In the End

"He's taken everything from me!" My grandpa screamed in the middle of the night.

My ever-growing fear, that we would be robbed, was true on this night. Many nights I wondered when someone would come. Ever since I moved in with my grandpa in an attempt to help move him out, I've just been waiting. So when grandpa woke me up shouting, I knew we'd been robbed.
As I started to awaken, I wondered what would be gone. What did my grandpa have that was worth anything?

I knew he had photographs in some nice frames- he didn't care about the frames but the photographs meant the world to him.

"He took her. The bastard took her from me."

I sat him up in bed, trying to be a rock for him, "What's going on grandpa?"

"The sonofabitch has taken everything from me. He took my parents, my dogs, my Edna..." He trailed off in a fit of tears. I had never seen him like this before.

"He's taken everything from me. All of my loves. Every god-damn one of them. Taken by him. I've got nothing left."

I stared at him, realizing nothing was wrong in the apartment.

"When will he take me?!"

Private Life

It's 1984, it's always the same
They will go everywhere
they'll know everything

You'll be ink on paper
Open to the world
And your friends will wonder
Who you really are

So you run and hide
From the thing inside
No time to be True
And you think and lie

Inside you die
With the rest in the Pew
You look for the shade
But the spotlight finds you,

You point your fingers at me,
Like I'm to blame
I'm just speaking the words
That trigger your pain

It's not my judgement
Thats keeping you here
You've got a secret
You gotta keep it

Don't let no one in
You got a judgement
It's gotten between us
Now I can't get in

Now I can't get in

Another Day of the Apocolypse

It was another gray sky. There was a light mist in the air as the large pine-trees on the side of the highway slowly swayed back and forth. A large milky-white fog slowly started to make it's way across the highway, but almost seemed to sit and wait as well.

John shifted gears so his bike could climb the hill. He hit a bump which caused his son, who had been sleeping in one of those bicycle-high-chairs, stirred awake.

"Where are we, daddy?"
"We're getting closer, maybe by the end of today we'll be there."
"I have to go potty."
"...Okay."

John slowly stopped pedaling the let the bike coast to a stop. He could just barely see the fog, but he wasn't looking so much as listening.

Birds were chirping in the far distance...the wind howled lightly...but that was it.

John quietly dismounted the bike and helped his son, David, get to the ground. This must've been a routine they practiced many times because David was very quiet and patient as John continually kept looking around them.

David walked three steps away from John before pulling his pants down and peeing on the road.

A larger gust of wind came and started to blow some of the fog away. John looked a few feet further away from them and could now see a backpack on the ground, opened with some items spilling out.

John eyed the bag for a moment, licking his lower lip as he did another scan around them. As David finished peeing, John slowly walked over to the fallen bag and picked it up. As he did a few oranges fell out, a little old but still good. They made a soft thud when they hit the pavement, but it was loud enough to make John and David freeze in their spot while they waited...and waited...but nothing came. David walked back to the bike as John took one last look around.

He then hurriedly locked David into the child-seat and set off. He didn't bother looking over his shoulder. As he had moved from the backpack, he could make out the owner's arm, and didn't care to see the rest of the body.

They continued to ride on, hoping to make it to their cabin before nightfall....

For Erica

Puffers

The light flickers to life

The spark of something new

Nothing beats the first time

or the ones that leave you

The Rings appeared as Halos

And we acted like angels

While we danced like hedonists

           And the flames rised around us

I could feel it on my fingertips

like it wanted to stick 

Like I see it in my head

as I take another sip

You said so much

And only talked in facts

   a wordsmith born

                 while the days floated past

 just for today

 please don't come undone

  just til the sun sets...

but tomorrow never comes

I remember being mad

after you'd be fake with others

and now I'm just sad

          because you were fake here first

      And so it goes slowly

        Close off to stay comfy

          Get lost in the Office stories

                as ten seasons inhibit me

I wanted you more

than what was real

and when I stopped fighting you

that's when you disappeared

         Left only to myself

staying under the sheets

         watching the shadows change

                  As night comes from the east

Resist the urge

to pick you up

to see how you feel

let you fill me up 

A creature of earth

so simple and small

you've touched my life

I saw heaven and hell

I saw myself

I saw so much

   I saw my life

 I watched it's death

                    

A conversation

"Oh God, I feel like this is boring and I'm not saying anything the way I want..."
"What, are you kidding, don't stop, keep going! I'm totally getting off on this conversation!"
"I'm frustrated, I just wish guys would appreciate me for who I am and what I have to say, not what I look like."

The Cult's that Fight each other

There were fields of rolling hills and grass. Standing on the field was an enormous cone-shaped building, a giant tower.

In this tower, was an entire community. Most of the people lived and worked inside, not getting to see the outside world very often. Only the King, who sat atop the tower, could look out and see the rest of the world.

One day another tower was erected close to the Kings. So close that when the King went onto his balcony, he met the President, the man who was the leader of the other kingdom. The King and President talked about their kingdoms, but disagreed over everything. The 2 men had different ideas about their religion, politics and culture and were soon enemies. 

Rather than fight themselves, they each receded into their own Kingdom, gathering sympathy from their respective peasants and loyal subjects. The peasants in turn listened to their leaders and believed everything they heard. They were told another tower stood opposite theirs, and that the people in the other tower would threaten their own way of life. And that the only way to stop them was to kill them.

So both sides gathered up their youth, the children who knew the least about what was really going on, and had them fight each other. The King and the President sat atop their high towers as they watched the hundreds of thousands of children fight below.

These children had a lot in common. They went to school, they enjoyed coloring and believed in right over wrong. So when their parents told them that they had to fight to save their nation, they were only too eager to enter the battlefield, where they came face to face with strangers, other children that they did not know, but that they were ready to kill none-the-less

At the end of the war, the field between the 2 towers was covered in bodies and blood. And only after enough children had died, did one of the "Leaders" order a cease-fire. One culture swallowed the other whole. And even though the children had been told to hate the other, they were now one race with one culture, under 2 Towers but being ruled by one King.

Until another comes along...