The path is littered with crashes and burnings Debris of those who failed the journey Those who could not exit the atmosphere A lack of faith, an abundance of fear The way to the moon requires much It requires effort, a bit more than a touch It requires dreams and hope and work A spacecraft built of what within us lurk But the Sun is there to provide light It is there to provide its might All it takes is a small step All it takes is a giant leap To go to the Moon

Up ahead, look! A dead end Can't close my eyes, can't play pretend I fear it's my funeral and I must attend All the bad choices echo in my head Drive every toss and turn in my bed All the wrong things I have said Every place I shouldn't have tread Going my own way, I should be dead Couldn't I get even a little cred? My momma set the foundations right But now I look right into the light Is it too late? Is this my plight? Could I change? Am I truly contrite? All I can do is bra

Midnight came and went. No fanfare. No bells. It was a milestone, but no one cared. Tom stood up and flapped his arms. He had to keep the circulation going somehow. And he had to scare away the spiders. The bus stop was packed with them, and he didn't care for the close company. How long had he been waiting? An hour? A day? A lifetime? It was all a blur. But he didn't leave. He sat back down with his arachnid neighbors. Watched a trapped bug struggle in one of the webs. He co

It was that time of year again. Dreaded, feared, inescapable. All the well-worn patched ruffled. All the hiding spots ransacked. All the familiar smells demolished. It wasn't all bad, of course. It was always nice to find some long-lost treasures. But was it worth all the work needed? She didn't think so. But it wasn't up to her. She just had to sit in her cage and wait for her frantic humans to finish up. Then she could go back to rolling in the bed and set things right agai

The seas tossed and turned. Every minute felt like the end. The waterlogged ship had already lost most of its crew, but the remnant struggled to keep it afloat. The captain was gone. The first mate was gone. One man stood at the wheel, screaming orders. Who was he? A cabin boy. A mere cabin boy. But in the voyage beyond the edges of the map, any leader would do. All hands on deck. All effort mustered in the endless fight to keep the boat above the sea level. The compasses spu

He was used to a lot of silences.  What wannabe comedian isn’t used to the crickets when a joke doesn’t land? The awkward silence full of shifting eyes and shifting feet. The bored eyes staring as if he is a stain on the sidewalk. Something to look at and step over, but not worth a second thought. He brought the wrong material for the wrong crowd. At least that awkward silence ends with either a sympathetic chuckle or a cleared throat.  There is that fun little silence when h

We stopped walking in the woods that summer. It wasn’t because the treasure hunt trail went cold, There was more to find, more of nature’s gold The adventures of the Hammond family expedition didn’t stall out, It was merely a temporary pause as we looked for a new route The long treacherous march through hottest amazon rainforest didn’t scare, With sheer imagination, we could brave any tv villain lair without a care We didn’t get rescued from our perilous crash onto a remote