with arms accented by scattered tattoos

There is a Tom Waits quote I think about every day.

It's about his kids and straight trees versus crooked trees.

I love that.

I also love a good pecan pie,

and a loud punk rock album in the afternoon,

and a loud hip hop album while driving,

and playing Barbies with my daughter,

and stealing poetic moments to put them in forever poems.

Current duality as a working writer and father, 

singing urgently of the emotional whiplash
of my lives at home and on the proverbial road:
I sing my poems, bang my head,

just rush me home, back to bed.

Poetry things and comedy things 

and sports things and food things

and fatherly things and thing things:

I contain multitudes and I am not

the same person I was yesterday

let alone years ago, doubtless. 

I lift up my worlds

in these wayward words,

which lifts me up,

so I can keep the cycle going,

and leave a legacy 

of never giving up,

or getting cut down.