More or Less is More of Less…only MoreSo

Civilization at the end of 2015

• Our Phones – Wireless
• Cooking – Fireless
• Cars – Keyless
• Food – Fatless
• Tires –Tubeless
• Dress – Sleeveless
• Youth – Jobless
• Leaders – Shameless
• Relationships – Meaningless
• Attitudes – Careless
• Babies – Fatherless
• Feelings – Heartless
• Education – Valueless
• Children – Mannerless
• Country – Godless

We are – SPEECHLESS

Government is – CLUELESS

And our Politicians are – WORTHLESS

I am scared – Shitless!

Ain’t it just – PRICELESS?

old

Mommy Dearest

I’ll go out on a limb here and say for most of us, being a parent is, quite literally, the hardest job we’ve ever had or ever will. And, at the same time, it’s the richest, most fulfilling, most rewarding contribution to our own lives and always will be.  alex

One of the most surprising aspects of parenthood’s lifelong journey is finding out that one split second is all it takes for you to come to know the best and worst of being a parent…the span of that second is the distance between loving another being so much it hurts, to wishing you’d gotten a dog instead!  True dat  🙂

angry_baby11

But in looking at this most difficult most rewarding dichotomy, it’s not so hard to understand when you consider first, our tendency to place the highest value on that which was hardest won, and second, our amazing capacity for forgiveness (as parents at least).

But what is it that takes parents to the depths of the difficult to the heights of reward when it comes to loving our children? How do we survive the splintering of our brains in a thousand directions trying to figure them out, yet tarnishes the love in our hearts never?

I don’t question the reward; I think it’s obvious. I do, however, ponder the difficult. Is it because we love too much?  Is it that even possible?

I don’t believe so…

However, could it be that we love too much for too long?  Is that it?  Does parental love need to be doled out in stages or degrees?  Or fit into categories in order to not overload these little overlords once they come into their own?

So what (you ask) are these stages/degrees/categories you ask?

I’m a little cuss who can’t (and don’t want to) function without you so love me, love me more, love me most!

I’m a teenager so love me lots, and with patience, but for God’s sake, don’t let my friends see it!

I’m a young adult now so love me from a distance, but not too far ’cause I may need the car!

I’ve met someone and we’re going to get married.  Can ya help, can ya pay, can we have it there? (ps Mom and Dad…you’re gonna love him/her!)

I’m going to have a baby so love me, love me most, and love me now ’cause we’re going to need babysitters! (ps Mom and Dad…you’re gonna love it!)

Mom? Dad? I’ve never felt this way before…I love this kid so much my heart hurts!
(ps honey…we know!)

And so on…..

The short answer to the too much / too long question is…yes, okay, maybe, a little bit. But we parents come to this conclusion naturally I think. We instinctively know (or learn soon enough if our instincts are not as honed as they will be), which stage or category we’re dealing with or which degree of parental love to douse them with, simply by living it. Organic knowledge.  We just have to choose to go with it.

Does that stop us from loving the same soul-deep way we did when they were newborn?

No.  Perhaps it does in theirs though.  For a time.

I know that they love us the same way we do them…in the beginning.  Outside of themselves, we are their world. Their universe. Their moon and their stars, and they are ours.

Parents and kids grow up together.  That’s a given.  No matter if you’re 18 or 45 when you have your children, you have to grow up with them to be able to give and receive all that these little selves need, and later, need to share.

We may grow up more with our first.  Then again, it may just be that we grow up differently with the next one or two or three.

But…if we’ve played our hands well, we are love.  All of it.  Every stage, every degree, every category is of the love, by the love, for the love.  And they are right there with us.

Completely (in the beginning)

Mostly (in the middle)

Until (still in the middle but getting further towards the…the…well shit…not the end, but you know what I mean right?)

Until…they find out there are more people to love and to be loved by; more stars to shine the light of love on their heads and in their hearts; more room in their world for other loves.

As it has always been.  As it was with our own parents to be sure.  Just another way of experiencing the circle of life.

Consider…

Our children are loved as only a child can be loved and they in turn, love as only a child can love. The universe is secure.

As time goes on, they thrive and grow in that forever, universe-spanning, parental love and love them right back. But as they continue to grow, they s l o w l y  recognize that their world is expanding to include the many, many different kinds of love; each addition a glimmering star to their universe thus far.

But their recognition is as single-minded as their love for us was in the beginning. When they venture out from underneath the love-cloaked expanse of their parental universe, they don’t at once realize that their hearts are big enough to add new loves without setting aside old ones.

Our time will come again (usually around the time the grand-kids show up!), but as parents, it’s only natural that we do feel the initial loss of that connection when our love is no longer the moon and the stars in our child’s heart.

BUT…

Facing this fact head-on is hard, but absolutely necessary.

For our own well-being as well as theirs.

If we don’t, we run the risk of pushing them further out into the expanse by clinging too close, depending too much on their always being there, pining away for their childhood days when they aren’t there, regretting what we didn’t do, or forgetting what we did. Even romanticizing the harder times and not counting our blessings.

We all can probably think of a parent in our experience who has done, or does, this. Think back to the last time you witnessed a parent who cannot let go and re-live what you felt. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling.

I’m certainly not completely innocent of it still.  I sometimes catch myself feeling guilty for not being ‘that mother’. The one who always can, always will, never says no, never says can’t. Who wouldn’t want to be considered ‘the perfect mom’?  But that’s not perfection. It’s limiting to both your life and those of your children.

However, even knowing I am not (and never could be) that mother…(nor is their Dad ‘that guy’) it nevertheless hurts (and in the dark of night, makes me wonder if they’ll still love me enough to ask again- I know, just silly ) to know that we are the ones disappointing our children.

But we get over it because we know we are good parents who have raised good people.  We all deal with disappointments in our relationships.  We have difficult conversations followed by deafening silences.  But we’ve loved each other long enough and well enough to know what’s really important.

So there is hope. Once we’ve matured enough in our parenthood to realize this fact of life, we can recapture that sense of oneness, specialness, absolute love not felt anywhere but in your parents’ heart of hearts.  It is, after all, our hearts that need to make preparations for the day when our children learn there is a love flow-chart.  This will fluctuate during their life spans, but it will always show a solid heart-red line for us.  Mom and Dad.  Steady as she goes.  What more could we hope for?

And an added benefit to this stage of parental maturity is…we can (and hopefully do) look back at our own parents with a new appreciation for all they’ve done, all they’ve been through, and all we’ve learned from them without even knowing it.  Score!

Cheers and happy parenting (and I mean that!)

Dearest Mommy

Dedicated to my Mother and Father and to my Sons
I’m proud to be one of your stars

“As the Shade Spins” A traji-com-edy of dysfunction and disillusion

Paragraph

once upon a time

once upon a time

long ago and far far away, in the beginning of a dark and stormy night, it was love at first sight…then shit REALLY got interesting!

2014
The new year’s babe came roaring into existence
dragging what was left of her meaner older brother
2013
by the roots of his dead gray short hairs

I had hoped to see the end of The Year That Almost Totally Sucked Ass (T.Y.T.A.T.S.A.) around the same time I saw Massachusetts in the rear view mirror

Seems Ol’ 13 had other ideas.
Seems Ol’ 13 wasn’t quite ready to belt out Auld Lang Syne
And it’s obvious good Ol’ 13 conned his newborn kid sister into taking him along to continue the never-ending days of madness and mayhem

No way was he going out like a lamb
If he was anything at all, he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing
And determined to stick around for the final act he called

 “Wanna see the crazy old crow lose her mind?”

IMG_0007 (3)
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
(shades of poltergeist…at the 2.08 mark to be exact!)

My enthusiastic and optimistic return to enthusiastic and optimistic blogging in March of T.Y.T.A.T.S.A., has not gone quite as I had planned.  Then again, how does one plan life anyway.

I won’t recount the entire war, as I have already shared a few of the bloodier battles here already.

Those days were the “Once Upon a Time” and “In the Beginning” days.

And, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether to visit the “”Long Ago and Far Far Away” tales and wade through those deep and scoured trenches.

For now, if you choose, a quick peak at what optimism looks like (On the Road Again), then maybe a bit of “Love at First Sight“…

For soon, we’ll pick up where the shit REALLY gets interesting!”

Somewhere between Moving Day and Moving Day II

The can of worms is in the pan and on the stove, so join me for dinner and a show…

Next time on “As The Shade Spins

😳

A Day Out with Superman and Lois – Part II

For some New England states, the lack of development makes for an inconvenient truth…there is a high price for beauty. Of all the states that make up New England, Vermont pays a higher price for its pristine vistas and unspoiled landscapes, than do the others. That’s not a scientific fact, but as one who has lived and/or worked in all of them, I feel confident in my opinion.

Seasonal tourism has become the bread and butter of a state (formerly?) known as The Dairy State. However, that said, it’s still not enough to make up for what this state has lost, what it once was, and still pay for what this state now is…an entitlement state with a tax bill to prove it.

You couldn’t drive a mile without passing a flourishing dairy farm; their rich pastures dotted with the familiar black and white of the Holstein, just to name one of the breeds that carved cow paths through much of the landscape of its history.

Nearly every generation of my family, leading up to but excluding mine, was raised or worked on, a family dairy farm.

The sights we see today, or in our case, the sights Supe and I captured yesterday, are now the norm.

Neglect may come to mind…but it goes much deeper.

Neglect suggests a choice.

Being a farmer is a choice.

Losing a farm is not.

And this doesn’t just happen here, it happens all over our country. But here is where I live, and here is where I love, and here is where I weep, for the loss of the American dream, one field, one barn, one beautiful bovine at a time.

I’m glad this day of Reflection with Supe resulted in the following photographs, for amid the not so subtle colors that draw the throngs of leaf-peepers, there are also signs of the times.

And please, don’t get me wrong, not all the photos of yesterday are sad reminders.  Some are of the wondrous sites that bring these people from thousands of miles away.  The commentary only addresses those photos that evoke a sense of loss for days gone, livelihoods lost, to government’s well intended (?) intervention.

These signs are everywhere.

And knowing his roots as a farm boy, I also know it’s never easy for him to see what is an all too common sight today.

I wanted him to know that I see what once was when I point my camera in the direction of a falling down ruin of a barn, or the overgrown and gone to seed fields that once produced food for the masses, four-legged and two-legged alike.

I wanted him to understand that the photos I take are not just a sad reminder of the times. Nor are they just a snapshot of the foreseeable future.

They are, for me and I hope for him, as much a tribute to the rich history and grass roots past that he cherishes and I’ll never let die.

I wanted him to come away from our day of Reflection knowing I see and feel, the depth of what’s lost and that I’ll never take life, or family values, for granted.

So, here, Part II of A Day Out with Superman and Lois:

The High Price of Low Progress
~♥~
For Dad
~♥~

(and for you Dad, we’ll start with some to make you smile)

See? You are smiling right? :)
See?
You are smiling right?
🙂

IMG_0047 IMG_0046

IMG_0033 IMG_0034 IMG_0038 IMG_0039 IMG_0092 IMG_0094 IMG_0097 IMG_0098 IMG_0100

IMG_0037

IMG_0042 IMG_0043

IMG_0009

IMG_0049

IMG_0029

IMG_0073

IMG_0081 IMG_0079

IMG_0061

IMG_0101
I’ll end with a Patch
A Pumpkin Patch
Pick one…it’s YOURS!

White Space and Gray Matter…

I never thought, when I began blogging, that so much of my white space would be devoted to the subject of rape and sexual assault and abuse

After all, my blog is not called

“50 Shades of Retribution”

or

“50 Shades of Horror”

It’s called 50 Shades of Gray Hair

And as I write that last sentence, I realize I’m doing exactly what my tagline suggested I was going to do

Exploring my own 50 shades of gray matter

And in exploring what tickles me and ticks me off…this matter happens to be one big, fat, hairy, gray one

Matter that took me more than 45 years from the start of it to face, speak out about, seek help for, and begin the process of forgiving myself by working to place the responsibility where it belongs

Not in the heart or on the soul of a 5-year-old, 6,7,8,9…19 year old girl! Or 20, 30, 40, 50…..80 year old woman, if I’m lucky enough to live that long.

No!

It needs to be thrown into the faces, stabbed into the hearts, and tattooed onto the souls of both the familiar and the unknown faces of those with black hearts and ruined souls who felt they had the right!!

Those who felt they were owed!

Those who felt we asked for it!

Those who believe a 5-year-old wants it!

Those who thought it was no big deal!

Those who blame their victims!

The following link shows just how deranged, deluded, and dangerous these predators are.

In their own words…as (forever and ever) remembered and demonstrated by their victims:

PROJECT UNBREAKABLE – an online photography project that aims to “encourage the act of healing through art.”

It’s not pretty

It’s not nice

But it’s real

Very, very real

Please, take a moment and click the above link.

If it doesn’t make you mad, it’ll make you cry.

If nothing else…it should remind you to

never forget or take for granted the power of words.

In the wrong hands, they can fatally wound a heart, forever scar a mind, indelibly stain a soul

In the right hands…they can free the world…one victim and one share at a time

And this shade of gray looks good on me…a fighting shade, a warrior shade, a sharing shade

By all means, choose your own shade

Wear it loud and proud

But do the world a favor…Share it!

Thank you

R

*

*

Related Shares:

http://susandanielspoetry.com/2013/09/24/survivors/

Masks Off

https://50-shades-of-gray-hair.com/2013/09/19/the-answer-heard-round-the-world-wide-web/

https://50-shades-of-gray-hair.com/2013/08/08/number-3-rape-rise-against-punishable-eccentricity/

https://50-shades-of-gray-hair.com/2013/08/07/number-2-rape-rise-against-punishable-eccentricity/

https://50-shades-of-gray-hair.com/2013/08/06/rape-rise-against-punishable-eccentricity/

https://www.facebook.com/RapeHurtsEveryone?hc_location=stream

http://www.reddit.com/user/twistyrockets

The Cab Ride

 

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. 

After waiting a few minutes I walked to the door and knocked.

‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice.

I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened.

A small woman in her 90’s stood before me.

She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase.

The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years.

All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters.

In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said.

I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness.

‘It’s nothing’, I told her.

‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’

‘Oh, you’re such a good boy’ she said.

When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive through downtown?’

‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.’

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening.

‘I don’t have any family left,‘ she continued in a soft voice.

‘The doctor says I don’t have very long.’

I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city.

She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired. Let’s go now’.

We drove in silence to the address she had given me.

It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up.

They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. 

They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door.

The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.

‘Nothing,’ I said

‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.

She held onto me tightly.

‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said

‘Thank you.’ I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.

Behind me, a door shut.

It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift.

I drove aimlessly lost in thought.

For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk.

What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift?

What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.

But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID ~BUT~THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL


 


Life 
may not be the party we hoped for, but while we 
are here we might as well dance.

I received two emails this evening.

One that said “Inspiration, I think we both need it”

And hours later…I received the one I’ve just shared with you.

For me, this second email was the answer to the first.

Thank you to those who always know…when I need a lift up.

~♥~I love you~♥~

How To Dismantle a Life

Leave a 3 decades long marriage to the only person who ever knew everything about you, but forgot you were there while he got on with his life

Meet and fall in love with another, heart first, sight unseen, and for whom there was no question that he was my future and I his

Make plans together for that future

Share every detail of yourselves and your lives with each other

Become THAT vulnerable

Learn too late that you love too much, yet are not enough at the same time, and figuratively get left at the altar

Wonder why you are not worth loving, while you fall apart, feeling in your heart, it must be true…for the old one forgot you and the new one didn’t want you

However, be asked to return to that 3 decades long marriage to that one person who knew all along you didn’t belong anywhere but with him, no questions asked

Spend months trying to come to terms with being tossed out of one heart and not understanding why

And allowed back into another and not quite trusting why, but feeling grateful and wondering if that feeling is justified

Working to keep a friendship alive while the question still burns “where did the future go when I wasn’t looking?”

Working to keep a marriage honest and true, yet at the same time, struggle with the two questions “how can he still and how come he can’t” love me?

Helping a husband find a new path in life

And willingly so

While feeling the ghost of pain as the other follows another without you

Unwillingly so

Clearing your life of all material possessions because it’s all become too much

Watching your life put into boxes and carted off like box lots to auction

Standing in an empty shell that once held a family’s heart

Heading into the unknown in the second half century of your life with nothing more than you started with

Wondering if you’re strong enough to handle starting over

With the old love

Without the new one

And not sure you deserve either

And through it all, come to grips with your own past and its demons

Shedding light on a life spent in the dark in the most public way possible

Light that will hurt and help you…as it hurts and, you pray and hope, will help others more

Light that allows you to be okay with the similarities/contradictions of love and hate

But still leaves questions, burning questions, about whether you are doing the right thing

And needing

Always needing

That and whom, which does not want to be needed

No one wants the burden of constant reassurance

No one has the responsibility of convincing me I’m worthy

No one deserves the mantle of “someone to watch over me”

I’m a lot of work

And the only one up to the job

Equipped for the job

The job of re-assembling my life

Is ME

I’m sorry if these words or these thoughts spoken out loud hurt anyone

That is not the intent

As it is when assembling anything

We must first lay all the pieces out on the table

Take inventory

And (if female) read the instructions

I’ve found the instructions of my life are complicated, often in a foreign language, and perhaps even missing a step or two

But I’ll stick with it

Trial and error

Use my Yankee Ingenuity if I have to

So that in the end, I’ll be reconstructed, reassembled, or re-purposed…

Whichever it is…it’ll be me.

And it’ll be great

We must first break it down to build it up

Let the rebuilding begin

NO

Let the rebuilding continue…for this journey didn’t start today or yesterday

It started November 3rd Nineteen Hundred and Sixty

A long project…a lifelong project…with a punch-list of changes ten miles long

A worthy one?

You bet!

Did I ever mention “I had a hammer?”

Demon

There are times, quite often in fact, when we let our experiences dictate the path of our lives. Usually, the bad ones, or the self-destructive ones…it’s surprisingly harder to stand up than it is to fall down. I’m sharing Kyle’s post DEMON for the very reason that I struggle daily with my own demons and it’s always comforting to know I am not alone. Equally so, to have a friend who can bear the naked truth of the dark side of some of our choices yet show there is light to be found…IF we are willing to look. Thank you Kyle.

 

kyle mew

they’re a bunch of fucking natives, and they spout all this hippie shit about self-discovery and journeys into my soul and what-not. i nod politely and agree, but just so as to be polite. i don’t want to offend them, but its all a load of crap as far as i’m concerned. i’m here for the trip of my life. i’ve heard about these mushrooms, ever since i started taking drugs. the most powerful hallucinogenic on the planet. the trip of a lifetime. they are legendary and until now, i wasn’t even sure they existed at all.
i look at the pile of goo the old woman spits onto the plate. i understand why she has to chew the mushrooms first. she has been doing this for years, and there are enzymes in her saliva that will break down the mushrooms and prevent me from vomiting too much. novices have…

View original post 1,107 more words

If I Had a Hammer…and a paint brush

Hear the words….GET BACK UP by Toby Mac

Tomorrow is a big day for me.

I’m scared shitless.

A day that requires a strength I’m not positive I have.

Yet I’m committed to faking that strength if I have to.

A day to speak-up, speak-out, and step-up.

To use the tools I have; tearing down old walls, kicking open locked doors, and shattering the stained and grime covered glass windows that have kept the dark in and the light out for too long.

Then, I can put the sledgehammer down, pick up my paint brush, and add my own colors to the palette of those brave souls already building a sanctuary from the prisons of abuse.

If aiding those who have already begun fabricating the framework; the architects like Andrea Bredbeck, and the carpenters, masons, and painters who swing their hammers, glide their trowels, and stroke their brushes of truth; if that is all I can do, then it’s what I will do.

Support is the – KEY – stock-photo-skeleton-key-symbol-31783060  to this sanctuary.  Without it, the door will remain locked.

Let your loved ones know, BEFORE they need it, that you’ll always be there.

Don’t assume they know…hammer it home it you have to.

That’s YOUR tool…use it.  With love, but use it.

♥ And to those I love and to those that love me…thank you.  ♥

How Does Your Garden Grow

As some of you know…this has been quite a year for me

A year of losing a marriage of 31 years

A year of therapy and doctors and pills – (over, over, and no mas!)

A year of knowing time is short and getting shorter, with my beloved father; my Superman

Losing our beloved Ripken after only 10 years of furry joy

But also…

A year in which I found hope for new life and new love after 50

However, through it all…the worst of it…I found the best of it

The bare truth, the ugly truth, but the truth, just the same

And there is beauty in that

This is not a sad tale

I’ll say it first; say it loud and clear, my husband and I are together again

And while there are reasons for couples who’ve been together as long as we have been, to find themselves where we did…

There are also reasons to find ourselves where we are now

After we separated and during our time apart, I did find love

And while it proved to not be what I thought and felt it was

I learned I needed the possibility of it

I had to have it

I had to know it was possible

Not with him, as that is done before it ever really began

But knowing the capacity for that kind of love is still in me, has helped me understand

In some small way, that the man I chose 31 years ago deserves nothing less than what I promised him so long ago

And too…So. Do. I. 

It is with his blessing and understanding, which comes from the love and trust I know he has for me

That I am able to put the following out there because I must

For me

It’s closure of a sort

A new beginning of an old story deserves just that…a beginning

And in that same vein, the ending of the new story deserves its say.

And while that love was not, in the end, what I thought it was, it’s better as it is now

Friendship.  And a lifelong one it will be

I have NEVER taken love lightly – Any kind of love – Nor have I ever taken it for granted

But I find I have always needed the kind of love of which I speak and know too that I can’t settle for less

Nor would I want a partner who would either

And it’s there, still, with the man I married

It had gotten tangled in the weeds, but it’s there

My garden is all but free of the weeds now

Mostly clear, and clean, and ready for next year’s bounty

What’s left to be done is this…and it is with love for this someone who has become, if not what I thought, at least what I needed at the time, and what I’ll always need at all times…

A true friend and A beloved one

It’s rarely pretty, this finding love and losing love

It’s not always complimentary, exposing ourselves the way we do

But I love my friend, as much now as ever

And I hope he understands, as I now do, that the truth, given OR received, is never wasted on ones we love:

Rode hard, put away wet
Know the term? You do I bet
But here’s the thing…well, more than one
We all have dreams, or at least want some

We read the words from men like you
Meant to shock, arouse, and lube
Don’t get me wrong, they do all that
But there’s more to see here than that

If you’ll allow, I will explain
In rhyming time and sweet refrain
That which delineates the sexes
It’s more than just muscle reflexes

The matter of perspective arises
Far above your “cash and prizes”
As women go, I’m plain at best
At least the shell, the crust, the vest

But underneath, (not just for me)
There is a fire, so plain to see
But only plain to those who dare
To look beyond the graying hair

The less than fit, the age defined
The stretch-marked bellies, the Swiss cheese minds
Women of certain elegant ages
Have printed upon their bodies’ pages

Their stories of love and pain and laughter
Their tales of lives that we’re all after
But when we fall for men who seek
The more fit, the young, the more sleek

We feel pity more than other
For negate they do, that once their mothers
Were beautiful in the eyes of one
The one they trusted, who gave them sons

But you close your hearts to love and trust
The only thing left is shallow lust
Which produces naught but sweat and cum
May be fine, enough for some

When the end is near in our lives’ journeys
We’ll lie upon our final gurneys
Does one suppose he’s surrounded by
The lithe, the fit, the candy eye?

I fear, my love, that won’t be so
Fear even more there will be no
One at all, regardless of..
The state of fitness..nor of love

For if you set your sites so low
As to allow for only those
That please the eye, the prick, the glands
Forever you’ll dwell in Never Land

Even Peter Pan learned the trick
To not just grow, but teach his dick
That though the fit and the buff
Will feast the eye, it’s not enough

To satisfy a life long need
To touch a heart, to plant a seed
In love and trust, eternal gladness
To have that one to share the madness

Of every day life in every days ways
Of every day love and yes, the haze
Of lust and fear and pain and sorrows
Of knowing they’re there through our tomorrows

My wish, my hope, my fear, my joy
All rolled in one for you my boy
Is that the day you meet the end
You know you’ve done as you intended

For to wait upon the reaper’s time
With naught but wishes to fill your time
Is no way to greet the earth
The final rest, the final dirt

To know you’ve lived and loved and tried
With all your heart despite your pride
To give out more than you’ve received
No more we’d ask, no more we’d need

To face your death with lightened heart
Evolved from apes, from apes apart
Our choices bring us far above
What evolution thinks of love

For apes we are and apes we’ll stay
But apes are not all the same, I say
Some just fuck but some will love
Some for life, some far above

If it were not so, I would bow
To Darwin here, and Darwin now
But for myself, to this I say
Close your heart to love, you will pay

In the end, it’s all we’ve got
That makes us different, far apart
From just biology and lust
That fades, with time, and so does trust