As brilliant a wit and writer as was Wilde,

Why did he see friendship

As “far more tragic” than love?

Was he just being facetious

Or making a glass-half-empty fuss,

Simply because friendships endure

Longer than love? And there are more

Friendships than loveships?

But Mr. Wilde seems concerned

That all relationships will ultimately

End in tragedy. So why bother rating

What is worse: friendship or love?

I much prefer the words of an optimist

Like screenwriter Frank Capra,

Whose angel in “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Said, “Remember, no man is a

Failure who has friends.”

Or the hopeful Tennyson who said,

“Better to have loved and lost

than never to have loved at all.”

It’s all about trying to forge

Relationships with a spirit of hope.

The teeth are cracked from the socket.

The sister still suffers and sobs.

The school bus is always crashing

There is no pain, but the sound echoes.

There are tracks left over, shiny and raw.

One hundred heads slam against the seat.

The blood fills the mouth, metallic.

The blood still flows, dripping from fingertips.

There is always blood.

Gloved fingers fish the pearls from the back of the throat.

Shaking hands smash the blade to the tabletop.

Hitting the brakes, too little and too late.

Sealed away in a plastic bag.

Cell phone buzzing across the room.

Legs banged up against the bar.

I tuck them under my pillow.

I run toward the light of it.

I put my hands to my face.

At senior recital, my fingers skip and stammer across the keys;

just like I practiced at home.

THIS mirror sees things in a different way

December 12, 2024

You don't, but it does

From every line on your face

To every crack in your skin

THIS mirror sees it all

Don't try hiding those cellulite thighs

Don't keep a brave face after hearing devastating news

Don't bother with the lies that let you sleep at night

THIS mirror sees through it all

Pop a pimple; you won't look better

That skin creme can't make you younger

That affair shouldn't add spice to your life

THIS mirror could tell you the truth, if only you would listen

There is a fine line between what we want to know

Between what we want to hear

Between what we want to see

And the reality of what the actual truth is

THIS mirror plays no favorites

THIS mirror pulls no punches

THIS mirror offers no quarter

Nor asks for one in return

THIS mirror is not for the faint of heart

No disguise is so good so as not to penetrate

No ruse is so bold so as not to discredit

No lie is told so often so as not to believe

THIS mirror is what everybody needs

But few actually want

Behold the majesty of ugly truth

Behold the power of THIS mirror

Alone now

with my music

So the silence

doesn't deafen me.

Releasing myself

into the wild

Of the unknown,

where my knowledge

has always been aware that this

is where the Hope lives.

The scope of loss

can reveal

that there is so more

to be found,

it just takes a little adjustment,

a little focus,

a little blur,

to break through illusion,

watch your Soul reappear.

First off, I'm a peaceful man. So when I see a post that's obviously written by AI, I take a moment to read it and appreciate the saccharine quality of the writing, like a Hallmark Channel movie that's so fucking inoffensive I want to take a bat to the TV.

Now I'm sorry, I lost my temper and that's not right.

The great thing about AI writing is that it's always so positive—the bad guys always come around at the end to see things with renewed optimism, and the endings are always happy endings. (Not what I mean, pervert!) AI writing is so sweet that I can taste it, like a piñata, brightly colored and filled with candy. A piñata filled with all the things I hate and a sign that says "Beat me to a fucking pulp, you dick!" A piñata that prompts me to pick up my bat and slam it. And when the candy sprays across the ground, to go around and beat every goddamn piece until it's an unrecognizable batter of molecules.

So I guess that sums up how I feel about creative writing that's generated by AI and those creative writers (you know who you are, winky winky) who pass it along as their own. Thank you very much. And have a good day. Make it a great one!

12/1/2024

Let me tell you about the Thanksgiving that shattered like fine china and reassembled itself into something altogether stranger, because that's what families do - they break and mend and break again, like waves against a shore that's been there since before any of us thought to name it.

Sarah (my sister-in-law who spent three months at a French culinary institute and won't let any of us forget it) has been basting the turkey since dawn, each careful brush stroke a rebellion against our mother's decades of dry birds. The kitchen gleams with her intentions. Everything is mise en place, a term she drops like small arms fire across the gravy-scented battlefield of familial expectations.

And here comes Mom through the door clutching her own gravy boat like a shield, because she may have ceded the turkey but by God and all His angels she will not surrender the gravy. Her lips are pressed thin as paper, the kind of smile that's really a wound. Dad trails behind her carrying three kinds of pie none of us asked for, whistling through the minefield.

(I should mention I'm hiding in the pantry taking pulls from a flask of bourbon that belonged to my grandfather, the one who taught me how to tie fishing flies and curse in Lithuanian. The bourbon tastes like memory and regret, which is fitting for the occasion.)

Uncle Pete's already sprawled in the living room watching football with the volume too high, his hearing aid conspicuously absent, a convenient deafness that lets him ignore the rising tide of passive-aggressive commentary flowing from the kitchen like floodwater under a door. His new wife Cheryl (the fourth, or maybe fifth - we've stopped counting) keeps adjusting and readjusting the table settings Sarah spent forty-three minutes perfecting.

My brother Mike's kids are conducting what appears to be psychological warfare experiments on each other in the basement, their shrieks piercing through floorboards that have witnessed forty years of family gatherings. The youngest one - Trevor or Travis, I can never remember - has already broken something valuable, judging by the sudden silence followed by furious whispers.

And here we all are, orbiting around this bird that Sarah has transformed into some kind of glossy food magazine centerfold, each of us carrying our own unique burden of expectations like stones in our pockets. Mom remembers every Thanksgiving from 1973 forward and measures each one against some impossible standard of maternal perfection. Dad just wants everyone to get along and maybe watch the game. Sarah needs us to acknowledge her culinary superiority while simultaneously maintaining her role as the perpetually unappreciated artist.

The prayers, when we finally sit down, are a masterpiece of competing denominational interests - Catholic crossed with Baptist crossed with whatever crystal-based spirituality Cheryl's bringing to the table this year. We bow our heads and clutch hands and each silently bargain with our respective deities to just get us through this meal without anyone mentioning politics or that thing that happened at last year's Easter.

But then Sarah's turkey actually is perfect, damn her, and Mom's gravy performs its annual miracle, and Uncle Pete tells that story about the fish he caught in '82 that gets bigger every year, and somehow we're all laughing. And for a moment - brief as grace, fleeting as autumn - we're just a family, bound together by nothing more or less than blood and time and the peculiar alchemy of shared food.

The kids have escaped to their phones, and the adults are settling into their post-feast positions like birds coming home to roost, and I'm thinking about pouring another secret bourbon when Mom brings out the pies. And even though we're all stuffed fuller than that turkey was this morning, we each take a slice because that's what you do. That's what we've always done. That's what we'll keep doing until we can't anymore, and then we'll tell stories about the pies that were and the gravy that was, and the years will fold into each other like pastry layers, flaky and delicate and impossibly rich.

Once there was a gallant knight,

Who said, to a Dragon, “Beware, foul wight!

For I have come to slay your kind,

And steal what treasure I might find.”

The Dragon said, “You lack acumen;

A ‘wight’ is a ghost, or unlucky human,”

…but the Knight continued, as if he’d not heard:

“I heed not thy trickish word!”

“Note you this sword!” he did continue;

“It slices through the toughest sinew!”

The Dragon said, “Thy sword, I hail;

But I’d note I’m covered with armour’d scale.”

The Knight went on, “I have come hence!

And I’ve brought my own audience.”

And, indeed, in looking down,

The Dragon noted half the town.

They’d come out to see his end;

And to his funeral attend.

They cheered the Knight, and his actions spurred,

And they called the Dragon unkind words.

“You see!” the Knight, in triumph, cried,

“I now have many on my side.

We’re here to dispense righteousness

(And also, to loot thy treasure chests.)”

The Dragon then a sigh did heave.

“Are you sure you all don’t want to leave?

I don’t enjoy your smug disdain,

But I’d hate to see all of you slain.”

The crowd did boo. The crowd did laugh.

“Why, he’s a proud one, by a half!”

Said one wag, to loud applause;

The Dragon sighed, and clicked his jaws.

“I know our species are not friends

But must we work towards crosswise ends?

Leave me to my cave, and you to your lives

Everyone goes; everyone survives.”

The Knight then struck a Knightly pose

“Foul beast, too late – for everyone knows:

Dragons are sickly things, and weak

They’re scarcely smart enough to speak.

They do not fly. They breath no flame.

They’re easier than dogs to tame.

These things, our Bards have taught us well.

We know you’ve neither strength, nor spell.”

The Dragon shrugged and did let fly

A blast of flame more than twelve feet high.

The crowd, in turn, all eyes did roll.

“That’s just a trick,” the Knight did scold.

The Dragon said, “What do you believe?

What you’ve actually seen? – or the words you receive

From Bards, who (if I might remind)

Are not all truthfully inclined.”

The Knight cried out, “Now, that’s enough!

Speak thy no more of this lying stuff!

We know what’s true, we know what’s real

Because what we’ve been told matches what we feel.

If a truth’s displeasing, then – forsooth!

That alone proves its untruth.

The World is easily understood:

Those we like tell the truth, and are good.

Those we dislike, lie, and all of those

We’ll someday hang by their big toes.

And so, weird lizard, thy words do grate!

And thusly shalt thou meet thy fate!”

So saying, the Knight’s great sword did slash

The Dragon’s belly, where it made…no gash.

Instead, it bounced – in fact, it bent,

A thing the Knight didn’t live to resent.

For the Dragon sighed, and took one inhale,

And swishing, a tad, his giant tail,

Breathed forth a flame so vast and huge

It was like some mighty, fiery deluge.

But it wasn’t rain; it was pure heat.

And it fried six tons of human meat.

The Dragon gave a sigh of consternation;

Now he had problems of refrigeration.

But a local Wizard, for a moderate cost,

Cast, in the back of his cave, a Frost,

and helped him moved the tasty remains

Of a bunch of humans with too-few brains.

So now, the Dragon’s catching up on reading,

And he’s got lots to chew if he needs feeding.

And as for the town, it continued to exist

And none of the mob were very much missed.

Need morals? To start, know that many a Knight

Looks good in armor, but ain’t very bright.

And: some lessons are cruel, and ain’t lenient:

Reality’s real, even when it’s inconvenient.

on the road

between

all my yesterdays

& the promised

tomorrow

I discovered

the graveyard

of 1000 dreams

so many

have failed to follow

5-10-24

Today I accidentally washed my hands. And it won't come off.

5-7-24

It it coming off, but I had to really try.

I thought I would feel relieved. I don't.

6-7-24

I am so happy!! I feel like a new person. I'm already craving the rush I feel at the tic of his hand when time swirls, and my memories unfurl until nothings left, but the joys of youth and an energy surplus.

6-8-24

Today we are going to an escape room. I am so excited. I am going to turn all the sinks on till their hands turn black and they feel it every second of the day, as they are dying away.

.............................................................................................................................................

What is wrong with me

My hands, are cracking?

There is no actual way, like w h a t t h e s i g m a ? ? ?

6-9-24

I am an anomaly.

I have to run.

My parents kicked me out.

That rush.

I will never feel again.

I will never forget.

Anything.

3-11-27

I am Cleo.

A 17 year old female.

I am a part of the troupe. Number 174.

I am not an anomaly.

I am something else altogether.

And I love to destroy.

Because I get to see their faces when I do. And never forget them.

That is something to be thankful for.

Peace

Like sand in the wind.

my smile so content.

I’ve beat where I’ve been.

Freedom

At last now my own,

no closed doors ahead,

from my cage I’ve flown.

Weightless

My shoulders are light,

baggage and damage,

have all been set right.

Volume

Mine is on high,

drowning out the sounds,

of jealousy and strife.

Finished

This chapter hard won,

it's over thank God,

the editing done.

Excitement

What will I write next?

What new adventure,

will call my intent?

Powerful

This chapter will be.

The edge of your seat,

you'll be watching me.

Graceful

I will still remain.

As if never touched,

by cruelty and pain.

Magical

Still ever present.

Mystical guidance,

sets my direction.

Intense

Your about to see,

just how impactful,

love like mine can be.

Fierce

Love does not mean weak.

It's fire that burns,

a raging storms sea.

Confidant

Capable is me.

Nothing of this world,

holds power ’or me.