Kern Carter's Blog, page 63
January 18, 2022
January 17, 2022
What Does It All Mean?
What does it all meanif we havebut do not shareif we takebut do not give?
January 15, 2022
All I Want Is Love That’s Right
Photo Credits: Sulaiman Hafeez (High Off Love)I know a boy, he’s so sweet,
Obsessed with me like I'm a treat.
Calls me pretty every morning
He came with no bad warning.
There's another guy from my past
I still remember his promises by heart.
Loved me recklessly, never wished me night
But he made sure I never cry.
.
I sit here in the corner of my room,
Wondering is there still beauty in the moon.
All I ever wanted was love that's right.
But the past lovers in my head always fight.
.
Let's call the nice guy Joe,
Who holds for me all the doors.
He says I'm all the perfection he ever saw
And I'm in lovely awe.
Does he think I need to be saved?
Because of all the times, my anxiety misbehaved.
I name the heartbreaker James,
Just like the one in Taylor’s folklore affairs.
It’s strange that we still have to meet,
and he actually didn’t cheat.
.
Now, I'm walking on the street
Replaying the memories on repeat.
Like which lover’s gonna join the war in my head?
Or is Joe gonna be the one to hold my hand?
This is a winless fight, just another sleepless night,
All I want is love, that’s right.
Maybe it's just not my time.
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I Think I *Kinda* Know How This EndsMy New Favorite Feeling[image error]All I Want Is Love That’s Right was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Color Me In
Photo of the author from 2015I remember the days
when I was young
and crayons were my best friends.
Within my hands
they brought a plain piece of paper to life
coloring the outpouring of my imagination
with a simple stroke.
The deepest greens for the tallest trees.
The loudest yellows for the roundest suns.
The bluest blues for the vastest skies,
and the tannest tans for the fairest boys.
I drew everything in color
but myself
You see
out of the tan crayon
and the brown crayon
I found it hard to decide which was
most
ME.
The choice was
this sun-kissed tan
or doo-doo brown.
“beauty”
or “authenticity”
I did what I could to mix the two
hoping that I could lighten myself up
with a bit of hard work and modification
But after a while
I just stopped coloring myself in
my portraits often left dull
in landscapes illuminated
with hues galore.
—
Today I colored for the first time in a while
greeting my old friends with a gentle squeeze
between my fingers
making acquaintance with them once more.
I looked down
at the empty sheet of paper before me
and decided to draw
something beautiful.
I started with his eyes
big and full of joy.
I rounded the edges of his nose
nostrils presumably flared open
from an outburst of laughter.
before long
his frame was finished
and one final step remained.
I surveyed the box for the right tint.
There
in the same space I left it years ago
I found a brown crayon
broken from a fit of frustration
I’m sure.
I picked up one half
and started to color myself in.
Color Me In was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
January 14, 2022
January 13, 2022
Today We Missed the Buses
Photo by Juan Carlos Becerra on UnsplashThis morning we missed the buses, and no, that’s not a typo. We have 4 buses to catch in the morning; or 1 bus, 2 minibuses, and 1 minivan, to be precise. This morning we missed 2 of them, which meant I was the driver for 4 of our kids.
We have 6 of them, kids that is. The oldest is 10, the youngest is 4. We have identical twins who are 5, one of them has CP (cerebral palsy). No complaints. We love them!
So, here’s what happened: Last night I went to sleep late, which I tend to do all too often. I rely on my wife to wake me in the morning. No point setting two alarms. But last night one of our twins kept her up. The one with CP. She tends to wake up real early and cry, but sometimes she wakes up all through the night. This was one of those nights.
I’m a deep sleeper. I sleep through most things, grinding my teeth through them. I need my sleep, particularly because I’m a deep thinker. I need to be deep in my dreams, the way I like to be deep in my thoughts. It takes my wife a while to snap me out of them, but she usually does the job.
However, my wife ignored her alarm this morning. She’s a light sleeper. She will hear almost anything. She’s the type of person you can ask if she is sleeping, and she will answer yes, because she was sleeping. And then she’ll be asleep again, unless you ask her another question.
That’s probably what she did with her alarm. The alarm signaled her to wake up, so she woke up, but then she went back to sleep. What woke her up the second time was likely the minibus honking, the one for our twin daughter. Too late, though, she wasn’t ready on time.
I heard that one, both the honk and my wife screaming in response. I heard it begrudgingly, but then went back to sleep, or at least I tried to. My wife, on the other hand, got straight to work, preparing our CP twin for kindergarten, which is a tough job.
Our CP daughter’s driver and child escort arrived half-way through her morning preparations, which require about 15 minutes of intensive labor. They waited. That one is the minivan, and our daughter is their only passenger. She provides employment for both of them, so the least they could do was wait.
Meantime though, our three older kids missed their school bus. That’s my job, to get them all ready, along with our other twin and sometimes even our youngest son. I get them ready and then run with them to the bus stop. But the second I heard that first honk and my wife’s response, I realized it was already too late, so what’s the point? I went back to sleep.
The last honk, which ended up being a series of honks, was for our youngest son. They honked a few times and called my wife. My wife said he’s not ready yet, and she rushed to get him ready. The child escort did us the favor of coming to the house to get him. What a relief.
They all go to school and preschool a good drive away from home. Missing the bus can be a real headache, especially with traffic, not to mention the loss for the kids and the frustration of the teachers. No one likes when people are late.
The morning stress can be intense. Sometimes it helps to sleep through it. I made up for this day’s misdeed by being the bus driver.
[image error]Today We Missed the Buses was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
