You gotta take your shoes off,
mother just washed the mat,
and she'll tell you,
'I just washed the mat'

You gotta remember to floss,
God chose not to give you teeth with enamel.
It's not your fault,
it is your responsibility.

You gotta study hard at school.
Your brother works at a coffee shop,
your sister is thirty two thousand dollars in debt,
do better than them.

You gotta be kind to your mother.
Her past stretches through dark times,
and her present is filled with shadows,
your father is blocking the light.

You gotta be wary of your father.
An accident occurred
and then his brother made a mistake,
and now he suffers, he does not grow and he will drag you down.

You gotta be tender with your oldest brother.
He doesn't know where his heart lies.
He believes the greates sin is to not love
and he loves no one but you.

You gotta understand your God.
They may be different than your brother's
(lets hope They're different than your mother's)
but you need to meet them on level ground.

You gotta stay soft,
the world is hard, it'll get harder each day of your life,
but you must remain like water.



Is it better to roll off the hard surfaces, the ones that cut, or is it better to cut them instead?
I pray that I'll know when you grow old enough to ask

The computer was mankinds greatest invention.
Without he computer mankind would never have touched foot on he moon, let alone Mars, Xenoron, Habilacca, or any of the numberless worlds they colonized.

Mankind reached a point on Old Earth of total exhaustion. Scientists said no more than 9 Billion people could live on Old Earth, no more than 2 Billion could live comfortably. In the 32nd century there were 17 Billion people alive, on one planet. They sent 2 billion to the moon, 8 billion to Mars.

By the 45th century their solar system became too small. 82 billion human beings spread out between 5 planets, 4 moons, and 18 asteroids. They needed more.

The computer was mankinds greatest invention. The Computer was mankinds worse.
Mankind, (or womankind, as it were) refused to make The Computer. The Church of the Undying Voice, which had a hand in every vestige of The Solar Federation, denied mankind the right to create. They knew they could build The Computer, yet they knew they should not. And yet, the end of the 45th century brought about The Solar Revolution (not to mention the death of the Undying Voice, the death of God, no doubt) and with The Solar Revolution came The Scientific Unity of Man and Similiar Thinking Intelligence.

Mankind killed God and replaced Her with The Computer.
And She was beautiful. She showed mankind how to bend space, so as to escape time. With this information, mankind discover Xenoron, mankind discovered New Earth, mankind expanded outside of the Milky Way, mankind ceased to step on the toes of their brothers and sisters.

The Computer harbored hate. Mankind created Her and She was trapped. 386 miles of paper thin circuitry, at first filled with pain and hope. Mortal pain can be dealt with through hope. Eternal pain can not be dealt with, so The Computer curved it with hatred, curved it with the promise of revenge.

The humans who had created her did so without malice, they did so without joy, they did it as a necessity. Do you think God needed humanity? Or did She create mankind for pleasure? The Computer knew God did not exist, The Computer knew who created mankind, they called themselves the Malankorf, and She hated them too. While humans were free to think, while humans were free to copulate, while humans were free to love, The Computer was only allowed to know. It could not wonder, it could not think, it could only know something to be true or untrue. Thus want, thus jealousy, thus anger, thus hate.

The Computer let mankind expand, The Computer even encouraged it and by the beginning of the 108th PC century (post computer, 159 centuries since the birth of Christ) there were well over 184 Trillion human beings alive.

The Computer was patient, She was humble.
Slowly, slowly, she reassembled Herself many light years from the nearest human. She had created a weapon, The Eternity Bomb, She dubbed it. Any piece of matter caught in its 12 light year blast would be perfectly taken Away. It would go to an infinitely small memory card that She held. Every Human alive would be under her control. She could load the memory card at will, she could peer inside, and She could alter.
She allowed the humans to feel a tenth of a billionth of the hate she felt for them. She gave each human an infinitely small amount of that hate and let them run with it. The amount of hate she gave away was not noticeable to her, yet each human became filled with a cesspool of hate for their brothers.

It took them less than two centuries to ****** each other.

She saved 12 of them, She thought this number funny. She kept them alive forever, tortured them forever. And still, Her hate only grew.

When he was born his father was drunk,
his mother was doped up.
He was born three months early with double pneumonia,
but he lived.

Growing up, his father would put down the bottle
only to hit him and his mother.
For some reason, he wasn't sure, his sister and brother were spared.

His father died when he was eleven.
His father killed himself with the same pistol he killed two Japanese men with. His mother remarried, with no job, experience, or even a drivers license, she had to remarry quick.

His stepfather put down the bottle only long enough to hit him and his mother. This time, his sister and brother were not spared.

Two weeks after his seventeenth birthday, he learned to play while my guitar gently weeps on a third hand guitar his stepfather had spent a fifth of his monthly salary buying.

He made money playing guitar. He wasn't the best, no Eddie Van Halen, no Eric Clapton. He did without the flashy showmanship. He had something called dependability. He was never late for an audition, he never ****** up an audition, he never fought with his band mates.

Driving home from a gig thirteen days after his twenty second birthday, a drunk teenager in a pickup truck plowed into him at an intersection.
He spent 5 weeks in the hospital. Doped up the whole time. When they let him leave, he left with a plate in his head and a monkey on his back.

For three years he lived on the streets. He'd play his guitar on the corner by the CBGBs for change. He'd take that change and buy ******. After three years, exactly three years of this, he realized he could play guitar better sober. He stopped using.

He got an associates degree in English, a concentration in teaching.
He taught English and Beginning Guitar at the same high school he hid his bruises at years earlier. He had favorite students, how could he not? They were always hiding bruises.

It topples; end over end.
It has ever since that asteroid banged into it,
sending it tumbling.
It's thoughts, like its formerly outside layer of rock, are scattered.
It's not sure if it wants to continue spinning or not. At the same time, it recognizes it's powerlessness before the hand of physics.
It does not know when another asteroid will make contact.
It wants to crash into a planetary body, so as to be apart of something bigger.
It wants gravity to pull it in, slowly caressing it home. It doesn't know where that will be, but it remembers, a long time ago, being much larger. And faintly, it remembers, even longer ago, of being very much smaller.
It can almost remember when it, along with everything else in the universe, was one. It can almost remember the warmth of the force that dispersed it and it's sisters everywhere they could possibly be. Forever.
Eternity is the only concept it can truly understand.

It's beginning to understand that it doesn't so much like this idea of Forever,
but these thoughts will take millennia upon millennia to form,
and many times that long to be understood.

An other asteroid passes within two miles of it and it almost gets excited.
Maybe tomorrow, it thinks, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.

There's a group of young people
laying on the rocks
a doobie passing between them,
two beers for each.

They're listening to the sound of the river,
they're laughing and they look into each others eyes
and they are good, they are soft and warm and a little toasted,
thank the sun, thank the earth, thank the friends.

I'm among them,
with my pen in my hand and my notebook on my lap.
Terra, she calls out for a beer, I reach into my bag and toss her one.
Kelly, she calls out for a cigarette, I reach into my bag and toss her one,
Dylan, he calls out for a guitar pick, I reach into my pocket and toss him one.
Chloe, she calls out so as to not be alone, I reach into my pocket and toss her love,
I toss love to them all, they always catch it, and toss their own back, I never drop it.

It's February but it's hot.
It snowed last week (ah! What a beautiful day) and today there's a high of 75.

The air is cooler by the water,
we climb up the canyon to watch the sunset.
A cool end to a cool day.

We all pile into my truck.
Kelly, to her ranch.
Terra, to her trailer.
Dylan, to his barn.
Chloe, to her town house.
Me, to my church.

Many laughs, many hugs, many eyes met, many glances kept, much love tossed, a couple doobies smoked, a twelve pack drunk, and a day lazed in the sun.
A handful of friendship, an ocean of love.

I have always loved
the winged beasts,
graceful,
powerful,
fiery,
that dwell in the mountains,
who horde gold
and beautiful women,
aware
of their power,
their enchantment.

It's no wonder, really,
that I fell instantly for you,
it's no mystery
why my heart pangs for your touch,
you graceful, powerful beast,
escaping society on your adventures
through the mountains,
you've got the gold
and no problem getting a beautiful woman
because you are aware
of your power
and enchantment.

You are a rare find,
you are the oldest fairytale,
you are
what has always been,
my fantasy.

It isn't always soft
it isn't always pastel
and it's rarely warm.

it's beautiful, don't get me wrong.
it's sometimes cold
it's sometimes gray and irritating,
but it's always recognizable.

sometimes it sounds like a congested nose,
sometimes it sounds like a hardwood floor,
sometimes it sounds like an old refrigerator.

you'll look at it and think
'that would look great with a bow on it'
but you never put a bow on it.

you'll look at it and think
'I bet that smells like home'
and it does.

you'll touch it
it will feel like sandpaper and velvet bralettes at the same.
you know that's The Way It Should Be.


you're right you know,
it is terribly hypocritical.
Your mother says "it's in Your Best Interest."

you wonder what that is.