you don't have to fuck the rich, they've already fucked themselves

but was it worth it?
to turn gifts of love to gold
now gold is all that remains?
did it ever buy you
anything worth having?

happy holidays, y'all

christmas always sucked. with the little charlie brown tree mom picked up for deep discount (sometimes free) on christmas eve, i would wrap my baby blanket around its base, hoping maybe we could have a happy holiday, just once... but that never happened. not really. never got the presents i wanted, well except that one year there was a mountain of presents, after the parents divorced, and everyone must have pitched in to help us have presents under the tree. but the giant size barbie i wanted most of all turned out to not be near as much fun as the ad on teevee made it seem. that year, i got what i wanted and christmas still sucked. so i kinda quit doing the holidays when i was old enough to stay home when the family went visiting relatives or whatever... just wasn't with it. the bad boys got all the cool toys because their parents had money. santa was a fake. it just totally sucked and i wanted no part of it.

and then...
many many years later, decades later, in fact.
something magical happened! i had children of my own! and a mission to not let christmas suck for them like it always did for me. and it took me a while, but i started actually enjoying the decorations, and the cookies, the songs, and even the gift-giving. last year was the best christmas, ever! so this one won't suck, either. because my children taught me how to enjoy their childhood, since i never did really enjoy my own.

peace on earth
goodwill toward men
and women and children
and all the little critters, too

(added the following as an afterthought)

i still wrap that same blanket around the base of our tree. except the year meriel wouldn't let me take it from her for that purpose, because she had claimed it for her own.

i remember when i got that blanket, too. dad was working at macy's so was in the parade. i guess it was where monica was born, she was still a baby. not petersburg, somewhere close to there, can't remember. so we went to watch the parade and it was real cold. a stranger gave me that blanket, just out of the kindness of his heart, to help keep me warm.

so that blanket i guess was my reminder that i needed reminded of today. i took it with me to college. somehow, even through the first marriage, when i left just about everything i owned behind, i held on to that blanket a stranger gave me when i was very small. one small act of kindness that always stayed with me.

to be free...

wishes are wasted
on trivial things
like fame and fortune
and success

you can dream bigger than that

some people never learn:
gifts are meant to be given away,
and when you use them for profit,
or personal gain, or to hurt people,
you don't get any more of them.
but when you share them freely
they will take us one step closer
to that which we all wish for
the freedom to be ... to be free

but wait! there's more!

and i can call it poetry
and you can pretend
it's not about you

here be monsters!

ego is a self defense mechanism too?
and we build these defenses for protection
but what they do is imprison us
and hurt anyone who gets too close

conscious awareness would seem to be
the answer to the question nobody is asking.
so there's denial involved, which says
there is nothing to be aware of,
go back to sleep.

i know the way
to where?
nobody wants to go
here be monsters!

i can't go there for you,
but i can show you my scars



ahhhh... the scars...
they prove i can heal.
the scars where
defenses used to be.
they aren't gone though
they don't ever go away
my awareness only means
it can't control me anymore

who you gonna follow?

it's kinda like somebody who was born blind gonna describe colors to you. it's not that they aren't intelligent enough, it's just that they lack the experience from which to draw any conclusions that really count.

in a world of colorblind people, i'm certain those who see color would be considered insane.

and the attempt to make it stop, to not be such a freak, to pretend like you don't see the pretty colors that nobody else can see, that would turn anybody insane. for real.

and then someday science might prove to the colorblind world that color really does exist, and the oppressed and persecuted crazy color-seers were right all along...

maybe...

or maybe they would rather find some special light therapy that would blind those who see color, and put them out of their misery.

anything to make it stop

hush now

shhhhh...
did you hear that?

a whispered memory
of a promise made
very long ago?

no, it was
nothing
nothing
at all

maybe the breeze
stirred the tatters
this raggedy shirt
my favorite one
don't know why
i can't throw it out