ok first thing a straight pride parade sounds awful. i don't see that being a fun party. maybe i am wrong.

second there is nothing inherently wrong with straight pride or white pride.

third and this is where the meat is I would ask why do you feel the need to publicly and loudly shout your pride? Do you feel your very identity being physically and socially threatened on a daily basis? So much so that you have to go to "Straight Clubs" in order to express affection for your significant other? There is no history of people being killed for being straight. No history of people being kicked out, disowned, or bullied for it. heterosexual marriage have been accepted as long as there has been marriage, with out exception.
So to the people who celebrate heterosexual pride i sincerely ask; Is the only reason you want to celebrate it because gay people celebrate gay pride? Did you see a space carved out in blood by another demographic and demand that you also be privy to it? Is it out of spite that "all these gays get to shove who they are in my face?"
Because if the reason is anything other than a deep feeling of passion and camaraderie with other heterosexuals, than you are being a jerk.
And if you just want a party, you are more than welcome to join us in Pride month. We have drinks and snacks.

Just something for individuals to chew on. i make no judgements on anyone.

A door way, and some sound proofing. Looking from the outside that is all that made this building special.
Its door held open for the destitute, for the broken, and beaten. Afraid to be themselves.
But here
Here in this place, this chapel.
the meek do gather.

This building of concrete, rubber, and metal, rusting
in a bustling town that ignores its presence
it's a sanctuary.
A safe place for these people who day in and day out live in fear.
Did i say too much?
Do they know?
Will they be angry?
Will they be violent?

This is no normal church though, for its congregation gathers not to pray but to be free from prayer.
To them every breathe is a prayer,
Every paranoid look over their shoulder,
Every mental social calculation,
Every sigh of relief when the little things go unnoticed,
happy to just be invisible.

When you walk through those doors, past the bouncer, to the bar, all of those feelings melting away in a cacophony of bass,
All the anger, all the fight or flight, all the fear.
Just love. Just acceptance.

So I was trying to write a poem to show you how much I love you. I wanted to tell you how your eyes are like black holes to me. The center of the universe with its brown event horizon calling me forth with knowing beauty eloquently tossed into existence by the random chaos of the cosmos.
But that's not enough. A simple image of me and my thoughts while I'm staring into your eyes is hardly love, though maybe a little romantic.
So I thought this poem needs motion. Excitement.
I could use fear. I could tell you how my nightmares now are of me trying to live without you. I could tell you of the times I want to text you asking you if I fucked up because I'm afraid. In the moment my worst nightmare was reality in my mind. When my senses return I realize you're asleep and won't be able to text and then I realize it's a dream and continue snoozing.
Again the image is hardly romantic.
I could tell how I'm changing the very structure of my life for us. How every plan I make now has you running parallel to me. How you've become my very existence and all I want is you there by my side.
And these things would make great poems. But they don't give power to the feeling. Because it's so much more than that. It's how I sleep on a couch or smaller bed when you aren't around so that I don't miss your arms around me as much. It's how I want to fight the douche exboyfriends. It's how all I can think of is what's best for you.
I started writing this poem to convince you I'm worth it. Though now... I just want you to be happy. I don't know what's wrong or what I've done. But I just want you to be happy. Tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it. Even if that means my worst nightmares come to life. Because you're my dream and while I would rather have it with you, I just want you to live it.

Sarah 1

Her feet hurt and her muscles ached but they had warned her that would happen, that the path is long and hard and out of the way. Sarah had nodded, reckoning that made sense. How else do you keep a secret city, well, secret?
"Are you sure you want to go? We can't and won't make you." They had asked, almost unsure of her. "If you don't pass the seers test you won't be allowed to come back. And it isn't an easy life." As if her current life was. As if she would have anything to come back to.
They had warned her but it had not prepared her.
It had been warm and comfortable in her seaside village, the air was heavy with salt, when the keeper came arrived. The keeper was a small girl with grey hair to her waist, and a mustache atop a wide smile. She spoke often and with passion telling stories of past adventures and jokes. If it weren't for that grey hair Sarah never would have believed she had seen over sixty winters.
The keeper helped her pack a single bag, stressing the need to pack light, but insisted Sarah bring a single momento. She picked an old doll that had a vague memory of who she thought might be her mother attached to it.
They set out after a small breakfast, the previous days mild heat gaveway to blistering sun and heat. Through swamp and salty marsh they trudged, mosquitos and alligators threatening to draw blood. Slowly though that little coastal village melted away into the southern horizon.
They walked that day until the sun threatened to fall below the earth and the next morning ate breakfast and started again. That day they escaped the dredged swamps and made to solid ground composed if pine forests and clay mounds. The day after went much the same as the last two.
On the fourth day however Sarah could go no further. She had walked more in one day than she had her whole life, and she had walked three of them with no rest. Her joints and muscles burned and ached.
Fear grew in Sarah that she had failed, that her keeper would leave her behind. She had invested in something too high and she couldn't deliver.
"You made it further than most!" Her keeper had told her, but this only brought more fear that Sarah was close but not good enough for the keeper and her so called "family" she so often told stories about.
But the old woman never left. In fact throughout the next few days the keeper hunted and made her soup and broth from the haul. Slowly Sarah grew stronger again.
It was around the campfire on the second night that Sarah said her first words to the old woman.
"Why didn't you leave me?" After all that's what is done with those who can't carry their own weight; they were left. Or worse.
"Because I see it in you. A want for love and love to be given, even if you don't see it yourself." The grey haired keeper replied. After another second, she added "you'll be a good addition to the family."
The old woman got up to go to her bed roll when Sarah spoke for a second time. "Wait... what's your name?"
The keeper smiled "Jessica."

Micheal 1

Nothing moved in the hot southern sun. No breeze blew and no animal stirred. Only the sound of cicadas rang out over the cracked and crumbled pavement. Waves of heat rising from the remains of the broken shopping center.
A man stepped from the bushline running parallel to the road. He stood tall and straight even with the weight of his backpack and rifle. A beard covered his features and his hair sprouted in chaos.
He moved quickly in jeans and with a Baja slung over his pack.
He enter an old store front with the words "AL*MART" above. He strode past the broken and empty shelves to the back room to find a horse tied to an old equipment shelf, a worn saddle set beside it.
The raggedy cooed softly to the horse tracing up its head with his fingers and followed along its spine. He then began hooking his rucksack onto the horses back using a series of straps. When that was finished he hooked on the saddle put his rifle in the holster and began leading the horse out.
Outside, he climbed on and headed down the old country road. All around lay giant mounds of broken cars with vines covering them.
After many miles the man stopped suddenly and looked around intently. Grunting he unslung his rifle, urging the horse on slowly.
After only a few steps a blur of yellow smashed the man to the ground turned and jumped at the fleeing horse. The mountain lion missed it's mark and landed on the man's rucksack and tumbled to the ground.
A shot rang out and the lion fell back to the ground softly. The man limped slowly back to his steed. When he reached it he reached out and rubbed it's head whispering soothingly. When it settled, he climbed on grunting in pain.
He rode in silence for a long while the meandering ever closer the horizon. When it threatened to touch he stopped a shop called Bruno's Deli. He dismounted and unslung his rifle. After tying the horse to a parking meter, he limped into the store rifle at ready. Briefly eyeing behind the counter, he burst through an Employees Only door disappearing into darkness.
The wind blew the trees and vines gently, as the horse whinied nervously. The man came back out smiling a small piece of jerkey in hand, chewing obnoxiously. He then led the horse through the store to a freezer.
After tying the lead, he went in search of a well. Finding one behind an old residence he filled a painters bucket drank fully, refilled and returned to the store. He arrived just as the sun dipped below the horizon. He laid the bucket in front of the horizon letting it drink.
The man cracked open a chemical light and closed the freezer. He then moved over to the corner where a box sat and began loading bags of jerkey into his backpack. When he finished he sat back against the wall and drifted to sleep.

Beeping filled the freezer bouncing off its walls. The raggedy man woke to the pale green light washing through it. He clicked his watch silencing the beeping.
He stood and began stretching his leg, obviously moving better. Gathering his things he caught the horses lead and began outside.
Exiting the store he felt the nip of dew. Birds chirped and scattered at their approach.  The man led the horse to an old mall parking lot overgrown with grass and let the horse run and begin grazing.
He sat down and began building a small fire and once it was burning pulled a percolator from his pack and poured water from a bladder in it. After patting himself down momentarily he produced a bag of ground coffee, barely enough. He then pulled out two cups and set them down.
The man leaned back on one of his arms and lazily scanned the area. A while longer the coffee was finished and the man filled them both then leaned back again clearing the sleep from his mind.
When it was half way to noon the man stood up slowly, with a grunt. He reached down and poured out the other cup of coffee and began stowing his gear. With that finished he whistled and the horse came bounding over stopping next to its rider. For a long minute he laid his forehead on the horses head, brushing it's hair.
Finally they set out again into the broken roadways lying beneath slowly heating sun.
Many miles later the scenery changed from tree and vine and ruin to neat row after neat row of a waxy leaf plant. The horse whinied uncomfortably and the man brushed it soothingly.
A man's face appeared between one of the rows fear covering his face. Quickly though an embarrassed smiled washed over it and he whistled loudly. Other workers raised their heads from their hiding places to watch the stranger who had come.
Further on he came to a wall of cars with a wooden gate. Two men with rifles stood atop it. Their faces were windswept and sunburnt but soft. For a long while the two stared at one another, Sentry and Wanderer.
The sun grew hot and the cicadas rang loudly. Finally the silence was broken by a grunt from the rider. "And wha'town might'is be?"
"That depends on who you are rider."
The wanderer laugh a deep guttural laugh and the two sentries looked to each other uncertainly. "I am a Seeker of te'Truth, boys."
The sentries looked as if they were about to laugh when the gate opened before the rider. "It's him!" Rang a third voice from in the wall. The wanderer spurred his mare in slowly smiling widely.
"T'ank ya, gents."

The woman sprang forward from where she lay, sweat covering her dark body. Her pulse raced and her mind flew.
"He's in Pawtee.  He'll be here soon." She smiled. The man beside her grunted in confusion, his tattoos seeming to move on their own as he slowly sat up and lit a candle. The light from it brought evidence of the sweat soaked sheets and the true darkness of her skin. 
"What did you see?"
"He's here Jason. Micheal has returned."

I don't want to tell her the truth, that her absence is just a minor thing, another kink in the way my day should ideally go. No this is a hole. A pitfall. An emptiness in me and everything around. As if I can feel her leaving the city and the distance between us growing. The world grows quiet with that false silence that is the cold of loneliness.

We broke up because "we are going too fastt" but oh babe I knew that from the first. You were storm and I wanted nothing more than to ride your storm surge until you sank. I guess I had just forgotten how it felt to be tossed around at sea.

10 things that make me not want to believe in God.
1. A child sits crying alone wishing he could take back the day he trusted a man of the cloth.
2. The hopeless feeling I get as I think about my future.
3. Isreal and Palestine
4. Syria
5. My chest being filled with pain every time I breath your name. It tastes of warms memories and vodka.
6. When I was 6 I realized how hard the world is. I told my mother and she laughed saying I dont know difficult. She beat me with a pan. I then came to two more epiphanies.
7. My mom is bitch.
8. if some people have it worse than me, this world is not a place that wants humans around
9. Evolution
10. Mega churches

10 things that make me believe
1. The way my best friends body moves when drunk, a horrible and in graceful dance of near falls and hardy laughter. This is shortly followed by loud singing and tear soaked shirts as we spill our souls.
2. How she says gods name; loud and airy with barely breathe to waste on it. I unbury my mouth from between her legs to smile at her
3. On a clear day you could see the edge of the Tennessee river valley all its spines and ridges. You knew there were trees there from the green but you couldn't see a single one.
4. A couple who looks 90 years old is walking down the road holding hands. They both smile.
5. The way you hold my hand and for a moment I can see us walking down that road, barely capable of walking.
6. Brewing coffee over a fire surrounded by snow. The only warmth lays asleep in my tent or in my cup but I have the world.
7. My friends and i riding down the road 30 miles over the speed limit blasting The Black Parade screaming its words in a futile attempt to hear ourselves over the speakers
8. The way the sun slips over the Charleston bay reflected into a million different beams turning the world orange.
9. The way she would pet my hair as I held her pretending to sleep.
10. The way she breathed as I kissed her, like a jolt of lightning surged through. She smiles into my mouth, every fucking time.

I tried to write a poem about a clock
And it's ticking
Ticking
Ticking rhythm

I wanted to tell you how much it hurt
Not to see you
You
You again

Because you were always what filled my mind
That and ticking
Ticking
Ticking going on

Now nearly two years since I wrote that... train wreck
Two years without you
You
You are so far away

Time doesn't wait on my cries for mercy, nor rewind for the bargain I offer
It just keeps ticking
Ticking
Ticking away

And me, I just keep thinking
Thinking
Thinking of you

But the most tragic part of the whole affair is that I dealt the crippling blow out of compassion, not fear or pain as I suggested. That I lied to protect her. I told her I couldn't be with her that the memory of what she had done was too great. That she should move on. And that's what she did. Already far away she some how became even further. Her number changed, Facebook deleted and address lost in the sporatic chaos that is my memory. Our relationship crippled to never again occur.
So now I am left only with her memory, the love notes she wrote me, a duct tape ring, and love notes I was too afraid to give her. And pain. Lots of pain.
All I want is for her to be here for her to laying next to me teaching me once again what it is to love. I want her blue green eyes that strike like a vikings hidden waterfall and that little gap between her two front teeth and her hips so perfectly formed to the way I would drape my arm around her. I miss her laugh and geeky smile, the way she could talk of the flow of poets and art for hours. God damn I miss her. Felicia,  I am so sorry. I was wrong.

In progress

The wind blew with a steep chill that cut straight through the kevlar and utilities. Jason looked down at the cigarette clenched in between is sunburnt fingers. From here he could see the whole city, if It could be called it that. In American terms it was only the size of a farming town in Kansas and with only two street lamps, the city was essentially non existent, floating somewhere in the fluid void of blackness before him.
In most FOBs smoking a cigarette atop a roof during black out hours is a big no no. Here, however, there hadn't been a mortar attack in months. Long before Jason stepped booted foot on this god forsaken dirt patch. He took one long last drag and put the cig out looking out on the now shimmering horizon.
Knowing the moment was soon he focused his mind and reached out for Alex, the soft presence floating in a universe of hardness, and he felt her focusing too. So far away so strained.
The connection came over him like an orgasm suddenly awash in two worlds, one of a sun rising above the Himilayan Mountains in a spectacle of fire and glory and one of the sun dropping below ungodly mostrosities of the New York skyline. He smelled cigarette smoke on her end as well and smiled inwardly at the fact he was not alone in his resurgence of bad habits.
Then he heard her. Felt her. Her every thought and vision and working spiral of mind. she was so much smarter than he, he forgot just how dumb he was when he did not have her mind to probe with every problem and puzzle. The warmth of the rising sun and her ecstasy at finding him again wash over his landscape.

You
in an ever changing world, you were supposed to be the same
in a swirling mass of planets and stars, you were supposed to be still
Amid rotating faces, among the constant shifting of who is my "friend," you were supposed to remain.
You said you would remain.
But what is far worse than all of that,
I believed you

Take me back in time, just a few weeks is fine, back to when you smiled and danced in time with the drum. When our laughter and hearts were open, our guts spilled across the floor. I miss your smiling face and penetrating voice, the warmth your jokes send through me. I miss my friend.

the only safe place is behind a mask,

carefully constructed, 

crafted to conceal the ungodly horror,

you sweat, you cry, you bleed beneath this mask,

in a world that would destroy if it noticed you.

a world marching ever forward,

a banner raised with a cross,

emblazoned bright red and burning,

the word love beneath it.

now the wounds are sore and infected,

but you don't dare remove the mask,

to do so would mean a new banner would be raised,

painted with your blood the words jesus saves

Tomorrow is the day,
Tomorrow has toil and pain,
Tomorrow the sun will rise and set,
Tomorrow I march,
Tomorrow I sweat,
Tomorrow I bleed,
I know one day this will all crash around me,
One day the sun will swallow he earth,
One day the electricity behind my music will stop,
One day I will die and my words will disappear into ash,
But that day is not today,
For today I live,
For today my headphones blare,
My cigarette burns,
And my eyes are dry.

I wasted days like you waste money. They came and went in dazzling blurs that will never be remembered. In trying to feel alive I came within inches of death and looked it in the eyes.
Then I met you. Beautiful, smart, broken you. And I destroyed you. I never meant to but it’s like giving a child a crystal sculpture. He might understand it’s beauty and craftsmanship but he will never be safe with it. He will store it with the baseball glove and football pads.
when I held the broken pieces my mind raced wirred trying desperately to find away to make t not so. The sharp edges of the broken glass that was her sliced my hands and feet. I couldn’t escape lets I inflict further pain. As I grew I realized that the only way out is to put a strip of leather between my sole and the ground and use a similar application with my soul and the world around me.

Today I wrote your name on a cigarette, and I set it adrift.
I hope you will find it, and understand I still want to see you.

I sit on the edge of inspiration, the mood is on me as I smoke another cigarette, the taste of the last pack still on my lips.
I am on the edge of inspiration patiently sitting waiting for my words to take shape. I picture you to help it along. If I could only taste you on my lips again my heart would leap with poetic words and love tales.
But I sit. And wait. On the edge of inspiration

I see you only at night.
It’s been a year since I first kissed your smiling lips and I tasted what you were hiding behind it.
A year and two weeks since we first met. You wrote a note in my journal. I now associate the leaves colorful change to your beautiful eyes.
I only see you in my dreams now.
11 months since i last saw you and I am starting to forget how your nose felt pressed against mine.
I am starting to forget the shape of your short hair.
I only see you at night but soon I won’t be able to see you at all.

I love fall. For many reasons.
The colors change.
Pumpkins.
Holloween.
Sweaters.
Leaves to play in.
Beautiful colors.

And I met her.
Her smile. The small gap between her two front teeth that one could only find by exploring her mouth with ones tongue.
Her short dyed black hair with a hint of purple.
Her hips. These perfect hips that swished this way and that in the sexiest blend of grace and clumsiness.
Her hands. Her soft hands and scarred wrists that I explored with my finger tips.
Her eyes. The green center and blue outline with a tinge of yellow in one eye. They glowed bright for everyone to see. Especially against her hair.

I hate fall. For many reasons.
Things die.
It gets cold.
I lost her.

I remember it wasn’t until a while later I saw her again. I sat with my friends laughing pretending she wasn’t a hole in my soul. And there she was standing over me. My eyes met hers, a nervous smile on her face that I only saw after we were finished fucking. The smile that says she was afraid I would my leave her. But I wasn’t the one who left a suicide note in the for of two words in my phones inbox. I didn’t say I was sorry and try to leave her forever. That was her. And now she is gone. Gone away to a distant land with me hoping that she will find the strength to text me.

I hate the fall. Because everything dies in the fall

I want to live forever,
my name mocked by teens.
i want to live forever,
scholars gathering in teems.
i want to live forever,
in the pages of books people never bring to class,
i want to live forever,
in lovers poems that are supposedly original.
i want my name passed on from man to man,
generation to generation,
because maybe there is a life after this,
but really i just don't know that.
i want to live forever and this is the only way i know how

Have you ever seen the stars from atop a mountain,
Clear and chilled like the ice from heaven rests next to you?
Have you shaken a nomads hand,
Felt his loneliness and content, been slightly jealous?
Have you felt the desolation of the dunes of Coral Sands,
So close to your fellows yet so far?
There is so much you have yet to see,
so much i could show you.

Yet i see in your eyes things i never dreamed,
sunsets on sky scraper littered horizons,
the joy of a crowd celebrating a new year,
of meeting new people every day.
There is so much i have yet to see,
so much you could show me.

I remember that dark summer night as i sat on the ground and averted my eyes. I remember the 9 mm Ruger ringing out and echoing across the rows and rows of houses, houses filled with people who don't know the tragedy that just struck.
I remember hugging what remained of my childhood friend, his blood soaked fur dripping into my mouth and coating my hands.
I remember washing my hands for hours night, trying not to wash away the blood but the memories.
I remember years later working at a fast joint, the way the beef patties poured blood and the feeling of it drying on every surface.
I remember every night when i got home washing my hands until the blood of the bovine was replaced with the blood of a boy trapped in a mans body. I wasn't trying to wash away the blood, but the memories.
and it seemed no matter how hard i scrub no matter how long i remain determined, that some grime will never leave me.
I remember telling my friends and they would ring out "no no there is nothing wrong with wanting to be clean."
I nod as i think to myself "there is nothing wrong with washing my hands until i lose count in the sixties and have to start over. there is nothing wrong with brushing my teeth after every meal and at least once a hour. There is nothing wrong with everytime something dries on my hands, crying in a public restroom where no one can see."
i remember a dark autumn night, where i carry out the smaller of my childhood friends. I remember singing to him, the only creature to have heard me sing.
I remember averting my eyes as a .22 rifle rings out, drenching his fur in blood. I remember digging with dry eyes and steady hand.
I remember washing my hands until i lost count at sixty then starting over again.
I remember losing count three times that night.
I remember replacing the feline's blood with my own.
I remember... and i wish i didn't.

Will you run away with me?
see places we've never dreamed?
will you leave tomorrow?
to a world all its own?
will you hold my hand?
atop a bullet train?
will you run away with me?
to a world we've never dreamed?

Tattoo

Who knows if tomorrow comes?
for the worlds we build,
and the ones we burn,
captains of our fate we called ourselves.
who could be as foolish as we?