When Life Calls Its Bluff Poem by Timmy Tubbs

A hurricane of drunken dances and red plastic cups
Clinches your life taunting you to keep to the same
But yours is the life consumed with the green paper
Your worst fears seep through and consume others real
And it all bends into helpless shame

So I sit with a wooden pencil
Mapping out each line and hoping to nail
Exactly what I need to say
When I listen close, I think I can here the sirens of the future
Taking me through life’s cold hands
Taking me away
I count the trees as they wisp by
And all the blocks I have traveled
And all your rough smiles fooling my eyes

Yes I know.
I know exactly how you feel
Every single episode in your life no matter what it may
Reminds you of words we used to say
But time works wonders in its funny ways
Shaping memories into foggy dreams
Picking apart the pain that consumes it all
Pulling ever so gently at our seems

A smile feels nice these days
Especially if is grinned over what the red cup holds
But they do not see what I see
Where would we all be
If hope was lost
If giving up was accepted
If dads quit guiding
After the third fall on the bike
If the first words we ever spoke
Was in a room filled of ignoring ears
If brothers didn’t stick up for the young blood
If little boys quit throwing the stick
After the dog quit fetching

Giving up was never really in the cards for me
Beneath dad’s bottles and mom’s stories
I thought I would always be able to see
A faith that floats in a meadow of misery
To much to tell
Stealing another’s voice unsheltering a heart clinching yell
It helps shape knots of the life I lived and the pain delt
Kickball with the older brothers
Three trees to round the bases
And just beyond that, three horses running wild with one enemy
A weak fence

Watching a horse take its first steps
And its spots taken from its mother
And all around people looking over it’s life
With a weak glance
Underneath all the cold bus stops and your drunken slur
It’s really hard to tell if I belonged in your crowd
Blessed with a chance