Cats and dogs are not substitutes for napkins,
Chocolate milk does not come from brown cows,
Spaghetti sauce is not the same as water because a goldfish cannot survive without oxygen or in boiling liquids made out of tomatoes.
Pulling the emergency brake in the car while the vehicle is in motion is not ok,
the hole at the bottom of the toilet is not for exploring; your arm will become stuck if you explore too far.
The 911 operators never find your late night conversations as funny as you do.
If your teacher ever calls home and couples your name with the words explosion or fire hazard in the same sentence, I will always side with them.
Beer was made for drinking, not chugging, they give it a flavor for a reason.
Being a teenager does not give you a license for stupidity or the right to drive.

But you do have the right to sing out loud, singing is for the tin eared and the musically impaired;
the ones who think treble cleft is something fixed with plastic surgery;
When you open your mouth you are Sam Cooke in his prime, Marvin Gaye and Al Green with 10X the charm and don’t let anyone tell you differently, because songs may end past the lips but they start somewhere between the shoulders and hips: that’s where the soul resides and all souls are equal.

Dancing is not just for school functions and no, it’s not the motion people make in music videos where they’re trying to make their zippers kiss one another.
I give you permission to stake every walking surface as your own personal dance floor,
as if you are a footloose Christopher Columbus and the only way to claim the Americas was to do the electric slide.

You’re going to discover that
conversations are best at 4 am:
The heavier the eyelids, the sincerer the words,
Those are the talks you’ll remember.
It’s ok not to know the answer and silence is not awkward, it’s shared,
so share it more often than not.

Labels are for soup cans-
When you were created you weren’t mass produced
(just ask your mother if you don’t believe me).

Pornography is only two people getting paid,
Authentic romance doesn’t begin when the background music starts-
Son your sweetheart is not a princess, she’s a temple, and your body a burnt sacrifice.
Daughter your lover is not a knight, he is a compass and you a map,
So do not treat each other like glass, with delicate hands,
Because like dough we need to be punched and kneaded to know our weight and worth.

Remember that sincerity may not always gain you friends but it will keep heaviness from your heart.

Love the world or love God
For you cannot do both.

Just don’t grow up too fast,
Don’t be afraid to run so fast both feet leave the ground.
When you stop learning hopefully it’s the same time you stop breathing.

For every kid is born with color vision but adults have chosen to see the world in black and white
So when you’re offered a pair of 3D glasses grab them like your life depends on it,
because it does.
The adult world is full of numbers that will make your head spin and wallets and bank accounts that are filled with abstracts,
it will tell you that you are what you make, you are what you have, you are what people remember you to be.
But realize this if nothing else; that you have a God and Father that says, I always was, I always am, and your empty palms and open heart are enough for me.

-Jeffrey Stuckel

Gentlemen have you forgotten your god?

He weeps out loud waiting for our dreams to grow ears while you make ghosts from people
you are making ghosts from your torah
your koran
your bibles
we shave our books and swallow them down
so that the word of God might flow inside of us
but the pages just sit in our bellies speaking to us through dull murmurs
we try to listen to what they say but we can’t

We raise and try to translate the word with work
with hearts we look through thighs searching blankets, beds and legs curse of the moon, fucks and fuck you
to find God and listen more proper-like
but our ears are too small for our hearts to understand the words inside
we are trying to decipher the bang buck braille of Your silent throat, Lord
but the voices, they grow and get fuzzier and fuzzier still
so we stand and go to the kitchen and pick up knives to cut these voices out from inside ourselves, we stab ourselves
I must hear You
we stab, cutting the flaps of skin the words twisting out, piling up onto the floor of our homes
they mix in the sound of blood, they drown
but it does not stop
we hear these same songs in the stomachs of others
so we grab more knives to cut those out
I must hear You
we grab more knives but there are more and more stomachs—we need bigger knives
we need tanks and soldiers and missiles
but it’s not enough
we need dead mothers, children raped from searching
the hospitals are full and overflowing with people cutting God out from their insides
with the blade twist fingernail pushed drug
pushed and prodding through the arm, into the belly to throw Him up
in the bang of the scream we find our savior
the shell in the chamber is a quiet plea to a distant God asking for us to be remembered by Him
through the tire tread, the tank shell, the crunch of the skull, the children buried beneath us
we bury them, searching for You inside of them, emptying You from them, hoping that a scrap of You lingers in there
we twist throats, pistols and palms in the same two clasped hands of prayer
staring into mirrors, seeing crypts fondling our hearts made of marble like they were mausoleums
we are ghosts hungry for something bigger then what our lips are kissing
I want to see you!
I want to see your face
perched in the middle of this question
black as my eye beaten by Your hymn
I am holding still

So please, you gentle men of God, tender sinners
raise your guns to my gut and fire on
hear the song clear
it does not sing what you wish it did
spit it up
it is too big for us to read one letter of it, so do not try
do not be afraid of what it looks like
cut Him from me
I wish to drape His faces with kisses and finally sleep softly

(Source: deirdreannb, via inmedia-res)