for the better need

memory is betraying me
short term madness
yet i don’t worry
and i don’t know how to explain why i don’t worry
it’s about being practical
seeing a little bit beyond my own
grand image of what i was supposed to be
be be be be be be be
goals that never fit me quite right
statues
the impressive model for a role…
was always about planning to not measure up
yet not so much about shooting the foot
as it was about measuring the holes

i was curious long before schoolhood whys were drilled into
the neverending battle for comprehension….

before it was sad to play all by myself
collecting dandelion seeds
or walking from school and picking honeysuckle

i was me, then
as much as i am me, now
what makes that different is that i cry
when i think of all that being me
over all this time….

it’s like a rock in my chest
so i fight around that and take another breath
my throat closes and i can’t stop crying

i don’t think it’s because i want to be a kid again
part of it is losing that childhood
tragedy
but then i wipe the tears and sigh

my eye’s mind turns back to looking forward again
and i know who i am

i know what i was supposed to be and never did any of it
and what i’ve done that nobody thought could ever be accomplished

and i was better then, but i’m better now
if you asked me what i fear the most
i’d say i fear this world
the gears turning
people everywhere following their lines
yet mine are simple and always the same path

some of us hang on to the self of each past
the stages in growth are all a single thing
yet it’s different
than not ever growing up

more like you were always grown up
like memories are stored to always fit where you’re at

i don’t worry too much
on sadness and how it’s hard not to be lonely
(i like being practical because hands-on bursts
with so much delight of knowing)
it becomes wider portrayals of how everyone is seen
alone is assumed to be hopeless
dancing with despair ….and
i suppose smiling to myself IS kind of a waste…

but not so much
i always managed to find myself staring back

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we all know who we are

have a care as you dance around other worlds
lift them up when you can
explore minds and love each eternity
design joy into confluence as the larger part of never giving up

world is everything you experience on the outside
as it reacts with everything you are on the inside
each person is their own….

i’ll take the integrity with bad ends
before i will desire good outcomes minus that integrity

it doesn’t take that much time to have a little kindness
sometimes takes almost nothing at all

you see race i see worlds

my first crush
his name was Gilbert
a little mexican boy at Santa Paula first grade
how remember his name
i don’t know
but do know can still see Gilbert’s smile
as we waited in line
at the monkey bars

see i set that memory in stone
because it was important to me

to remember what a crush
is
to at least recall innocence
when liking someone

meant giving

another when?
no, just that
and a few things i forgot
it wasn’t that love is a fool
it’s that foolish excuses itself with love

and i never saw him again, you know
when my parents died and we moved
Gilbert was gone, too

just a kid like me

and i’m sure he never knew
i’m sure he went on in his life
and i went on in mine

does he have family, friends?

lots of things get lost along the way
but when i am at a loss for words
i remember smiles

memories set so FAR in cement
you or nobody else
is going to move them a wick

nothing on heaven and earth
will take that
i made sure
can’t even begin to say what moves mountains
but i and
everybody’s mother’s uncle
know how doves fly
don’t wonder–
tomorrow will read every stitch
in the marrow of our bones
written devotion upon blood
denatured design
crushed whimsy

the next time i am thinking
and decide it is just me
….

has always been me.

if rust crumbles

it was an ok day following a worse day. plans seemed to fall apart in slow motion. i arrived late because gabbing over the last sips of coffee, and time hasn’t meant a lot to me since punching a clock at SpectraMed. some things are fortuitous, and tardiness allowed me to forgo the reading of the first page. how to be more like Christ and less like yourself?

there was discussion, all bouncing between fear and death–fear and God. questions circling back to who and what is the individual, if only made to end life with a sigh? part of me was asking why she dyed her hair purple. other part of me was glad to have some chaotic insight. we all have trouble with pride, and i wish only to bridge the more obvious gaps. in exiting the building there was an invigoration, so i remarked to my cousin, “i have to remember to go slowly down the stairs.” he said, “yes, better to be careful.”