In The Best Interests? (Non-Custodial Parent, Aaron Thompson, Plea To The Indiana Johnson County Juvenile Court) 2009

“Mr. Thompson, do you have anything you want to say,“ The judge asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said, and proceeded to lay down my reasonable law. “The way I’ve been treated down here in Johnson county Indiana…well…I’ve been treated like a nigga. I don’t know how else to put it. The head of the ADR in these parts, Mr. Saturn, he told me straight up, ”Mr. Thompson, you’re not going to change the way things go on around here.” Fuck that mean? I still want to ask that motha fuckin so-called mediating attorney that. Why? Because she’s white and I’m Black? The fuck? I don’t have the right as a caring parent; albeit Father, which you courts don’t think two shits about, to have Zoe at least half of the time? Half of her life is not reasonable? Why? Cause I’m a nigga? Cause I’m a punk ass man, and if I really was a man, in the traditional court mindset, I would be out there at work, providing and slaving for my child? Not, wanting to spend time with the child, scaling down. A fuckin sperm donor? The fuck? That’s not a man’s duty to care about the rearing of his child or children. So, what am I doing as a caring male parent? Impeding upon the traditional mores and values of a race that don’t have the faintest clue anymore of how to raise a child or raise their children? Due diligence. I have witnessed firsthand of what I must do as a parent, not Mother or Father, but a motha fucka who played God and now the role of God don’t look so hot because the creator has been duped into a contract with another creator who’s creation was nothing more than the other creator being…bored. Not, realizing what that one creation will become, or what responsibilities belies when one plays God and creates. The power of Gods hand: I give you the gift of knowing creation. The greatest and most priceless gift God could ever have given US, his soul, discernment. And what do we do with it? We fight with one another about the time the creation can spend with one creator than with the other creator. We drink; work all the damn time; do drugs…cause we have found out, this creation shit ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Touché! Touché! God is a stupid motha fucka to keep putting in the pot on this gamble. He called. I called. And whatasurprise! Loser. Every fuckin time. But he did… and he does. I did..and I do. Because, like Our Heavenly Father, I have hope. And with that hope, Our child cannot become wayward. This society is replete with wayward children; hence, my non-traditional role of a Father; albeit, just a plain old parent. I am only guilty of that, just trying to be a plain old parent. I want this court to pity the man which stands in front of this judge. And I also want this court to pity the situation Zoe is in, in the creation process. The creation has no choice. The creators make those choices for them. I just want to be a part of my creation. I have nothing more to say Your Honor.”

Heaven Is Nigh (Broke Black Prophet) 2016

Take the time to find the fine line in this life of pitiable destiny. Blessed to be a wild child, instead of being meek and mild; it's so plain to see in me; piled high to the sky looking and knocking on Heaven's door.

No one has ever answered. Sent a request before I am dead, asking: "I keep knocking, will someone let me in?"

A terse response contained therein, "I don't care! But there's no need to keep knocking! My son, you are already here!"

The Little Big Things (Twenty-Three Year Old Male Tribe Person Smitten By Female Tribe Person of The Same Age) 1984

She smiles;
And when she does her teeth gleam so ivory;
Innocently;
Beatifically.
Face emitting a Lovely wondrous glow
From her Beauty.
Eyes dancing at me...

I'm hopelessly in Love.

Goodbye (Dead Caucasian American Poet) 1998

Let the fire roar while I soar into another life. Let the past be my present and future as I drift into my final slumber whence to never return. I have seen the light; alas, it is as pitch black as any ominous darkness that I could have ever imagined. But I stand stoic, never bending or giving into, this dreaded untold world which I am about to embark upon. A journey that I know not the origin or the given destination, save many have called it "Death." Bring it on! I have sailed the various seas and oceans. I have traveled many of places and I stand intrepid on the precipice of the point of no return with not a choice but a path that has been set for humankind so long ago, and I am no different. I revel in just that, I-am-no-different. Destination, Death. And the wondrous thing about that is...where be my destination posthumously.

Seeing In The Dark (Blog Author) 2005

I know this guy. He had so much promise, so much light within his soul it was a Beautiful thing to behold. Now though, the light has went out and he tries so desperately to find a match or something to start the fire again. He'll find it eventually. Maybe he has not a clue that there are things all around him that can ignite that fire again. I'm sure that there are. He just likes the darkness. And he'll find the ignition soon enough, when he is ready to feel the warmth again. But for now, he finds solitude and strength in that same darkness where most would find it absolutely cold and unbearable. But one must understand darkness to appreciate the effulgent light. Right?

Seeing is easy in the light, but the darkness hones the other senses we all possess; yet, we do not use them to their full potential, less we live in and appreciate the darkness for a time.

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!"