It takes a lot of dirt and time and pressure

To be turned into a fossil,

But I like to think about my life sometimes

As if it is a dig site,

Full of people and places from my past,

Some of them still jutting from the surface

Dating all the way back to the Elementary Era

Or perhaps the High School Age

Or the Adolescent Period,

While other people from those same times

Have already dove beneath the dirt

Without another trace until

Perhaps I find them in a core sample of photos,

Or small bone fragments pieced together from my memories,

Or I rediscover them trying to unearth more than is on the surface of our mutual acquaintances.

It amazes me how little pieces

Tell all these kinds of stories

And there is so much that has happened

That was forgotten from our old identities,

Perhaps within an evolution

That we didn't know was happening,

Or great asteroids we will never find the crater for.

Some might even blame flowering plants for such catastrophic events,

But the truth behind some mass extinctions

Will never be completely certain.

In any case from where I am,

A lot has been lost from history

And may not show up in the fossil record,

But just because you didn't fall into tar

Or wind up encased within good sandstone

Doesn't mean you didn't leave an impact here.

Whether you still have your secrets

Or let them all be excavated,

I hope you know that you were here

And life as it exists today

Could not have been without your presence.

Before I touched your body,

Before I saw your soul,

When I was behaving oddly,

To try and get to know,

The you before the time I met you,

What was going through your mind,

If you thought your dreams would come true,

Get your story to unwind.

I had thought I saw our after,

In the corner of your eye,

Thought I knew where we were going

Until you caught me by surprise,

After you had time to think

Your after's turning then on me

After I became an afterthought

After you thought to set me free.

I've been longing for an after

Looking at each of our befores,

Every moment filled with laughter

Now is broken evermore.

Before has no answers for me

And I know I must move on

But before I go I must see

There's an after with you gone.

Red is the wet of an open wound. It's slightly warm with pain about the edges, that pierces deeper once necessary pressure is applied for healing. Some say its taste is iron, while some may just call it raw like beef before it's cooked.

Red contradicts itself. It is the flash of heat that covers your face when anger takes hold, and simultaneously the flush on a face full from the first signs of love. It can manifest as the butterflies in your chest or the knots in your stomach, both with their own depth and intensity.

Red is the rose. Red is the blood. Red is the raging fire. Red is different things to different people, but red is me.

I never knew I had a limit in my life until I started running up against it. In school studying came naturally to me, or at least I didn’t’ bother with it half as much as I could have. I only focused on academics, and didn’t bother much with a social life; my focus was always on my family or my studies (at least enough not to fail). When I was through college though, the realization hit me that I didn’t give myself enough time to live. Is there time now to do the rest of what I wanted? Perhaps…

Once upon a sea of grass,

I paused to let some time slip past.

I took a breath, inhaled the air,

As if I wasn't anywhere.

I turned my focus to the sky

To watch some clouds go passing by

And listen to the chirping birds,

Their lovely songs in unknown words.

The field was full of verdant green,

The sight of snow still left unseen.

I sat there in my lackadaise

While longing for my simpler days,

When I was young and thin and spry,

And I still dreamed and did and tried,

Before when summers seemed to last,

Once upon a sea of grass.

Q comes, Q goes,

Q never knows,

Q kicks a wall,

Q lets it go.

Q tells the truth, then feels its lies,

Q cannot self-identify,

So Q continues to restart:

Afraid they'll break another heart.

Q loved, Q lost,

Q felt the cost,

Q had regrets

That Q had bought.

Q questioned, Q answered,

Q's responses a cancer,

Each mold Q tried had seemed too strict,

Their signals simply contradict.

I want your endless body

Constantly caressing me,

The ebb and flow of every touch

Massaging like a raging sea.

I want your waves of fury,

Pure emotion at the shore,

When everything comes crashing down

I long again for something more.

I want your clouds condensing

As your body evaporates,

The fog and clouds all that remain

All getting grayer while I wait.

I want your rains enveloping

To peal my every doubt,

But it's been weeks since you rolled through;

You left me in a drought. 

My father and my uncle, both veterans in their own right (though not those who faced the fears of war), always seem to irk me when they speak of jury duty. My father talks about the distant relatives he has in the police force, which he can rattle off to third cousins I never recall meeting, which hopefully imply he has a bias toward trusting cops. My uncle, on the other hand, brags about his smarter comments to the questions he's been asked over the years, and if the wit is not enough to excuse he can be quick to bring up that he is hard of hearing (which I suppose is legitimate, but seems a last-resort crutch in these instances. I've also met other men in my experience who mention their own "personal objections" and "spiritual hardships"in trying certain cases, most of which seem to be convenient lies the way they they braggadociously bring it up with a glint in their eye or a dry-washing of the hands.

On some level, admittedly, I think I find it sickens me, but maybe this is only because it is a measure of poor citizenship on their part. We all have a duty to God as we do to ourselves, and between those two comes country. These lines were instilled in me in Scouting at an early age, and when I see contradictions in them I am easy to upset. I think that most of it stems from the fact that I am not a fit man, and obesity prevented me from joining up with the military. Service on a jury, then, is one of very few ways that I, as a citizen, can give back to the country that I love. People are so selfish when they try to make a country that only serves themselves; Democracy is a higher power that also deserves its homage and our own humility. That is how and why I serve.

The middle of my story always seems to be unique, but its beginning and its end are always the same. I am in my cubicle at work, papers full of little notes and anecdotes strewn about my desk, but my focus is instead upon the computer screen. A window is open in Roundtable containing several lines of code and I am tasked with tracking down the bug that haunts my reality. My problem is never syntax at this point in my career, as all my semicolons and periods are where they need to be. The plague is in the logic and what it's meant to do versus what it's actually doing.

I always come close, and sometimes figure out the answer, but then I think it doesn't matter. "This isn't the real code," I think, "you've been dreaming all this time." When that realization hits it always wakes me up.