say i didn't. my love is tough but it's forever. no one will love you more.

you wanted this and honestly

I've been wanting it too.

long term effects are not known

There was one like this.
some blog about movies, panties, music and cigarettes. Some shit about Friday nights and hair clips. It wasn't so much bragging but it was about fucking too. not like porn. not like just all memories either. I mean you didn't know if it happen yesterday or today. I think all the sex stuff was just to piss some people off though, I cant be sure.

It's like about hotel rooms and smoke and wine all over the page. It's the little things that count. It's what it means to you and not them that matters most. I know if you tried to figure it out (the words) it would just hurt your head. You'd just end up in tears. feeling sad about something you didn't do. something just short of obsession. something or someone you couldn't ever have. I'm not sure, but I think that's what all the writing was about.

People change though, I'll give you that. But you go back every once in awhile and he'll still be talking about the same shit. Missing the same fucked up girl. Spilling his heart all over the page like the worst country love song. I want to tell this guy , It will get better. but I know it won't. It's something to talk about and sometimes you just say things to hear how they sound. I get the idea I love you is just one of them.

The pictures aren't that good though. Not like here. fuck. the words aren't so great either. but what I admire is that he tries. He doesn't care if he gets any ones attention. not hers, not yours, not mine.

You see, there was one like this. A lot like this.

It is this.

your back roads.
they twisted and turned
it was a fine night.
the other night.
The next night.
tomorrow
night.

sex in dirty water

This is Florida and the heat gets to you. In the summer, the humidity sticks to your skin, it chokes you so you can hardly breathe. Growing up, my parents rarely turned on the A\C. When my Mom couldn't stand it any longer my Dad would argue, curse and complain and then give in. Look how much these kids are costing him was what he'd say. He would flick the switch on the thermostat and then the rattle and hum from the side of the house. Under my window. But still, it never dropped to any real comfortable level.

I spent nights, hot, laying on top of my sheets. Ceiling fan turning fast above my head. It made this terrible sound as if it was would drop down from the sky at any moment. I was afraid to sleep. Afraid I'd wake up in the morning with a missing arm or leg. dismemberment seemed worse than being hot. So I turned it off. I think that's when my insomnia started.

I liked summer vacations. I couldn't wait for school to end. We took a family trip every summer. I didn't care where. I just wanted to get away and be someplace else. new people, new things to see, smell and taste.
hotels. I liked them- especially. I was allowed to turn the a\c down as low as I wanted. Jump on the bed, swim all day in the pool.
I'd get back from swimming and open the door, that rush of cold air in my face, all over my body. My parents left a note saying they were out site-seeing. I got into my bed and under the covers. My skin burned from the sun, still wet and smelling of chlorine. Everything seemed so perfect. 2 months off before school started again. The t.v. was on. I liked the sound of the air conditioner mixed with the voices on the T.V. It was peaceful. I pulled the covers over my head. touching myself. I thought about girls, cars, halloween, the fourth of july and what we might have for dinner. *


I make no
apologies
for how I choose
to repair
what you
broke

Her room. It was fragrant: somebody else's house. It reminded me of coming home from vacation and walking in the door of my own house, and smelling it as if i was a stranger entering for the first time. I felt like a ghost who had come back, not to haunt, but merely to remember the world as it once was.

credits:

art by: art and ghosts

photo 3: lefthandedsweat