My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

– Thomas Merton

Really, this match is going to be a massacre, but I’m still excited about it. Also USA Rugby is one of the only organizations I know that can put together really high quality videos and still have them be extremely cheesy … “It doesn’t matter if you don’t know rugby, rugby knows you and it’s coming to say hello.” What??

Bedtime for democracy, 1985
Junior high angst made me feel alive
We took our lumps and beatings
status quo did not add up through opened eyes now bleeding
And righteous anger to blatant lies, and sleepless nights and lonely cries
Of a hearts ideals now fleeting
And the fire that once burnt my eyes, left not blind but purged that vail o’er eyes now alive and seeing

It all used to mean so much more, like the letter of the law
Now, just an identity whore, red light on a door at a store in a suburban mall
It’s not who i have become or am going to be
But who I already am, but have yet the eyes to see
For what slumbered and doth insist myself doth not exist
Hath yet in youth an unkindly truth resist my metamorphosis

Yes, truth is cruel, the cardinal rule that honesty is unpleasant
Would let the fool impose the tool of internal self resentment
Shalt I yield and drop my shield of steadfast punk rock prose
To wife and child and life beguiled the paths of a tended rose
For in staunch ideals in the court of my peers I truly can not bother
The punkest move that I can make is to be a model model friend, husband and father

-Andrew Verdecchio

“Grow up with me.
Let’s run in fields and fear the dark together.
Fall off swings, and burn special things, and both play outside in bad weather. Let’s eat badly.
Let’s watch adults drink wine and laugh at their idiocy. Let’s sit in the back of the car,
making eye contact with strangers driving past,
making them uncomfortable.
Not caring.
Not swearing.
Don’t fuck. Let’s both reclaim our superpowers; the ones we all have and lose with our milk teeth. The ability not to fear social awkwardness.
To panic when locked in the cellar;
still sure there’s something down there.
And while picking from pillows each feather, let’s both stay away from the edge of the bed,
forcing us closer together.
Let’s sit in public, with ice cream all over both our faces;
sticking our tongues out at passers by.
Let’s cry.
Let’s swim. Let’s everything.
Let’s not find it funny lest someone falls over.
Classical music is boring.
Poetry baffles us both;
there’s nothing that’s said is what’s meant. Plays are long, tiresom, sullend, and filled;
with hours that could be spent rolling down hills,
and grazing our knees on cement.
Let’s hear stories and both lose our inocence.
Learn about parents and forgiveness,
death and morality,
kindness and art,
thus losing both of our innocent hearts,
but at least we won’t do it apart.
Grow up with me.”

– Keaton Henson, Grow Up with Me