father issues

“father issues”

Dad – you suck

You left me before I could grow up into the man I am today

You never met my kids, or my wife

You never saw that I had my own place and a good job and a car

And that I worked hard to get some place in life

You suck for not leaving any money for me to bury you with

I had to have you cremated and I had to listen to your cousin yell at me about how Jews don’t cremate their dead

But she was unwilling to part with one dollar from her millions, to help out

You suck dad, not because I hate you or hated you when you lived

Actually you were a very cool guy, which I learned to appreciate after I got older

A single parent of 70 plus years for a teenage boy didn’t really have a ton of bright spots

But after, when I could learn to appreciate the experiences of life – I understood you better

But you suck because I do think you were cool but you fucking died on me right before I got married the first time and had your oldest granddaughter

You would have tormented her with that, “give me some sugar!” shit you used to say

But it makes me smile because she would have loved you and squealed when you kissed her cheek

Why did you go to Vegas?  And eat that bad lobster tail?  And come home and get sicker and give up and not try to get well?

Why does it turn my stomach every time I say that you died of malnutrition?  Because you wouldn’t eat

And the nutrient IV only kept you afloat

It wasn’t enough to cure you and bring back your strength

Strength that I admire in you now, looking back at memories

You were always big, but not scary

I remember your permanent five o’clock shadow

You used to dry shave in the mirror in the hallway downstairs

I felt safe with you

We had our little life routine going and I miss it

I miss you

Our kitchen table was covered in a tapestry of papers from your work

Little notes – sometimes one phrase scrawled on an entire sheet of stationary

Your quirks amuse me now

As much as I chided you while growing up – my friends and I secretly poking at your idiosyncrasies

I was just jealous that you and my brother were friends, but I was just a son; not a friend

Why did you wait to have me until you were almost 60 years old?

Why were you so powerful and smart, and fearful and able to keep up with and overcome everything?

And suddenly you are afraid of food?

You must have known the death that would ensue as a result of this!

You must have known that your body would eat ITSELF and your soul would refuse to remain attached to it

I remember the last time I saw you alive

I sat across from you in the hospice room – you could barely move and you could definitely not speak

I handed you a cup of water with a white bendy straw in it

You tried to get the water up, but it only went halfway in the straw and then kept falling back down into the cup

This happened two or three times and my guts were filled with terror

And then hopeless sadness

I realized this would be it

So I sat there and told you that it was okay, if you wanted to let go

I loved you and I understood that it was time for you to give up and just float away

The next time I saw you, the funeral home gave you to me in a black, rubber box

Too much t.v. had made me expect a decorative urn

I took your ashes to the grave sight of your parents, whom I’d never met

But I knew the place because your brother was buried there when I was fifteen and I remembered the way

I dug a small hole on top of your father and mother’s graves and I poured your ashes into the dirt

From the dirt, and back to it was the only way I guess to do something meaningful for you

I was surprised that the grey ashes seemed clumpy and thick at times

And it didn’t seem like it could be you there, when I felt like you were somewhere else entirely

You suck dad

Your grandson is a handsome, little boy and he makes fists all the time like I did when I was a baby

His name is Jaxson

And every day he makes me think of you

five dollars

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

revolution - Part I

“revolution – Part I”

Run through the streets, you mad warriors

Holding up shield and buckler with strong left arms and right hands viciously gripping swords and spears

Prepared for your fight – your enemy laughs until you draw near enough for them to see the murder and chaos in your eyes

The needed tools to bring about the right

There are trumpet players in your ranks – sounding out the alarms

There are flag bearers raising banners of TRUTH, JUSTICE, and EQUALITY

You’ve spent time in dark caves smelting steel blades

You’ve swam through deadly currents and your muscles are tightened by the resistance

You’ve practiced delicate sword play and accurate archery

But now the skirmish is upon you and it’s time to tear open tender bellies and expose the rotten guts of the evil doers who have sucked the blood of the common masses

They’ve eaten too much to even digest it all

And you will expose them with battle cries so severe your voice can barely carry them

You will shame them by burning their castles

Structures of glass, wood, and stone

You will bind them hand to foot and take them outside to the streets where everyone can see

As they acted in secret, their massacre will come in the bright light of day

And once they’re fallen on the edge of your sword

Once they’re speared through and fixed to the walls

Once you severed the ropes of their catapults and hamstrung their horses and demolished their chariots – you will find new architects to build a new city

And their magicians who spoke lies and put them in power – you will burn them with fire

So click the end of your pen and clear your throat and offer the blank page

And get your battle armor on

Clothe yourself with humility and service, and sacrifice

And with doing all and having no thought for yourself

Swing your blades so hard that they whistle in the air

Dig into your heart and use the hurt to fill your quiver

And your rage and your experience and your brilliance – is a fire!

So light your arrows and sling them across their darkened skies

Keep pushing

Keep writing

Keep creating

Keep speaking

Keep doing what is right, when it all seems so wrong

Long live the revolution

more kids

“more kids”

Kike – I remember the first time I heard the word

It stung more than I thought it would

The poison enriched by the chuckling and inevitable jeering of those around us at the lunch table

My “friends” joining in – having no choice other than siding with the bully

This, along with the pubescent weight gain, mixed with the laziness in the overprotective approach of my father, sprinkled with the distant judgment of my mother – kicked off a cycle of self deprecation not seen in humanity since the days of post holocaust

I learned quickly how to make badges

Little badges that turned into shields that deflected all arrows

The strongest and greatest of which, was my ability to put myself down to the lowest part under the earth and carry others with me on that journey

So that only one of the two outcomes would ensue – I would be pitied and thereby left alone; or they would respect my resolve in the face of such a violent internal storm and somehow fear me as a lunatic who loved to hate the self that he loved so much

Hey, big nose!

Hey Jew nose!

Do you get presents as CHanukkah and at Christmas?

Do Jews celebrate birthdays?

I wasn’t prepared for public school and these frequent inquisitions

I went to a private school for little Jewish boys and girls up until grade 5, and in grade 6, the kids hadn’t yet mastered the artistry of hate

I realized why my older brother had shot a boys’ kneecaps out when he was fourteen years old

I realized why my dad would pat his pocket, the one with the .22 caliber pistol in it

I wanted to act out and hurt them

Make their stomachs sick and make them embarrassed and afraid, and suffer like me in front of everyone at the lunch table

Hurt their mommies and daddies and little brothers and sisters

And their friends and their animals and their clothes and their room and their toys

I wanted to burn it all and make them watch and then eat the ashes and then stare at the decay until they were as sorry as they could be

But I lacked the courage to pull triggers and cut skin and tie boys naked to trees in the woods

So I pointed guns at myself and cocked the hammer until my finger became weary

Running blades across my skin, I cut deep and made wounds that created scars that would show forever

And exposing myself and holding myself prisoner, I let myself become devoured by the beasts in the woods and by the thick blackness of the night

Then I grew up and all of these dickheads wanted to be my friends on Facebook

Then everyone was trying to “catch up” and organize school reunions

I had a family now and I wasn’t a kike at the lunch table any more

Now I was a grown man with a wife and children and a job and money

And my muscles were strong enough now to fight anyone who tried

And I knew how to insult as well as or better than the rest – I could make words HURT

And I showed them because I never replied to their requests for friendship

And I never attended their reunions and gatherings

And I tell my daughter that when someone is mean to her at school, to make sure she tells the teacher and tells us so me or my wife can talk to that kids’ parents

And I forgot about my mother telling me the same things, and those words terrifying me and making me want to puke

But I think that I’m doing okay so far as a parent, and having the chance again to repeat school and dodge the ugly

And if I screw it up, I’ll have two more chances

And if those chances don’t work out as planned, then I guess we’ll just have to have some more kids

i walked away

“I walked away”

I’m gay

And my dad is really my grandfather because my real father was murdered in a drug deal gone bad

When I was nine years old

And my mother was murdered in that drug deal as well

So my grandmother has been my mother ever since

                And she is more understanding and she accepts me for who I am

But my grandfather slash father – he blames the minister who touched me

In those times of theological practice

In those times of close, personal counseling over the loss of my parents

In those times of care and concern and whispered voices and his trembling hand on my back, then down the small of my back

Then his arm around me – squeezing tighter until it was difficult to breathe

And then realizing what was next, making it impossible to breathe

It’s his FAULT for MAKING me a gay, a queer, a faggot - Says my granddad slash dad

And he thinks it’s a disease I can be cured from

A lifestyle CHOICE

That I can choose to make or not to make

I can’t help it that vaginas are slippery and gross

I can’t not like the neat, hard, smooth feel of him in my hand or against my lips

But if you asked my papa slash daddy, he would tell you with surety that I am damaged goods

A broken chair leg that no amount of glue will hold together

No nails, no wires, no tape – nothing works

I’m a clay pot with a tiny crack where the water and the wine slowly leak out

Forming a puddle on the bottom

I finished college, in hopes that he would smile on graduation day and be proud

So proud, that I could see it in his eyes

I got my own place, a great place – and filled it with new, stylish furniture and got a great car and nice clothes and a kick ass haircut

Hoping that just one of those things would make him see that I could blossom and succeed, and that it was okay – that I AM okay

I got published

And I got a great full time job and I stood in lines and went to the store and hung my own pictures, and even fixed the faucet by myself when I had a leak in the kitchen once

But he would never acknowledge that I was a man or that I had done any good or had the legs to stand on my own and make it in a world that he believed was built only for men who were built for women

And sometimes I did things that I hated myself for because I was afraid to let myself feel how much he hated me

For being unlike him

For breaking the code

For fucking boys my age and older men

For getting so drunk that I talked with my eyes shut and doing all of the things that he believed I’d been doing before I’d even done them

So I lived up to his standards, in hopes that somehow and in some way I could make him proud and no longer disappoint him

Hating him for wanting his approval

Hating him for denying it to me

He died not too long ago

And at the funeral I stared at the coffin while they lowered it into the ground

I wanted the lid to pop open and for him to sit up in the satin resting place

I wanted to see just one look from him – one smile, one hint of pride, one word

On shred of acceptance after all of my trying and all I’d done and all of these years

After building and creating a life like the popsicle stick village that I made when I was ten

And I carried it to him on both hands

Balancing the cardboard base – I tiptoed carefully into the kitchen and stood there until he turned to see me

But he thought I’d melted all the popsicles to make it and he knocked it out of my hands and it broke across the room

So today I waited for his lifeless corpse to show some sign of love for me

But nothing happened

It started to rain and the wind picked up

So I turned around and walked away

a toast

“a toast”

A toast, to the tall buildings downtown

The fortresses that hide the moneymakers and the harlots, and the hens that peck on the ground – gobbling up the specks

The powerful, the smart, the collected and stoic and cool

The buttoned down

The representatives of the perfect portion; the exact center of the road in their even toned speech and calculated decision making

And their protégés – the frantic, the hurried, the emotional

Learning to apply statistical Novocain and become collected, stoic, cool buttoned down, and middle of the road

A toast to the machines that they build; the worlds they create - that cycle currency only to recycle it back into their own pockets

The machines that find a way to tax the poor and add up fractions of a penny on the subjects of welfare and tally those fractions up into hundreds and thousands and eventually millions of dollars

The machines that tell us what to want, and what to believe, and what to see of the outcome on the news and what to read and what to believe about what we see and read

And what to buy

And what to wear

And where to live and how to live, and under what conditions are the best to live

And how following “the plan” is the only resolution anyone should make because the tide is far too strong to swim the other way

The grain is far too deep

The power of sharp suits and soft leather, and low led lights and memberships to the exclusive clubs is too alluring to resist

It’s a game that’s rigged

The floor plan was already created with a set occupancy – but they market it under soft conditions; shine moonlight on it to make it romantic

Take pictures of it and document testimonials so that everyone thinks that they have a chance

So more and more invest in their system and make contributions and ask for help from Monster’s resume builder because I have GOT to get into that 25^th floor office that overlooks the river!

So I can see the bums under the bridge – like little roaches on their backs kicking their legs, hoping just to flip over

So I can watch the blue collar workers on their way to second shift at the shit factory off of 95

Make sure that flame keeps burning; miss 11.95 an hour because my private bathroom is going to produce quite a major contribution to your profession today

I had lunch at Tobacco Company, and duck confit always cleans me out

Their callous approach keeps truth confined to private interpretation

Their fear generates pride that generates more fear that generates a sanctimonious glancing downward at all others below their station

That generates the approach – “This is the REAL world we live in.  You need the KILLER INSTINCT!”

A toast to the killer instinct!

To the decimal points and the successes of projects and minor contributions to charities for public approval

You’re welcome, Angel Tree

BTW – Thanks for the falsely inflate tax break

You don’t tell your accountant, and we won’t tell ours – K?

And more and more of the champions and warriors like us, have acquiesced to their mechanism

Out of fear, pressure, need, want and desire

Because we had kids or want a new cell phone or need or want and have desire

Hooks in and they’re pulling like a team of jocks yanking the nerds into the mud in the ultimate tug of war

I, the consumer – am ashamed at the level to which I consume

But it seems like that last block in the life sized game of Jenga – if I pull the wrong piece will it all come collapsing down on my head?

And if it does?  Then what?

And if I don’t?  then what?

So I talk about it, still too afraid to be about it

And the machine and it’s sounds and lights seem more beautiful and alluring each day

And my paycheck goes in on time

And my family’s needs are all met and then some

And I can go out to eat

And cook out behind my house on the newly finished deck

And toss a raft into the pool and watch it drift back and forth in the artificial current

And pick my Dockers and Michael Kor’s button-ups from the cleaners every Tuesday night

And buy the $9 a jar spaghetti sauce, and blocks of artisan cheese instead of that pre-packaged shit

And look at me – I’m a normal guy, just the same as you