The first drug I ever did was heroin.

The rapper sat across from me. He was on the phone. He motioned to me not to do it.

Fernie lit it.

He worked for Wells Fargo.

That was a nickname.

He was the same one

that carried me to the couch.

Passed out.

Also anorexic.

When I went down

my very small

tits

were exposed

they could not call for help

but they were ready

for

sex

and he carried me to the couch

that man

that lit the fire

he saved me

and I wonder

to this day

if he is alive.

The memory that comes to mind each day, keeps me smiling. One day Long ago, when I picked up my daughter from her classroom. She said this profound statement; “Dad, if you see someone without a smile, give them your smile.”

Thoughts rushed through my head on the wisdom of my six-year-old. She continued, “Dad, you have the best smile even when things are tuff. I believe if you share your smile it will make people happy like it does me.”

It has been 61 years now and it is fresh as the day it happened.

Hope the mask can come off, and smiles reappear on the faces of all mankind. Even so, the eyes are the window to the heart. I can see a smile, even with a mask covering the face. It comes from the heart of each person.

There is blood everywhere, its covering the walls, my clothes, even a curl that fell in my hair is dripping with the offending red liquid. But yet, I’m not dead. The man across from me holding a knife equally coated in blood seemed just as surprised as me; since when does a knife to the heart not kill someone?

Another wave breaks on the shore of mankind's greatest longing. A wave of resonance, as the fractal elements of the outer world fold in on themselves, annihilating the dissonance of matter into an expansive harmony of energy. The beating of the eternal heart, the standing wave of time, of which we are only half-conscious, promises mankind a backwards-awakening - the realization of negative time.

From our precarious perch in the positive timeline, we see a causal framework based on the monotony of time. We never stop to consider whether this time might be in harmony with itself, with it's opposite. A fish never knows what air's like until it crosses the surface - it can only observe the effects of that air on the water, which also confuses it about the nature of water.

Clarity is to be found in infinity, the infinite occilations of time, what we all unconsciously know.

Actions and reactions also make you the person you are.

Your past that brought you to the futrue also makes up who you are.

Not quite an anaswer to the challenge, but an answer to everything else.

I grew up in a small town, not far from I am now, where everyone knew my name.

Trust me- I could not leave my house without someone asking me "How's Mother?" "How's Father?"

Sounds Idyllic right?

Well I drowned in it.

Always having to live up to mum, dad, brothers. I tried to be me, but everyone saw that as wrong, as being sad, as being depresed! By the way my Maths GCSE was a B, my brother got the A.

I wanted to run away, away from all of it, away to a big city where noone knew me, and I did, a university course at the greates biggest city you can imagen. I made so many freinds, met so many people, but soon they learnt my name and expected me to live up to well.... not my family, no, they never met my family, but expected me to live up to well... everything I am... I guess, expected me live up tooooo just being myself.......

Then under the wieght of trying to live up to the grade I created for myself in year 1, I cracked. I cracked under the pressure I put myself under, under the pressure non one saw but me, and I HIT the wrong person (and for braking that freindship and that trust I will never forgive myself)

I went back to my home town, back to where everyone knew me, feeling safe and secure back home with family, freindship, love and one day I trunned a corner to find the person I had wronged sitting at a bus stop and I cracked, panic attack. I waited in the shadows and got the second bus. This time I ran, I ran away to a tiny town, poulation 127 tiny.

Unknow I worked my butt off for their tiny town, then I met Him, I didn't even realise how big a repuation he had in this small town and this time I didn't hit them, I kissed them, and I've been running back to that kiss, that small town, ever since.

But now I'm scared again, scared the rest of the village know and are laughing at me behind my back. And so I'm scared to return, scared to go back, scared to return to the house I called home for the last 4 years of my life. The house in the village I picked out for myself.

Sounds a bit silly right......

Right now I hear the blower on the gas fireplace. Such a sound, any constant sound soothes me and does not distract me. The sound of the dryer in the background has the same effect upon me, our refrigerator not so much because it is not constant, anything but, and I coulda shoulda read the reviews. "So loud." One review even called it "an obnoxious musical disaster." I agree. Unfortunately I read the reviews after my purchase. It was on sale. Love a sale. Luckily the refrigerator is far enough away from my bedroom, otherwise I might be tempted during my sleepless nights to blame my insomnia on its preordained misbehavior. Being around my refrigerator reminds me of being at one of my kids first year strings concerto; not good, but you have to be there when it's your kids recital, looking towards the stage with pride, occasionally looking towards another parent with a "we gotta be here" shrug. You can't leave and you accept your fate in the moment as is the case when I am near my refrigerator when it is acting all bitchy. Regarding a sleepless night, I do realize lack of sleep is due to my own mental state, my "me and my story" being out of sync, but isn't it convenient to place the blame elsewhere?

Since I am in gripe mode and you asked "what do you hear," my all time auditory pet peeve is being forced to listen to music when I am seeking silence. Anywhere. At the beach, in the park, but especially in my own back yard, my sanctuary. I cannot write, I cannot read with music playing in the background at all. I do not know if this means I just have control issues, or some type of sensory impairment, or one of the seven types of ADD, because when I went to school things were simple. Look at the blackboard, here are your books, listen to your teacher. Do your homework. Boom. Reports cards come. Have them signed. Returned. Boom. That was it. Classifications? No such thing in my day. So what if I sound ancient. A leopard has spots.

I picked up these earplugs at Wal-Mart. They are foam. They are disposable and they pretty much do the trick when my neighbor is in blast the country music mode but I find myself still distracted once I pop them in by his audacity when personal earbuds are such a thing, especially when I've been candid with him that I adore the outdoors and silence. But hey. I do realize it's a free country, with free airspace and he has the right to do what he wants on his property. But do I have to like it?

So what do I hear? Fortunately, nothing right now that gets my dander up. Are you sorry you asked?

"i make everyone uncomfortable,"

you said

as you stood up

from the heavyweight chair

and announced why you were here with us in group.

you did not make anyone squirm,

but we couldn't say that

unless we raised our hands

and asked for permission,

so we all kept our shaking fingers

in our laps

and let silence spread

like the plague.

your chestnut brown eyes hid behind thick-framed glasses,

but they looked kinder than everyone else's-

reflected hints of hope hung in your pupils.

your words sounded like recovery

and your crooked smile looked like

you were getting there.

at snack time,

we played five rounds of uno together

and you made me laugh

for the first time

since my admission.

you cracked jokes and your knuckles

repeatedly-

so much so that

it almost felt like

we weren't in a hospital,

sitting in plastic chairs

across from each other's

inpatient bracelet.

we'd never spoken before that

and

we never spoke again.

to tell the truth,

i don't think you even knew my name.

you left early the next morning

and you did not say goodbye to me.

considering that we were both just patients passing through,

that was fine.

i guess i didn't impact your life as much as you impacted mine.

Heart's shattered

everytime I think of you

You left me abruptly

Now i'm sad and blue

Wofieividkzocjwicurjvobiejxyw

I am seriously annoyed i can't think of anything to write!!!!!!!!

Sorry that was random..

A kid was thrown in, and he sat by the toilet, which was in open view. The kid was insane, sores on his face, a tic that made both eyes jump. But after the spasms, a look of pure psychosis took him over, extended his frontal lobe and made his stare sickening. One of the inmates looked at him, at his hair high and scattered, at his facial hair just beginning to sprout, and the inmate laughed.

“Looking pretty on top of your game, homie.”

The kid sat there and stared at him, and the stare became worse, Helena. The kid’s eyes were killing him, and a half-smile crossed the kid’s face. The stare began to eat him alive. The inmate, a big, black guy with short dreads, cocked his head at him:

“You lookin’ at somethin’ motherfucker?”

The kid stared harder, the smile became worse, and the black guy got up off his chair and threw his arms out.

“What, motherfucker? No, you ain’t fuckin’ clownin’ me, dawg. I’ll clean the floor with your goddamn peckerwood ass!”

The door opened and two deputies came in holding their pepper spray. The black guy ran back to his chair and put his hands up, but the deputies only glanced at him. They stood over the kid. One of the deputies looked at the other.

“They fucked up. He was supposed to go into a single cell.”

They took a step back.

“Alright, Rodney, you’re going to have to stand for us, do you understand? We don’t want to have to spray you again, and we know you don’t want us to.”

The kid looked at me, but it wasn’t a look of madness, it wasn’t a look like he’d given the other guy. It was a look for help behind the calm psychosis. I raised an eyebrow at him, tried to think to him: stand up, kid, don’t let these fuckers take you by force, it’ll only hurt you down the road. He stared at me, and I nodded to him. He looked back up to them then stood, turned, and they cuffed him. The black guy nodded at him, “Yeah, bitch. Best to get your punk ass out-my cell before I kick your little bitch ass back to the suburbs.”

One of the deputies turned around.

“You’re lucky we didn’t let him rip your fucking head off, player.”

They walked him out and put him in a cell across the hall. The black guy leaned back.

“They just did that motherfucker a favor.” He looked at me. I walked over to the toilet and pissed, flushed, washed my hands and sat. A group was called out, four of them, chained and walked down the hall to a courtroom. The black guy stared across. It was the two of us.

“What you in on, man? You look like a smart motherfucker. I know you ain’t done no real time, because you got some real color in your ink.”

“Don’t talk to me, man.”

He leaned back and laughed.

“Oh, one of them strong, silent woods. How about I come over there and slap the shit outta you, boy?”

“I’m not a wood, motherfucker. But be my guest. Catch a new charge. I’ll let you hit me right in the face.”

“Chickenshit.”

“Yeah. I’m going to trial. What are you pleading out to?”

“Man, fuck you.”

“You’re not my type.”

He rested his elbows on his knees and looked at me, then broke up laughing. I stared at him while he laughed, and I looked around the cell. Bars, concrete, a bare toilet, and screams from the cells across the halls. I smiled at him and had a laugh. It was all that was left.