I was an exception to the phrase "we were all born with a voice" I was born a mute, had it not been for my mother pressing her lips to mine and passing on her voice I would have walked this earth in silence. But my mother felt she had said enough in this lifetime and gave me a chance to shout from the rooftops and whisper to the ones I love. She spent the rest of her days scribbling on napkins and pressing her lips to my ears so they could feel her secrets.

When I was nothing but a small child I would chew on the tips of my fingers in hopes that one day I would grow up to a be a good boy. I wanted to grow up and stand straight while me and my wife served snacks to the crowd. But I was born in a different world and grew up with a bowed back. pockets full of phone numbers and the sin of other woman beneath my nails. I hid my passion in wooden boxes buried beneath the house and on the nights I held her hand I held back tears while I thought of how you ran from your mother and sent letters down the river..

He practiced the gospel every chance he got, turning the other cheek to feel the lips from the neighbors wife. He was known by many, but not in the way you and I would like to be known. The townspeople knew him as the man who rummaged through their mail, opening private letters from overseas, birthday cards and the occasional pre-approved credit card, looking to strike some sort of fire in his dried up heart. By law this is a capital offense but nobody had the heart to turn him in. They let him live vicariously through their lives, there was even an older man who would write the occasional letter full of scandalous acts for him, and it wasn't a surprise to see half a sandwich bundled up behind the readers digest. Visiting family and friends wondered why the townspeople put up with such nonsense and even in a small way enabled it, but nobody had an answer. It was an unwritten law, a sort of code one would say. They never turned their backs to a fellow man, even if he had wronged them in every which way possible. They were just common folks, no different than you and I, they read the same books as us and laughed at the television just like we do, they had their secrets, hidden taboos under the bed sheets and dark pasts but they were just better at keeping it hidden than him. And maybe that's why they tolerated his ways, because deep down he was more honest then everyone one of them, he put it out for everyone to see. And whether we admit it or not, all of us truly want that...to be completely honest with the world no matter the cost.

We were raised in a house of superstition, brother and I. Always putting the left shoe on first, keeping a bucket of buckeyes under the foot of our bed, or never breaking a twig on the Sabbath. Small things to the eyes of the world, but in our parents eyes these small traditions or superstitions kept the universe in tact. Folks felt sorry for us on account of our families odd habits but i'll be honest with you. We had a good home life, if the biggest thing they fussed about was us leaving our closet door open while the sun was still up I'd say we were pretty lucky, considering how rough others had it. I knew a boy in grade school who'd come to school beat to kingdom come just because he walked in front of his daddy. Growing up I questioned a lot, as most kids do. But I never heard my friends asking why they couldn't brush their teeth between 6:45 and 7:15. Mom and dad would sit me and my brother down and start to tell us about how the world used to be, how people took reverence in the small things and kept the world in order. But those ways were leaving, people lost their reverence and the ways of old were all but forgotten. And these traditions they were teaching us, silly as they may seem were greater than we could ever imagine, in a way they were keeping the universe alive. Now you tell two little boys that keeping two nickles in their back pockets is saving the universe, you better believe they never left the house without two worn down nickles. And even today, twenty-two years later I still got two nickles in my pack pocket. And I guarantee if you looked in that casket you'd find two nickles under mom and a bucket of buckeyes at her feet. Cause even on her way to the grave she stood by her beliefs, dad and brother were the same way. And the day someone is standing over me, talking about how I kept my bottom button undone or never broke a twig on the Sabbath I hope i'm just like my mom and dad. Going to the grave with nickles in my back pockets and knowing my family did they best they could to make the universe a better place.