For David, at 9.

The love of my life. You're 9 today.

So much I think of, so much I want to tell you.

Like how proud I am of you, and how much you mean to me.

And how I pray for you, and worry about how you see me.

Am I the best big sister you could have? Because I try to be. And everything I do, my love, you inspire me.

Will you adapt to a changing world, will your life be beautiful? As much as it is in my power to, it will be.

Do you worry about anything? You shouldn't. You've got more arms supporting you than a crowd-surfing celebrity.

And so many people are preoccupied with your happiness, I don't know how your life could turn out to be anything less than awesome.

But God give you life, more nine years like these, more beauty, more growth, continuous peace.

And God give us life, that we may see you grow into the wonderful young man we know you will be.

I could write at this all day, but I've got to put the rest aside to help you celebrate.

And one day, you will be old enough to understand that people get emo and write things like this, but right now...

Baby, just enjoy your play.

Washed Out

Purple is the colour of a flower
in the fields;
Growing arrogantly among the golden
corn yields.
Purple is the colour of a stormy sky
Or a sunset, announcing the black that
draws nigh.

Purple is the colour of his rages when
he's mad
And the colour of her tears
when she's sad
She smiled a purple smile when he came from work that day.
But she saw his purple, and her purple faded away.

Purple is the colour of the bruise
on her cheek
And the blood that flows out even
as she speaks.
Purple is the colour of her life ebbing away.
Purple is the colour of her night
and her day.

Purple was the colour of the sky that day.
And he hid purple tears as they
laid her away.
He followed as they drew him away
And he left his soul behind, once purple,
now gray.

Y.O.L.O

Where are we going? Do we have a plan? We're all dressed up and busy on our phones, twitter and facebook, so much concern on how our face looks, superficial is the new deep, deep is the new creep, creep is the new intense, myopia is the new lens. Thought gave way to pretense.

Stereotyped minds living generic lives, we're like tins of sardines, occasionally youll find one that is differently sized, but otherwise they're all pretty much the same. Trivialise emotion till it just becomes a game, were living abbreviations, short forms of the names. There's no true freedom, heterosexual beings calling out 'no homo' just cos they wearing pink. Its become gay to say I love you to your brother because were scared of what people would think.

Music used to live on this planet, remember the blues? Remember soul and jazz and classical pieces that moved your soul, no sound effects just one man and his piano, defining the thoughts of your subconscious, breaking you free, making you whole. Remember Louis Armstrong and Mozart, defining art, when was the last time a song made your heart pause pause and restart? Do you remember when you heard music so beautiful you could cry, now DJ Khaled and Rick Ross are stars and Nobody is asking why?

Remember a time when there were visionaries, crusading missionaries, bent on making a point in a world full of dots. Remember that time when thinking was cool, when the great minds were not confined by school? Sometimes I wonder if Martin can see us.Does he remember his dream? Do the ancestors of the slaves remember what form of pain made their grandparents scream? Doesn't it seem more each day like we're losing focus of the important things that come our way?

But no, today its more about where the partys at tonight, how many bottles of hennesy is politically alright, let's get wasted and faded, get drunk and degraded, just so our friends will know that we made it.

Let's make the dresses shorter and the weaves longer, let all the noise distract us from the fact that we're hiding the ugliest form of disorder.

Let us preach hell and damnation, scare people into their salvation, give them nothing to build on their initial convictions, and when they fall offer them condemnation.

Let us commercialise sin and sex, convince their narrow minds that these are best, invest in capitalist structures that enrich the rich and screws over the rest.

Tell her over there that he wont like her until she changes the clothes that she wears, tell him, struggling within, that drugs will bring the acceptance hes craving. Build up their hopes in crack and dope, in brazilians and europe, and then make a law that says, dont smoke.

Encourage perversions of the basest kind, give a man the legal right to deface anothers behind, give no thought to the consequence on social structures and the continuity and preservation of the sanity of humankind, and wrap it up nicely and call it human rights.

But these things are not in our place to say,We are children, what do we care of but today? What right have we to show concern over our futures, go ahead and destroy the only worthwhile legacies you could leave us.

But excuse us one day, when the world is going astray, we will sit and drink and dance, after all, you told us, we only live today.