Promises Kept (Can't Hurt Me)

There is a poster on my bedroom wall depicting a masked man armed with an AK-47 assault rifle aimed directly at the camera.

At the top the poster reads: Today, somewhere in the world, someone was training to kill you. At the bottom it asks, What did you do today?

I stare at it on the days I feel like nothing and it reminds me of the shooting at Los Angeles International Airport on November 1, 2013.

There are indeed individuals in the world who wish to do us harm, for reasons we may never fully comprehend or understand, and that reality pushes me to become the things I always talk about.

Stronger, faster, smarter, healthier . . . better.

Because the fact of the matter is this: somewhere out there is an enemy preparing for me; therefore, I need to prepare for them.

"Every time you train, train with the discipline and purpose that you will be the hardest person someone ever tries to kill."

"But . . . why? Why does it matter?"

"Because when we do meet, on the battlefield or elsewhere, I want to be ready for that one-on-one rendezvous with fate. No factor."

Gerardo, you never got the chance to make it home to your wife and kids. I know my own grief by comparison is miniscule - your family lost a son, a brother, a husband, a father; I just lost a friend.

Nonetheless, there was a lesson to be learned in your sacrifice. It was a horrible lesson to learn in such a brutal and callous way and I wish that sort of profound and disgusting experience on absolutely no one, but the lesson - and subsequent clarity on life and death - was learned all the same. It can't be unlearned and the implications - as well as the sacrifices made - are never far from my mind.

The aluminum bracelet around my right wrist helps to keep you close old friend, and I will continue to carry the burdens of this world in your absence. You hold it down on your end and I will do the same on mine, until we meet again.

"El patron por vida . . . el patron por siempre."

"Cada día que estoy vivo hace que todo valga la pena."

Getting Older

"Sometimes you wander all day, the fog outside stalled at the tops of trees, refusing to rise higher and reveal the world you hope is still there, the one in which you're still a beautiful woman some beautiful man might helplessly move towards. And you remember how one looked at you the first time you undressed, how another didn't mind that you cried. Sometimes it's enough just to say their names, like a rosary, ordinary names linked by nothing but the fact that they belong to men who loved you."

"Getting Older" (Excerpt)

Kim Addonizio

Tell Me

BOA Editions, Ltd.

July 1, 2000

Heading Home

Everybody's home, Baby Girl . . . everybody's home.

This morning I choose to be thankful, for the twinkling constellations above my head, for the full moon in all of its celestial radiance, for the whisp of clouds above my head that will soon enough be the whisp of clouds above your head, and the night sky in the fleeting moments before twilight takes hold across our slumbering valley.

Before long the first rays of light will clear the mountaintops surrounding our valley and all of this will fade away . . . but hidden in the everlasting beauty of the dawn are the whispers of a new day.

Together We Fall Apart

Family do not let family die alone, Baby Girl. I will see you someday again in the clouds.

The hardest lessons to learn are the ones you learn alone.

Baby Girl (No Burden)

I will never ask more of you than you are willing to give. If this is the end then I will follow you - into the light or into the dark, no factor.

Together we fall apart - family do not let family die alone.