My love for you

Was invisible ink

And I wrote I Love You

A million times with my love

But you would never see it

Not if I wrote it a billion times

Or a trillion

Because all it took was an ultraviolet light

But you made it so much more

Complicated

Write about a time you felt proud of yourself.

A time I was proud of myself was when I scored the winning goal of the National Cup Finals for Spurs in the 92nd minute. Being a striker is something I dreamed of since I first started playing football and to actually do it in such an important game was unreal.

The rush you get when you score any goal is just mad, but scoring a goal like that was just indescribable. From the moment I received the ball to when the opposing team kicked off again, was just a blur, but when that ball hit the back of the net, my face was probably priceless.

When we realized it had gone in, I just remember all my teammates jumping on me, even the players on the bench, my manager and the coach. To make us all winners was one of the best feelings I’ve ever felt and will be until the day I die. It was emotional to say the least.

There's beauty

In the nightly glow

Of colored lights

That adorn

Bare branches

A special

Nocturnal magic

It's the sunlight

That gives away

The secret of all

The tangles

Multiple turns

And twists

Those lights

Must endure

To shine their colors

Throughout the night

Little bird, enjoy your freedom.  

Don't linger unregarded to pick 

once, twice, obscurely in the gloom

at smoke-grey cinders strewn 

among the disgarded butts of life. 

Don't pause to rage at strangers 

passing for a day, disfiguring Eden,

spreading uncertainty and strife.

Walk your walk, find your own path,

love life, look up with courage,

and laugh at what  chance will bring. 

Above all, remember you have wings

and so can fly as well as sing.

Grandma dipped the ladle in the gravy boat

Stirring the brown, sticky thick sauce 

Voices rose above the swirling dirge of moat

Ignorant to the silent loss

Empty chair where grandpa sat last Thanksgiving Day

Echoes of a broken heat beat

Pouring out and over turkey, gravy's spray

People dive in and start to eat

Mom and dad deliver puns; kids around fight 

Aunts and uncles laughing at this 

Grandma passes the potatoes, then stands right 

Speaks to the table, "Don't you miss

Grandpa's stories filling your hearts and minds at all?

Well, just hear the one I will tell.

Forty-two years ago, this time in the fall

Someone else came; filled up my pail-

Yes, he had his way with me, and eldest son, know

You were not grandpa's; not by birth.

I was raped, but kept you still; I didn't let go.

Yet he loved you and all your worth

Summed up in one word: family, and yours today

Love and laugh and live for all here."

Shocked to hear what grandma said, the chairs didn't sway

Leaning in, waiting in new fear

Dad gulped down his bite and longed for clarity 

Mom brushed back her hair, all wavy

Grandma smiled and looked around for all to see

Asking, "Who would like more Gravy?"

Another year approaches

This calendar is final

But Father Time will shake his beard

Stretch out and recycle

All his dates to round again

Just under a New Year title

He was my friend,

Held in esteem,

To be trusted,

Kept close.

Or so I thought.

Turns out he lied,

Connived,

Enticed,

Bribed.

But at what cost?

Life-long comradeship?

Year-long campaigns?

Month-long conflicts?

Week-long clashes?

All past.

Confidante, no more.

No blood-brother.

No close intimate.

No comrade.

Gone.

He was my friend,

Held in esteem,

To be trusted,

Kept close.

Or so I thought.