Refraction (Second Year Depressed Optometry Student) 2012

What can a human do to see this life through? Pass in the last on that ass? Fast cash weighs nigh, banking on a certain high. Mortify the populous among us. Cuss at the young folk as they take a poke at old school who rules a more saved society than misbehaved where no one shaves. Lying with the other animals amid cannibals; Tarantulas sting one another; feel the thunder of the fierce storm out amid the mighty seas. Frees my soul to never have control of this existence; penance of another credence. Pace myself to a sullen walk? Not when I can run; not sulk, have some fun under the Beautiful Son! Forgive the pun as the one gets another history from the commentary, signatories of the dormitories of such vile hostiles. Miles of roads need to be piled, weakened from these very steps. What? I bought the whole story of misery; past the days of our history. Time to stride, glide to another level; live like an extraterrestrial which I surely am; spam popping up on the computer screen as I lean into another altered state; a very lovely fate. My visual acuity corrected to Beautiful; left behind the blurred, myopic and astigmatic hate.

But The Fire Is Still Hot (Dying American Caucasian Poet) 1998

Take away, I pray, the piece of life that has never meant anything; nothing to the grand scope of things. Evils sending upheavals; steeples are bending with ease in the breeze; the freeze starting to falter, turning into water; the human element getting compliant; now defiant upon caustic complacency.

"Just give me my check and I'll say, what the heck?! Or whatever's clever."

Binds, starting to be unbound; never to be found...ever again. "There is nothing new under the Sun," My Son. Thou dost assuredly sinned.

You Can't Paint A Pretty Picture Without The Paint (Male Caucasian "Flower Child") 1967

It's hard coming down. Real hard. Reality slowly forming its ugly scene, piece by fragmented piece. Then the down time has arrived when all is said and done. Ugly picture too. Not so Beautiful anymore is it? Hell no! Need to score. Quick. But guess what? Funds aren't there! Oh, shit!

We Act The Same (Pre-Zoology Major) 2003

Choice? Or no choice? The only queries one should have. The only two queries to me anyway. “I see the light/ I seen the light…” Sing that song damnit! Go ‘head knock it out! Sing from the rooftops if yah wannah! But ask yourself another question, Have I really? And if you really have then you shouldn’t be singin. No-no-no! Yo ass should be scared shitless!

The infidels scoffing at infidels. You ain’t got me convinced with yo’ preachin, dancing and perceived captured, enraptured and “blessed” being ass! Captured by a light which you avow shined on you? Really! So it didn’t have no other choice but to shine on you and not me? Really?

Humankind was given what no other creature has on this entire earth: A gift of choice. But – for - not the ability to reason, then choice is not given; ergo, we are not human but just like all the other animals on this Eden . If, I need to eat, I’ll just chomp on this smaller human and satiate my appetite for a wee bit! No! Because we have rationale, we are sensient! Superior intelligence! We can’t fly like you birds, but we can make a birdlike vessel which will fly faster and higher than any of your kind without even the work to fly like you do, we make it mechanical; yet, we control it’s flight and patterns.

And you on the ground of the four legs, you scoff at us? And the best you have is a Cheetah? At best at the last clocking, a mere seventy miles an hour. With these hands and this superior intelligence, we have created a vehicle which will go more than two hundred and fifty miles per hour, not a muscle aches from going that fast for so long, because we have choice. Learn to run seventy miles an hour? Or build something to go faster, for a longer amount of time and without the work?

Or you, the kingdom of no legs and no wings. We learned so much from you of how we make these machines go faster than any animal in the aforementioned kingdoms are from your dolphins, aerodynamics. Water having so much drag but your dolphins can exceed some forty knots. Impressive but you still do not have choice. You cannot make the things that we do, we the Kingdom of Two Legs.

The thing about choice, it has this major flaw: No choice is without its penalties. You see, without choice there is no conscience. A raw single ideology when there is no choice involved: survival. Survival is non-thinking. Survival is about self and self alone; hence, one has succumbed to the kingdom of four legs, or the kingdom of two wings, or the dreaded wet blue kingdom of no legs or no wings.

A world gone mad with the state of disordered order, chaos. Yet, with this limitless intelligence we still succumb to the subhuman? Not looking out for our fellow humans. In survival mode. For what? We act like we have no choice. Is this what the best kingdom has to offer? And in the grand scope of origins: Have we not coveted the other kingdoms blissful ignorance of not empowering themselves with choice? Are we not all, based on our actions and non-actions throughout humankind, amid the Kingdom of Two Legs, any better than other kingdoms? We are all just like the various other kingdoms but we just talk, walk and travel differently.

A Taste of Heaven (Broke Black Prophet) February 2020

Walk into the light My Children. Let thy Son guide you into everlasting life. Let the ray of thy same Son scorch thy innards, sear into thine bone. Even the marrow will smell of char of thy holiness. Let it bake you into a crispy, savory gourmet treat for all thine world to feed upon.

Don't Take It Personal (Dying American Caucasian Poet) 1998

The soul is this lost, vast space;
Space, only being filled,
Found,
In Love
Or in Death.
No in between.
Because in Love,
As in Death,
One finds out the true meaning of life that,
"It never has been about You!"

The Times/You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (Average Indianapolis Male Tribe Person) January, 2012

I came out of the gas station on 10th and Shadeland the other day and a young Asian, maybe twenty-five or thirty (I'm not too good with ages any longer) with a clean wife beater, clean athletic shorts and flip-flops and he ask me for a cigarette. I gave him three out of my new pack. In my whole 44 years of life as an American, I have never seen an Asian ask for anything on the streets in this You-S-of-A.

I went to fill up my tank yesterday evening and a thirty-ish white man asked me for fifty-cents, so he could have enough money to catch the bus, so he said. I gave him a single and he tried to give me fifty-cents back avowing, "I only need fifty cents." I said to him, "Man, be careful out here." He looked me in the eye and said, "Thank you My Brother." The same evening, I was going into my apartment complex, a woman came up to me and asked me for four dollars. I gave four dollars to her. She looked at me and said, "God bless you!" And I don't really believe or think that God is gonnah bless me at all, to tell you the truth.

I do not have this type of money to be giving out. Truly, I don't. I'm very low on funds always. But, what I am witnessing now...well...is something I've never seen nor experienced in my whole entire life. I lived in downtown Indianapolis for some six years total in the past and I did not see what I'm witnessing in this day...there are a shitload of people in need. And its only goin to get worse. And the bad part of this whole scenario is...I am, quite possibly going to be, one of them.

My God!

Who Needs Drugs...Or Meat? (Fortyish Male Lifelong Vegan) 2005

Fresh onion, cucumber, tomato and garlic. Oh, my! What a treat to eat with just vinegar (apple cider of course with the Mother), extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Um! A full course meal to thrill. Setting my taste buds on guard! Making the back of my mouth moist thinking about all of those superb flavors that will intermingle into savory happiness once I take the first delicious bite. Adding possible a jalapeno pepper for a kick. Every time I make and taste this delectable combination, which is often, it makes me feel so good to be alive to just experience the rush.

Feeding Frenzy (Dying American Caucasian Poet) 1998

Paper tears goes unaware from it being torn free. Sees a part is better than the whole. Stole a bowl before the heathens began to masticate, then ate. Gorging on the weak to seek and eat. Nutrition of a cannibalistic source after the ballistics has been sorted out. Pout about the disease of unease as the stomach grumbles, breaking down the spoiled matter as it disintegrates from the HCL as it sits for a spell; defecate subsequent to gestation. Society is like the GI tract which doesn’t know fact to exact a purge when toxins are digested. Sometimes they don’t get expelled and we die from the infestation, the penetration of foreign matters.

Conditioned Response (The Blog Author, Tribe Person And Quasi-Satirist) 2007

Adept communicators? Intelligent? Highly effective decision makers?...Name me any of those qualities that any of these politicians possesses. Something good to put on a resume but this is the real world muh fuckah. Straight Up!

Yeah! Yeah! Of course I'll be on time, I will never miss a day! Don't believe in it! I believe in being loyal to your employer. Very effective communicator with years of customer service experience. Complaints? Never!...Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah!

Then you get the job, what does your silly ass do? "Yeah, this is Meredith! Yeah, I'm not going to be in today, I'm sick." Fuck it! If my Black ass is sick, it stands to reason I'm callin in sick because I'm...well...sick! Damn! Didn't you tell me upon hire I have ten of those muh fuckahs? Then, I'm sick! Pay up muh fuckah! Rhetoric will have that ass paying my black ass for my ten sick days this year, that they say you shouldn't take! Fuck that! And don't forget about the two weeks of paid vacation my Black ass gets either! You gave me the job and I know my parameters. Pay me my damn money for my sickly and vacationed ass! Please, help a brothah out! Am I the only one that sees shit the way that I'm seein it?

Rhetoric! Good lord! All that talkin and muh fuckahs end up every time, like a muh fuckah in the hood walkin up on a fool and bustin 'em in the mouth or poppin ah cap in that ass, these muh fuckahs in Washington D.C. are no different, "Fuck it! Let's go to war!" Ain't that what they do out on the street, "Fuck talkin! Time to lay some bones and lay a lot of lead! Cause muh fuckahs ain't listenin!" And they puttin us in jail because we're mimicking their abhorrent behavior?

We tell our children not to fight; Be of good will; Try to talk things out; You shouldn't be puttin your hands on anyone... And what does this US of Assholes do every fuckin time? They bring on the war cry and have other US of Assholes backin 'em, "Fuck with this talkin shit! Those sand niggers and chink bastards aren't listening. We need to go to War! We need tah kick some ass!" The fuck! Is a muh fuckah missin somethin? The year 2007 and this the best the supposedly "Richest country and the most civilized on this planet," has to offer this world? Shit, we ain't no damn children! That, "Do as I say, not like I do!" Don't wash with grown folks! Shiiiit! While yah playin! If these Assholes ain't gonna put up! Then shut the fuck up! Cause our asses livin in troubled times, the real fuckin world. Give a muh fuckah some leeway here. If you can do it, so should we all. And don't punish my Black ass because I'm mockin your so-called guidance of righteousness. Yao Ming?

The Journey (Black Thirty-Eight Year Old Non-Islamic Sufi) 2005

I was searching, reaching, teaching myself how to think through this life. Trying to come up with a truth, a lifelong truth that would keep me steady. Keep me calm and productively seeking the truths of this world. I was inquisitive by nature. But something happened that fateful day, my Mother didn’t allow me to come back home after a miscue, not being able to make it again on my own, trying to run back to my Mother’s titty again. And my Mom’s last statement before the journey began, “No Singleton. We have our own life now. You are 37, it is time for you to start doing for yourself. You know what your Dad and I have taught you. Now it is time to implement that into your own life so our words will not be in vain. I love you dear heart but it is time,” as she kissed me on the cheek and shut the door. I turned away from the porch and looked at the oncoming stormy sky, and thought, how befitting…

Here I was 38 looking 40 dead in the ass. For real! But I could smile like a mah fuckah. Never had I compromised my integrity. Matthew 10:11-14 I always kept dear, my Moms words, the only words:

“And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire whom in it is worthy and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye come into an house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.”

I did a lot of shakin. But my soul was at peace but still searching. I will always be searching in a peaceful way now. I had found the necessary pieces to the puzzle and it was time to start putting them together before my death came upon me. I still thought about death extensively, the horrible way people are dying and have died. Oh, I would hear people saying how lucky or fortunate a person was from not having the perspective lives of the befallen, whether it be severe poverty or the ones who had died tragically and mercilessly. I cried many of times of the souls that humans had an integral part of killing. Figuring everyone in humanity including myself was the genesis of the given persons plights. No one shouting loud enough for the society replete with absurd atrocities of people that humanity itself allowed to happen. Fearing death, and glad of the fact that they were still living ‘better them, than me’ being one of the many mores that seemed to me were inane.

As I walked, I thought about the time. In seven more days, I will turn 39. And in 365 days subsequently, I will turn 40. Five hundred days in total. One hundred and twenty-eight days I have been out amid the world, out on the street. Finding the truth. And the way it is going, I didn't believe in my soul that in 372 days I would obtain what I was out here searching for. But the voice had said five hundred days. And I knew the voice spoke truths. As I looked up at the gray sky, while snowflakes landed softly on my face.

I Miss You Two (Black Twenty-Nine Year Old Male) 2003

I used to hear the phrase,"Those were the good ol' days." Then I would listen to the stories from my Mother or Father and they were in the same days the person who avowed that statement and my Mother or Father would not have quite the same perception. Quite the opposite to tell you the truth.

"Boy, those days were hard," my Father would start out and begin on his revelry of why those days were just that, hard.

My Mother would be kind of diplomatic, always the diplomat, "Well,child," she would start out, "Um. They were just different times is all. Good ol' days. I wouldn't say all that. But they were the times. That's about all I can tell yah." And that's all that she would. No need to rehash things that weren't that pleasant, unlike my Father who would give you chapter and verse about those so-called "good ol' days." But my Mother, if pressed, would tell you about those days but she didn't like to. She wouldn't judge those days, she would just tell you the truth about what went on in those days good or bad, you judge for yourself, but those were the times we were living in no matter what I think of them. And I loved that about her. Never judging those times but giving another, like me, something to noodle. I also loved the way my Father was so judgemental and raw about those times. They both gave me this odd even understanding between the two conjoined very different souls perception of life.

I miss them dearly. I miss them like the sun when it hasn't peeked its shining head around the clouds in a day or three. I miss their voices though I still can hear them in my head as memories pass and their speech patterns as well...

I guess I can only say, if I had to grow up again as they being my parents, they would be so tired of me. I would be around them so much. And the funny thing about it is, they would tell me as much. And I would laugh heartily and still hang on to them until they passed or I did.

And I can tell you honestly in my Father's words, "Days are hard." And I can tell you honestly in my Mother's words, "These days are just the days that we are living in."

I miss you both terribly.

Our Past, Present And The Future (Impoverished Self Educated Female Tribe Person) 1899

I am speaking to all of you from the future because the future is our past. Though the years change you will see throughout your various lifetimes that the human condition stays a constant. Humans have been destined to fail, the soul of a human is fallible at its very core. We constantly believe in the mantra, "I am better than my fellow human," yet, man is no better than woman; white is no better than black; one's religion is no better than another...but...here we still are, fighting with and against one another because of not being able to accept one another. You might be asking yourself, "I thought you were speaking from the future Dear Lady?" I am. Time changes but the human element never does, Our burden to bare less we change. And we can...if...

And that "if" is all up to you. "If" you all choose wisely and without self. Until then the past, present and future for all of US are synonymous.

Blue-Gray Haze (Thirty-One Year Old Troubled Male Tribe Person) 2019

Zigging in and out, round about to shout at the unfair swears I bare. No reason to season such an ugly characteristic to the psychics who are fakes for God’s sakes. Take me to a place where I face the lovely, comely visions of the female persuasion. Taking in the visual comfort without Southern Comfort to haze the maze. Search my mind to find the very kind visions without omissions. Transmissions of a port into my soul which will never depart the picture through the aperture, cure all the ails so I won’t believe it to fail. Sail across the crystal blue water as I saunter and wander. Pander never an option as I walk without the talk of the blowhards sending shards of shrapnel toward society. Lie upon the sun while I tan and stand stoic in this sick existence full of the askew issues visually cosigned biblically by the right's groupies. Tissues full of snot as our souls rot. Check the pot of beans to the scenes of a family tardy to the party of bonding, sounding strange but never deranged as the time counts down in the underground. Pound of green never obscene to be viewed, seen in its compressed state. Fate coming around in this late fornicating state, formulating high always nigh. Sigh for another going under in this thunder. Give me another toke, to smoke. Take me to the hereafter, never to waiver the blue-gray haze to a purple haze. I like the color of blue-gray, it suits me...and you.

The End (Broke Black Prophet) November 30, 2020

Where will you be when time closes? Where will you be when the earth shakes, the heavens roar and those same Beautiful heavens turn black? What will you do when time becomes exacted?...These are some of the questions and times you must prepare for because they are nigh. Much closer than you think My Dear Sisters and Brothers. And Lord help US if we are not prepared because the signs are obvious. Foretold so long ago in The Great Book Of Humankind, from the minor profits to Ecclesiastes. We have been forewarned and it has been foretold what this world aches for and needs in these times of selfish behavior by US all.

The Earth takes it upon itself to heal. And for Mother Earth to heal...humankind must suffer for OUR disobedience.

And I pray to Our God that WE are all prepared...and WE are all ready!

An Ode To A Crackhead (Fifty-Eight Year Old Vietnam Veteran Addicted to Crack Cocaine) 2007

I'm descending. Fast. Oh, the dark sky with the bright full moon; its center stays a constant as I rapidly fall; not changing in its scope or perspective. Fuck it all! I'm so glad I bought the eight ball! My clothes flap vigorously, noisily upwards from whence I came. Life's a damn shame. The bottom is nigh; I can feel its imminence. The wind blows around me and through me.

Let me hit it!

I suck in the harsh air. Feel the death in its properties. But I don't care! Oh, the lovely heavens and the moon. I expel the residuals; coughing horribly from the exhalation; calming down. Marveling at the bright full moon and the dark sky.

Let me hit it!

I flip over on my chest to get my orientation in tact. Blackness all around. But there's always a bottom to the rocks. I pull my arms in. My legs held tightly together, facilitating flight and speed, a human bullet. I smile because it won't be long now. Speeding along, quickening my demise. But I don't care! The air is so pure, pristine.

Let me hit it!

I sully my lungs one last time! Ummmmm! I see my fate coming fast. But I don't care! If I don't hit rock bottom soon...

I'll just hit it again!

Useless Fuckin Information (Black Female Satirist) 1978

So the mothah fuckahs say, "A person blinks on average of fifteen times per minute," or whatevah is the average blink time per minute! Fuck it! My point is, who gives a fuck? Why is that shit important? The shit is involuntary! Fuckin natural!

Now if by knowin that and for some reason yo sorry scientific ass proves, with that blink per minute bullshit that, if a muh fuckah blinks only once per minute and by doin so one will have perfect visual acuity for the rest of their sorry ass lives as long as one continues to blink only once per minute. Shiiit, negro! Now that involuntary becomes voluntary. And a muh fuckah be keepin tabs on that blinkin bullshit!

Other than that...My Black ass just can't believe Our federal-fuckin-government is kickin out good ass grant money fo some shit don't mean shit bout shit! The fuck?! Yah heard may? You heard my Black fine ass!

Peace in bacon grease!

The Deliverance ( Forty-Five Year Old Single Non-Custodial Male Parent Being Denied The Right To See His Child By The Custodial Parent) 2014

I had been praying. The only prayer one should pray, for some forty days and forty nights. The Lord's Prayer, endless times throughout the day. Oft times while working the production line at the local car manufacturing plant where I was employed. I didn't have to go into a closet because my prayers were in secret. Praying in my mind, "Our Father, who art in heaven..." While the seemingly endless amount of parts rolled down the line to my station, my co-worker and I working in concert would have to assemble them, again and again until the ten hour shift was done. Then I had to get up and do it all over again the next day.

There was no way I could do this until my retirement age, even if I am 45 years old, 2o years more of this wasn't going to happen. Not doing this mindless, thankless, banal labor. A trained monkey could do it really. But the monkey would probably even quit after about fifteen minutes saying, "Let me go back to the trees. Chill out while eating my bananas. Cause this is bananas." So I prayed diligently in secret throughout the day.

But the voice wasn't heard until I had arrived home today. After taking a forty minute long shower, the first ten minutes of which was hot enough to probably boil an egg, the last thirty of which my hot water heater had long since given up its residual heat. The last ten of the thirty of the less than tepid minutes was of me, sitting on the tub's floor while the now cool water sprayed me with seasoned affection, baptizing me from the day.

I had turned the water off. Baby oiled my entire body, annointing and moisturizing my now thoroughly cleansed skin. Toweled off. Brushed my teeth two times. Rinsed my mouth and looked at myself in the medicine cabinet's mirror. Sad, withered eyes peering back at me. As I prayed in my mind. Finally I closed my eyes and opened them slowly. The same sad eyes and countenance were still looking back at me. I smiled, my sad smile at those sad eyes and said aloud, "It is finished." Gave my eyes one more chance to change. They didn't. They never did. I shook my head giving up for the night. I was tired and weary.

I walked to my bed, a welcomed sight for such an aging body. Pulled back the comforter and the sheet. And just before I was going to dive in and fall into a long awaited slumber, I knelt beside my bed, in my nakedness, and began to pray again. And when I had said the last of The Lord's Prayer ending with, "...For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen." That's when the voice filled my senses and the room.

"Are you ready our Son?" The voice asked.

"I don't know. I need to do this on my own," I said.

"You always have. And you always will. We are just here to guide you. Not hinder you. What you do with that guidance is your choice. You know that." The voice said.

"I don't know," I said again.

"Don't be scared our Son. It's way past the time. Don't fight it any longer. You know. You are ready. And you've been ready for a long time now," The voice said.

I began to weep. Tears coming down my face like a sault. Finally getting my composure back from the emotion washing over and rushing through me.

"Yes!" I said breaking down again in spastic weeping. And as in a last ditch effort before I totally lost control, I cried out unto the voice, "Yes! Yes! Dear Lord! I'm ready! I'm ready!"

To Know (Jilted Twenty-Six Year Old Homosexual Male) 2014

It all started with knowledge, the act or practice of knowing. The one word, know, is a testament of humankind as it is utilized in The Great Book of Humankind.

You see, it all starts with that intimate exchange with another and consummating it with coital activity. And that is where it has all gone wrong. “To know,” someone is saying just that, you have decided to let someone inside of you or put their insides around you because you have decided to let the other really get to know you by being inside or engulfing you.

But we have lost that ideology a long time ago.

We no longer have to know one another, “to know” one another. So it seems.

In Harmony (Sensient Female Tribes Person) 2015

There's this vast loneliness that you go through when you're by yourself a lot. But you don't dare rush it. The destined encounter; connected souls in this vast rain forest of people, space and time. Both of you crying out the others name in the subconscious of neurotransmitters; beeping an SOS to one another; yet, not seeing the other, but knowing that your future life's partner is there because of the constant rhythmic beat that goes on inside your heart, your soul; in syncopation with that other lonely, lost twin flame of a composition; sending those electrical volts across the spectrum in harmony with that other. And when your heart starts skipping a beat, start looking around vigilantly; because your soul is picking up that other individual's familiar, perpetual, Beautiful melody that it's heard so many times in this lifetime of loneliness. But don't be scared of the mate which was composed in concert.

Now every piece of the orchestra has its perspective musical language of notes. Finally the orchestral sounds are ready. Your heart starts beating those Lovely notes naturally, the way it is supposed to be.

The music starts to sweetly play. Look around...and that Some One that will take away the horrible ache of loneliness will be there harmoniously. Hopefully in life.

Alas, I'll find mine in Death.

The South Tower (Fifty-Three Year Old Male Diagnosed w/ PTSD) 2011

I was running, as always, through the outside concourse that would lead to some kind of safety. Away from the South Tower. And just as in all the other episodes, there was a chunk of flesh landing around me, as I continued to run. The more I ran the more chunks started coming down. Now, raining flesh and warm moist blood. Looking down seeing nothing but red every where. Little pieces of flesh hanging on my blood soaked shirt, while my legs continued to pump hard, running away. And just before I hit those stairs, that would lead me to the outer street, a little safety, but it was a start...then waking up breathing hard. Heart rate way out of control.

I hate sleeping. Would stay up for days at a time because when sleep would overtake me, there were always those nightmares, like just before, I desperately wanted to avoid if not stop all together. But that latter wish was just that, a wish. Never to be granted. Ever. And that's why I wasn't really living at all. I am just here.

I often thought, since I was one of the few who survived, "Why me?" Why did I have a right to live and so many died on that fateful September eleventh day? I started understanding that maybe death does have its benefits. When one evades it, whatever the circumstance, Death makes one pay for taking away Death's deity-al nature, to also be able to give or to take life as necessary. If I would have died, I wouldn't be going through my certifiably diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Gravity and concrete plays havoc on the self sustaining human form from that height. People could believe what they wanted. I was a witness. And they're not going to show you what I witnessed on television, that reality was not an option to broadcast, ever. Not even on the Internet. All those films were seized, taken into federal custody as evidence, in a secured vault some place, where no one could leak not even one second of the over five-hundred-thousand minutes of footage seized.

I remembered just like it had just happened that day. The day I had been stuck in for nine years, eleven months, twenty-seven days, fourteen hours, thirty-eight minutes and thirty-two seconds.

The Percussion Session (Forty-Two Year Old Non-Custodial Parent Supposedly In Arrears) 2011

I had been processed. Now, I was officially a jailbird. No O-R for my ass! Hell no! Ain't gonnah get out of this bitch til court time. Muh fuckah! And the fuckin smell in the mothah fuckah! Good goddamned! Mothah fuckin animals don't even get treated like this. Bacteria laden for sure. Touch any part of the cell, had this tackiness to it, like the bitch workin on the next bacteria strain for the next layer upon many.

And my head pounding like a bitch! Feeling the high blood pressure I had been diagnosed with some three years ago.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!...

Not particularly incessant, gettin on my nerves but it was only a matter of time.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!...

That building of the symphony of my rhythms, breaking in its concert slowly, until all the instruments are unable to be discerned except for the percussion section.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!...

I, looking around at the four faces, my cellies, looking at me humorously. I, just breaking ground, crossing over from citizen status to non. And my filthy surroundings! Goddamn! Shit all on the fuckin toilet bowl, tank, handle...and what a fuckin surprise, no fuckin seat! Nas-to-the-ty! Fuckin nasty! Why in the fuck was I here?!

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!...

I couldn't take it any more! So, I hollered out, "Hey man!" to the female C-O. It was like I hadn't said a thang. "I'm sorry! Maam! My head is killin me! I got high blood pressure! I need my medication!" The female C-O kept reading whatever she was reading! Not givin a damn! Conditioned ignorance.

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!...

"Maam! Please!" I pleaded. Nothing again. So I, feeling weak, with my head against the bars, arm extended through two of the bars, took my fist and came down hard, in frustration, on a shelf that stretched fifteen feet out from the cell. Which, at the end, was where the female C-O's desk was situated. And shit! Where a lamp sat at the end of the long shelf, the lamp that was the light for the images and words in the female C-O's magazine of choice. A lamp that was now tumbling down, in slow motion, from the vibration of my in angered action. A lamp heading straight down on the female C-O's head! Mothah fuckah! Hitting home! And shit! Why the fuck did I have to do that?! The female C-O jumped erect!

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!...

And thank God! I felt myself slipping away from this terrible, filthy place. The percussion section in full swing now. Thundering. So sweet were those sounds. Drums calling me home!

I started thinking of My Child. Sweet Beautiful girl. The only person I would miss in this dreaded life gone horribly wrong. I'll see you on the other side my Dear Sweet Daughter of mine. Daddy, Loves You! And I will always be with You! Forever! Because this, assuredly, must be Heaven!

I heard the voices. The rumblings. The cell keys messing with the lock. Felt rough hands on my neck, arms and legs...the percussion section never missing a beat through all of this.

Then everything just went beautifully pitch black.

The Great Smoke Out (Fifty Year Old Ex-Smoker) 2013

Smokers are a rare breed; a dying species...eventually becoming extinct.