He had frogs on his dash…

“Hello! I like your frogs!”

*reads from phone* “I’ll take a 4-count kids meal with a sprite, a cobb salad with avocado lime ranch and a spicy deluxe with pepper jack.”

“Okay, would you like the spicy deluxe meal or just the sandwich?”

*falters. gives his steering wheel a look of disgust and disdain. pulls phone back out* “Okay, I’ll take a 4-Count Kid’s Meal with a Sprite, a Cobb Salad with Avocado Lime Ranch, and a Spicy Deluxe with Pepper Jack.”

“Yes sir, I heard you. You said you wanted a 4-Count Kid’s Meal with a Sprite, a Cobb Salad with Avocado Lime Ranch, and a Spicy Deluxe with Pepper Jack, but did you want that sandwich as a meal, or just the sandwich?”

*Stares blankly ahead in utter shock and disbelief at the incompetence taking his order*

Gingerly, I place my hand into his skull and his head swivels to face me for the first time during the transaction. The face of the man is plastic. His attire is like the glaze on a stale pastry. His suit seems like it would adorn a rack better than on his immaterial form and his rainbow tie is akin to the frogs on the man’s dashboard. Inside his head my suspicions are validated. This is not a human to human interaction. I am only here to push buttons and recite totals. My input doesn’t even compute.

Resigned, if not affirmed, I mumble to myself, “okay, so, just the sandwich,” and then retreat into my role.

“Your total is $16.23 at the window. Have a great day, sir.”

The man speedily makes his getaway, and the sun sets on my small sliver of faith in humanity.

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Crying over Spilt Milk

A splash of milk spills onto a page
The morning's nourishment spoils the day

Mourning escorts me to the night before last
Where a memory reflects onto the retinas of the past

Probably won't be feeling very frisky in the future
You're a person not a conquest- I've dishonored you
In the palace of my mind you lived in every room
but instead of artwork I saw you as a tool

Don't get me wrong; we had a good time
but that time was stolen from the future
and now when I picture us I see only
memories that have passed their dates of expiration
and need only to be thrown out

Southbound Train

by Jon Foreman

I guess they’ll say I’ve grown
I know more than I wanted to know
I’ve said more than I wanted to say…

I’m headed home
Yeah, but I’m not so sure
That home is a place
You can still get to by train

So I’m looking out the window
And I’m drifting off to sleep
With my face pressed up against the pane
With the rhythm of my heart
And the ringing in my ears
It’s the rhythm of the southbound train

Oh,
Where the wind starts to look like her hair
And the clouds in her bright blue eyes
As the sea and the shore fall and rise
Like her breast as she breathes by my side

And the moon is her lips as the sun
Is headed on down to the sea
Like her head as she lays down on me
Until we reach ocean side

Over and over, I hear the same refrain
It’s the rhythm of my heart
And my sleepy girl’s breathing
It’s the rhythm of my southbound train

Oh,
I suppose they’ll say I should’ve known
Or maybe I’m just feeling old
Like a lawyer with no one to blame…

I’m headed home
Yeah, but I’m not so sure
That home is a place
That’ll ever be the same

So we gather up our things
And we head out in the cold
And your eyes are where you carry the pain
When I hear the whistle weeping
It’s crying to the sky
It’s the rhythm of my southbound train

The moon is the silent suitor, mesmerizing and stealthy
A poor black hole who creeps on the innocent hearts of the wealthy
So tender, so caressing; softly-lit is his gaze
Staring out their crystal windows they sit- amazed 

The moon's cheap, imitation haze is stolen from another source
The sun's blinding brilliance shines with incomparable force
There's nothing romantic about a spherical, vacuous, thief;
child of darkness
Many men share the same selfish, parasitic likeness

But find yourself effortless and rare illumination
With plenty of love to share with every creation
A genuine light with no beginning or termination
Turn away from the conniving, lying, hallucination

Refuse to be brainwashed by a rock

“Body”

by SYML 

In my body I have a master
I bow down when she comes around
In my body I’m a disaster 
I break down when you shake the ground 
Every time I stand to leave my cage 
In my broken body I stay 

I want to love like a man 
I’ll build you a home when I can 
Give my new body a chance 
Patient now it’s all that I have 
I fought the world for your hand 
Give my new body a chance 
It’s all I have 

In my body I fight fire 
With the snow, my hell is cold 
In my body I have a soft light 
Burning low, but too hot to hold 
I’ve become the only thing I hate 
Leave this broken body today 

I was hearing words in black and white 
Twisted up inside my broken mind 
Outstretched dirty hands just like a child 
Hungry little fool, but you were mine 

You’re all I have 
You’re all I have

I am Shackled but I am Free

I am a sheep to the Shepherd of righteousness
Chains of darkness have no hold on me
I am fearfully and wonderfully made in His image and likeness
Strike me down or break my knees
The servant is not greater than his master
I'm laying up treasures and planting seeds
To one day rest in the greenest pastures
While the wrath of God falls on His enemies
I'm a revelation, a declaration
of a loving Father and a risen King
A new creation and an imitation
of the one who formed my inner being
He placed in me a desire, a fire
To become like Him and shut the mouths of liars
Without Him I'd be nothing but a vacant dream
He gave me breath and saved my life
replaced my noise with quiet streams
transcending my futile, carnal strife
Through Him, I am made complete
He disciplines those He loves
So we can live eternally
Perfect, spotless, clean as doves

War Against Will

Please help I don't know how to feel
I close my mind to what is real
Provoke my wounds, won't let them heal
I have bruised knees on which I kneel
What's left for me is the leper's fate
Isolation, exile, and disgrace
Disease consumes me, I am waste

I'm dead and buried
resurrected, carried
to a new place
a new life
a new face with new eyes that see the same cycle of lies
the same disgrace
the same bad disguise for the truth

The best lies have some truth to them
I am worthless but that's not the end
The same eyes look down and see a foreign body
a new creation
They're not one yet but just be patient

Body and spirit once again collide
and just like before they can't co-exist
They attack each other mist to fist
and I'm stuck in the middle of a clear divide
But this time spirit wins the fight
and my redemption is complete
My body and spirit unite
My life is saved by my will's defeat

Gone

 

"walk fearlessly into the house of mourning,
for grief is just love squaring up to its oldest enemy
and after all these mortal human years,
love is up to the challenge"

Your time came and you left
me missing you
gone too soon
I am a pearl without its clam
a wave without the sea
a beached whale on the sand
a chick free falling from a tree
I want someone to look up to
but I can't crane my neck that far
Which light peering at me from
the night sky is your star?
I would call but you don't have a phone anymore
I want to write but there's no mailbox
on Heaven's door
Can you see me?
Can you hear?
If you can, would you lend me an ear?
The photographs I have of you collect
dust, tears,  unanswered questions and regretful glances
I guess I didn't grow up fast enough and missed all my chances
to learn to fly
before my Momma Bird took to the sky

(a dream is just another itch you can’t scratch)

Arise, Dear, please take my hand
I know you miss me and I understand
I'm right here
Let's go to a place where tears are banned
together we can redeem the years

We can't turn back time but we can shake his hand
and get an inside scoop on all his dastardly plans
Partnered with perishing time always knows
Who stays today and tomorrow goes
What plants wither, what flowers grow
Time sees every course of man
When they run and when they'll stand
still, and when the deathbell tolls

There's a time for everything though you feel
I was stolen
I'm no longer suffering
There's no need for eyes swollen
There's nothing closer than death
I'm always with you
In your memories, in your breath
I'm whispering I love you
I must go know, time for no one bends
Free yourself of me before this dream en-

The String That Ties Us

By Beautiful Eulogy

Let’s suppose that a kite could come to life and develop its own personality.
 On the one hand, it would feel the exhilaration that comes from the surges of wind that direct it through the sky. On the other hand, it would almost immediately take notice of something annoying. The tugging of the string at its centre; a feeling of constraint; resistance. And soon the kite begins to think to itself, “If only I could detach, then I could really fly.”
To the kite you see, it seems that the string is limiting its full experience of freedom. But as any boy or girl who has ever flown a kite knows were that string to suddenly snap, the kite wouldn’t soar freely for very long. It would dart to and fro for a minute; maybe two; but very soon thereafter it would end up on the ground in a pile of broken sticks and torn paper never ever to fly again. Rather you see it is the taut line between the kite and the one holding it that enables the kite to fly. It allows all the principals of aerodynamics to come into place so that the kite might achieve its full purpose
Christian love performs the very same function as a kite string. You take away the stabilizing force of Christian love and every towering gift, every supernatural power, every sacrificial act, every musical performance; you name it friends; it will all, all end up on the ash heap of eternal insignificance without love.