Celebrating my 22nd year on this earth, I thought it best to reflect on 22 reasons I love life.

22.  Music to soothe the heart

21.  Smiles just when they're needed

20.  Fellow travelers who teach by the life they lead

19.  Literature to make the mind soar

18.  Thunderstorms for snuggling under the covers with my dog

17.  Rain cleansing the earth

16.  Chocolate to soothe the mind and tongue

15.  Soft sheets to coccoon me in sleep

14.  Freedom to live as I choose

13.  Education giving me the knowledge and skills so I can teach the next generation

12.  Angels intervening to keep me safe on my path

11.  Healing from wounds, those made by me and those caused by others

10.  Comfy clothes to live in

09.  Smell of Mom's baking proclaiming "HOME"

08.  Friends who love me when I'm not lovable

07.  Laughter making any day better

06.  Wisdom from The Greatest Generation

05.  Words spoken in love and understanding

04.  Soldiers, police officers, paramedics, and firemen who are willing to protect and help me without ever having met me

03.  Loving dogs who never judge me

02.  A supportive, loving family

01.  God loves me!

Pens, journals, and pencils no. 2

Spirals, binders, and textbooks by who?

New clothes, lunch boxes, backpacks galore

Colored pencils, calculators, and more

Highlighters, laptops, index cards new

Dividers, folders, and Post-Its by two

Notebooks, pencil bags, and paper looseleaf

Red pens, markers, and a graph paper sheaf

Book covers, scissors, and stapler plus

Labels, paper clips, and three-hole punch

All this and tuition costs once again

Can't wait for next summer to begin!

Solitude

Solitude stands among a mass of humanity.

Invisible walls erected by her choice,

And eardrums pierced deaf by her hands.

She sees bodies not people, simple bodies.

People matter little and misery much.

Solitude claims no desires, no necessities,

But she is passionate-fire encased in ice.

Masochism and side-effect sadism;

Oh, what pleasure they bring to her.

She stands naked in a network of scars

And watches the parade of flesh pass her by.

Solitude wants nothing of their festivities.

She'll expend her passions in their after-party pain.

Wallflowers and prom queens, jesters and geeks,

All have tears beauteous tears for her to drink.

Solitude stands and Solitude savors,

Solitude watches and Solitude waits

For you, for me, to feed her unquenchable thirst.

Solution's Chaos

Dreams and nightmares collide

In a world of radical sunstorms.

Gone are all things true and tried

On pendant wheels and sugar clouds.

Icestorms slash and twirl in the desert

Dancing to a frenzied waltz of dry winds.

Hearts beating to nonsense words

Lovers cling to cowboy fantasies.

Every voice lifted in animal songs

The human race still isn't one.

No more rights no more wrongs

Souls sold for a nickel and change.

Sanity's insanity and Insanity's inspirations

Fight for material possessions and masses.

Humble presumption's conception of dominations

Twist worlds for alien subjugation.

Peaceful processions of aggressive production

Dance in the monasteries of obsessed mountains.

Simple complexities of invention's invitation

A world of violence and peace now equal.

5.    "No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session."-Mark Twain (1866)

4.    "The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it."-Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982), Atlas Shrugged (1957), US (Russian-born) novelist

3.    "I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity."-Edgar Allan Poe, letter to admiring medical student (1848)

2.    "Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,-'Wait and hope'."-Alexandre Dumas (1802 - 1870); The Count of Monte Cristo; French dramatist & novelist

1.    "I always wanted a happy ending... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."-Gilda Radner (1946 - 1989), US actress & comedienne

Gilda Radner (publicity still)

All I Ask

Hold my hand when the road gets rough.

With you beside me I can face anything.

This is all I ask of you.

Bring the lantern when darkness falls.

Your light chases away the demons at my feet.

This is all I ask of you.

Set me on my feet when I have fallen.

You keep me from surrendering to dirt.

This is all I ask of you.

Treat scrapes on both sides of my skin.

You heal me when nothing-no one-can.

This is all I ask of you.

Carry my burdens on your strong shoulders.

They never become to heavy for you to bear.

This is all I ask of you.

Love me when I am most unlovable.

Your love is far greater than I know.

This is all I ask of you.

Take my sins and suffer on my cross.

I am unworthy of your sacrifice.

This is all I ask of you.

Spend three days in a borrowed tomb.

Walk forth and be the light of my salvation.

This is all I ask of you.

Ascend and take your place as high priest forever.

Make atonement for me and acknowledge me.

This is all I ask of you.

Come to this world once more in glory.

Call those of us washed in your blood home.

This is all I ask of you.

Night Terror

I wander through halls of my youth and open doors to my insanity.

When I dream I am nothing but Solitude's Fear and Silence's Scream.

Standing with my textbooks and hearing the bells ring, a buzz really,

I wonder what my Subconscious Wisewoman is teaching me.

Lockers open and shut and those I knew are but living dead.

Reaching out to a lost friend whose scars adorn her wrists

I yank my hand back as she snaps at me with razor blade teeth.

Pain and anger have changed her and given her to Cruelty

He has painted her once kind eyes a darker shade of black.

I look for the light of my love to give her but light is only for the living.

The door to Classroom 7C opens and the teacher beckons me join.

I sit beside a girl with claws curling into spirals and pull out a blank sheet.

The caricature of every educator I have ever known calls class to order.

A call for our writing assignment and my blank sheet is stained and aged.

Symbols meaningless adorn the paper but a perfect score is given.

Bell rings again and out into the hall of the undead students.

I find my own locker and with a flick of my wrist it is empty

As empty as the hand that once held textbooks and bloodstained paper.

Instinctively I know where I must go but I pray for release instead.

Sometimes God's answer is "no" and I learned the lesson with loss.

I do not sing well but nonetheless belong to the school choir.

The director takes us through our vocal warm-ups do-mi-re.

She smiles at me and her lips split at the seams tearing to her ears.

I fumble for my sheet music magically appearing in my hand.

We do not sing for song is beauty but we chant coarsely in ancient tongues.

Re-entering the hall my fear builds to hysterical panic.

I try to scream for God for Jesus for Mom for Dad for Bubba for Wakening

But my mouth cannot move and I run slamming into locked door after door

Mercifully a door at last opens and I run only to find myself trapped
       among tombstones.

Those of my past followed me and only to ask me to lunch--as the main course.

I fall beneath your cloak of darkness

Into the void of nightmares as yet undreamed.

I paint my skin in the colors of your madness

And dance to the sounds of your screams.

Your dagger gleams like a dragontooth

On its pedestal of bone and blood.

I feel the blade carve words of old in my flesh

And I recite them never knowing to whom I call.

The zombies come to dance around me, chanting,

Chanting in moans and a cacophony of decay.

Silence descends as you part the Sea of Death

And confront me with eyes of the Ancient.

You grasp my wrist and show all the gashes,

Gashes I never made where blood not mine did flow.

A wail is pulled from the throats of our Dead Horde,

And I see now why they came, to them belongs my call.

Friends and loved ones, teachers and models, all stained flesh,

Stand around me as rot while I stand in your hold.

I see the color of your eyes now, treebark brown,

My eyes, they stare back at me from a demon's form.

I tear my wrist away and fall on my knees to pray,

Pray for a mercy I do not deserve and forgiveness,

Forgiveness and love I can never repay.

A figure of light stands before me with a hand outstretched,

Reaching to save me from a fate I created of my sin.

I place my bloody hand in His and am taken to a lake,

A lake of beauty and sapphire blue water.

I confess my beliefs and repent of my wrongs

He submerges me in the water and raises me up.

Now a figure of white, cleansed of all darkness,

I fall beside the still water and praise Him in psalms.