Thought for today....

Every person has something to teach......Every person has something to learn.

It is with every waking morning that i realize I still have much more to learn than I can ever teach.

Sometimes we just have to smile, breathe, and move forward the best we can.

Ok...now I am mad!

I watched a news story this morning about an idiot that is a fitness trainer that put on 78 pounds in 6 months to prove that he could lose the weight and get back in shape. He is writing some stupid book called "Fit to Fat to Fit". So what really set me off is that they were interviewing his wife (who seriously needed a sandwich and a candy bar because she looked like she could slip down the shower drain) and she said that when he had gained the weight he became lazy and a stopped being a good father that interacted with his kids or helped her around the house. Now, here is the thing about these idiots; I am overweight....VERY overweight. I help my wife do all sorts of things around the house, work two jobs, and I am an awesome father to my spoiled kids! Yeah, Im no good for running a marathon, playing sports, or fitting in the itty bitty booths at most restaurants, but you know, just because I am fat, does not mean I am some worthless lump-bum that does nothing all day but sit around and eat. These two idiots can kiss my big fat butt.......

Money and kids

You know, I just don't understand why it seems like so many selfish people have so much money. I work hard, have two jobs, pay my bills, and still my kids only want to go to other homes where its "fun" because they have a basement or playroom and their parents run them all over creation spending money to "entertain" them. OK first, this is why we have a nation full of spoiled brats! When I was bored as a kid, I went outside... that's the place on the other side of your windows kids...(windows are those things that let in light to your room, not the TV)  then I would find something to do. Play in the dirt, explore, draw in the sand, climb a tree, or whatever. Then if I was fortunate enough to have another kid within walking distance, we would find stuff to do together. Talking, running, you know ....playing stuff. We didn't text or Facebook, we actually saw each other in person! My kids have endless movies, computers, video games, board games, books, pets, and satellite TV. I am part of the problem, I spend all my money giving them all these things to keep them from getting "bored" and they still are bored and want to be somewhere else. I would LOVE to be home, watching or playing something, eating whatever I want, instead of working night and day! If I actually said I was bored as a kid, my mom or grandparents would give me work to do. Sweeping, mopping, yard work, farming, or something constructive. I just get so frustrated that I do all of this, and still feel like I am not providing my kids with enough "things" to keep them happy. Maybe I should be like other people I know and turn selfish. Take all the stuff away from them, boot out the two adult-children that sleep at my house and take up two rooms with no contribution, and make me a fun room where my wife and I go to to avoid "being bored". Hey, don't I deserve to have fun? I guess not. Sometimes...kids suck.

Humanity

Where has all the humanity gone? Why is the world collapsing in on itself? In the fast pace of bigger, faster, better, gimme, gimme, gimme, we have lost our way. There are those that abuse the system, have evil intentions, and seem undeserving of empathy and compassion. But, the honest truth is that we are all that person on any given day, in certain situations. I work with drug addicts, societies imagined scum of the earth, but I am here to tell you that I have found more heart, more promise, and more potential for triumph in my patients than in any outside arena. I hope that one day the world will understand that they will be judged the way they judge and that often the best things in life aren't things, but life itself.

Misc Info

I have had a pretty adventurous life up to this point. Many injuries, sports fun, great stories of friends, sadness, loss, luck, and have tried many things. Some I have failed at and some I did ok. My favorite success was in my early 20's (back in the 1990's) I was fortunate enough to be able to sing for a heavy metal band in south Alabama. My friends and I had a good time and had a lot of adventures along the way. Why does this matter? Well, I love to write. Stories, poems, and songs. Now I have done a lot of growing up and changing since those days. But I still listen to the music, keep up with current trends, and do many solo concerts in my truck while I am driving =) so here is a little ditty that I wrote about a year ago when I was feeling frustrated because a dear friend of mine took his life after the PTSD of war in the Middle East. I was angry because he wanted help, and his superiors didn't listen. So this was my frustration...

Blood And Sand

(Spoken)I feel so alive as I tighten the grip and the light escapes your eyes

(1)

 You bury the truth behind faith and greed

You justify war that will never be free

You shackle the poor as the ignorant fall

While counting deposits you stole from us all

(2)

The choice has been made on the day we were born

To fight and survive or submit and be torn

[I need to know….]

When you close your eyes do the flames caress your neck?

Are there pleas for redemption or signs of regret?

(3)

[I- see- the]

face of a friend with a demon inside

You promise us dreams wrapped up tight in a lie

The enemy closer than we even know

The cameras are rolling so on with the show.

(chorus)

Over and over again, the price of a man nothing more than blood and sand

AhhHHHhhHHh I feel so alive, as I tighten my grip and the light fades from your eyes.

(break down)

[How- do –you-] discount the lives, dispatch the lies, mow down the innocent without reprise

Overlook pain, the crimson stain, put the gun in your mouth let me imprint my name!

(chorus 2)

OH, over and over again, the price of a life nothing more than blood and sand

AhhHHhhHH I feel so alive as I tighten my grip till the blood pours from your eyes

Over and over again, the extinction of man buried under oil and sand

The smile I can’t hide as I tighten my grip and the life drains from your eyes

[Repeat/variation]

Older short story (Horror)

Blackberries

Dustin Vick

2009/ Revised 9/2010

     The South still holds many secrets. There are woods that are vacant of man here. The old homesteads are overgrown and history slumbers beneath the red Alabama clay. It lies covered by the pine dross and dry sands, forgotten. Beneath the thickets of briar bushes and the hollows lay the ghosts of lost seasons. They moan, scarred by misappropriated pride, it fuels restless sleep. Unsettled transgressions remain, due to the fallacies of man. The ground cries out for retribution, for blood, a penance for the hate and the apathy. Ignorant greed leaves behind the destruction of so many human souls. The earth rumbles for the pain and the guns, the whips and man-made salvation. These blend into a deadly concoction of emotion and pride that has left the forests bruised and grieving. The screams flow in the slow undercurrent of winds passing over the fields and filters away into nothing. The humidity seems like a wet blanket of sorrow, and my breath is hot and shallow. I had never been one for deep imaginings, or conflicts of the past but still I find myself sitting alone in this forest, alone, but flooded with these impressions of the sadness and the loss. I close my eyes trying to hear the echoes of fleeting happy memories, but they escape my understanding, the stillness brings no comfort, only apprehension and fear. In the end we all have to pay the band, face the music, or any other generic term you can insert to mean the past always catches up with you. Where do I find solace for my sins, whatever they may be? The tire swing sways empty by the large oak, and strands of golden hair caught in the rope are now bleached brown by the summer sun. Are my hands stained with uncaring, or scarred with the prints of my ears from refusing to listen to the painful truth? Am I just looking for an excuse to cry?

      I saw death outside of the gas station five summers ago. I had to use the bathroom and daddy was inside getting me a grape soda. I ran around the back of the store because the bathroom was out back. The dust would kick up in little wisps with my foot fall in the dry heat. I always hated going to that bathroom. It smelled of old urine that had stewed in a hot dark oven. That cinderblock room with all the writing on the wall and the door that never really shut was a source of nightmares and semi-wet panties because I was in such a hurry to get done. I remember having to lean up to hold the door while I went and there was always a roach or cricket scurrying by. Through the cracks of crumbling mortar, I saw death. The man crept around back in his old beat up car with the cracked windshield. I could not tell what the man was doing, but I saw him throw a body into the trash pit and cover it up with leaves and branches. I saw the arm fall out of the linens, and then he tossed a couple of cardboard boxes on top. In the country we have to burn our trash because there is no pick up for it. Most people use an old 55 gallon drum, but the store had a deep pit and when it filled up, it got burned.

     Death was a big sweaty man in a tank-top and a tattoo on his neck. He could not have known I saw him. But I did not know that, so I was terrified he would be coming for me. I waited until he was gone and then I slowly opened the door. I crept out to the fire pit, but I could not see the body, he had covered it up good. I looked down the dirt road in the direction he went and the dust was still swirling. I imagined I heard him laughing. I ran back around to the front of the store. I wanted to tell daddy but I was scared. He asked me what was wrong. I told him there was a spider in the bathroom. He chuckled and tossed my hair back and forth. Fear set in on the drive home, I never told anyone. The pit was burned the next day and nothing was ever said about the body, I guess the bones settled into the deep ashes, so I just tried to forget.

          The blackberries are especially sweet this time of year. The big bulbs of knotted squishy goodness were entangled with the thorny vines. The little golden hairs would sparkle in the sunlight if you held them up just right. You have to be careful picking them though, there are rattlesnakes hiding under the leaves. They wait for me to reach for the sweet fruit, the tempting taste that stains my lips and teeth. Tastes so good, but the possibility of painful death is under every leaf and flower, behind the beauty; waiting. Life is funny that way, things look so good, so safe, so desirable, yet unseen death is always somewhere close by.

     The nightmares were a constant. I could not forget what I had seen behind the gas station. The man’s hulking sweaty arms tossing the body into the pit haunted me. His deep acne scars on his chest and neck were reddish and angry. The colors were overly bright in my dreams. In the end, he would turn to me and smile with his blackened grin of rotted teeth and sliced up gums. I would awake with my heart pounding through my chest, and my sheets dripping with sweat, and tears. I wanted to tell someone so bad, but who would believe a little girl?

     Sleeping with the windows open was something we had to do in the summer. We put big steel fans in the windows to either pull the hot air out, or push the night air in. I liked the air pushing in so that I could feel the dew in the early morning hours. It sprinkled my face with cool drops that felt like angel kisses.

     At the end of summer, it was especially humid and even with the fan; it was hard to sleep sound. It was at least past midnight when the dogs started barking and woke me. I leaned up and put my sweaty face against the fan. All of a sudden the hair stood up on my neck! I looked up and he was staring at me. The stars had framed his face and the horror charged from my deepest dreams to reality. Death had found me. His yellow eyes, blackened teeth, and black greasy hair were illuminated clear in the moonlight. I could feel and smell his breath. It was hot and smelled like tar and garbage. He seethed out the words “I know, and when you are alone, if you ever tell, I will not kill you first, I will kill you last.”

I felt the hot urine trickle down my thigh and settle onto the sheets. He slowly backed away. I was too scared to scream, and would not sleep for two days after.

     My dad was visibly worried, but if I told him, I knew death would come for him. I just wanted to forget. I wanted to live, and forget.

     Two years passed, and the thick summer heat once again was beating down on the tin roofs of our small community. I was swinging on the porch with my dad. We were not talking, just enjoying the slight breeze. With a breeze, the sweat became cool and was almost like having air conditioning. The cicadas were starting to sing and I started to remember that day behind the store. Daddy was very concerned and insisted on knowing what was wrong. I debated in my mind if I could tell. Was it safe after all this time? I felt like death had surely moved on. This town was small, and it had been quiet for a few seasons. With apprehension, I took a deep breath and told my dad what I had seen all those summers ago. I also told him about the night death came to my window. My dad sat there with a straight face. I don’t think he believed me. He listened very intently, and when I was finished he hugged me close and kissed my forehead. He did not say anything. He just got up and walked into the house. I thought it would bring relief or peace to me, but it didn’t. I wanted to know what he was thinking. The screen door slammed shut behind him. The next morning he was gone before I woke up.

     Looking back I wish I had told someone else about that hot summer day when I saw death, when I had the chance to stop it from killing again. Life is full of choices, some easy and some hard. I guess it is only fitting that this finds me sitting in the woods, bound and gagged. Death found me earlier this afternoon, same car, same tattoo, and I suppose I will find myself face down in the fire pit. He will be coming for me. In this old shack that is deep in the woods, how many have sat here before me, how many will be here after? The kudzu is thick, and the sunlight strains to press through the old rotting boards. The floor is sticky with clotted blood and fecal matter. Oh, I see that he found dad. He is slumped over in the corner. I want to cry, but the fear will not allow my eyes to release any tears. It’s so hot, so very thick and hot.       

     Beware of the blackberries, there are snakes hiding there. Maybe when I leave this world someone will be watching death from the dirty old bathroom, and maybe they will be brave. Choices come around. I hear him coming. I wish I was bathing in morning dew in front of the big steel fan. I wish I had some blackberries.

Another poem

Scars

My scars define me

My scars remind me

The pain I left behind

Mistakes I’ve buried

Regret that I carried

That cut me to the ground

Peel back the skin

See through the sin

I am reborn anew

I am reborn to you

The hand that pulled me through

Shadows try to chase

Try to erase

All the things I have become

I stumble but don’t fall

Bend and not break

I will never again

Be that man

To face the black

Hell at my back

I have no fear

And I never will

You rain your love down on my face

And you call out the sun

And your light dispels

All that may oppose

And I am strong

Standing in your grace

Prepared for eternity

Pushing back the walls

And stepping into forever

In your hand

In your heart

I love you.

I am yours

And I am most thankful

For that.

DVick 2009