It was a massacre as each interracial soul poised as my victim, lined up in three uniformed battalions fifteen deep, my capture under the cover of darkness. I ripped open their tent for a ruthless ambush without warning. Then one by one I ripped out their guts single-handedly relishing each kill, twisting their mangled bodies, drowning their carcasses in a pool of milk until no more Oreos remained.

As garnishes go
I’m not much of a pro
But here I will state my opinion.
Tall and verdantly so
I love cilantro
The blessed flora of my herbal dominion.

Rough night I had,
I hardly sleeped.
Climbed out of bed,
But alas, I leaped!

Hopped into the shower,
Jumped into my pants,
I tried to walk,
But skipped and pranced.

Then I recalled,
To my chagrin,
It’s still last month,
Not March I’m in!

He fell in.

Years of dancing around the edges and flirting with false senses of moral resilience and immortality, such daring made his succumbing all but eventual and indeed, inevitable.

The fall broke him in so many places he hardly noticed, as quickly, its many promises of hedonistic freedom and bawdy heathenry which, like me, had long lured him, were now magnetic opioids blurring his pain with fantastic new pleasures and emergent lies which laid just beyond his newly found recognition.

Highly demanded by those who’d fallen in before him, the purity of his soul was rabidly consumed until he sold each remaining small piece of his best self for promises that no longer came true and relations that soon regarded him simply as just another one who’d fallen in as they once did, ravenously hungry and blind.

From one who escaped to one still imprisoned, I wish you freedom and resistance and feel all your pain of which you are now utterly ignorant and numb.

I miss who you once were, and who you may yet become again.

I lost a friend last night who’d been missing for many years. He was stabbed at the hands of another addict promising to make him feel better. Killed by a tiny bubble of nothing that punctured and invaded his tormented heart, ending all hope he would ever be found. I will both miss him and forever wonder at the price he paid for his peace. #usingislosing

You’ve been there a hundred times before.
Good food, good service, good price, so you’re back for breakfast. You order, wait, make some conversation, and watch a table of eight loud, self-centered, drunk leftovers from last night walk out on your waiter because they changed their minds after ordering and because they are assholes.
It’s crazy busy and you can tell he’s been busting his butt as he walks out to serve two huge trays of ordered meals to another suddenly vacated table. It’s been a long night and at the end of his shift, this is a tough pill for him to swallow.
What’s it like to be him right now?
Still waiting for your own meal to be served, you call him over and ask if he might wrap up a few of those unserved sandwiches for you to buy and take for lunch at the office. It’s just enough goodwill at the right moment to lift him out of a momentary pit which, at 5am, is working overtime reinforcing a belief that nobody cares about him.
Your offer engages him for a minute or so to talk about the rough night and the demanding crowd who care nothing about what it’s like to be him, only how fast they can get their food and which excuse they’ll use to stiff him on a tip. But he’s off shift soon and because you were different…because you empathized and showed you cared at the right time…he heads home on a slightly more positive note with a renewed belief.
And a small piece of humanity is redeemed at a cost to you of just $27 plus 20%. And it’s totally worth it.
You say your goodbyes and head to work. And though yours is already in the office fridge, your coworkers thank you for catering today’s lunch. Especially your underpaid, overworked receptionist with three kids who’s been doing without all week until payday.
And though it’s just beginning, today could easily be the start of the best day of your life. And maybe his.

Funny, but there are probably just as many stories about someone doing the right thing and winning as there are about someone doing the right thing yet losing. Both are inspiring not for their outcomes but for their decisions to deliberately do what is right, regardless the outcome. When we do the right things, outcomes cease being the climax, focus, meaning or purpose of the story but the doing of the right thing is itself, the sole author of the inspiration. Outcomes are too often overrated, mostly by those who don’t live by faith and so doing, learn nothing about still having joy in endings unknown.

I was a junkie. The cravings were unbearable.

I was using day and night around the clock and my mental health was suffering.

I had dealers all over.

Podcasts, TV, talk radio, the internet, subscriptions written everywhere.

I was addicted to politics.

It nearly ruined my life and made me an angry, contentious man nobody wanted to be around anymore.

Then on the road one day, frantically pushing buttons on the dial for yet another fix,

I found the news and this time it was different. It was good news.

It was the SOS answer to prayer when I was at rock bottom.

I started with a few minutes a day on the way to work.

Then took another 15 on the way home.

I got hooked. My attitude changed. I have friends who like me again

and I’m up to more than 30 minutes a day.

I’m Don M. And I’m an SOS addict.

Spiders, clown faces,
And bridges collapsing.
Burglars who break in on me
While I’m napping.
Slivers and big dogs who
Foam at the mouth,
These fears turn all my anxieties south.