Sobering Statistics

I'm tired of talkin' regular, and no one listenin', so I'm goin' to have to shout this one, and y'all will have to listen.

Let's see...It all started when I was 16, I came out as bi, and was instantly shouted down, being called a "faggot queen." You see, I lied to myself, desperate to get away from hate, I pushed myself back into the closet, not wanting to make family and friends irate. I wanted to be myself, but I also wanted to fit in, I turned to religion and church, whispered my plan to God, and he turned me around and said, guess again. I fed the sick and needy, held the lame and dying, clothed the naked, and gave room to the homeless. I saw that no matter what I did, problems still grew around me. I saw no help from the churches, no kind words or donations from pulpits or peoples. I grew stale in my love for fellow man, pushed away all who thought I was less than. I came out again, sashay and sequins, feather boas and bling-blingin'. I gave hope to those who could find none, kind words and prayers to the broken, love to the unwanted, trying to bring truth to the dishonest. I found out some things, about my fellow loving man, somethings that hurt themselves, but more often others.

This is where there are no rhymes. There are no jokes. There are no pleas. This is no longer where I sit silent. I'm going to say this, and it's going to hurt. We aren't doing enough.

153 million orphaned,
1.7 million youth homeless,
40% of them are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender.

You wanna know why that number is mind-boggling high? 680,000 homeless lgbt youth? Does that give you a sick taste, a horrible gut feeling, a want to hold your nearest child, brother, or sister?

No? Then you're the problem. Those kids, their first bully? Mom and Dad and the rest of their family. No? Do I have to call upon the names of the angels who died this last year from suicide because their lives got so rough, that the final solution, was the only solution? Let me shout this one for the birds in the rafters, the rats under the floor boards, and for those ignoring me in the back;
If you give birth to your child, and say you don't care who they mature into, and then, as they grow older, they don't become what you want them to be - you. never. loved. them. You only loved your idea of them. You daughter is now Jack? Oh, you kicked him out, you turned your back, and you made his life hell. Your son is gay, he's just come out, looking for support, and you shot him down and made him lie in the dirt. You never realized that with your words leaving your mouth, that they would be the powder for the bullets, the knots in the noose, the breeze to push them over the cliff. They weren't the problem, you were.

I'll say it again, if your children aren't who you wanted them to be, you never loved them. You loved the idea of them. And you failed them.

Thank You.

No Longer Preachin' To The Choir

Dearest brothers and sisters of our most holy, more amazing, most awe-inspiring fellowship of word smiths, jumping jive janglers, sensual sirens, and confessional characters;

Every time I get up in front of you, I like to think I bare a little bit of my soul, share a little bit of my weathered heart. Bringin' forth some truths that may be a bit hard to swallow. Seasonin' your ears with fire spittin' out of my mouth.

I've talked at you about myself being a humble man, a hopeful man, a loving man, a broken man, an imperfect man.

I've talked at you about various social and religious plagues that not only inhabit our society, but have festered within us all, yours truly included.

I've talked about hypocrisies within society, unfair treatment of our brethren, making right with those we have wronged, loving those who have never seen love.

I've talked about all of this, to you, and still, I see some problems in our congregation.

Now, I'm done preachin' to the choir, I know most of you can testify to seeing these plights as well, so I'm going to speak to the rest of the congregation. I'm going to light a little fire under their seats. I'm going to make them sweat with discomfort, weep with jubilation, moan in ecstasy, and then I'm going to open my mouth.

So sit back, dear choir, because this young preacher is about to lay down the universal law.

Star-wrapped Lovers

Arctoe et Draco,

Bär und Drache,

Ours et Dragon,

Even the stars knew

That we would be together,

Ursa and Draco.

How tightly you wrap

Your claws and wings

And serpentine scaled

Body around mine.

We never dip into the sea

With each end or beginning

Of night, so too do

We not lose ourselves when

The other is no longer in

Our sight.

Ursa and Draco,

Bear and Dragon,

Together to love,

Together to last.

Lirica

The sea breeze bounces and rolls across the deck,

Flittering and fluttering and flapping

Towels and sun hats and every other cloth aboard.

The ship, at port, a standing floating

Maritime megalith of momentous Mediterranean

Class of cruise-liners.

Only at sea does one feel the pulse of life aboard –

Not just the sounds of every European tongue wagging,

But the subtle underfoot vibration of powerful engines,

The soft clinking and ice-in-metal clunking

Of the master of the mix-and-shake-and-pour,

The almost echo of metal knife-and-fork scraping

Against the glass and ornamental dishware within

The luxurious main dining areas.

This, all of this, just felt moments after stepping

Onto this sea-bound
Lirica.

3 am....

I never wanted my lips to miss yours,
my eyes to miss the sight of your smile,
the scent of you gone from around me.

I never wanted myself to fall so hard,
to be up at 3 am pacing the ceiling,
memorizing each line of grain of the wood
as I call out for you in my mind,
wishing, waiting, hoping to hear a response.

It isn't hell anymore when I hold you in my arms,
your naked smooth, supple, voluptuous skin against mine,
your every curve resting and blending with mine,
your fingers lightly tracing the veins up my arms,
lacing their way entwined with my fingers,
your lips slowly making soft moist craters against my skin
as you descend ever lower against me...

Oh, how I miss you at 3:30 am,
my mind imagining sins
that our bodies make
during each daily confession of love,
how I miss you now, as I roll over, and
you are not beside me...

Stipulations of Religion

Sometimes it's the broken church,
the sad church,
the church with the smashed and missing
stained glass windows -

that is the better church,
the truer church,
the more godly church
for which your and my god(s) are meant
to be honored in -

sometimes it's the church that has broken pews,
has an attendance of barely three,
sometimes it's the church that has a
belfry barely held up by worn-weathered-wood -

it's not always the biggest church,
the shiniest church,
the church with a thousand parishioners,
the perfect church can be a clearing in the woods,
a bus-stop confessional,
under the over-pass bridge where the
young and broken and homeless
stay away from all of the pain that they feel each new day -

Don't always look for your god(s) in the shiny church,
don't always look for your spirituality in a
room with everyone that looks and prays like you,
don't always look for salvation from a faith built in a house of gold.

You'll find your god(s), your spirituality,
your salvation from within first,
if not there,
 then in the faces of those you won't dare look at.

Don't pray in a marble cathedral,
if you're afraid of praying in a
fallen wooden church first.

Breathing "I Love You"s...

I'm in the room where sleep should be had,
but instead pacing and cursing and
sadness is clinging to the walls,
putrid emotional wallpaper held on by tacks
of self-doubts and self-anger and self-denial -

I hear the words leaving my mouth, and I
watch as they float across the room,
hijackers of emotional terrorism
stealing and flying planes of feelings
into the pillars within your soul, the
light fading from your eyes as I see
the doubt fire from my lips to pierce your heart -

You're out of the room, having left to
do self-triage on the wound that bottled alcohol
and bottled anxiety and bottled depression caused,
You're out of the room where you felt a second emotion against
love from my lips, where you watched me fall apart,
where you saw my inner most bare beast and even then,
you let your fear go, and you held on as I tore through my
worst mistakes and fears like thin sheets in the wind,
you wouldn't let me go...
and I dared your heart to a competition,
to see if it knew what I really was like on the
inside, and you called my bluff -

You left the room, because even in my most un-sober moment,
I twirled further into the ball of doubt and anxiety
that I wound with each new breath,
and you left the room,
to take everything all said
and done and cried and lied about;
into context.
You don't care that I find myself some days
sinking ever deeper,
ever farther down into the insanity that
plagues my family -
you don't care about any of that.

You tell me that no matter how far I fall, how long I sink,
how deep I go into my own darkness that seems to never leave me -
you tell me that no matter what,
you'll never leave me,
that you will be there to catch me when I fall,
to pull me back up from the bottom of the drink,
to bring the light into my life with every touch
and laugh and brush of your lips on mine.
You see me at my worst, hold up a mirror, and say,

"See, even now, you're the most beautiful beast,
so don't let your tears stain your scars
and don't let your fears cloud the bright skies in your mind.
Let everything go, and let the warmth grow,
because with every breath you breathe,
you have to relearn to un-clench your fist,
and let your failures and fears go.
This won't be easy, and it won't be undemanding,
but with every breath in, you call out my name,
and with every breath out,

you breathe an 'I love you'."