They wanted rhyme, they wanted verse

What they got was more perverse

What is seen is what they get

What I feel, they cannot

On that I’ll take bets

 

Mirror, mirror on the floor

How many pieces of me adorn

Theatric spectacle of unvoiced screams

Swept up disappeared,

Like night-life sunbeams

 

Testimonial harmony of silent death

Anger turns to hate in one quick breath

A drop of blood atop the chaos

Cherry like pristine replication

Childhood’s painful homage

 

What I feel I cannot forget

Forever and ever all regret

Agony of malaise, thunderstruck

Seven lifetimes of bad luck

As it reflects a twisted fuck

 

Wish in one hand, and sin with the other

All grown up but buried another mother

Hello hell-hole Satan’s home
It has been a while
I was on the road
So long ago I left the nest
Shaved my head in your honor
Joined the movement
Swastika tattooed on my forehead
The cross across my ass
Ten years in jail
For a crime I was happy to commit
Sacrifice in blood
The virgin blood of the heart
Still beating from their bodies
Drinking their blood
And stealing their souls
Sending them to you
Am I sorry? NO
Let the show begin
Warden flip the switch if you’re man enough

(I wrote this after watching a documentry on Charles Manson... I was raised to be a minister... I listened to Slayer. I was always told, always taught... now I'm the teacher interesting, and my lesson today is in editing... I am going through some of my oldest poems... and damn the quality... I don't care what it was... I'm now working on revising them, and I thought I'd share. I know that this one will get a rise out of people.

Also I am still working on a book of poetry for my mother, and still working on ideas for my novels... addicted to facebook... for an attention whore like myself... it feeds me the lies I need to hear.

But we all know my poetry is where my truth lies... and I decided to take a 15 year old's work, and see what I could do to it now. Please let me know wat you think.






Warden flip that switch
If you think you’re man enough
I’ve drank blood in the moonlight
You call my cell a hellhole
I call it Satan’s home
It’s been a while,
But I’ve been on the road

So long ago I left the nest
Shaved my head in your honor
Joined the movement
Swastika tattooed on my forehead
The cross across my ass
Ten years in jail
For a crime I was happy to commit

Sacrifice’s were made in your name
Watching their dying eyes
Fear and horror filling their hearts
Still beating in their veins
Stealing their souls
Sending them to you
Am I sorry? Hell No!
WARDEN!!!!!!!!!
Let the show begin
As I said, if you’re man enough

Sorry if in my last blog I was way too negative, but in the end... it's my blog, and my opinion, and it's one of the last bastians of being able to say exactly what I think at that given time.

To answer one person's question... there was a time when I was a top 5 blogger in the writing section on here just by posting a poem.  I thank Je.. Maverick, Jon Sanders, Eileen and a lot of the old guard of myspace for accepting, and teaching me how to get it done.

I also had a comment that I never go to anyone else's page.   99% of the time I am reading your work from my phone, and cannot stand how it capitalizes every first letter of every word, and there doesn't seem to be a way for me to turn that off.  Also through my Upstage II phone giving comments, and messages is an absolute nightmare because I can only do long long long long long paragraphs, and that's just not cool.  Makes me feel like a Rookie.

So yes, I have a big ego, and yeah, I think I've earned that right, and in some ways it's nostalgia for me to want that kind of attention... and it's very arrogant of me to want it without doing the work involved... going to other pages, and shamelessly plugging my blog like I use to back in the day.  I was doing that shit long before a lot of the popluar bloggers were even blogging on here, but this isn't meant as anything against them.  Bob, Tarringo, Eileen, and others (I haven't checked the top blogs in a long time)... whomever... they are all friends of mine, and people that have been the support network of the writing community on here.  So there is nothing but love towards all of them.  I was just waxing as they say.

My grandfather always told me it was ok to bitch and complain, but only if you were going to do something about it.  So since I'm not really planning on doing much about it... I will stop complaining as much.  I have a poem for you.  And sometime Next week I think I will have my annual I AM WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING IN BASEBALL AGAIN THIS YEAR JUST WATCH! blog.  Meaning if anyone could go back and see my blog last year on the baseball season... I was wrong almost all the fucking way around.  The Twins and the White Sox were good, The Devil Rays were great, the Reds sucked, and the Mets tanked.  If it weren't for the Angels I think I was completely skunk-fucked.

But here we are... poem time...  this is something I wrote a while ago as I've not had a lot of inspiration for my poetry other than deep sadness for the loss of my mother, and I am selfishly keeping that, and not sharing it right now.
 

A Life Sentence of Breath


This turbulent tangled desperate act
I am so, so sorry for not understanding
But I still see, hear, and feel
The sting of my wind slapped silken cheeks
Soft and billowy as pillowed clouds
My soul chaotic confuses only me
A fragrance of hope leaves me wanting
And I feel a feeling of unbecoming

There has never been a choice for me
But over time I rake my soul over detriment’s coals
And the Dutch Elm Diseased trees
Of Lincoln’s, Washington’s, and Franklin’s
Can’t pay for my crimes
There is no guarantee for greatness
No money down; no money back
And my debt to life forever grows

I’m indebted to you for your poisonous love
You’re gouging of my eyes
And all those beautiful blackened lies
I love your hatred towards me
Because it frees me from hating myself
Is it the sorrow I long for
When I cry – Why
Why God
Why me

I have 3 musicians that I have not seen live that I have wanted to see.  Of those, Tom Waits will tour again, Nick Cave tours every couple of years, but Leonard Cohen... this is his first tour since 1993!
He is coming to Minnesota, and tickets went on sale on Monday morning at 10am.  The problem is that every single ticket was sold out my 7:15 Friday night.  That is the FRIDAY BEFORE THE TICKETS WENT ON SALE TO THE PUBLIC!!!
How is it legal for scalpers to have access to nearly all the tickets before the concert even went on sale?
If you go to Ebay you can find the 75 dollar cheap seats for 225-250 dollars a pop.  You can find the 89.50 tickets for 275-310, and the 125 tickets are sold for almost 400 dollars.  I even saw one of the $545 front 4 row seats selling for 1200 dollars.
Yes, I admit I am bitter that I was unable to get a hold of a ticket, but why is it ok that I can order a ticket for a show in Minneapolis to some ticket broker in Philedelphia, or Boston?
Just throwing this out here so people know that I'm still alive.
I have had a lot on my plate lately in my personal life with the death of my mother, two of my good friends online have passed away, and my writing is not getting the attention that I think it deserves, and I refuse to whore myself like I did in the past... and when I see the updates on here are the same 5 freaking people every 3-4 minutes on my friends list... and all of that... I am not going to spend that kind of time on myspace right now. 
I love blogging, I miss it, but as arrogant as it sounds, if I am going to be writing for myself, and trying to network socially... right now with the horrible mistakes that myspace has made... Facebook kicks it's ass.  I never wanted to admit that, or believe that because I love myspace, but Tom and the gang dropped the ball, and combining that with the fact that I am no longer a flavor of the month... I just am having a hard time seeing the point.
IF you have opinions on any of this... please... I beg you to leave a comment, leave kudos... just to prove that you are out there... 

Just me and you walking through skyway stale grime
To stay out of the cold gloom of February’s tomb
When I see a little man fiddling around on a violin
Toss him a five; smiling he hands you a rose
Silk folds of blood red sweetness,
A scent smooth and cool freshness
With just a faint touch of hope that maybe… just maybe

The puzzled look pieces together a smile
So wide, so divine your eyes shine with life and light
Amazing amazement sparkle and a smile
Twirl you around in a pirouette, bend you over my knee
Face to face I smile, and nod to the packrat Paganini
With scarred black hands, and a graying beard
He smiles back with a nod, and a wink

Knowing that what I have, what we have is more
That most will ever know, could ever hope to grow
And we haven’t but just met but through words
Wisdom, ages and hours spent with bated breath
Turns the NOW into right now, and your hand clenches mine

Two blocks down you twirl the green of stem
With a prick of blood, the rose in silent modesty
Blossoms with life as you put your thumb to your lips
Your fingers let go of the rose, let go of hope
As I grasp, clasping it before it hits the ground
You smile, walk on and say hold it to remember
And I stand alone not warm, not quite cold
Holding a rose bled from lust to dust in a beat of a heart
And a salt quenched lipstick’d lip

A Rose for Tessa by BC Beneke 2.5.09

Anyone that knows me knows that my mom and I have never really been close personal friends.  We have fought and argued most of my life.  A lot of it was my own fault for being as stubborn as I am, but some of it was not, and while I have my reasons, and I have my rights to feel this way I just don't see it mattering.  She is my mom, and she very well might die on me. 
Most of you don't know, but my mom had a very massive heart attack on Tuesday afternoon, and was pronounced dead twice before coming back... She was then airlifted to a bigger hospital that could handle this sort of thing, and was put in a medical coma, and medical hypothermia to protect her organs and especially her brain.
Her body has responded pretty decently to the medical procedures, and the amazing work that it appears that the doctors, and staff are doing at the IMSJ hospital in Mankato MN.  However her EEG readings were not extremely encouraging, and as I told a friend of mine today over the phone.
"When you get home tonight you give your child a hug, and tell her that you love her, and when you are done, you call your mom and dad and tell them that you love them as well because you never know when this is going to be the last time you get to do it, or hear it back."
That is the only real message I have in this blog tonight.  Just tell the people in your life that you love them.  Let them know how much they matter, how you feel, and maybe you won't have to feel as guilty as I do today.  You won't have to feel like you didn't get enough time... you didn't get to say all the things you wanted to say...
I tell my wife and children that I love them every single day many times throughout the day... hell, I once just sent a balloon to the school for my daughter simply because I love her, and knew that it would make her smile.  However, because of something that happened in 1995 that almost killed me, or rather almost lead me to consider killing myself the one and only time that ever happened... I blamed her for that feeling of being alone.
I just want to get this shit off of my chest, and if it makes me seem like less of a person to you, or more or whatever... I have to admit that right now I don't care.  I just need to dump my shit, and I want to do it where I have a public record so maybe I can let it go! 
Letting go is something I don't do.
My best friend died in 1995, on the 4th of July, and 3 days later at the wake I was sitting between his little brothers as I was always kind of like an extra kid to them, and to me they were like my extra family.  I was at my absolute worst that day, and my mom patted Brandon on the head, hugged Darron, hugged his mom and dad, and skipped me.  Chad and I were best friends for 16 years, and on the one day where I felt the most alone in my entire life... she made me feel like I had nothing left, and for a few hours I seriously thought about taking my vehicle right into the river after the wake.  No lie... I was destroyed.
I was lucky that a person that had no business being there stopped by just to give me a hug that night, and tell me that everything was going to be ok.  That man later lost his mind, and shot someone, shot after his ex-girlfriend, and then blew his own head off on his father's birthday.  However he saved my life on July 7th 1995, and for that I will be forever grateful.
Over the last 36-48 hours or however long it's been now... things have come to light in my mom's situation that has caused some major anger from members of my family towards my mom. 
I just don't understand.  I am putting aside years of what has eaten me up, and something I have not talked about in full like this before.  We need to focus on my mom, and possitive energy, and right now there just isn't any reason to hold onto the SHIT!  We need to concentrate on the good.
 
And if I could ask a special favor of all of you... atheists, christians, muslims, buddhists, Hindu, jewish, or anything I may have missed.
I just want your best wishes towards my mother so she can either heal, or leave in peace without having to suffer in a vegatative state.
Would you do that for me, for my family, her friends, and mostly just for her?
 
Thank you, and don't forget to call and tell the people you love that they matter to you!
BC Beneke

So I am supposed to be working on paperwork for tax time.  So now my muse is teasing me with about 1000 ideas for my book Holding Ghosts.  I'm on hold on the phone the other day, and all of a sudden lyrics to a verse for a song pop into my head, and I don't have a pen and paper... in fact I was driving so I shouldn't have been on the phone in the first place.
Today I'm at dinner with Greg Zilberg, and I want to talk to him about some ideas, and find out about his birthday party that I missed by a block (I'm a fucktard sometimes)...  ugh!  lol.  Long story, but it's funny.  I went to the wrong club, and was bored out of my mind.  I went across from Rosen's on 1st Ave, and it was fucking lame.  They were at the Lounge a block away... I blew it.  ugh.  HA!
So today I am here at the office and I am supposed to be finally writing out names on envelopes, and buying stamps... I need like 100 stamps, and what am I doing... zoning out and writing a fucking blog.  What is wrong with my god damn brain?
It is like Sabotage from the inside job inside my own fucking mind man.  I thought that the voices in my head were all in agreement with me, but between the depression and the stress of everything it appears they are conspiring against me. 
I am the only thing that can destroy me.  I am telling you, it's absolutely disgusting.  It's amusing, and it's sad, but the worst part is that once I buckle down and get my shit together... all of my creative ideas will dry up, and hide in the furthest corners of my mind.
I just wonder why my mind is playing this game with me? 
Well, apparently it has to be something with the depression because I've never noticed this type of behavior in myself before.  So unlike Joe Average who won't notice it, or Joe Blow Average who will just live with it... I am scheduling an appointment with a shrink to see what the fuck!
If I can put all my ideas in order 2009 is going to be in-fucking-credible.
I have 38 ideas for T-shirts now
I have 4 new chapter ideas for Holding Ghosts
2 new ideas for Lowest Common Denominator
2 new story ideas completely.
and my marketing ideas for my business are flying through my brain at about a billion miles an hour, and I keep watching them crash into plexiglass windows (installed to keep me from abandoning ship a long time ago).  But it's absolutely crazy.
Now this is not supposed to be scary, this is not supposed to be angry, or overly amusing... this is supposed to a question for you people.
Do you people think like this at all, or is this just my diseased mind in overdrive?
There is just no stopping the brain, but for the life of christ I can't concentrate on anything individually.
Brad

Turning a page, a memory, name
7 digits, a million reasons to let it ring
A date, a face, and a meeting place
Calling card blues a familiar tune

And you know I’m missing you
Wondering if you’re staring our your window
Wondering about me

BAPTIZED IN BLOOD 
by Brad Beneke / Dave Schipper

Baptized in the blood of the lamb
Drowning under the weight of salt
Crushed by the power of a lie
Here I am, Here I stand

Marked generation to fire
But today is not the same
Told to stand down never to fight
In his blood I bathe
In his blood I bathe

No matter what you say
No matter what you say (games you play)
What you say just aint…
No matter what you say it’s all the same

I’m drowning under the weight of salt
I’m dying from inside out
I won’t be you because I know
What this blood’s about
What this blood’s about

No matter what you say – I am not you
No matter what you say – I won’t be you
What you say just is
No matter what you say it’s all the same

Baptized in the blood of the lamb
Drowning under the weight of salt
Crushed by the power of a lie
Here I am, Here I stand

Marked generation to fire
But today is not the same
Told to stand down never to fight
In his blood I bathe
In his blood I bathe

No matter what you say
No matter what you say (games you play)
What you say just aint…
No matter what you say it’s all the same
It’s all the same (by god)
It’s all the same (yes)
___________________________________________________________ 

PHONOGRAPH BLUES
by Brad Beneke / Dave Schipper


Cigarette ash bridges the gap
From this nicotine stained soul
From the lip to the thought of this…
With a gin and tonic tabled halo

(chorus)
Angels singing somewhere south of heaven
A cancer stick a guitar lick
Hides the lies behind my personal heroin
In time to remind you of where you've been

A somber tune, in the key of blue
A phonograph recollection's score
A verse covered in years of abuse
Like similar hands covered in scars
Chorus

The Washburn's a little out of tune
Transcending sin and salvation
Just a gypsy singing right along
A communion of damnation
Chorus

You never quite see what you mean
Secret thoughts once thought forgot
A man abandoned lost the dream
And the song ends without applause

But you never knew… what you meant
It was over the moment you left
Though the song still plays outloud
Haunt me from beyond your grave

Chorus

In time to remind you of where you been

______________________________________
 

It wasn’t meant to go down like this
An end – no beginning and unadulterated bliss
But Jesus bled, and whatever Lennon said
Somehow life was over in middle of being lead
Raise me from your waist let me taste it in a thought
Beat me with in an inch of my life or longer
But only if that’s all you want
3 days to give him a rise
I lost paradise in a smile
And disguised beguiling angels
Dance upon a sacred grave
Epitaph – the soldier’s state
Repetition, tactical anabolic state
Jesus and nails, and fires blaze

You opened my eyes to endless possibilities
Endless meaningless possibilities
The sweet sound of your voice
Nectar to my ears telling me what I wanted to hear
You showed me how paradise could feel
Without letting have a touch
All the while proving that none of it is real
How could there be happiness in your heart
When the sunshine of your soul has been eclipsed
By the torment of years of fear and pain
Destiny made us lovers, but reality separates
The dreams of my life as “ours” won’t allow me to live
Desperation woke me to the pain I know as home
In time to mourn the passing of possible pleasure
Ours could never be not in the golden chains of heaven
Or the eternal prison flames of a sulfured Hell
The brightest moments belong to wishes and fantasy
I have pivoted my past to the brink of the abyss
To be able to stand alone one more time
The only scars are on my heart and in my soul

MASTERS & SLAVES

1
Janis, Jimmi, Jim, and John
Long gone… this jamboree
A feast of tormented genius
Wasted, as not to have tasted
Even an ounce of peace
The great scepters of power
Once divulged great knowledge
Lost six feet deep
As the serpent servant
Struck the powerful possessors
As to show their lack of control
A gift abused taken back

2
Long gone…the prophets
Janis, Jimmi, Jim, and John
Strong amongst the crowd
But meek and weak
When backs were turned
I missed the last days of Pompei
By lack of a timely birth
But music tells no lies
The truth speaks although masked
As if by some disguise
A bible of sorts
Allowing these ghost preachers
To reach subjects missed
Due to untimely demise

3
Janis, Jimmi, Jim, and John
Apostles of derogated morals
Which somehow expanded the limits
Through black lyrical suicide
Eternal flames snubbed out
By hands that the mind's eye
No longer controlled
Backgrounds vary
But the puppet show stages
From which they spoke
Burn in tormented bliss
A picture too dark to miss
Into the open minds of youth


4
Long gone… the legends fabled
Janis, Jimmi, Jim, and John
Judaic Christian ethics allow
For the belief that religion once formed
Remains long after mortality has run it's course
The divisions of visions amongst minds
Find a pulpit to speak
Allowing for immorality
Accomplishing immortality


Reposting this in honor of it being published in The Quill Volume 4 recently.

This poem was originally written in the early 90's

Do you distinguish your friends as "real" friends, and "online" friends?

What makes a friend real, and what makes them semi-fictitious? Does it not take a physical form to type, to think, to breathe the life of these blogs, emails, messages, comments, instant messages, the god-awful annoying forwards?

Granted it might not take much thought to do a forward... in fact it may take an absence of thought to send forwards in general, but I've been friends with my friend C. for 14 years now.

Internet friends

We met the way that most people met 14 years ago online... in some porn chat room. I'm not ashamed of who I was, or who I am... so to anyone judging me, or her for that... please feel free to bust off a nice jagged piece of glass, and fuck yourself really hard with it. I owe her for that one... that was her bringing that out in me... only she could do that. She was amazing at hitting emotions out in me.

It was funny. That silly cyber thing lasted about 2 weeks until we started talking about books, and movies, and music. And anyone that knows me... knows I'm an opinionated son of a bitch at my very best. At my heart - I consider myself an artist of life. I can paint a little, draw a little, God didn't give me the greatest speaking voice and it's a crime in 83 countries if I start singing out loud, but he also gave me a lot to say.

I knew her before I knew Alisa, before I knew any friend I have on here except for James Wright, and a couple of my high school classmates. She saw the evolution of my being... from an angry malcontent that couldn't spell very well, and was always angry... I mean 100% angry and hurting.

I was without my best friend Chad Culbert at the rawest of that time in the beginning, and James and Bressler were in the cities 40-60 miles away, and I felt all alone in the world... I connected with her on a very deep level. People then didn't believe it was possible. They would hear the horror stories of people moving across the country because they met someone online. Now that's more and more common. Hell, had Alisa not said yes to that first date... there was a chance I would have flown to Seattle just to meet her.

Italian through and through... opinionated, spirited, passionate... demanding, unyielding, and yet quite forgiving. She loved to disagree with people just to get them to have to think their position. I didn't even realize I liked to do that until she'd pointed out that I was ten times her equal in that field.

She called me Sharky because of my tendency to fight to the death, never stop, never sleep, and when I smelled blood in the water in a situation it was a done deal... I fought to win. She helped bring out the very best in me.

Before all of you... she was the only person in the world I would share my poetry with. I showed her before I showed my wife most of the time. And while the whole thing may sound scandalous... like I said, I knew C. before I knew Alisa, and that part of our friendship was so minor, and for such a short time that while it pervaded more than a few of our conversations... it was never an issue... it was like guys talking, or the girls talking... except with class and dignity because she wouldn't have it any other way. She'd been shit on by life more than a few times, and wouldn't hold her head down...
There were times when she was down and I would call on a whim... I just knew... there were times when she would come online and I was there just waiting for her... hell I suppose that makes me seem like a crazy psycho stocker, and I'm not sure that I will disagree with that, but what started off one way became a friendship so profound, and so deep that I looked at her like an older sister...

God I mean that does sound crazy... very Alabama trailer park sounding, but not what it's meant to... she became like family - a part of my life and a part of my soul.

When Alisa told me that she was pregnant with Alexandra I fell apart. I didn't want to put my diseased mind and genetics into another living soul. No one should ever have to suffer like I suffered growing up. I was as miserable as anyone that has ever survived their teenage years. So much so that my first therapist all those years ago once hugged me and told me that it was a miracle that I was still alive. C. told me that I needed to grow the fuck up, and realize that love wasn't rational, children couldn't control who their parents were, and that life was a beautiful thing. This kindness coming from someone who at the time was about to bury her own sister; C was tough. A sister who had died from the same disease that eventually kill C… teaching her more about mortality than any of us should know.

I had a birth mother that was dying of cancer, a daughter about to be born with all my defects, and my friends were all gone or so it seemed. She helped me realize that my friends were only as far away from me as I let them be. That my love for people could outweigh my hate of myself... and somewhere in her wisdom... I found a way to love myself, and even like myself at times that I would have never had without her in my life... and certainly without my daughter in my life.

I would have asked her to be the Godmother of my little girl, but I am in charge of the Godfathers... and my wife was in charge of screwing up the Godmothers... (Don't even get me started with the disappointments that her choices were). In fact we did the unthinkable... we adopted a new godmother for my daughter because the one she had has not talked to us since a few weeks after Alexandra's Baptism. Garrett's godmother still lives in the same area we do, and we've seen her about 7 times in Garrett's 11 years... FUCKING FAILURES! Worthless sacks of life in my opinion.

My son's godfathers... my kids both call them uncles... except for Doug who is my cousin's husband... my friends are my soul's strength, and I think anyone that is this far into this will agree with me. I am fiercely loyal to my friends... I would kill for them at times, and I have died inside for them more than they will ever know... living and dead... you, and you, and you too... ya know? Probably not, but for those that really know me... they now have some kind of depth to the friendship that they may not have really realized.

I never physically met C. We only talked over the phone, sent CDs and tapes back and forth... pictures, emails, instant messages... occasionally a birthday card. She was born on September 17th, and this year I forgot to send her a birthday card because I did everything online, and because of my finances I didn't have the money, or the memory to do much of anything.

Our last year as friends we were distant in time, but when we chatted... there was a stronger connection than ever... it was like she knew, and maybe she did. I wouldn't put it past her to know anything, or everything.

The only woman I ever knew that was smarter than C was a girl I went to high school with named Ingrid. That girl was maybe the most brilliant person I ever knew... but she also hurt my feelings worse than any other human being had ever done when I was 15 years old, and slammed me in front of my English class for coming to school wearing nice clothes. I know the exact date of that horrible moment that left me in tears unlike anyone had ever done. The thing is that others were meaner, but I didn't know her that well... I just respected the hell out of her for being so smart... and she crushed me. I spent most of the rest of my high school life in a bottle of booze because I didn't have the confidence to even be a human being after that... that's how weak of a person I really was... not all Ingrid's fault by any means. I was weak, and I broke easy.

C. made me strong... she toughened me up because she'd seen hell like I hadn't. Raped, abused, misused, a lousy husband, terrible boyfriends... destructive relationships... and she was always there for me no matter what... who would do that? Only a family member...

And that is one of the reasons why my kids call my closest friends uncle... because I take my friendships so close and so seriously that they are family... My daughter calls my former instructor Uncle Greg... simply because she knows how much his teaching meant to me... how much his friendship means to me... I never referred to him as such... she did that one on her own.

Uncle Bressler, uncle James, uncle Tony, uncle Jon, uncle Darron... and uncle Greg...
They don't have any special insignia for the special women in my life because my kids would only see MOM, and my friends would only see my wife, and my daughter, but somewhere below them are a long list of wonderful... almost angelic women in my life that have helped me through so much and been my friend sometimes in spite of own self, and my own issues.

C and my friend Kami are at the very top of that list... that is no slight against any of the other amazing women I know here, and in real life as they say, lol, but the things that they have done for me, or for my family... Kami was the only babysitter that I would trust with my kids outside of my mom. The only one! Kami was Darron's girlfriend when Alexandra was born... even when they broke up she stayed as a part of the family, and while I don't think she could care less about my writing... she has been one of my biggest supporters... a true, pure wonderful heart... C could have had the same had she not been hurt so badly... so she had this cynical and feisty nature that distinguished the two in the friendship... Kami is like a little sister and C... a mentor... an older sister, and an equal in any argument I've ever had with myself, with her, or with anyone else...

So while this is longer than you'd like, and more flighty than I would like... this is a tribute to Christil... She always wanted me to refer to her as C. when we typed because she was afraid someone from her past would find her and hurt her... now no one can hurt her, and if those people that had hurt her find her here through me. God have mercy on your souls because if I ever find the people that hurt her... God have mercy on my soul for what I would do to those people.

"A shark's gotta eat" as she would say with a cynical smirk you could see through her words.

C – I won't say goodbye darlin. I will always be here… on some level with my breath, with my words, or in the memory of those that read my work… and for that I give a space with me forever. I just wished you would have sent me your mother's receipe for Spaghetti Sauce it was supposed to be world class… old school 8 generation Italian. I would have liked to have gotten try that.
When I eventually get to Italy I promise the first thing I will do is think of you doll!