Pain

Without pain, there'd be no regret.

Without pain, there'd be no sorrow.

Without pain, there'd be no agony.

Without pain, there'd be no suffering.

Without pain, there'd be no sacrifice.

Without pain, there'd be no courage.

Without pain, there'd be no compassion.

Without pain, there'd be no kindness.

Without pain, there'd be no purpose.

The collective stench of humanity has settled heavily upon you,
The stains of time discolor your once pristine appearance,
But who among us does not need you?
In the most desperate of times you are always there,
It's not your fault you have been left to ruin,
Forgotten and ignored until needed most,
The human animal reveals itself it you in its basest form,
But you do not judge,
You only bring relief to those who freely disparage you.

Who has let you get this way?
Who has let you become a stark reminder of man's true nature?
Is it not all of us?
Have we not all failed you?

Yet you wait.
Willing to take the worst people have to offer without thanks or gratitude,
Simply there to release human beings from their most common sufferings,
And never expecting anything in return.

If only we could be like you, O Dirty Bathroom Stall,
If only we could all be like you.

"What's the point?" The thought echoed in his mind. It was an agonizingly rhetorical question with no answer. "Even if I achieve everything, all my hopes and dreams, will it really make me happy? What am I doing? Where am I going?" Nobody heard him, but his own tortured self. Pity was has one true companion. The world around him went on with its shallow thrills and pointless happiness. "What are they smiling for? What have they done? If only I could find joy in those empty pleasures. We want, we desire, we get, and then we just want more. It's an endless cycle of longing. A longing that begets longing. It hurts, it makes life miserable, yet all these people walk around letting the fleeting happiness be their ultimate goal. Nobody wants to help anyone. Nobody wants to really make a difference. Everything is selfish. Even the 'good' things. Why does this miserable place exist?" Every thought was negative, tinged with hopelessness. He stared down into the ground, cursing the Earth for being there in the first place. "This little rock that spawned life, full of maggots and death, infested with selfish beings that care about nothing but themselves. Suffering goes on, people are dying, there's rape and slaughter going on at this exact moment, but these people don't care. They have their cars and gadgets. Simple, stupid. They think they're happy. Good for them. Let them smile and live in constant denial of the way things truly are." He overheard a meaningless conversation at the table next to him. "Nothing they're saying is important, yet they take it so seriously. Petty things that don't matter. They make us either happy or sad. Bring joy or pain. Our whole lives revolve around petty bullshit that doesn't mean a thing. We'll be devastated if our phone breaks or elated that we got a new one. All the while, the world is full of suffering. People cry over their phones at the same time someone is crying over a murdered loved one. Tears fall for cracked screens at the same time tears are falling for a bloody corpse. Why? Why can't we all just snap out of our blind existence." The shuffle and noise continued all around him. He sat there, still. Like a rock in a river. Unmoving, unflenching, but feeling the rush of water pushing against him. The rush of a humanity in a hurry to go nowhere. But he sat still, feeling disconnected with these people. He wanted no part of it. The river flowed, but he wanted to stop it. Tell these people to wake up and look around. "Nothing matters!" he wanted to scream at them all, one by one as they passed. He wanted to see the fear in their eyes and watch the joy wash away from them as they realized their meaningless place in existence. He was a simply a messenger, telling the truth. But he knew no one wanted to hear it. "They're too busy living out the fantasy cultivated since the beginning of thought. Desire for triviality. Happiness, sadness, the measure of a life's success is all triviality and nothingness. Empty. Shallow...Things." He knew all his efforts would be in vain. "Nobody wants to change. Nobody wants to realize that their entire life is simply a wave of ups and downs based upon simple desire that will never be satisfied. Nobody will ever be truly happy. Nobody wants to be. It's enough to feel the momentary, artificial pleasure of artificial things. That's all people want. Things. It's too much and never enough. Chasing idols to show off to their 'friends' and disappointed when they have something better." It got to be too much. The anger and distraught overtook him. He did the only thing he could do. He stood up, gave a pleasant smile to a person that passed by and re-immersed himself into the river he had just hated so much. He disappeared back into the illusory existence. The rock had turned back to water and flowed along with the rest. In a hurry, but going nowhere.

Escalation of Silence

Sometimes,
Quiet reflection can turn so loud,
Thoughts arise in the head,
For so long not allowed,

Buried deep these mines,
Only by accident found,
Detonated by silence,
Synaptic shockwaves pound,

Resonating electric explosions,
Unseen civil war in the mind,
Home is their only front,
Don't seek and thou shall find.

From ambush battle wages,
Cerebral singes blacken inside,
Only attrition can bring peace,
Back into recesses they hide.

Hope When Hopeless

Never let go of hope. Hold onto it like it’s your most prized possession, even though no one can ever take it from you.  Even if it's the most irrational, ridiculous hope in the world, never let it go. Even if the rain's pouring down and the dark clouds seem to stretch forever, put your blanket down over the wet grass, carefully set out the food from your basket, and get ready to have the best damn picnic of your life.

Hope is the only thing more powerful than despair. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that." That famous quote from Dr. King holds true for hope and despair. Even the smallest willingness to let the sunlight of hope cascade down on the dirt of despair can germinate the tiny seed buried underneath it. Eventually, with enough light, that seed will grow into a deeply-rooted flower of optimism that will only gain strength with each sun-filled moment that passes. The buds will bloom and cover what once was dark and gloomy with bright bursts of color.     

The best part is that the seed is inside you. Hope comes from within and it is always there. Nobody can take it away from you, but it can be strengthened. Search for people that make you happy, focus on your spirituality or find whatever brings you joy and comfort and you will have a light that is always shining even when all else is dark.

When others have given up on you, even at that darkest point when you've given up on yourself, the light of hope never extinguishes. It forever burns inside waiting to be brightened by a spark of compassion. People care about you. People you don’t even know. Every second there are people sending out prayers and thoughts for those who need them. These sparks come from everywhere.

But more importantly, you can be the spark. Look your situation straight in the face and say, "I refuse to let you take away my hope. I control it. Not you." No diagnosis, no opinion, no worst-case scenario, no dread, nothing can take it away. It is inside you. You control it. Hope is always there.

"If I should die before I wake..."

This post is a result of a writer's group event. We were given three prompts and then 20 minutes to write 500 words on the one we chose. I chose "If I should die before I wake" This is the result. Please excuse any typos. I haven't edited it other than within the 20 minutes.


“If I should die before I wake,” she said as she knelt before her bed. Before she could finish the nightly ritual, a force she had never felt before swept her up. Wrapping itself round around her a like whirling wind, it lifted her off the floor and carried her to a place she had never been before. Nothing was the familiar to her; everything around her was foreign and new. It felt like she was experiencing everything rather than seeing anything. Bright colors, exotic sounds all filled her senses at once. The scent of blue wafted into her nostrils, the sights of sounds filled her eyes.

Her mind could not even begin to comprehend where she was or how she had gotten there. It was too busy trying to process all the new information it had never encountered. Had it just gone haywire? Was she still kneeling before her bed and never even left her room? These were simply unanswerable questions. Her mind, like eyes adjusting to the dark, had yet to “see” what was all around.

Her body felt weightless. The force unknown had taken control and was carrying her body all through this maze of perception. It was an unwelcome, yet not unpleasant, tour that took her mind to places it had never been before. The colors, the sounds, the sights, the smells all mixed into an impossible combination. She did not know what she was seeing. She did not know what she was feeling. She did not know anything. But her mind felt no fear; her brain didn’t tell her panic. She floated along as if down a peaceful river of twisted perceptions.

Then, just as sudden as she had been lifted, she was set back down to where she had been kneeling in front of her bed. She did not feel scared. The experience left her feeling a calm she had never felt before. Like her body had been washed of all anxieties and fears. Like she was a brand new person whose painful memories no longer haunted them. They had left; gone away like a shadow as the sun slowly sunk behind the horizon.

She had yet to open her eyes. They were squeezed shut like they always where when she prayed. Each lid opened, slowly revealing the same bedroom she had always known, but had never felt before. She was back to reality, back to where she had always been. Although her journey had been pleasant, she was still relieved to be back in her familiar world. The one she understood.

She finished her prayer and crawled into her bed, pulling the covers over herself. The softness and warmth of the blankets made her feel at home after her journey that seemed much longer than it had to have been. Just before she leaned toward her bedside lamp to turn it off, she was going to perform her other nightly ritual. She reached for the frame, but it was not there. The picture of her beloved grandmother who had passed years before was no longer there. This was the first time she felt panic. She was confused and scared that something she cherished so much was gone. She yelled for her parents.

But, before the sound even echoed down the hall, a wave of peace suddenly washed over her again. She heard a familiar sound, a voice long unheard…”Dear, are you ok?” A figure appeared in her room…”Grandma?”

American Bridge

American Bridge is falling down. The rungs are shoddy and rotting and its tenuous hold to the bank is being broken away fiber by fiber with each negative shot fired from one side to the other. Once it falls, all that will be left is a deep crevice of resentment creating an insurmountable separation that will make compromise impossible.

Every four years, our nation's only large-scale political discussion becomes a sad display of gotchas, one-liners, told ya so's, smearing and scare tactics. We choose a side early on and then turn a closed mind to nothing but what we want to see and hear as we tear the opponent down as loudly as we can. From yard signs and bumper stickers to Facebook posts and emails, negativity rules as everyone becomes an expert and opinion becomes indisputable fact. We all become spin doctors twisting and mutilating words and statistics into whatever we please. Context? What's that?

Both sides know what's best for our country and that the other side is full of disconnected morons with nothing but their own selfish interests in mind. We label each other and create an image of the other side. We paint each other as villains. "Republican" and "Democrat" take on a life of their own as examples of everything that is wrong with our country, so much so that the words themselves conjure up a predetermined idea of a person's entire personality. We are no longer citizens of these United States. We are red or blue. We are callous or lazy. We are simply right or simply wrong.

We need this middle ground we're destroying. But instead, the side that wins will see no wrong and the side that loses will see no right. There will be resentment among the losing side and they will spend the next four years reveling in, if not hoping for, the failures of the "winner". They will actually be happy when something goes wrong and our country is worse for it. They will have "I told you so" at the tip of their tongues, ready at all times to feel the sweet satisfaction of their utterance.

If we want to save our precious middle ground, we must make a decision to get more satisfaction in finding compromise than in finding fault. The cheap jabs and mockery must be put aside and we must at least attempt to work together before the bridge falls once and for all, leaving us staring from opposite banks as what's best for our country is crumbling into the vast ridge we have created between us.

Here We Are...

Doing circles around a star. Clothing hiding the animal beneath it. Longing for the affection of others. Focusing our lives on the opportunity to propagate the species. Going through the motions without asking questions. Unsure of our purpose. Living because we do. Distracting ourselves with our day-to-day lives. Waking up and going to sleep with not much in between. Working to feed ourselves. Desiring arbitrary status symbols. No inherent value in anything...

Except relationships. They are the real meaning of life. The greatest people aren't those with power and control, they are those who make the lives around them better. And that takes no money or prestige. It takes caring and interest. It takes selfless decisions.

That's the purpose. To make every decision and action with diligent care. To know that our time is short. To know that we have the power to make or break a person's day. A smile. A concern. Or simply to listen.

When all the false motivations and superficiality is stripped away, we are simply animals sharing a confined space, being driven by unseen instinctual forces and doing what we do because that's all we know to do.

We exist on a small rock. We are small. We are insignificant to it all. But, we are significant to each other. We mean the world to each other.

But, that world is at odds with itself. People kill each other. We battle. Maybe it's because at the core we are all the same. We're the same animal. The same desires, the same wants and needs. And like any animal we do what's in our power to ensure we get those things.

However, unlike other animals, we can decide. We can decide that sometimes getting what we want isn't worth the consequences to others.

But, of course, we're selfish. We have to be. We can't give of ourselves to the point of having nothing left. Even more so, we have the absolute right to personal happiness. But there's a line. A line that too often gets crossed. When our own selfish desire devours the good of all. That's when things go bad.

And, more often than not, that's how things are. We aspire to fit a mold. We want. We covet. We won't stop until we get it. We have perverse goals. We want things that make others jealous. We want to proclaim our superiority with material possessions. Possessions that are fleeting, meaningless, and pointless.

More than what we achieved, our real mark on the Earth should be with those whose lives we have touched. Those lives that were a little brighter because of us. People hurt. People cry. Nobody can do it alone. We need each other more than things. That should be the central focus.

It's tough, though. We're all preoccupied with ourselves. We're all stuck in our own heads. We're self-centered. When we hurt, no one else matters. When we hurt we want someone to be there for us.

But, too often we run. We don't want to deal with it. We take each other for granted when that's all we really have.

Magic Breakfast Land

Every time I see that McDonald's commercial where the little girl asks her parents where breakfast comes from, I always think that it'd be funny if they told the truth rather than come up with some "Magic Breakfast Land."

So...

"Where does breakfast come from?"

"Well, honey, it all starts with the birth of a cute little piglet. You know, like the one in Charlotte's Web? Eventually, after spending most of its life in a cramped feed lot, they send the fattened-up little piggy to a processing plant. That's where the magic occurs. First, they send its soul to piggy heaven. Then they gut it, slice it up into pieces, and turn into the sausage you're eating right now.

Oh, sweetie, don't cry. The pig's life was miserable. You're doing him a favor by eating him. He was probably counting down the days until he could put a smile on the face of a happy McDonald's customer. The moment they ran that blade across his neck was the first time he'd been happy since the day he was born. Plus, if God didn't want us to eat pigs, he wouldn't have made them taste so good.

And do you remember that time we went to the petting zoo and you saw those cute little baby chicks? Remember how you wanted to take one home so bad and we wouldn't let you? Well, the egg in your breakfast could have become one if you hadn't eaten it. So, in a way, you get to take one home now.

But, the bad news is that if you really cared about chickens you'd have ordered a chicken sandwich rather than the egg. At least then the mother hen would have felt the sweet kiss of death rather than being kept barely alive, standing around in its own filth and longing for the day that its egg production goes down enough to make it no longer worth keeping around.

Oh no, no, honey. You're not a terrible person. Chickens are actually really dumb. They have no idea what's going on. I gave them feelings they probably don't have. I was just having fun. Pigs, on the other hand, they're pretty smart. Though, I guess they're not quite smart enough or I wouldn't have just finished my second sausage biscuit.

So, to answer your question, breakfast comes from dead animals and unborn baby chickens...aren't you gonna finish that sausage?"

Reggie The King

For context, I wrote this after finding out Ray Allen had broken Reggie's all-time 3-pointers made record:

After staring blankly in a state of shock, I've finally been able to come to grips with it. Or, begin to. It's been rough so far. The weight of this new reality pressing down on me. It's almost too much effort to lift my head. The thought is still unreal. I can just stare at the ground and shake my head...

The joy. The triumph. The heartbreak. The amazement. He gave it all. Defying all odds and silencing thousands. Bowing to the crowd as boos cascaded down from every direction. Soaking it all in. Reveling in the hatred for him.

He knows they only hate him for what he's done. With a callous heart he's broken theirs. Time and time again. Enjoying it more each time.

He turned dreams into nightmares...

His foil was his greatest inspiration. To watch him suffer brought him joy. To stare him in the face and watch the gloom wash over it. To see his heart broken. That's why he did it. That's why he loved it...

Reggie Miller. The king. The record may not be his, but the title remains. The timing and the pressure. The killer instinct. The shear brutality of his cold-blooded shots. His three-pointers raining down like bombs bringing destruction to an entire city's dreams. The net exploding with each swish. The crowd erupting in agonizing moans and then falling silent. That's what fed him. And he was hungry...

More than just three points, his shots meant the elation of one city and the utter depression of another. His threes squashed hope. His threes brought opponents to their knees, head in hands, all hope lost. His threes made people either love him or hate him. But, most of all, his threes made us watch with bated breath.

And for some of us, they made him a hero. A hero who took a small town team and thrust them into the national spotlight by taking on the mighty Knicks. He brought down Goliath with his own form of that famous weapon. His arms his sling and the ball his rock. From long range he struck again and again with a fury unseen. Until the giant had fallen...

Raise your arms in triumph, Reggie...For you are still the king.