Space Jam

I want to bring her a bottle of special stuff like bugs gave the Toon Squad,

so when she takes a sip and the heaviness lifts off her shoulders,

I can tell her that power was inside her all along.

But that's not how this works. Her mental plays too many games,

she can be like MJ in the lane, or a Monster bred in the graves of,

I am not good enough, I am too small, I am not enough.

I still want to give her that special stuff.

I'd screw on that bottle cap and shake it until osmosis took place,

cause whenever I look at her, god, how to explain this,

my heart feels like, porky pig performing Peter Piper perfectly.

Like Tweety telling Sylvester that he's always got a place to stay,

Like the surging peace that the Tasmanian Devil feels when he's twisting

and turning and lost in the love of the world.

Silly rabbit. Love. Love is more than a feeling.

Love is holding and healing even when she feels

like Moron Mountain is inevitable.

Who told us love is having a part of you taken away without consent,

not by little aliens in trench coats,

but men that are supposed to love you best?

Silence did. Shame did. Bugs told Lola with hearts in his eyelids.

If you’re a woman, “Don’t call me doll,”

is just a second’s statement to be forgotten before the next foul call.

Titles mean nothing.

Raise 6 banners, rip seven from the rafters,

how can she believe in happily ever after

with a monster pinning her wings down, like she doesn’t matter?

Strangling hands scar and stick around.

How can she dunk from half court

when no one ever cared to pass her the rock on the playground?

Life has tied rocks to her Nikes instead. Nice shoes. Nice blues.

Stan Podolak was never fixing a divot, and she knows the limits

of how deep mental illness can bruise.

I know a different kind of sadness too.

But she has never looked at me and told me all i need is a little spit shine.

She has studied my x’s and o’s and listened to what’s on my mind,

even when life has her riding the pine on the sideline.

Sometimes, she’s in a shooting slump. That stat line jumps and dives,

but that stat line is alive, plateauing? She doesn’t have the time,

She has plans and a heartbeat.

When the score is kinda-one-sided to 18, she doesn't look at it as defeat,

she pulls up her socks, delivers kindness like the mailman,

makes Larry bird look like a toucan,

and I watch, cheering, YOU CAN.

Do anything you set your heart to.

Forget the home runs.

She came into my life like a spaceship landing on a field,

and my soul's been singing R. Kelly ever since. I believe she can fly!

I want to bring her a bottle of special stuff.

Show her in every single way

that she is so much more than enough.

I wanna stay home and bake cookies with her,

you know, skip school and play hookie with her.

In her light, in her dark, with her is where I belong.

That power has been inside her all along.