#14 Father, Son and Holy spirit of bad decisions

I'll be the first to say it, this is a weird one, but it's just what came to mind.  Thank you to the friendly cashier. You work at what is probably one of the shittiest 24 hour mcdonalds locations in the united states and you were totally civil to all those assholes ahead of me. 

A Toast to Heritage

An Irish emblem weighs against my breastbone,

a small comfort of generations and a reminder

of strength and values always

there to support me

with the force of Irish tea coursing through 

my veins and the Guinness coursing through

my father's and his.

The small circle of metal leads to 

A map of Ireland created by the freckles all over my

face and my hair

burns red in the sun

daring the world to awaken the 

Irish temper pent up carefully inside.

The Celtic cross sleeps against my chest as

I sit in a church pew for the tradition of it,

just to keep some religion in my soul and remain connected to 

all the other skeptical Irish doing the same.

The Irish are supposed to have control over the spoken language,

spinning yarns out of threads and

piecing together rains of thoughts as green as their fields,

but have no concept of expressing emotions.

Borrowing songs and stories to reflect 

the inside it seems, hiding beneath the proud,

look the other way exterior and teaching

through heroes and legends

They tell these tales in a borrowed language they can't give back,

the English forcing Irish from schools and 

anglicizing it into Gaelic for the world,

this being a lesser of the anglican problems 

plaguing 

the country with rules, repression, rebellion,

in their past.

But from it, a flag with a color for unity

rose to wave over a divided island

 and when an orange shamrock

makes me incredibly angry,

or when I celebrate the Easter Rising 

while most can't tell the date from another day

i know this Irish heart beats as 

wildly as my rain curled hair tangles

and that mine is a past of

neart agus áilleacht 

(strength and beauty)

 paisean agus faisnéis

(passion and intelligence)

 agus grá na hÉireann

(and a love of Ireland)

that will never leave me

and that I will never let die.