"Fuck you,"

I laugh,

Lifting my

Middle finger.

"You cuss

Like a sailor,"

He says,

"Even worse

Than me."

But that's

Not true.

Who did

I get it from-

My Mormon

mom or my

Baptists father?

Certainly not.

Maybe the 

Words are a

Little crude,

But you know

That they mean

"I love you."

If I didn't,

I wouldn't 

Even bother

Coloring my

language.

I would 

Leave it 

Black and white,

The same as

The language

I use when

I speak to

The walls.

"You asshole,"

I say as I

Straddle your

chest, struggling

to get my

lighter from 

your pocket.

You know

That it means,

"Kiss me."

The first night you move to New York City, there will be a train on your chest and a lump in your throat so big that you won't be able to swallow or even breathe without crying. You will feel like you've been hit by an avalanche of glass. You will try to remember what your mother's face looked like, but all you will see is the tears running down her face as you said goodbye. 

The second night, and every night after that, you will wonder what everyone else is thinking living anywhere but here. 

It's weird to share a

cry with someone you love

but haven't yet known 

for one year.

To see him in this fragile state

knowing you have an 

emotional hold so strong

you produce a physical reaction 

from the crevices of his mind.

I want to sail through his brain and

figure it all out

but he won't

let loose the rusty anchor 

and I know

the waves are going crazy

far, far out on this

infinite sea of 

intelligence and

creativity

and sadness.

I want him to serve as my boat, carrying

me above the wildest waters

but he won't take me from the shore,

protected on warm, flat sand,

for fear

I would drown.

And maybe the dry land is better

than his

salt water sea

because even he doesn't know

what lies beneath

the quiet foam.

Those of us that 

aspire to be great

are content with the everlasting

monotony of life. 

At least in the beginning. 

We tell ourselves

It's payment

for the awe inspiring lives 

we'll lead one day

So we're content 

with putting our nose to the grindstone

And depriving ourselves of sleep

so we can pay the bills

and work on our futures by night

Like a caterpillar 

we know we will one day

take on new form

sprout wings 

and fly away

But we forget 

that not all butterflies

are the same.

Some live years

and some live days.

With the work put in

one day we will get our chance 

to transform

but for how long we get to fly is not up to us

So we begin to question

the reason we aspire to be great.

Will we get to enjoy it?

Or will it be ripped away from us

at the very instant we obtain it. 

What if

God forbid

We accomplish our dreams?

What a terrifying thought. 

someday they'll burn

the park bench this

little boy sits on,

it's red and shiny

like his lunchbox.

he scratches the glaze

with his tiny finger,

gummy beneath the nail,

smiling, he likes the

look of newness murdered,

giggles as he thinks

about the damage.

when the bench begins to rot,

it will start along the line

he drew while the others

played tag and drank juice,

he wonders what else

he can ruin forever

with a silent little scrape,

for his birthday

he asks for a pocketknife,

thinking about how much

he likes the glisten

of red in the sun,

and sticky hands

that change the future.

he makes a list

of the others that never

sat on his favorite bench

with him, he will tag them all.

Can you believe it? 

It just slipped in. I thought...I thought we were tougher. Risen from the ashes of ancestors that have seen a million suns dip beneath the horizon. 

My skin, calloused and weathered by those years spent shielding myself from the harsh winds blowing from the western plains. I had imagined it as an armour. Yet how with such little force the blade eased in, reminding me of the early days when my feet disappeared into the heaps of black snow on the northern mountains. I would look down at my foot, a sunken spirit in the wasteland. 

Now all that remains is the hilt that erupts from my chest. Red lava slithering down and pooling beneath me. 

I manage to lift my head and gaze with bewildered awe at the mushroom clouds dotting the horizon. Peer down the rock face, stare at the broken body of the boy I killed. I caught him stealing from me. He tried to take all that I had left of her, the only thing I tried to save at the beginning when the white flashes filled my room.

I yelled. Grabbed. 

He slipped. 

The valley beneath absorbed the waves of sound that carried his last guttural scream, bounced them off mountain walls so that they should seep into my heart. 

Then he stood before me, the Father. Lips curled, eyes wide. Hand flashed to the hip.

So quick.

As my last sun darkens before me I am peaceful in the knowledge that I would have done the same as him. 

I can die with that.