I miss that time before people knew everything and even the annoyances of the occasional… “I don’t know.”

It’s Truman and Capote.

Shakespeare and Macbeth.

It’s Homer and the Illiad

And Merchants peddling death.

It’s the Bible and the Proverbs.

Commandments and the rules.

It’s Fredrick and his observation

Of Kingdoms and the Fools.

It’s Dostoevsky and the Russians.

It’s sometimes you, often me.

It’s story that we’re telling.

And there’s no fiction that I see.

The major benefit from the misfortune of childhood tragedy I have found is the awareness of such pain has left me with zero desire to repeat these events with my own child.

I have consciously sought a relationship of trust and honesty with a keen eye towards avoiding humiliation.

Most likely neurotic, certainly narcissistic; this ego maniac with low self esteem has not come across these characteristics in a vacuum.

No… There was much help along the way down this path. What role does fate have in this? Or is that too much to question? I don’t know, however I am leaning towards nurture and environment more than design and fate in any debate going forward.

The silence came suddenly… at the end of a needle.

After a violent convulsion of pain and what seemed a will to live.

Then she purred until her final breath.

So delicate. So easily disrupted.

One night of not being able to sleep; not being able to shut off the brain, is all it takes!

I pray and meditate not for spiritual morality or superiority. I require the peace of mind and the serenity balance that comes with it.

She’s angry and I am tired. It could be sick and tired of the flu season however it is more about being tired of the unnecessary childish emotional responses of adults that I am tethered to. Alas!

She’s edgy in the stillness. ‘Did she leave that burner on?’ There’s panic in her timbres, there’s danger at the calm.

I loved her for her madness and she did not change her ways. But I changed the locks instead and dreamt of better days.

Dennis Mantin

History books are less than kind.

To tears and sorrows left behind.

Stewed and reaped and so refined

And outta sight and outta mind.

A different myth there to find.

A heavy heart of pages lined.

Subtle scribes so undefined.

Into dirt they often grind.

Dennis Mantin

She said, “Don’t wear out your welcome.” I asked, “Did you stay too long?”

She smiled and stayed silent. I guessed that it was the question that was wrong?