What happens if I show you my mental scars and how my mind keeps me locked away with its mental bars?

If I tell you my soul is lost among the stars?

That part of me feels as far away and distant as Mars?

What if I say I'm troubled by my thoughts and all my memories seem to do is haunt?

Always blurring my mind and tangling the truth into knots?

Telling me I'm not good enough and my efforts are for naught?

Would you turn away if I asked you to stay?

Now that I've told

the secrets I thought I'd always hold?

Would you look to the side if I looked you in the eye and said I'd love you till I die?

Would you mutter a reply because you don't want to lie by saying you never want to say goodbye?

Please don't put up your walls of stone and leave me out in the cold. Alone. Not after what I said.

Don't make me think I should take it all back and store it in my head.

But, then again, if it's honest and how you feel then I'll take the burns you've given me and, one day, I'll heal.

I'll add it to my collection of pain

and it'll mark me like a wine stain.

But it'll be okay

For I'm the one who blindly gave you the knife and you put it in its place.

People who try to divide what people can write according to their gender.

Who think it’s weird when a girl settles down at her computer and starts speaking through the eyes of a well-developed male protagonist. Like the fissure between man and woman is so astronomical it can’t be possible to relate to one or the other. Or that they shouldn't write nitty, gritty, gory situations chock full of gun-downs or swordfights.

What I hate more than that is the ignorant people who think men cannot write what is “designated” for females. Sweet, complicated romances. I’m sorry, do you think Nicholas Sparks and John Greene need a permit before they embark on a new novel? Do you think the police show up at their door and ask them if they’re allowed to be adding that romantic sub-plot?

Men aren’t romantic? The problem is the men you’re surrounding yourself with, if you cannot speak intelligently, don’t open your mouth. And don’t stereotype because you have limited experience on the subject.

Write what you want. Write it well. Don’t try to tell people it’s weird or abnormal to write the way they do.

To each their own.

Learn it.

Don’t forget it.

Henry Auburn stared down at the gravesite. The dirt was fresh, fresh like the bitter winter wind. He didn’t feel it. His coat, a grey trench that hung low about his ankles, remained unmolested by it. The people present had been sparse, more so than he would have predicted. They were a collection of black dresses and black suits and blank, bleary eyes. There had been tears on half a dozen cheeks. Half of the six had been genuine.

He had moved silent among them. They had ignored his presence, fixated on the Catholic priest who spoke with gravity while his nose turned red and started to run. He’d been whip-chord thin, and his bony fingers picked at the starched collar, tugging the tiny white band at its center askew and then back again. The words were a recitation. The words were not molded for the dead man. There was a rosary around his fingers and Henry expected him to start Hailing Mary at any moment. ‘We are gathered here for the dearly departed, may our prayers send his wayward soul into Heaven and not the other way, Amen.’

The dearly departed was not Catholic.

Henry had trouble focusing on the priest. He found the kids far more fascinating. They who were still trying to understand this concept of death. One in particular, a doe-eyed brunette of maybe six, looked on with wide eyes. Lacking the inherent respect (and fear) of corpses, she had attempted to approach the casket repeatedly before it was lowered into the ground. With a child’s curiosity, she’d wanted to lift the lid and take a peek. Such whispered desires were conveyed to her mother, who grasped her tiny fingers with narrowed eyes and tightly pursed lips.

The girl’s eyes slipped to Henry. He smiled and wriggled his fingers at her. She appeared confused, cast an uncertain look up at her mother, but eventually looked back and returned the wave. She had not stopped looking at him since.

“Are there any gathered here who would say words in honored memory?”

Silence. The eyes stared. The wind whipped and rolled and continued to disrespectfully interrupt. Henry snorted, his eyes dancing in wry amusement as awkward glances were exchanged. He could almost imagine the gears turning in their heads. Was there anything left to be said? I barely knew the guy, really, my aunt dragged me along. I think he was some kind of cousin or something. Maybe second. Maybe third.

The ceremony ended. Henry watched the girl start to go, and she never stopped watching him, tripping over herself and her new, shiny dress shoes as she walked. Somehow she managed to extricate herself from her mother’s grip, and she ran up to him.

“Aren’t…aren’t you…?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling patiently.

“Did…did it hurt?” Her doe’s eyes glistened sympathetically.

“No, it didn’t hurt.”

“Why did you do it? Why did you go away like that?”

He chewed on that for a moment, thinking it over. “Sometimes we make mistakes. Some aren’t fixable. I thought that it would be better this way. I was wrong.”

He remembered the disorientation of it all. He remembered walking about the city, the way people had ignored him, more than usual. He remembered being irresistibly drawn to this place like a beacon. There was first the confusion. Then the shock. Then the remembrance of the bottle of pills and the glass of whiskey.

It had ended with bitter-sweetness of acceptance.

“…Mama says you’ll go to hell.” She lowered her voice. “But I don’t think so. I think you’re a nice man. I think that you were just very sad.”

Henry chuckled gently. “I just hope that heaven’s full of little angels like you.”

Her face lit up. Someone grabbed her jacket, and Henry listened to the sharp, chastising words, to the scolding of consorting with imaginary friends.

The wind began to touch him. To tug at him. To pull what was left of him apart. He stared as it did, still down, still at the tombstone. At his name. He thought to himself of what might have been, but was left with no one to blame. The last of the bitterness faded, and he let the wind take him where it would.

Word is my favorite word.

Word to the third. Word to the third eye. Word is the nerd guy's state of mind and sublime calling, a summoning of symphonizing synchronicity, so word up, as they say, I'm just so grateful to be able to play with these different sounds signifying sights pronounced by the mouth. The spoken word is just so unabsurd like you've never heard because silence may seem golden but when you're knowing that your knowledge is indebted to language, which invented this matrix, then you're also sowing some savory sound-seeds soaring softly sweetly saucily southward, downward, down to earth, down to your inner-nerd, down to your inner-verbs and energy, this is the word and this is me, meant to say my, favorite, word.

Word.

Oh my.

I, honestly, despise pop music, pop singers, and pop culture. It all seems generic and formulated. They seem to lack creativity and make up for it with good looks and catchiness. Many of today's pop songs have pointless lyrics that don't possess a universality to them. Maybe it's just that being a musician, I am too critical, but I think that pop music and pop singers aren't what this world needs. I don't want just another "catchy tune" or something that makes me "want to dance." I want a piece of music that is artistic and speaks to me, maybe even provoking my thoughts.

There are so many works of art through the literature of the theatrical arts, but I will give you one of my favorites.

Les Misérables: a great play loosely based on the French Revolution. It was originally a book, later turned into an opera, then took its turn into a musical. Because it was originally an opera, it only features lines through song. No lyrics are actually spoken.

If you haven't seen this play I highly suggest you do. They've even made it into a movie. It will make you laugh, cry, and be in awe of the musical talent needed in a show as this.