Son De La frontera - "Bulería Negra Del Gastor"

"I'm up, ma," only 14 and already he talks to his mother this way. He comes down the stairs for breakfast, but what does he really eat. A few bites of a grapefruit and a glass of milk and he's out the door. He barely looks me in the eye, his head down and his big hulking grunts just dismiss any effort I try to make. He's all I have, and he knows that. All too well, he knows that. Because as much as he's all I have, I'm all he has, I know that for sure. He doesn't have no friends, he doesn't have a girlfriend, I would be able to tell if he had a girlfriend. He would shower more than once a week, that's for sure. And he would shave that mess off his face. Maybe he hates me because he doesn't have a father, he doesn't believe me that he's better off without his father. Much better. This darkness, whatever it is, is nothing compared to the hell that he'd be living with that man around. Today I will finish his portrait and he will come home from school and I will give it to him, and we will have a cake and sing a song. If that doesn't work, at least for tonight, I don't know what I'll do. He thinks I forget about him but I don't. I know everything he thinks about me, he thinks I'm stupid, he thinks I don't understand him, and I wouldn't even if he told me. But he doesn't need to tell me. I understand, he is my son, I understand. I understand that I may die waiting for him to grow up and realize that I love him more than anyone else does in this cold and lonely world. That he needs to take advantage of my love in order to be happy in this life, and with every day that chance is slipping away. I understand that he may move away before admitting that I put everything else aside for his benefit. I understand because I did the same thing and to look at the politicians and the garbage yards and the sad stray dogs in the streets, it is clear that we are in a giant rotating wheel, stained with those caught under its weight, coming back around to get those it did not crush the first time. Ah! There is the sun. A glass of wine, I think. [Buy]

Brother Willie Blue - "I'm Pressing On"

When unemployment is on a ten-week bender and your bicycle rides like a shivery twig, don't let it get to you. When they cancel the mail because the front step is broken, and you can't get out of bed to see the sun because you ran out of coffee a whole string of days ago, don't let it get you down. When your boots are more like sandals and your best girl won't text you back, when your jeans are ripping a big yawn in the knee and all your shirts look like they were worn by a fire hydrant, don't beat yourself up. When you can't afford to eat and your hair is all sideways falling off your head, when the cold around you is warmer than the cold inside you, you know it's time to sit down, but don't let it drag on you. Just take a minute, breathe deep if it doesn't hurt too much, and try saying all the words you think it's impossible to say. [Buy]

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