---
When I was a kid, I hid my heart under the bed because my mother said, if you're not careful, someday, someone's gonna break it.
Take it from me, under the bed is not a good hiding spot.
I know because I've been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.
When I was a kid, I could fill a bookshelf with every way they told me how not to play.
They'd say it's time to start putting childish things away, and I was like, fuck you, I am Skeletor.
But more and more they made me believe that our hearts are like door knocks.
And that's where we get the sounds of the beat.
And I'll never get to meet the man inside, if I can't stay still long enough to be there.
I'll never make it anywhere if I keep running away, I'll never know myself if all I ever do is play Niki-Niki-Nine to where I don't wanna be a "man".
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a "man".
I wanted registered retirement savings, plan that would keep me and candy long enough to make old age sweet.
I wanted two left feet, so I could dance circles around important issues, until way past my bed time.
I'm not saying I don't have opinions.
Just that others will less likely to argue if they were as tired as I was.
Fatigued as to Amen what a good night kiss does to kids.
It puts weight on our eyelids and returns us to a place where reason and imagination laced together shoes whose tongues stuck out at stillness and beckoned us to move forwards.
As a kid I was always drawn toward moonlight.
Despite an armada of adults who insisted I must set my days according to sunlight.
I would lay in bed and fight sleep believing if I shut my eyes even for an instant I would miss out on something amazing.
Turns out I was right.
I have seen stars stamped into the night like cookie cutter designs.
Drew lines between each one inventing new constellations, so when someone would ask me, what's your sign?
I would point to mine.
The one hanging over the first door past the finish line and say, "It's right there".
The one marked exit because one day all this getting ahead bullshit will be over.
And people will start looking for me and I'll be there.
I'll wear my best flashing red and you will stand winner circle throughout bred I will unthread the screws that would put you throughout this life, then smile and say, "You made it".
When I was a kid I traded in homework assignments for friendship, and gave each friend a late slip for never showing up on time, and in most cases not at all.
I gave myself a hall pass to get through each broken promise, and I remember this plan born outta frustration.
From a kid who kept calling me Yogi, then pointed to my tummy and said, too many picnic baskets?
Turns out that's not too hard to trick someone and one day before class I said, Yeah, you can copy my homework.
And I gave him all the wrong answers that I've written down the night before.
He got his paper back expecting a near perfect score and he couldn't believe when he looked across the room at me and held up a zero.
I know I didn't have to hold up my paper of 28/30.
But my satisfaction was complete when he looked completely puzzled and I thought to myself,
"Smarter than the average bear, Mother Fucker"!
When I was a kid I slid love letters through the slots of lockers that belonged to my secret crushes.
I built paintbrushes from the tiny hairs that stood up on end every time I saw them.
My brain stem finally bloomed with thought I connected the dots and made masterpieces.
Each brush stroke a thesis dedicated to the explanation that you, not knowing who I was, was only because anonymity made it easier to be brave.
I dipped my brush into a tidal wave of I hope this will one day wash over me.
I can guarantee if you've ever had a secret admirer it was someone very much like me.
Who loved someone very much like you, with someone who wanted to tell you how much you've meant, how every second we spent thinking of you, was simply the cost of getting us through the hard times, we saved nickels and dimes hoping our first date would be with you.
So the disappoint of love we gave up comic books and video games, and I promise you every guy I've ever met remembers the names of the ones they loved first.
That our thirst for love continues as we cross the deserts of maybe, believing we will find an oasis of yes...
Acquiesce...
Yes...
We probably should just have said something, but we were chicken shit.
We lit the fuses of our hearts and exploded every time you walked on by.
When I was a kid, I did stupid shit.
I ripped out the women's underwear section out of the Sears Christmas catalog and blamed it on my Grandad.
He ended up covering for me and this is all he had to say.
"You're only twelve! So I'm impressed, but take it from experience, don't hide that under your mattress."
So I didn't.
I hid it in an empty box of a board game I never used to play, and on the day when my grandmother eventually found it she reamed him out for hiding pornography in her Grandson's bedroom.
The impending doom of the truth set upon me like a die in the sun sending it's last ray of light over the horizon and aimed directly at me.
He didn't say a word incurred the full wrath, then laughed with me later, sayin' it's like your heart it doesn't matter where you hide it.
Lovers are like little kids lifting up a rock looking for an insect, they will find that shit.
When I was a kid, I trusted myself enough to know that one day, I'd be a man.
One day I'd have a childhood for a past and a future for a backup plan.
That every gauntlet I ever ran was a potato sack race in which time would chase me further toward an ending.
I am bending myself back to the beginning.
Reminding myself there is no winning any race against yourself.
Slow down...
And when the kid in you falls, turn around pick them up, dust them off, then continue.
Trust me, you're gonna need that kid.
You're gonna need someone to remind you that every weed, is a flower.
Just trying to make shit work.
And every jerk you ever encounter is just another someone who somehow forgot it's okay, to need a hug.
It's okay, to be afraid
When I was kid, I played hopscotch with the lines that's drawn on the sand and landed on the conclusion that second hand clothes, at last benefit of experience, and I've got a 137th hand heart.
Broken apart and stitched back together at the seams.
I've cartwheeled across balance beams made from the broken finger bones of people who could not let go of this life.
I still love the night.
I love the fact that if you squint your eyes just right, stars look like porcupines of light, stumbling across the dark, dipping their quills into the night.
Trying to write apologizes for all of the unanswered wishes from the times we once wished upon them.
Sometimes I still wish.
Most times I wish I didn't have to.
I wish I didn't have to wish.
So what I guess I am saying is that I hope, I hope I never forget that kid who grew up inside me.
You just seemed to laugh a little bit louder.
Smile just a little bit longer, love a whole lot stronger.
World's first official awesome, taking "awesome" from door to door.
Take as much as you need, don't worry about me I've got more.
I've got a candy store filled with whatever it's going to take to make tomorrow sweet.
I've got two left feet and no bedtime.
I'm still not brave enough to have an orgy, but I rock the slumber party, come nap with me.
First one to fall asleep loses, first one to fall asleep wins...
The race stops at the start and the finish line is where it begins, so this time first one to lose, wins.
I know, we never meant to turn our hearts into garbage bins.
It was an accident.
I know headlines about us giving up were a misprint and really just bad reporting.
I know why we've been boarding up all the windows from the outside in.
We've been doing it ever since they told us to start letting things go.
And I know we've got into the habit of throwing everything away.
But your heart is a door knock, and every time it beats. It's just that kid's way of saying...
"Can you please come out and play?"
(Idk, I just found this in my notes xP the rain stopped for a minute and now it’s picking back up .-.)
When I was a kid, I hid my heart under the bed because my mother said, if you're not careful, someday, someone's gonna break it.
Take it from me, under the bed is not a good hiding spot.
I know because I've been shot down so many times I get altitude sickness just from standing up for myself.
When I was a kid, I could fill a bookshelf with every way they told me how not to play.
They'd say it's time to start putting childish things away, and I was like, fuck you, I am Skeletor.
But more and more they made me believe that our hearts are like door knocks.
And that's where we get the sounds of the beat.
And I'll never get to meet the man inside, if I can't stay still long enough to be there.
I'll never make it anywhere if I keep running away, I'll never know myself if all I ever do is play Niki-Niki-Nine to where I don't wanna be a "man".
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a "man".
I wanted registered retirement savings, plan that would keep me and candy long enough to make old age sweet.
I wanted two left feet, so I could dance circles around important issues, until way past my bed time.
I'm not saying I don't have opinions.
Just that others will less likely to argue if they were as tired as I was.
Fatigued as to Amen what a good night kiss does to kids.
It puts weight on our eyelids and returns us to a place where reason and imagination laced together shoes whose tongues stuck out at stillness and beckoned us to move forwards.
As a kid I was always drawn toward moonlight.
Despite an armada of adults who insisted I must set my days according to sunlight.
I would lay in bed and fight sleep believing if I shut my eyes even for an instant I would miss out on something amazing.
Turns out I was right.
I have seen stars stamped into the night like cookie cutter designs.
Drew lines between each one inventing new constellations, so when someone would ask me, what's your sign?
I would point to mine.
The one hanging over the first door past the finish line and say, "It's right there".
The one marked exit because one day all this getting ahead bullshit will be over.
And people will start looking for me and I'll be there.
I'll wear my best flashing red and you will stand winner circle throughout bred I will unthread the screws that would put you throughout this life, then smile and say, "You made it".
When I was a kid I traded in homework assignments for friendship, and gave each friend a late slip for never showing up on time, and in most cases not at all.
I gave myself a hall pass to get through each broken promise, and I remember this plan born outta frustration.
From a kid who kept calling me Yogi, then pointed to my tummy and said, too many picnic baskets?
Turns out that's not too hard to trick someone and one day before class I said, Yeah, you can copy my homework.
And I gave him all the wrong answers that I've written down the night before.
He got his paper back expecting a near perfect score and he couldn't believe when he looked across the room at me and held up a zero.
I know I didn't have to hold up my paper of 28/30.
But my satisfaction was complete when he looked completely puzzled and I thought to myself,
"Smarter than the average bear, Mother Fucker"!
When I was a kid I slid love letters through the slots of lockers that belonged to my secret crushes.
I built paintbrushes from the tiny hairs that stood up on end every time I saw them.
My brain stem finally bloomed with thought I connected the dots and made masterpieces.
Each brush stroke a thesis dedicated to the explanation that you, not knowing who I was, was only because anonymity made it easier to be brave.
I dipped my brush into a tidal wave of I hope this will one day wash over me.
I can guarantee if you've ever had a secret admirer it was someone very much like me.
Who loved someone very much like you, with someone who wanted to tell you how much you've meant, how every second we spent thinking of you, was simply the cost of getting us through the hard times, we saved nickels and dimes hoping our first date would be with you.
So the disappoint of love we gave up comic books and video games, and I promise you every guy I've ever met remembers the names of the ones they loved first.
That our thirst for love continues as we cross the deserts of maybe, believing we will find an oasis of yes...
Acquiesce...
Yes...
We probably should just have said something, but we were chicken shit.
We lit the fuses of our hearts and exploded every time you walked on by.
When I was a kid, I did stupid shit.
I ripped out the women's underwear section out of the Sears Christmas catalog and blamed it on my Grandad.
He ended up covering for me and this is all he had to say.
"You're only twelve! So I'm impressed, but take it from experience, don't hide that under your mattress."
So I didn't.
I hid it in an empty box of a board game I never used to play, and on the day when my grandmother eventually found it she reamed him out for hiding pornography in her Grandson's bedroom.
The impending doom of the truth set upon me like a die in the sun sending it's last ray of light over the horizon and aimed directly at me.
He didn't say a word incurred the full wrath, then laughed with me later, sayin' it's like your heart it doesn't matter where you hide it.
Lovers are like little kids lifting up a rock looking for an insect, they will find that shit.
When I was a kid, I trusted myself enough to know that one day, I'd be a man.
One day I'd have a childhood for a past and a future for a backup plan.
That every gauntlet I ever ran was a potato sack race in which time would chase me further toward an ending.
I am bending myself back to the beginning.
Reminding myself there is no winning any race against yourself.
Slow down...
And when the kid in you falls, turn around pick them up, dust them off, then continue.
Trust me, you're gonna need that kid.
You're gonna need someone to remind you that every weed, is a flower.
Just trying to make shit work.
And every jerk you ever encounter is just another someone who somehow forgot it's okay, to need a hug.
It's okay, to be afraid
When I was kid, I played hopscotch with the lines that's drawn on the sand and landed on the conclusion that second hand clothes, at last benefit of experience, and I've got a 137th hand heart.
Broken apart and stitched back together at the seams.
I've cartwheeled across balance beams made from the broken finger bones of people who could not let go of this life.
I still love the night.
I love the fact that if you squint your eyes just right, stars look like porcupines of light, stumbling across the dark, dipping their quills into the night.
Trying to write apologizes for all of the unanswered wishes from the times we once wished upon them.
Sometimes I still wish.
Most times I wish I didn't have to.
I wish I didn't have to wish.
So what I guess I am saying is that I hope, I hope I never forget that kid who grew up inside me.
You just seemed to laugh a little bit louder.
Smile just a little bit longer, love a whole lot stronger.
World's first official awesome, taking "awesome" from door to door.
Take as much as you need, don't worry about me I've got more.
I've got a candy store filled with whatever it's going to take to make tomorrow sweet.
I've got two left feet and no bedtime.
I'm still not brave enough to have an orgy, but I rock the slumber party, come nap with me.
First one to fall asleep loses, first one to fall asleep wins...
The race stops at the start and the finish line is where it begins, so this time first one to lose, wins.
I know, we never meant to turn our hearts into garbage bins.
It was an accident.
I know headlines about us giving up were a misprint and really just bad reporting.
I know why we've been boarding up all the windows from the outside in.
We've been doing it ever since they told us to start letting things go.
And I know we've got into the habit of throwing everything away.
But your heart is a door knock, and every time it beats. It's just that kid's way of saying...
"Can you please come out and play?"
(Idk, I just found this in my notes xP the rain stopped for a minute and now it’s picking back up .-.)
