Truth Scraps

Things I Had To Find Out

I remember my first apartment. It never felt like home, it was sparse and empty. It smelled of stale cigarets and flat beer. But I needed to go there and find things out for myself. I had to rid myself of parents and daily routines of doing chores——that draining feeling of being someones child, being someones pride and burden. It’s an awful feeling of being young and realizing that you’re going nowhere fast. Failure is a brutal teacher. 

I thought it was going to be a lot different. I dreamt that there’d be girls, all kinds of girls. Girls dancing with me in the dark, spending their nights in my ramshackle pad. I thought there’d be late night parties, beer for breakfast and never having to make my bed or mow my dad’s lawn. But mainly, it ended up being me and a couple of buddies sitting on my broken down couch, smoking pot and drinking the cheapest beer we could find. 

We found out the hard way that the girls wanted boys with fancy cars and college bound incomes. They went for the boys who were going to Cabo for Spring Break and living off the money their parents gave to them freely. 

Me and my buddies spent long nights hanging out in my dimly lit apartment. Our big plans veiled the fear that our dreams were like all those pretty girls, untouchable, just out of reach. And it ached deep down to watch them walk by, hand in hand with their privileged preppies. They left a trail of republican stench in their wake. 

As for us, we were never going to comprises and end up working for “the man”. We were going to travel, see the world, have grand adventures and yes, we’d find carefree girls too. But we found out that everything had a price, everything cost money.  The fast-food jobs sucked, and the jobs working at the Canneries were tedious, heartless and grueling. We were constantly being fired for showing up late, or being hungover and not showing up at all. We were  expendable to “the man”. Our only refuge was the broken down apartment where we could exchange big ideas and plot out our untested futures. 

But, this world is designed to castrate young men and squeeze every last drop of life out of them. They wanted us to be content working at their mindless, meaningless, soul sucking jobs that were designed to make us feel insignificant, replicable. Replaceable like a worn out part or broken piece of machinery. They enjoyed watching us fight each other over the table scraps they tossed us. 

There would be a string of rundown apartments, quicksand jobs and that sound of silent screams of someone under water, someone suffocating. The American Dream was a con, a lost cause, a carrot dangling just out of reach, but close enough to keep us plodding along like dimwitted plow horses. 

So, one day I woke up and I stopped trying to be something or somebody. I stopped, shook my head and walked away from it all, from the city and its constant drone of nothingness. Along with its horde of brainwashed proletariat working stiffs, who’s only purpose was to make the rich richer. They worked at dreadful jobs to pay the mortgage on houses they left empty so that they could go to work and pay their mortgage. They got loans to buy cars that they drove from home to work and from work to home in a vicious circle. It all seemed so senseless to me. There was nothing there for me. I had no use for that world that once left me feeling insignificant. I moved to the mountains and never looked back. I found purpose hiking in the woods and sharing sunsets and sunrises with fellow pariahs.

Like I said “I had to find things out for myself”.

Education and Knick-Knacks

This piece is dedicated to a good friend and talented teacher—-Roberta

A complete education teaches critical thinking, non conformity, risk taking and personal accountability. It teaches students to think for themselves and to follow facts not opinions. This requires students to become well rounded in their quest for knowledge and truth. What good is it if a student studies nuclear physics but has no appreciation for the frailties of humanity. What good is it to study philosophy but to not be given the tools to decipher right from wrong. What good it is to study history if you can’t apply it to solving todays social issues. As the saying goes, “Those that fail to learn from history are destine to repeat it”. An education should prepare students to answer the most difficult questions. This includes questions regarding morality, social justice, racism, global warming, political ideals and religion—-to only name a few.

The core purpose of education is not to receive a piece of paper that states a student has completed a series of classes and successfully passed a list of required tests. Education should provide students with the tools and skills to become contributing members of their communities. Compassion and empathy should be a common thread that runs through the curriculum of all subjects and disciplines. This is more true today than ever before.

I’ve dedicated over twenty years of my life to serve as an educator. It’s been an honor to have touched so many lives. I’ve always prided myself in being a motivator and mentor who sought to help each and every one of my students reach their highest potential. I’ll always carry with me the memories of my high achieving students but in some ways, I’ll remember the students who had to struggle and fight to meet their goals even more so. Sometimes what they needed more than anything was for someone to believe in them. That is something not taught in books, but rather given as a gift. These fond memories put a smile on my face. No one can ever take that from me.  

So, I leave here with a cardboard box of mementoes. Some silly knick knacks, a coffee cup and twenty years of student pictures, poems and old flyers advertising plays and concerts. I even have a couple of plaques that recognized me for a job well done. Such a bitter sweet feeling. I’m acutely aware of the sound of my footsteps as they echo down the deserted hall for the finale time. I slowly turn around and whisper, “Farewell old friend”.  

Scream-Breathe

There’s no reward for a life well lived

There’s only the conquering of midnight thoughts and defeating those loathed barbed days 

Inhale——-exhale——inhale——exhale——sigh

Time has sun baked our souls and left craters and wrinkles deep in our faces, that mirror like a river refuses to be damned or tamed——-inhale-exhale-sigh

Once young and untested she gave her body to me 

I took it and imagined it would always be this way

But I was wrong, now-a-days the destination is seldom worth the journey—exhale-exhale-sigh

Were we ever that young, that hopeful, so foolish and immortal inhale-exhale-sigh 

Love has a life of it’s own

It lives, it dies

No one knows its life span—exhale-exhale-sigh

It morphs into memories of sun kissed spring days

Time lays in-wait, slipping by, steadily unwinding

Self-doubt is contagious, and it will kill you

Just when you think you have it all figured out

It changes direction—inhale-exhale-sigh

No more listening to boring dweebs yammer on about their views, their values, their beliefs, their god—their rights 

Nobody gives a shit about your petty proclamations, I said nobody, nobody cares asshole!—exhale-inhale—sigh

STOP!  Stop blathering on about your politics, your Jesus, your conspiracy theories and the price of gas and how it was so much better back in the “good ole days”-inhale-exhale-scream!!!!!

Vows

BROKEN WORLD, POETRY, PROSE, RANT AND RAVE, SLICE OF LIFE, TRUTH SCRAPS, UNCATEGORIZED, WEIRD WORLDLEAVE A COMMENTFreestyleLoveProseRelationshipsStream Of ConsciousnesVows

One of life's greatest mistakes 

Expecting to be loved
Expect is a word best not attached to love

There’s many versions of love
Few are lasting, and even fewer are memorable 

Some covet it as if it were property
Others wear it on their arm like a flashy bauble
Or, proudly tattoo it permanently upon their skin 
Oftentimes vanishing before the ink dries
At times it’s confused with sex
You can have sex without love
And you can have love without sex

After all the gyrations and moaning
Even if she lets you put it where you want?
You’ll still need to find things to talk about at the end of a worn-out night
Humor is the best aphrodisiac 
Honesty is the slipperiest of lubricants

It's naively offered up with open arms 
Like a soon to be broken Vow
Vows are for love-struck suckers
It’s a fabled belief in security and sincerity 

Sometimes, it's a broken record that skips and pops
All noise and no melody
Like a sympathy composed for the deaf

Most want love to be soft and tender
Like sappy verses from a smarmy poem
But it's none of those things 
It's a prize fight, a spectacle of blood, rage and courage
It can suddenly switch from an endearing hug to an enraged choke hold 

It begins with a polite first kiss, ending up in a dark room that reeks of raw savage sex--that is--if you get lucky

Yet, there are those rare flashes of something
Some may call it love, but that's an over-used euphemism
It stirs an ancient ache that resides deep inside us all
Where does it come from? Why does it go?
Who knows? It's a vexing enigma 

It comes with no warranties, no guarantees
It’s fragile, so handle it with care

If ya break it, you'll have to pay for it 
Once shattered, you’ll never be able to put it back together
No glue or counseling can dull its painful shards 

Once the shelf-life has been reached
You’ll need to decide——should it be thrown out?
Or painfully watch it continue to curdle and sour 
Salmonella is a bad way to go 

The trouble with love—-is
It’s what happens between life’s otherwise mundane moments

It has no soul or conscience 
No sense of right or wrong
It makes fools out of it’s gullible victims



							

		
	





				
					



	

	


		
		

			

				Vows
			

		


					

				










One of life's greatest mistakes 

Expecting to be loved
Expect is a word best not attached to love

There’s many versions of love
Few are lasting, and even fewer are memorable 

Some covet it as if it were property
Others wear it on their arm like a flashy bauble
Or, proudly tattoo it permanently upon their skin 
Oftentimes vanishing before the ink dries
At times it’s confused with sex
You can have sex without love
And you can have love without sex

After all the gyrations and moaning
Even if she lets you put it where you want?
You’ll still need to find things to talk about at the end of a worn-out night
Humor is the best aphrodisiac 
Honesty is the slipperiest of lubricants

It's naively offered up with open arms 
Like a soon to be broken Vow
Vows are for love-struck suckers
It’s a fabled belief in security and sincerity 

Sometimes, it's a broken record that skips and pops
All noise and no melody
Like a sympathy composed for the deaf

Most want love to be soft and tender
Like sappy verses from a smarmy poem
But it's none of those things 
It's a prize fight, a spectacle of blood, rage and courage
It can suddenly switch from an endearing hug to an enraged choke hold 

It begins with a polite first kiss, ending up in a dark room that reeks of raw savage sex--that is--if you get lucky

Yet, there are those rare flashes of something
Some may call it love, but that's an over-used euphemism
It stirs an ancient ache that resides deep inside us all
Where does it come from? Why does it go?
Who knows? It's a vexing enigma 

It comes with no warranties, no guarantees
It’s fragile, so handle it with care

If ya break it, you'll have to pay for it 
Once shattered, you’ll never be able to put it back together
No glue or counseling can dull its painful shards 

Once the shelf-life has been reached
You’ll need to decide——should it be thrown out?
Or painfully watch it continue to curdle and sour 
Salmonella is a bad way to go 

The trouble with love—-is
It’s what happens between life’s otherwise mundane moments

It has no soul or conscience 
No sense of right or wrong
It makes fools out of it’s gullible victims



							

		
	





				
					



	

	


		
		

			

				At The Speed Of Foreverness
			

		


					

				










In spite of our long days and the swiftness of these passing years 

We’ve reluctantly grown old
Old as in running out of time
The potholed street of aging leads to a cul de sac of convalescence 

Age robs us of youths vanities
It rubs our hair off, dulls our eyesight and deafens our hearing
We slowly cave in on ourselves

We can no longer get by on our sexiness or youthful bravado 
We’re left with a fading wit and the shreds of a once charmed personality

This leaves some bitter, while others are liberated 
There’s nothing more attractive than someone who no longer gives a shit about what others think of them

Shriveled skin, brittle bones, hemorrhoids and varicose veins ain’t so bad

It’s the fading of memories and the onset of feeble mindedness that leaves us befuddled

There’s that moment of confusion when we enter a room and forget what we needed there, or what we were looking for, or even why we came there in the first place???

But, I’ll fight like hell to forever remember your face 







							

		
	





				
					



	

	


		
		

			

				Tigers Or Table Scraps
			

		


					

				






The universe keeps trying to convince me that I’m mediocre, but I refuse to give in. All the greats have had to fight that urge to shrink and fit into normalcy. 





Crazy is better than normalcy, going mad is better than normalcy. Do something, do anything to prove that you’re still alive—-that you’re a worthy opponent. Release your bullshit on the world like a tiger ripping into a fallen gazelle.





 Kill or be killed—–most are already dead and feeding on table scraps. The true holy ones aren’t afraid to climb free solo—they know that no one is tethered to security. 





Make fear your best-friend and nothing will ever scare you again. 

							

		
	





				
					


				
					



	

	


		
		

			

				Fatally
			

		


					

				

Soundtrack by Mazzy Star.










I’m homesick for a time that no longer exists





Unfulfilled dreams from youths lost innocence 





What happens to a love that no longer calls my name





She just stands there not even knowing how sexy she is to me





I want something back I’ve never had





She looks like a memory, lost





Dim the lights of truth





You’re that song that makes me miss you





I want you to find yourself inside me





I want me to ache inside of you——- too





Only the broken know how love is never eternal





Lonely inside, without you





Wanting you is unbearable, far beyond unbearable





Falling through ghosts of you, where angels and buzzards circle





Fatally falling asleep after hours of telling our biggest dreams and secrets to each other.





Such beautiful sadness in your eyes





I’m your night inside you





I shivered inside when our souls touched