The House that Jack Built

Her face crumpled with the weight of rejection
as a second, identity-confirming glance
condemns her for the sins of another.

Child-like selfishness overwhelms one
and causes judgment to fall
where mercy should be standing tall
in its place.

They know nothing of grace,
of restoration or of redemption.
Their state is a hell that rings out true in the ancient scriptures
and yet,
they do not know
how greatly they are consumed by it.

Grace to them is like cotton candy, or the clouds
on a sunny afternoon…
…wispy, delicate and fleeting.
They do not know Him.

Carrying around hatred
can work out your soul,
like a lifetime gym membership.

Is it good for a man
to have the strongest part of his soul
be the blackest?

I’d rather be fat
and carefree
than have the Ah-nuld physique
in darkest shades.

There is a kind of finality
when the lost,
give up on trying to be
found.

Whether or not,
the searching party continues,
hope flickers out
like a candle in the cold
winter wind.

Once you sink underwater
it is impossible
to undo
what has been done.
You cannot begin to dry
no matter how wet
you try to un-become.

It’s almost been five years.

She said he wouldn’t love her in five years time.  That his was an infatuation of sorts.  She thought he only lusted after her, only wanted carnal knowledge of her person.

But she was wrong.

It’s almost been five years since she told him to choose something else.  To live his life without her.  Her reddening face showed different feelings than what her shaky voice was barely able to squeak out.  Her eyes, bloodshot and crimson was filling with tears like a dam holding back a river.  She tried her best to sound convincing, but he knew different.

He’d just spent the previous three years soaking up every detail of her life.  Every bit of minutia that made up who she is.  Her likes and dislikes.  He knew her from the inside out.  And she knew him.  She often finished his sentences, his thoughts were her thoughts.  They were as close to being one as you would ever find.  Often, when they would be holding each other, whispering romance into each others soul, their eyes would meet and she would try to convince him that she was just a flash in the moment for him.

It made him upset most times when she would say that.  Frankly because he knew he’d give up his life for her, if she would just say so.  Six words in total, spoken two at a time.

Pick me.
Choose me.
Love me.

But she threw it away.  Pushed his love, his attention and devotion to the side and never called him to her.

She never said the words.

And now it’s five years later and he’s still waiting for to hear those six syllables spoken.  He’s afraid he’ll have to keep waiting, until then…

“Here’s the rest of the paper,” she said as it slammed on the glass table in the dinette.

She had stolen the coupons that were inter-spliced throughout the Sunday overstuffed printing.  It was half the size that it had formerly been when she brought it home from the party store earlier that morning.

He casually glanced at it, noticing the headlines that he had already read online while she was out purchasing it.

“It’s old news,” he thought to himself, “It’s not worth my time.” And he continued his pursuit of the words on his computer.

The snow fell gently outside as the temperatures hovered below the freezing point.  An occasional gust of wind blew and pushed the flakes off their seemingly predestined path.

“So this is what life is now,” he questioned himself.

She had finished thumbing through the advertisements and settled back into her place at the island.  The new love of her life flashed quickly up on the screen and the collection of “pinned” items most assuredly made her heart race and pulse quicken.

“I hate the winter.”

You ever get to feeling one of those moods
where,
you want to write,
and you should write,
and you could write…


But you don’t.


Yeah, me too.

I’ve got lots of stories in my head…  Stories that are begging to jump out onto the keyboard and into this white ocean of emptiness…

But they’ll have to wait another day,
for my procrastination will win this battle tonight.

I’ve thought pretty hard about this, but I’ve come to this conclusion. Despite what popular belief is, I would rather follow writers who actually write more than they re-blog.

I don’t mind the occasional re-blog of things and items that deserve sharing, but the mindless clicking of things that are cool and have been shared over a thousand times, just isn’t what I thought tumblr was about.

It would be nice to just find a place where words are king, and we are their loyal subjects, rather than neat GIFs and teenaged kids who use the platform to say ‘fuck’ a lot without their parents knowledge.

But that utopia doesn’t exist…

“I’m flirting with danger,” he thought to himself as he ordered them another round of drinks, “but stuff like this doesn’t happen to a guy like me.  Ever.”

He met her while shopping for a box of Rice-a-Roni and a 12 pack of Miller Lite long necks at the local Wal-Mart.  His turn for dinner tonight.  It was always his turn for dinner.  She was near the produce area, the bananas to be exact.  He made a smart ass comment to her, under his breath of course.  Something to the effect of her finding a banana his size and him finding melons her size.  He thought it was under his breath, but she heard enough of the comment to loudly exclaim, “Excuse me?”

Red faced, he quickly excused himself and immediately apologized for being such a cretin, only to be surprised by her wink and coy smile.

“I’ve never been hit on at a grocery store before.  I guess the produce section really produces,” she said while flipping her blond hair back behind her ear and giggling at her own flirtatious comment.

“So, are you going to pick one or should I suggest a size for you?” He said with a smile.

“I know a bar just around the corner, why don’t you buy me a drink and we discuss ‘size’ there?”  She asked him, touching his arm softly.

He quickly put down his items and offered his arm, escort style, and she graciously accepted it.  Linking her arm into his, her body seemed to melt into his with an ease unlike any other.  He looked down into her face and saw a stunning pair of sparkling blue eyes, the color of which he had not seen before.

They made their way out to the parking lot and he asked the uncomfortable question, “Your chariot or mine?”  To which the beauty responded, “We’ll drive separate, that way if you wanna ditch me, you’ve got your ride to go.”

“But I have to warn you, I drive fast.  So you’ll have to try and keep up if you want me.”  That last part made him laugh inside.  On the outside, a big white toothy smile was all she saw, of course.

They parted ways, but he made sure to keep an eye on where her car was.  A black Chevy Malibu.  Finely detailed.  With some apparent after-market products, her ride shouldn’t be hard to pick out of a crowd of cars, but she wasn’t lying when she said she drove fast.  He had a difficult time catching her until the traffic light helped him a bit.  His Toyota Tundra quickly pulled up beside her and she looked over at him and smiled that smile.

His heart fluttered as much in his chest as his cock did in his pants and he smiled back to her.  A left, a right, another right and one more left and they were at Garey’s Bar.  It was a seedy dive he’d been past a couple times since moving into the area, but hadn’t bothered to stop in.  The parking lot was nearly empty, save for a few stray cars and the bare looking light posts, their black paint peeling off in sections.  They kept vigil, like some antiquated Ethiopian security guards, the light fixtures on top crooked with rust and age.

She whipped her car into a parking spot not unlike a NASCAR professional and he wondered out loud to himself if she wasn’t Danica Patrick in a blond wig with implants.  That idea gone, he backed his auto in beside her and they both exited their vehicles and proceeded to the entrance of the establishment.

As she led him towards the door, he took a good look at her from behind.  Her skirt hung from a small set of hips that gently swayed.  Her legs legs, clad in nylons, took his eyes down to the heels which must have been three inches tall at least.  The skirt cut itself off just above her knees and flowed dreamily with the breeze. 

Her blouse seemed to be made of silk or silky material and hugged her shoulders well and tight.  He remembered the glance he had of her front showed the buttons struggling to hold their composure over her breasts.  He couldn’t tell with the quick look he took, hoping desperately not to be caught staring, whether they were real and held into place with a nice fitting bra, or if they were implants; free and unencumbered by any source of support, her nipples poking out firmly against the material.  It didn’t matter much to him, they bounced nicely and rubbed against his arm as he walked her out of the store.

Her blond hair, in curls, dangled partially down to the middle of her back.  A modern day real life Barbie.  A living breathing replica of the plastic toy most little girls played with.  He couldn’t believe that she wasn’t repulsed by him or his dirty pick-up line.

The door to the bar swung open sending a shaft of evening sunset into the dark room.  A few patrons turned to see who was entering their domain, but none made eye contact.  Casually, they turned back to their conversations, their drinks and their Keno game.  A pool table held a game between two elderly gentlemen who both nodded to him, acknowledging his presence, neither seemed impressed with her or her looks though.  “That’s weird,” he thought, “They probably need the blue pill to work with a girl like her anyways.”

She reached back and grabbed his hand and led him to an empty booth on a lonely wall.  As they both slid into their respective sides of the booth, he saw what he believed to be the tops of her nylons. 

Thigh highs.  Instantly his blood started pumping and he felt a quick pulse in the crotch of his pants.  His stomach tightened and he felt a quick pang of guilt cross his consciousness.  The same feeling he felt when he found the discarded and weathered Playboy in the ditch alongside the road when he was 15.  There wasn’t a cover, nor were there many pictures of anything worth looking at that hadn’t been used or abused by the rain they had the week before.  But there was that one picture.  The one with the overly made up girl.  She had pink fingernail polish and it matched the pink flesh that she was exposing erotically.

That image was seared into his mind and he often thought of it whenever he went down to do the business on whatever lucky lady would allow him.  No girl ever matched up to that two-dimensional goddess, but he imagined that tonight, tonight he may have found that prized piece of ass that may be the be all, end all of all pieces of ass in the world.

“I don’t even know your name,” he said smiling to her as the waitress approached the two.

“Barbie,” she said and his jaw dropped.

Why do I even bother?



All this does is reaffirm what I thought from the start… That I’m talentless and a hack… at best.

My best friend claims he’s got no talent, but he’s got a shitload of followers.  He’s even got a “why you should follow me” page with reviews of his writing.  He’s published a book and has plenty more to publish several more…

And here I sit with my thumb up my ass, so full of self-loathing.
Well, it’s probably because I don’t have anything to write about but pity for myself.



I’ll stop whining now.

Just skip past this like you do the rest of my posts…

The cold hands wrapped around my neck,
with a stranglehold of death,
make every breath
a fight in and of itself.

But your love is the warmth
that pumps through the veins in my neck,
pushing past the pain
and anguish of my existence.

If only I could pry your fingers away from my throat…