From the safety of the Tele, we watch it all go down.

Not all… is truth or fiction, not all is swim or drown.

It’s kinda funny how it hits you, when we are all alone.

Beauty is just skin deep, but ugly goes to the bone.

You feel that the darkness, that roams in your own heart.

It is looking for a cuddle, but you come to rip apart.

Just try to face your demons and see the color of those eyes?

Just once try to calm your fears and listen to your lies?

You may never get there, maybe like the land of Nod.

Where Cain is still searching, in the shadows seeking God.

The feelings were confusions.

The expression was surprised.

The product of delusions.

The truth had somehow lied.

The children were selected.

In the group who would be spared.

No deception will be detected.

If you smiled like you cared.

It works for just a time or two.

Because bullshit baffles brains?

Even babies raised by wolves.

Know about deception pains.

I said I would love you forever.

I was young and terribly shy.

Gave you credit for being clever.

Didn’t know how to say goodbye.

Was over before it started.

It’s just the way it was.

Don’t need to be so broken hearted.

Sometimes it’s just because.

I didn’t really know about love

Just kinda thought I did.

Only when push comes to shove.

Fight or flight? I ran and hid.

A beautiful stranger smiled at me and I immediately got suspicious…

I looked over my shoulder to see who else it could be that she was looking at while simultaneously checking with my right hand to see if my wallet were still in place.

I walked away not daring to look back… the moment was gone and at the very least; one of us was exposed.

Dennis Mantin

The optimist says she’s healing.

The pessimist says she’s sick.

It’s all the same sick feeling.

A mind over matter parlor trick.

I have reached a point in life where I value my opinion above most others.

In any large decision I ask 3 people there opinion before I act.

If I am asking you for your opinion understand I respect you.

We were dreaming of a future.

Where something better came along.

When we could guide the children.

Where we could be that strong.

We were dreaming of a future.

And the future it is here.

And we are all so happy now.

There was so much crap to clear.

We were up against those forces.

In a post Thanos multiverse.

All the heroes, they now know.

To carry makeup in their purse.

Now that that’s been settled.

No more God or faith no more.

Our leaders are busy leading.

No more questions or out the door.

Jason sits at Queen at Jameson, his head bowed slightly taking stock of the trinkets that sit on the sidewalk beside him. He’s been here for decades now.

You usually hear him throat scream before you see him and most that hear that pain walk around him to avoid what ever it is that Jason offers.

The trinkets and toys are from a child long gone or grown… I can’t be sure except this was Jason’s child when he was younger and living on the east coast.

Whenever I think I’m having a bad day or that the lawyer bills for my child’s custody and safety are too much… it’s Jason who provides me with perspectives.

Better to teach children about boundaries early on… rather than later, looking through plexiglass, asking for canteen money.

Dennis Mantin

I don’t know what it is, however… Whenever I read Bukowski… I want to write.

Maybe it’s one alcoholic speaking to another, I don’t know. A safe place for a sober, dare I say recovered alcoholic; hearing tales from a dead man?

No, it’s the courage that I lacked when I was down the rabbit hole that he possessed. To be so honest in and about his addictions, maybe that’s the identification that happens?