my first nature poem (live)

Something I wrote about my step-brother, Josh. It started out being about nature, but it ended up being about me, about people, about Josh, about death.

One of those three kids riding bikes is my son, Bo.

Sorry I'm so bald. I shaved my head right after watching this video. 

Just Be Yourself

What does this even mean?

Nobody knows who they are. We're all just trying to figure it out. 

I watched Freaky Friday with my kids, and it made me grateful to be 35. Not that I wouldn't want to be 17 again. I think I could be 17 again. Oh, that reminds me, I want to watch 17 Again again.

There's a lot I would do differently, and I think I could do it better the second time around.
But I would need to actually be 17 again. Not just a voodoo switch where I switch back after I learn a lesson.

Here's what sucks about being a teenager:
-You can't stay out past midnight.
-You have to sit in uncomfortable desks all day.
-Homework.
-Low pay.
-Acne.
-Can't vote.
-Your parents don't listen to you.
-How you could start drinking or smoking at any second.
-Peer pressure.
-Caring so much about jeans.
-Caring so much about brands.
-Caring so much about hairstyles.
-Trying to find money for gas.
-Other things.

Here's what sucks about being an adult:
-You can't go to movies whenever you want.
-Belly fat.
-Male Pattern Baldness.
-Annoying teenagers.
-Bills.
-You can vote, but you're too busy or you don't care.
-Your parents don't listen to you.
-You can't have your friend call and quit for you over the phone.
-Worrying about your kids getting hurt or dying or doing drugs or getting bullied or not eating enough or having low self-esteem or having a parent who worries too much about them.
-Facebook was not created for you, but you still have taken it over.
-You wear shirts and hats and jeans that weren't made for you and you look stupid.
-Monotony.
-You start to notice the sand in the hourglass.
-Other things.

So everything sucks. It sucks to be young, it sucks to be old. Yeah, there's good stuff too, and life is great, but life is freaking hard and it sucks sometimes.

I'm just glad I get to be me today. I don't have to pretend to be you or my son or anyone else. I've been trying to figure out who I am for 35 years now, and even though I still don't know for sure, I'm pretty close to cracking the case. And that's liberating.

Being yourself is liberating.

Sometimes you have to fake it for awhile before you get it down fully. But that whole thing can be fun, too. It's like going to the mall with store credit. You get to try on a bunch of different things and decide what looks good on you and what doesn't. (I've been watching way too much Gossip Girl lately.)

Just don't spend too much time worrying about which shirt will make you popular, because I promise- the shirt that will make you popular will definitely be worn by someone else at your school.

And there's nothing worse than being caught wearing the same shirt as someone else. Nothing.

Here's to not having to pretend to be someone else tomorrow.

x-ray vision

Today I saw a picture of my heart for the first time.

I didn't recognize it.

For all the poems, for all the blogs, the journal entries, the letters...I thought for sure it would look familiar to me. But it didn't look familiar. It looked like a foreign language. A foreign country. My mother's cursive.

Tonight I coughed so hard that I understood math for a second. Tonight I coughed so hard I saw stars. Tonight I coughed so hard that I stopped breathing. There's no poetry there, I just wanted to illustrate how hard I was coughing.

Ever since I was 17, my writing has been angst. My words have been longing. My journals have been wish lists. I wrote about trying to get the girl. I wrote about trying to escape the job. I wrote about trying to find my way. I wrote about what it means to be alive.

But this week, I couldn't breathe.

And poetry may help me breathe metaphorically, but I got at least three prescriptions from doctors and poetry wasn't one of them.

Azithromycin? Yes. Amoxicillin? Yes. Hydrocodone? Yes.
Metaphors? No. Truth? No. Beauty? No. 

I've spent seven years watching some young people struggle to find air. I wrote poems about saving them, then I locked my door during lunch. I took attendance and replied to e-mails and sat through meetings. But only this week did I understand what they were really going through.

There's no assignment I can give that will fix your lungs. There's no lesson plan that will remove the weight on your chest. You need azithromycin, You need need amoxicillin.

I have an inhaler you can borrow, but it's running out of inhalations.

I watched more Netflix than I read and wrote combined. I was too tired to create. I felt like my father. I felt like my father. Damn it, people, I felt like my father. 

This is me trying to breathe again. Please join me.