We were raised with soft lips and quick hands, our kin shouted from the mountaintops of the love they found. Our neighbors sat on rooftops and heckled the people walking by, taunting them with the love they found. But we were raised to borrow the ears of the saints. whisper of the love we found and keep it close to our chests. Our kin folk paraded about with their hands to the world and our neighbors embraced the villagers with an open fist. But we were raised to hide our hands and hold tight to the love we found. Our kin folk brandished forked tongues and our neighbors borrowed any ear that turned their way. But we were raised to whisper into the ears of humble of the love we found. Our kin would make riddles that cursed the soft spoken and the neighbors would accuse us of being ashamed of our token. But we were raised to be patient and we were raised to sing, to whisper such a lovely thing. peace to your heart it shall bring. To hold such a passion buried so deep this precious love you shall keep.

I've never been one to count the stars, sitting out in the wind trying to put a number on something I don't even understand seemed pointless. And when I ride in the automobiles the clouds always look like animals, never like people. I've never spotted a cloud and thought it looked like my aunt Linda. You could ask me why but I wouldn't have an answer. You could ask me again and I could lie to you. Stare right into your eyes and tell you that deep down I doubt clouds have any use for mimicking us humans. Why look like something that walks around on two legs when you could look like a wild beast running on all fours with not a care in the world. My first memory was on a summer day, I was dressed in my cowboy vest with my trusty plastic six iron on my side. I was attempting to put the sheets on my bed though I had no idea why. From an early age the idea of making your bed was ridiculous to me. Mom was in the hallway folding clothes and singing an old gospel hymn: "could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made; were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Tho stretched from sky to sky" if you walk into the church where I was raised and pick up the ole hymnals. Turn to page 220 and you will find the corner of the page folded down on most of the books. When the choir sang it. hearing my dads voice stand out in the bass parts and the white haired saints singing so beautifully off key my mind went back to the day with my cowboy vest and mom with her denim jeans and hair pulled back in a red hair tie. I never ran away as a child, instead I faked migraines and made myself sick so the other kids wouldn't think I was a weirdo for wanting to be with my mom. I had on a purple tank top and borrowed pants the first time I saw a man holding another mans hand. I was in the grocery store and they made me angry. Not because they held each other hands but they were standing in front of the chips I wanted. Hold whoever s hand you want, just don't stand in front of the tater chips. She was the child of happenstance and had pocketfulls of second chances, and with every palm she kissed a part of her was left behind.

that's all I gotta say.

I pray dear sister that they burn us at the stake. Oh dear sister I pray they bind our hands with twine so when the flames eat at our wrists our bonds break free. My dearest sister I pray that with free hands we embrace and break bread with the fire. And my dearest sister the flame in our hearts will make the pyre around our legs seem nothing more than a campfire made by children in the snow. Oh sister of mine when our voices harmonize with the crackling of the wood I pray the town cover their ears and grow heavy with sorrow. Sister when they go to collect our ash their shovels will be bare. Because dear sister of mine you know better than I that our ashes are not theirs to claim.

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.