Insidious Adaptation

"The feels," given permission to take over as hormones are reason enough to indulge our desires. As though we have no control of who drives the car, only that we are in the passenger seat and we pray for no crash, or at least airbags if we do. Kids are having sex. Sadly I did, too young. I was too immature, not ready for the what I was giving up. No value to myself, only for others to see me as equal. Wanting to fit in with the world, a social group, peers, to discuss in the locker room with detail now, for this is what we do right? How we make sense of our actions, by measuring against those around us? It was dark, too dark, for neither of us wanted to see what was going on. I prayed for it to end, just to be done, for if I could have gotten a reprieve from this act and still claimed to have done it, I would have. The sex was not wanted, but to claim I had sex, for I couldn't go to college a virgin. A dark room, an adolescent kid, practice putting on a condom in re...

What is achievement other than a never-ending goal? What is success, but something defined by those outside? What is hunger defined by those who need? What is love desired by those who are lonely? On one side of a door, there is wood paneling, on the other, an entire room, unless of course you are on the inside, then there is an entire world out there. The possibilities behind any door, any thought fulfilled, any thing you've ever wanted available right here. (Points to one's head) I don't want it though. The pleasure, for I don't feel I am worthy. I have to keep working, striving, trudging through because I am not going to hold it properly. There are the times I want to give up, give in, quit, but then I remember that this is the gift. The entire reason I exist it to serve, and how can I serve if I achieve? How can I be washing feet when I have nice things? My entire life up until now, has remained in this current thought process. I am going to fail. I have t...

She has always been such a formal display of cruelty. For me, I have known her more as a Halloween prop than anything else. Through a few history lessons, I understood lynching. Now, I see her differently. I see the craft and variety of ways she is made. Rarely is she actually made the way I saw growing up. We visualize a rope, in reality she can be a tie, a t-shirt, a blanket even, for the rope can be too obvious a giveaway. When you say rope I think of water skiing, I think of a ladder up to a tree house, rarely do I consider the same rope used for someone to exit stage left, early. Yanked out while the audience looked away, never to return. There is no bow after this performance. The play keeps going without skipping a beat, reminding the audience that character, you, were background at best. The play wasn’t about you. Even a lead actor, taken off stage, the one we were meant to look at, he is a shock, he grabs your attention. Luckily there are many others and things to satiate...