Yo bro.

You're not doing too bad. Really. I know people always talk about what asshats they were ten, fifteen or twenty years ago, but I wouldn't call you an asshat. You're a teenager. 

You wanna wear orange Chucks? Do it. Red cargo shorts? Hell yeah. High School isn't important in the ways some people make it out to be, it's more of an opportunity to explore different interests and ideas with little to no lasting consequences. All those extra-curriculars you wanna do? Do 'em. Join the swim team, sing in the choir, audition for the play. 'Cause honestly? When you get older, have some kids, and get a real job, you get one, maybe three hobbies. If the district wants to offer these things to you for free, get all up on that. 

Life advice? Maybe start a career path earlier than I did. Pick a trade, or a profession. Lock in on it. Get all the certifications or schooling you need for it, and make an effort at it, okay? I know that studying was never really a big deal for us, since we were always lucky enough to understand whatever came our way, but in high school they have a vested interest in making sure you pass. College? Grad school? A job? They don't really care. If you don't do what you said you would, or are expected to, that's your problem, not theirs.

Ask dad to explain the following: credit ratings, the difference between a tax deduction and a tax credit, and what APR is.

Ask mom to explain the following: Laundry, cooking anything that isn't pasta, and understanding non-verbal emotional cues. 

Spend more time with Grandma Sue, and with Grandma Tucker. They both die before your thirty, and you'll miss them more than you'd think. 

Focus on finding the positive, not the negative. You can be honest without being cynical. 

Life isn't fair. Don't expect it to be. Life wants you to know it's nothing personal. It's just business. 

Love you man,

Phranque. 

p.s. Jackie needs to leave, The redhead is crazy, Angel will break your heart, and Somer will fix you. 

I'm 31. I've been married for not quite eight years and have three kids. My daughter, the oldest, started kindergarten today. My middle child has autism. He doesn't talk. My youngest is still so little the only personality traits he shows are curiosity and hunger. 

When I met my wife we were in college, neither of us sure what we wanted to do with our lives, only that we wanted to be in each others'.  And that was enough. 

I bounced from shitty retail job to shitty retail job, and ended up with an okay city job. I have Fridays off, and a pension. She stays at home, being a mom. 

It seems like there is never enough money. We're not destitute, and it would be unfair to say we live in poverty, but it's all I can do to pay the bills. If I'm lucky I pick up side work painting houses. We have to start Christmas shopping sometime in September to spread the cost. 

At night, I put my autistic son to bed.  I put on his pajamas, hold him down to brush his teeth, (he's unreasonably strong for a four-year-old) and carry him into his bedroom. I hold him and put his hand on my chest and say "Daddy." I put his hand on his chest and say "Eli." I repeat this until he takes his hand from mine and pats my beard. Sometimes he smiles. Sometimes he makes his "not-happy" sound, a mix between a coyote yip and a native war cry. Sometimes I can't take it, any of it, and I hold him and weep quietly in the dark where my wife can't see. 

My son can't talk, and I love him. 

My life isn't easy, but it's mine. 

I'll take it. 

Have you ever closed your eyes and blocked out all the noise around you, like underneath the water, the sounds get further away, only the distant echoes remain.

Swinging back and forth, getting higher as your legs reach the sky. Eyelids resting, feeling the urge to fly.

Driving down a hot, paved road, accelerating to break the heat.  Summer winds blowing, only you, the ride, and the radio, not another soul for you to see.

The silence of the earth and sky, loveliest, enchanting, mysterious creatures alive.  As time stands still, only you can start, its only you to decide within your heart.

Ocean seas surround you as you rest upon her waves.  Giving comfort and pleasure, turning deadly if neglected, so be gentle, yet be brave.

Listen to the silence, take it all inside, let your emotions feel invigorated and your body feel alive.

Shhh...Close your eyes...Listen...Be surprised!

I'm a captain of a a dinner cruise boat. A reporter, who was doing a story about the boat and the cruise company, came on board to talk to me. She asked "How far down the lake do you go on your cruise?"

I answered "I usually try to stay on the surface."

She had absolutely no reaction. She either didn't get it, or had no patience for moronic jokes. I choose to believe the the first option. 

Tattered, flimsy arms barely stuffed full of decaying exuberance, flattened out from long nights –
a heavy head turned inward, grinding glossy eyes into the pitted, lopsided casing of the stuffed animal shaped into a once unsullied Bear.

Dilated ebony pupils brimmed with mucky beige irises stare vacantly, set into a figure covered with sparse graying snippets of cotton fabricated to appear like pelage tarnished by her firmly seized hands, straining your material body into a distorted posture against her warm flesh, encasing an inflexible caged guardian bent like a clawed hand, the tips pointing inward towards the accelerated pulse; thud, thump, thud, thump, thud, thump 
rhythm motivates the muscular organ’s tremors toward the epidermis wrapper, in an anxious embrace around the stuffed, compressed Bear.

You sense the squeeze of her longing fingers, the salty liquid seeping from her left caruncle, then the right, saturating your blotchy cotton pelt with a continuous stream of convulsive gasps that being to settle into a rhythmic circulation, her thumb and pointer fingers massaging your withered fabric ears in a perpetual tempo; twiddle, twirl, twiddle, twirl, twiddle, twirl
until her saline droplets convert into brittle sighs, ending your private routine.

Tossing you aside, along the tawdry comforter adjacent to a momentarily vacant bed frame identical to the one she recently abandoned, her fleeting mortal warmth receding as you being to assume room temperature,
she arrives with the final summon,
the inky box to join the great majority, entombed underneath the strident box spring counting the seconds sealed in an eternity; tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock

until she reappears to eagerly disinter your remains.

silence curls in my palm

like a gun,

and my pen is bleeding scabs,

and I'm sitting 

in the stillness of her shadow,

eating fireflies to try to kill the light

so I can rest between the rays,

levitating memories 

into the void created

between her heartbeats,

here I will swallow

all of it,

and I will drink her breath

like a fish

until my ringing ears

hear more than static and steps,

and I feel the mortar 

crumble,

until there are no walls between us

and I split the skin of bricks

and they bleed out bloody dust 

and stand no more,

lying softly on the earth

like sunrise fallen,

like sand stained by our triumph,

and we will build

a castle upon the ruins. 

It was 5:59pm when I almost died, 6:01pm when I fell in love, and 6:03pm when I killed a man.

But I digress…

I know it was 5:59pm because the clock on the wall was the first thing I could focus on from the ground after I was coldcocked hard in the back of my head.

“Is he the one, April?” I hear a gunshot and screams, as I watch the second hand tick away on the old clock.

“Or what about this one?” BANG! More screaming. More ticks of the clock.

“Or this bastard?” BANG! Deafening silence now. I watch the second hand get close to slip into a new minute.

“Or...maybe, this bastard lying on the ground?” I could feel the gun pointing at my head even though I couldn’t see it. I braced for the BANG! that was meant for me. I was going to die at 5:59pm, seconds away from 6. My life did flash across my eyes.

The BANG! never came. I lived to see 6pm, and I took the sweetest breath I ever took. My muscles still fought how I wanted to move, so I waited.

There was silence, save for the raging breathing of a madman, the whisper breath of my own, the soft cry of a woman, I assumed to be April, and the ticking of the clock. I focused on that clock, until it struck 6:01pm.

I was going to live or die in the next moments of my life and if I were to die, I wanted to do so on as much of my terms as possible. I rolled over to face my nemesis. My eyes caught April first.

Pretty April. Nice April. A girl you would never think would set a man to rage is such a way. It seemed counter to her pleasant personality. She was a lady that always seemed off the market, so I never thought much about her besides the warmth her smile left on me each day in passing to our cubicles.

Locking eyes with her now, something changed, shifted. Here was a woman, looking at me, wanting nothing more than to somehow save my life. The value that she placed on my life stirred something deep and almost forgotten.

I saw the pain in her soft tears, and suddenly wanted to take away that pain. I thought about the need to wipe away her tears, and for the second time this day, a life flashed across my eyes, a potential future life.

I live a life with April, from this God-awful moment to a tentative first date, to a first kiss, to a first entanglement of flesh, to our marriage, to our first born and then second. Through all of the laughs and the tears, all of the love-makings and fights, all of the shared triumphs and tragedies. Until a final scene, a final smile from her, old and grey and still too damned beautiful, holding her withered hand. Feeling my own smile and closing my eyes. Either falling asleep or dying blissfully, knowing I shared a full, rich life with the love of my love.

I snapped back to the here and now. I stand and look at the clock once more, seconds away from 6:02pm. I fell in love with a woman, a love that reached to the depths of the marrow of my bones. With whatever life I had remaining to me in this world, I needed to make sure she lived, even if I did not. Tick…

“Is it you bastard?” The gun moved back to my face, away from April’s. “If not, you better get back on the ground.”

“No,” was my simple reply.

The madman shook, the gun still pointed at my face, “Don’t you understand? I can’t let her go? I can’t let anyone else have her? Do you want to die? Are you the one trying to take her from me?”

“Actually, I do understand,” I looked at April for just a moment. I pored as much love into that look as I could. Something for her to keep from me once I died, if I died. “I understand why you feel you cannot let a woman like, April go. I do. I also don’t want to die, but that is not my choice, it is yours. And I am not trying to take her from you, she is not something to take, but rather someone to join mutually in mutual love,” I glanced at April one last time, then I looked at the madman again. He looked toward April then me. “You agree, don’t you? What you hate is not that she left you, but that you lost whatever love you had. You lost it, not her, or whomever you believe she is with.”

He crumpled a bit. He weakly turned the gun back onto April, then on me, then on himself.

Bang!

I tried to reach for him before he pulled the trigger, instead I watched his body collapse to the ground, as April fell into my outstretched arms. I held her tightly, letting her bawl through the aftermath of the carnage, I held her tightly against the pounding of my heart.

The clock read 6:03pm, the time that I would forever remember, for it was the time my words somehow killed a man.

In four minutes, my life forever changed. I had no idea if I would ever share the life with April that flashed before me, but in that impossible moment, I allowed myself to believe.

~~~

Afterward: This story was based on my entry to a challenge asking for the first line of a story. I decided to expand on that first line here.

I have so many questions, about God, life, sex, purpose & so much more I go round & round my mind trying to figure out things. Lots of things. Which end up confusing & taking me back to step  one.

Like is there a God or a supreme being who has unfathomable power? And if he/she exists can we mere humans see him/her? What do we need to see or talk to him/her or rather what are we or aren't we doing that makes him hide from us ? 

Okay let's say he/she exists. Why do people suffer, why is there unmeasurable pain inflicted on the poor & lowly in  society? What did they do to deserve this? Does he/she not want to interfere with our business? Has he/she given us free will that he doesn't want to interfere? Is he/she that respectful? 

What's religion really ? What does it stand for ? Is it just a set of dos &  don't? Like a set of rules we are supposed to  follow which me & you know is so hard to do because simply put rules are meant to broken. Does heaven & hell exists and why would a loving God what his people to suffer ? Which leads me to ask does Satan & his so called legion of demons exist? Is religion just a clever mans way of making sure we follow a set of rules because us humans are animals no matter how hard we try to ignore that fact ? Is religion an opium for the poor because it seems the most poor people belong to a certain  religion? Why does there exist so many religions but only one God ?   I rest my case on this part.

Life. What is life really ? What are we meant to do? Whats the whole idea about it? Some comedian by the name Louis C.K made me laugh the other day, he said everyone who is alive today is alive because they didn't kill themselves. So it begs the question why is life so precious, why do people even the ones with the shittiests of lives value it so much ? What are we meant to do in life? Is there a map or a compass to lead somewhere, somewhere where we will find out what we are meant to do in this life ? And if there's a map or a compass where do we find it ? Is religion or the belief of a certain intelligent being the compass to finding this purpose?  I'm yet to find out my purpose and if you have found out what your purpose is please hit my inbox you might point me in the right.

That's all for today.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otfn42u6dAE

I told the most beautiful young woman today about us, well about you really.

No Promises by Cheat Codes gently wafted over the air like baking bread. Pleasant to the senses, but not overwhelming.

"God I hate this song" she snorted. Platinum blonde hair twisted into a single ponytail over her shoulder whipped around derisively as she scuffed at the song swinging her head angrily. "Promise me no promises? It's an oxy-moron". Pouty lips pursed punctuatively. "I mean it's a good song" she shrugged "but the lyrics piss me off."

I was thoughtful for a few seconds. "I had a woman in my life a few years back. I managed to lose her." I pulled out my phone, and flicked up, causing the password screen to come on. "You see, she didn't expect much of me, but she asked me to give 100% all the time, always be honest with her, and never make a promise I couldn't keep. That's why I ultimately lost her, I think." I tapped Instagram on my phone as I talked, and started scrolling through my friends to bring up her profile. "You see, I made 2 promises I couldn't keep, and it cost me our relationship."

"Seems a bit harsh" she screwed up her face and wrinkled her understated nose. "You couldn't keep only 2 promises? High maintenance much?"

I scrolled through her pictures. She had a fantastic one in a black dress from about a month ago. I've seen some fantastic pictures of her, but this one may be the best photo she's ever taken. The dress was form fitting, and showed her abs, but along both hips starting at her belly button and running down to her calves, 2 sheer pieces of fabric run horizontally towards her hips, and then down the front of the dress on the outside. It takes any hot blooded, straight man about 3 seconds to realize, she's not wearing any panties, because there are no straps. I turned the phone around to show the girl the visage of the woman I loved so deeply.

"I think, they are saying that you shouldn't make promises you can't keep. At least that's what I think about every time I hear this song. That's what it means to me."

She processed the picture for a few moments as I held the phone a foot from her nose."Holy shit" She laughed "yeah you fucked up dude. She was into you?" She walked away shaking her head.

I had only told her half the truth. I made promises every day.

I promised her I loved her. I promised her I lusted for her. I promised I would be a better man than her physically and emotionally abusive husband. I promised I would be there for her. I promised that our love life wouldn't be once-a-week-after-watching-sports-center-one-night. I promised her I would only cheer against her Patriots when they were playing my Broncos. I promised I would prop her up. I promised her I would take care of her. I promised I would love her on her worst days, when her Lupus was as painful to her as being dipped in lava. I promised to forgive her for her bad days, and I promised to never have a bad day with her. I promised her I would keep writing erotica about us, for her. I promised her I'd drive to California and swim to her if the cartoons were right and San Andreas Fault ever dumped her in the ocean. I promised her we'd have children. I promised her a mix-tape of all of the songs that make me think about her. I promised to never forget her birthday. And I promised that her short temper didn't bug me. I promised her everything.

And I delivered almost nothing. I loved her, to be true. I lusted for her, certainly. If we had ever bridged the gap, I would have been there for her. I know our sex life would have been better than once a week, and I doubt I would have been able to celebrate her Patriots, but I would have tried. That's about it, though.

I do genuinely believe I broke 2 promises to her, that caused her to throw in the towell though.

You see, I promised I'd leave my wife for her, and I promised I'd never make a promise that I couldn't keep.

At least I'm glad every time I hear the song, I smile the same way I'd smile every day when I got an e-mail from her. And I realize it's because I'm thinking of all the promises I'd make to her, and how she'd reply.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, babe. ~.~"