It’s their annual book that they do. It’s really cool, and so they’re going to allow my family to come and do a public reading at the University of Michigan, so that’s really awesome. I just so thankful to so many of my friends, like Shravia and Ana and Leah and Sam and Miles and Bryn and just Ashley and Miranda and so many other ones I can’t even think of right now over the years that have just been special in my life. Obviously, Ashley Lucas, a personal one, but yeah, it helps me inspire poems like this, “What I Miss.”
What I Miss
My kids, Ella Grace and Cash Lucas,
Grandma Betty’s kiss,
Little Luke, little sis
Laura called him Goop, as kids.
OD’d at 16, still just a kid.
As a daddy, I wasn’t ready.
But who really is?
I wasn’t ready to be responsible
As a lost soul
And was crushed when chaos broke.
And as a daddy, I wasn’t ready to let go.
As a grand baby, I felt choked
When granny let go —
Cancer, you bastard
Leave us alone!
As a brother, raising a brother,
I was broke
When Luke was left to die on his own.
Who’s ever ready to let go?
But God had other plans, though.
His plans are gold,
Even though we can’t always control
What’s outside our ozone.
Let God control what you can’t and let go.
Coast, hands raised
As if riding with a millennium force at Cedar Point.
Avoid dwelling on what you miss.
It’s okay to reminisce.
Don’t let past pain live in your head without paying rent.
Some are hell bent on reinventing memories,
But I want to invent new memories.
Expectancy is what I miss,
But I don’t expect simple, sensual luxuries.
I don’t miss and wish for fantasies.
I miss simplicities,
Like a simple kiss with loveliness
Provides tenderness
Filling my soul and brings healing from that kiss
Filled with fixed love
A kiss begins a day the right way,
And this daily, continuous way to live
Is the model of live, love, laugh
Of life that I miss.
To return grandma’s kiss,
To kiss little Luke right on the lips.
Yep, Ella Grace and Cash Lucas
Will get more kisses than they wish,
How I just wish for that kiss that I miss.
It’s what I miss.
These commentaries are recorded by in Prison Radio
