Chocolates

Easter is a time of great surprise. I find myself still surprised by it each year. Christians attend services. We nestle eggs in baskets of translucent neon-green grass. The one who bore the yoke appears after being hidden in death for three days. Children search for candy. People search their whole life for someone that looks into both eyes and won't look away. I think this can be found, too. Then there's the egg that is never found, hidden too well, filled with foil and melted chocolate for who knows how long. That runs through my mind at Easter. The bunny brings candy. He lays eggs? I think this all has its symbolism. There is a meaning to your search. There is a sweetness in the finding.

Faster than a merry-go-round our planet spins. Ten years have passed since Theresa Marie starved. We watched Terry die on our televisions while we moved our glazed carrots around with a fork. Did her smile mean anything? Did it have a price? My friend asked me what the price of a human life is. He wrote it on notebook paper and folded it up and left it in my car. This was his way of hiding the question in my head like a pastel plastic egg. He wanted to justify fighting crime like a super hero. I questioned his mental state, but is this a question you can ever ask frivolously? I almost forgot that happened. I remember Terry's drool made me uncomfortable. I can only imagine the Schindlers' listless helplessness that day when she was unplugged like a lamp. And I say day, but shit, it was days. She lived for days. The perpetual sunshine is a promise that they continue to hunt for behind clouds, the infinitesimal particles of moisture that keep her from them. They didn't have to make a decision. They just had to wait and then continue to do so.

Easier times will come, you just wait. Your bad haircut will grow, I promise, but my balding won't. They still can't seem to figure out a scientific solution. Isn't science just waiting after all? When I look at my wife I wonder if she knows sometimes I'm just looking an the small bridge of her nose between her eyes. You can't look in both eyes at the same time. Even one is enough for me for now, though.  My (pregnant) wife said the weight of the world is on her bladder as she laughs at what I write. Laughter is a hope that maybe tomorrow will be better. I've cried myself to sleep so many nights in bed with my wife, crying tears of hysterical laughter. 

Stars

I'm on my knees. I am in need. I want to pray for my son. Stars dot the sky as freckles may dot his face. You count them. You see possibilities. I see deaths. Thousands of ways and not just physical. Can this mind you gave me explain you away? So many diseases and pleases and thank yous. I receive the images of stars but my eyes mislead me. Those stars have burnt out a million years before I ever saw them.

Oh, make sure you fight, baby boy. May you fight sincerely like the cells of your namesake.

Part II

There is a glorious resurrection in sequels. I have been listening to a new album all week. I have been rolling my eyes reading reviewers who have a better insight on the Black community than the Black community. I think everything is maddening right now. I want peace so badly but I can't make magic. That isn't to say problems only drive police cars. It isn't so simple. You have to be okay with that. You are not the savior.

I'm sorry; that thought was holding hands with so many others. In one song on the new album the artist asks when things go sour will you stay? When he makes a mistake will you still associate? We are mortal men after all and mortality is really a state of need that we share rather than an appearance that may differ. But still, will we continue to combat?

There is a forgiveness that is required for sequels. The artist's words made me think of bitterness I've bottled. Hurt I've held. Maybe I ran too far? I have an app for that. Friends start with forgiveness.

I've hiked through another week on pins and needles and blades of grass. My wife is greatly expecting and our baby hasn't fully experienced gravity yet. The weight of the world has become the wait of the world to me. In my joy walking to the front door the high school football field is cheering for me, cheering for hope, and cheering for life.

Dude Lake

 I can tend to slip into the background like that level on Super Mario Bros. There are so many trees in the fog, probably. There are so many ways a friendship can suffer (alcohol). Shall I be more like you? Shall I be less like me?

Camping starts with so many colors. They seem to buzz. You can smell them. One by one the colors countdown. Orange is last to go and we watch as it smolders but then, yeah, it's gone.

Creatures

Well, aren't humans just disgusting, slimy creatures!

I was vomiting last week, trapped in the center of my mind. A genie in a lamp sounds magical but is ultimately a purgatorical prison. I couldn't stomach thoughts of cheesecake. I think it was a bug that had left me in this centripetal toilet bowl. I had the smell of my digestive enzymes in my nostrils and I was reading about the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass. Russians frozen dead in the snow from aliens testing weaponry for the Soviet government in a sexual rage (No one knows, just a theory). I stared at white, saprogenic faces. No one said "cheese" before snapping the photo.

Friday I gathered myself because I had to attend an awards luncheon for social services in the county I work. I wasn't thrilled. Awards were given to four quarterly employees who seemed to like their job. I smiled at the thought of how we will give you a damn award if you simply like your job because to most of us, isn't our job just a place where we complain about our job?

We clawed at our food, tables filled with an offensive amount of unnecessary flatware, (cheesecake for dessert). Everyone clapped after each nominee, NOT at the end of the list as instructed, an unavoidable phenomenon.

The final bullet of the program was awards for successful children who've aged out of foster care, a shadow-people really. Some grabbed the award with a quick thank-you while the final shuffled a few pages of a prepared speech when granted her award. Her GPA was read to clapping hands but mostly she spoke about bullying.

The sound of her voice wasn't pleasant, like a grunt with meanings. I strained to hear her thoughts. She was shorter than the podium, a high school senior. From where I sat she was unkempt hair and glasses returning two lights. She read pages about living in a group home in a life that was like hell. Hell on the bus. Hell at school. Hell surrounded by her peers who told her how different she was. She spoke with finality in the knowledge that she will never find a place within her peers but how that didn't change how she will seek success in a life that is her own. She said more; she was difficult to understand.

I struggled. The beauty in resilience contrasts the ugliness of its catalyst. A flower grows in the cracked asphalt. Beauty because of ugliness?

Well, aren't humans such blossoming, beautiful creatures!