I pretended
when I was a kid
growing up in Martins Ferry
and sadly, I still do
About what you ask
do I pretend?
Like we both don’t know
life is simply livable
yet desperately unknowable
I used to struggle
with half-truths and other semblances
of things that aren’t things at all
just experiences we can only live
Somehow I veered off the path
I thought I should be on
Only to find
Paths are not what life is about
Why aren’t we more confident?
Willing to accept and expect
there is nothing deeper
than what we can grasp in this moment
Some say we deserve more
Like we are God’s chosen people
Who am I to argue with you?
Let alone God
We let things slip
Older we get
Most not necessarily bad
Like the time you remembered
Hugging a cousin on her seventh birthday
She kissed you on the mouth
You wished she wasn’t your cousin
I saw you at the Antler Bar–
That place men only talked to men
About things when they grow older
They wish they’d told their mothers
Poetic Alchemist 
Absolutely Beautiful!! 🙂
Ah, kissing cousins… at least, pretending to. Very quaint, I must say. You certainly hit directly on some of life’s difficulties. My only recommendation- if I can give those- would be to spend less time on the rhetoric and more on evoking memories which would give the reader a SENSE of the rhetoric. Essentially, show, not tell. Your writing style, reminiscent of Hemmingway’s (If he ever wrote poetry) is beautiful for its simplicity and poignancy in brevity. That type of writing, to me, isn’t as effective at rhetoric as others. It IS good, however, at making one think.
Perchance I helped, perchance not.
lots of work here, words change things….
As I said, Yes!
Thanks!
And those photos! Excellent!