I told the boy with the ocean spots, "I don't trust that shade of blue, it's too deep to discover. My name? I can't tell you my name. You'll drown it. Tell me what's inside those spots of ocean first." He responded in slow motion, in reverse and with a lapse in time. "If these are ocean spots, then those are land marks, and I've been searching for the perfect shade of brown. It's warm, unlike the vast blue. It's no wonder the ocean tries to climb onto land an infinite number of times a day, with manic and obsessive persistence. No matter how many times she pushes him away." Nature is so much more magnificent than us. Nature leaves us no choice. Blue and brown and the ocean and the land. I wondered about the land and her persistence and her refusal to let something as strong as the ocean change her mind. And that sunlit afternoon by the water, I envied her strength as I lost mine seaside.
So the colors dance through the canals, exchanging what felt like more than mere champagne induced fallacies. For the first time the sun and the clouds wanted to come down from up there, jealous of the ocean and the land. Eventually, as time would have it, they did. When they did the colors faded away. There was nothing to illuminate them. They became grey with the night. Grey as the truth. The shade of grey that can only come from trying to defy nature, from attempting to change the equation, from pretending to fall in love with something you cannot be with. There are reasons, the ocean and the land can never be one: Earth's rotation on its axis, the moon, the sun, the tides, the stars, gravity, work, emotional stability, defense mechanisms, fear of the past, fear of the future, not wanting to let anyone close enough to hurt you. The dark grey truths that no one really wants to tell one another. Finally the greys fade to black.
Who were we to plague the forces of nature with our childish ambitions of love. The impossibility of it all leaves me feeling small. One exhaustible particle on a planet full of rules that can't be broke and laws that we can not control. Or so it feels. Now I understand her work. I understand why the land does what she does: because she has to. Natural Law. She has to protect herself from the ocean drowning everything inside of her. Let the ocean brush only her shores, then send him away before he steals her warm brown surfaces and paints them all blue. The land and the ocean wrap themselves with the moon and surrender to its demands. All that is left to witness is the empty blackness.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Life and I
We were lovers once, Life and I. Life was mine and I loved it so very much. We spent so many warm summer days dreaming until even the sun got tired of our rampant chatter of the future and where it would take us. We were free, even more free than that sun who knew she would have to return to the sea to rest until her responsibilities called her to wake the in the morning. We didn't have to wake, not tomorrow, not the next day, not ever. We could dream forever and in the darkness we only saw the stars. Life kept me warm and held me up. He made me feel unafraid. I felt that whatever I wanted he would give it to me. He fascinated me and made me want to be better, smarter, stronger. There were so many things to learn about Life. He was always changing and keeping me amazed. Life and I were young and unafraid.
We stayed together a long time Life and I. Things got a little more complicated as we got older. Life did some things to me that I didn't understand. He hurt me. He left me broken at times. Shattered me and left me that way for days, weeks, sometimes months. He took things from me, things I never thought I could go on without. I felt Life had deceived and abused me but I took him back every time. He never left me. When everything around me fell Life was the constant variable. There were times I considered leaving Life for good. Packing my bags and never returning to Life, but I stayed. I stayed and I struggled. There were no more warm summer days. Life and I woke up one day in the future that we used to dream about, but our dreams and our reality were not the same. They never are.
It has been longer than I can remember that Life and I have remained companions. We are not fighting like we used to. We have accepted each other. We have come to terms with the pain and the joy. We are simply waiting and being. I know that Life will leave me soon, so I do not trouble him. I take much better care of him now that our time together is fleeting. I can say that I am bitter with him at times but I am still moved by him. We have such a strange relationship now Life and I. We are honest to each other. We are not the passionately hopeful young couple we used to be. Nor are we the intensely frustrated adults who felt the truth for the first time. We act like dear friends who have lost touch, who are trying to get back to how we used to feel towards each other. We are trying to know each other for the first time, and we are afraid that we have run out of time, that it is far too late.
I want to love you again. I want to love you until we are no more.
We stayed together a long time Life and I. Things got a little more complicated as we got older. Life did some things to me that I didn't understand. He hurt me. He left me broken at times. Shattered me and left me that way for days, weeks, sometimes months. He took things from me, things I never thought I could go on without. I felt Life had deceived and abused me but I took him back every time. He never left me. When everything around me fell Life was the constant variable. There were times I considered leaving Life for good. Packing my bags and never returning to Life, but I stayed. I stayed and I struggled. There were no more warm summer days. Life and I woke up one day in the future that we used to dream about, but our dreams and our reality were not the same. They never are.
It has been longer than I can remember that Life and I have remained companions. We are not fighting like we used to. We have accepted each other. We have come to terms with the pain and the joy. We are simply waiting and being. I know that Life will leave me soon, so I do not trouble him. I take much better care of him now that our time together is fleeting. I can say that I am bitter with him at times but I am still moved by him. We have such a strange relationship now Life and I. We are honest to each other. We are not the passionately hopeful young couple we used to be. Nor are we the intensely frustrated adults who felt the truth for the first time. We act like dear friends who have lost touch, who are trying to get back to how we used to feel towards each other. We are trying to know each other for the first time, and we are afraid that we have run out of time, that it is far too late.
I want to love you again. I want to love you until we are no more.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sick
He's writing the words that are making me sick.
With a pen in his hand he drills a hole in my head.
It fills with decay until it's good and fed.
He's playing the songs that are making me sick.
The melody burns my flesh into bone.
It hurts until its numb until I'm dead and alone.
He's painting the pictures that are making me sick.
I tear out my eyes and I swallow them whole.
I want to witness the infection in my soul.
The kind of art that makes me itch and pick.
And it breaks me and takes me and keeps me sick.
With a pen in his hand he drills a hole in my head.
It fills with decay until it's good and fed.
He's playing the songs that are making me sick.
The melody burns my flesh into bone.
It hurts until its numb until I'm dead and alone.
He's painting the pictures that are making me sick.
I tear out my eyes and I swallow them whole.
I want to witness the infection in my soul.
The kind of art that makes me itch and pick.
And it breaks me and takes me and keeps me sick.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
All of Them Dancing
For about two years now I have lived across the street from a graveyard. I walk passed it every time I go to the bus stop and never give it a second thought. I fear death does not affect me anymore. I suppose it never really has. I ignore the graveyard and hop on the bus trying to convince myself of my own existence. Numb to life. Numb to death. This evening was different and I was thinking rather differently. I got off the bus and I just watched the graveyard. It was perhaps the only thing I had seen alive in a very long time. It could have just been the fog, or the shadows of those infinite trees but I saw them.
All of them, dancing, a freedom dance.
Not one of them wakes daily to the deafening noise of an alarm, forcing them to wake only so they can stumbled into a job that makes one feel less and less like and person and more and more like a disease. The monotony of this thing we call life causes our skin to fall from our faces and our ideas to drain from our heads until we are nothing but machines, working for someone we will probably never meet, who signs our paychecks and rapes our will, bi-weekly.
All of them, dancing, a freedom dance.
Somehow six feet under seems a hell of a lot more comforting than five feet and four inches above. I move not forwards and not back, I just move because I am told to move. I wake because I am told to wake. The comfort of eternal sleep and endlessness. Death is to become new. To become your mother's tears, to become your lost loves' truest regret, to become potent in the thoughts of those who knew you and those who pretend to have known you. You have to die to become new.
All of them, dancing, a freedom dance.
I want to join the dance. I want to be free like they are. I want to be careless and young. I want to be transparent and untouchable. I want to rid myself of the physical and material as they have. I cross the street and climb the fence into the graveyard. The dance has stopped and I have crashed the party with my pathetic and seemingly meaningless existence. It is so quiet it hurts my ears and I feel incredibly and unforgivably alone. For that, I am thankful. I sit in the damp soil next to a giant stone cross. There I am, fallen from grace being ridiculed by the perpendicular lines. My grandmother would be so disappointed in her fallen angel. I wonder now if she has danced the dance of freedom. I guess I may never know. It is a curious thing, sitting amongst the dead and decaying. You think it would be reaffirming to know that you are and they are no longer, but it's not. There is really no difference between them and I. Perhaps, they are better off because for them it is the physical that is dead, it is the physical that decays. For us it is the emotional. It is our souls that are dead, it is our souls that decay. Either way everything is rotting. I sink my fingernails into the damp soil beneath and let the coolness calm me. It is so calm and there is nothing. They are nothing, I am nothing. All of us are nothing. I realize that the only difference between them and I is a pulse. A pulse lets me live but does not guarantee it will keep me alive.
All of them, dancing, a freedom dance.
Not one of them wakes daily to the deafening noise of an alarm, forcing them to wake only so they can stumbled into a job that makes one feel less and less like and person and more and more like a disease. The monotony of this thing we call life causes our skin to fall from our faces and our ideas to drain from our heads until we are nothing but machines, working for someone we will probably never meet, who signs our paychecks and rapes our will, bi-weekly.
All of them, dancing, a freedom dance.
Somehow six feet under seems a hell of a lot more comforting than five feet and four inches above. I move not forwards and not back, I just move because I am told to move. I wake because I am told to wake. The comfort of eternal sleep and endlessness. Death is to become new. To become your mother's tears, to become your lost loves' truest regret, to become potent in the thoughts of those who knew you and those who pretend to have known you. You have to die to become new.
All of them, dancing, a freedom dance.
I want to join the dance. I want to be free like they are. I want to be careless and young. I want to be transparent and untouchable. I want to rid myself of the physical and material as they have. I cross the street and climb the fence into the graveyard. The dance has stopped and I have crashed the party with my pathetic and seemingly meaningless existence. It is so quiet it hurts my ears and I feel incredibly and unforgivably alone. For that, I am thankful. I sit in the damp soil next to a giant stone cross. There I am, fallen from grace being ridiculed by the perpendicular lines. My grandmother would be so disappointed in her fallen angel. I wonder now if she has danced the dance of freedom. I guess I may never know. It is a curious thing, sitting amongst the dead and decaying. You think it would be reaffirming to know that you are and they are no longer, but it's not. There is really no difference between them and I. Perhaps, they are better off because for them it is the physical that is dead, it is the physical that decays. For us it is the emotional. It is our souls that are dead, it is our souls that decay. Either way everything is rotting. I sink my fingernails into the damp soil beneath and let the coolness calm me. It is so calm and there is nothing. They are nothing, I am nothing. All of us are nothing. I realize that the only difference between them and I is a pulse. A pulse lets me live but does not guarantee it will keep me alive.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Q&A
Mother, I can't feel anything anymore.
Mother, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Curled up in your bed, eyes soaking wet, laid by your side wishing I could be a child once more. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. Did you know I don't blame you for this mother? Do you know how strong and how weak you are mother? Will you ever love again mother?
Sister, I can't feel anything anymore.
Sister, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Starring into a black sea wishing that there weren't miles between us. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. Did you know you're my stone sister? Can you understand why I left sister? Will I ever be half the person you are sister?
Brother, I can't feel anything anymore.
Brother, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Surrounded by distant cousins, aunts, and uncles asking me how you are as I pretend I even know you anymore. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. Could you ever forgive me for my lack of understanding brother? Can you let me be close to you so we can stop hurting brother? Do you know you're not alone brother?
Father, I can't feel anything anymore.
Father, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Shuffling through old photos, tearing open old letters, unveiling old memories of your life. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. How could you leave me father? What did you expect to happen father? Did you think of me in your last hours father?
God, I can't feel anything anymore.
God, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Knees to wood and palm to palm. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. Begging for God to remember me, begging myself to remember Him. Where are you God? Can you answer me God? Would you believe me if I told you I don't believe you any more?
Mother, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Curled up in your bed, eyes soaking wet, laid by your side wishing I could be a child once more. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. Did you know I don't blame you for this mother? Do you know how strong and how weak you are mother? Will you ever love again mother?
Sister, I can't feel anything anymore.
Sister, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Starring into a black sea wishing that there weren't miles between us. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. Did you know you're my stone sister? Can you understand why I left sister? Will I ever be half the person you are sister?
Brother, I can't feel anything anymore.
Brother, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Surrounded by distant cousins, aunts, and uncles asking me how you are as I pretend I even know you anymore. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. Could you ever forgive me for my lack of understanding brother? Can you let me be close to you so we can stop hurting brother? Do you know you're not alone brother?
Father, I can't feel anything anymore.
Father, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Shuffling through old photos, tearing open old letters, unveiling old memories of your life. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. How could you leave me father? What did you expect to happen father? Did you think of me in your last hours father?
God, I can't feel anything anymore.
God, I can't feel anything anymore.
It's been a while since I've found myself here. Knees to wood and palm to palm. Searching for answers I'm certain I'll never find. Begging for God to remember me, begging myself to remember Him. Where are you God? Can you answer me God? Would you believe me if I told you I don't believe you any more?
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Go Ask Oscar
"So you don't believe in love, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like true love, between two people. Two separate entities. Two different floating masses of energy. Two poets. That everlasting kind of love that you couldn't get rid of if you wanted to. Love that is so strong it literally hurts your heart to think about existing without it. The pressure on your chest cavity is constant and consistent, and it is the weight of that person. Heavy in your heart, heavy in your head. It is the most confusing kind of love, it makes you believe even if you never thought you could. You're suddenly feeling things again, you're smiling at yourself. You feel beautiful and safe, even in the dark. You don't care about tomorrow any more, you are alive in the now, you are alive today. You wonder how this person could be real. How this person, standing there holding everything you are into place, could be. Carrying your life in their hands with delicacy you didn't know existed in this world. A love stronger than this explanation. Love so strong that it transcends human thought and language. It is the kind of love that you don't think you deserve, but you take it with the intentions to never, ever give it back."
"Oh...no, no I don't believe. Not really."
"I didn't think so."
"Really? Well how'd you know?"
"A while back, after Julian's birthday. Everyone left and we were sitting around your dining room table, finishing a bottle of wine and talking about literature. You told me you love Oscar Wilde. You told me you love his quotes on love and marriage. And that's when I knew you were broken in ways that I couldn't fix, and I knew I had to stop loving you because you would never be able to love me back. And finally, it all made sense to me. I knew that you weren't capable of loving me like I'd hoped you could, I just never realized all I had to do was go ask Oscar. "
"What do you mean?"
"Like true love, between two people. Two separate entities. Two different floating masses of energy. Two poets. That everlasting kind of love that you couldn't get rid of if you wanted to. Love that is so strong it literally hurts your heart to think about existing without it. The pressure on your chest cavity is constant and consistent, and it is the weight of that person. Heavy in your heart, heavy in your head. It is the most confusing kind of love, it makes you believe even if you never thought you could. You're suddenly feeling things again, you're smiling at yourself. You feel beautiful and safe, even in the dark. You don't care about tomorrow any more, you are alive in the now, you are alive today. You wonder how this person could be real. How this person, standing there holding everything you are into place, could be. Carrying your life in their hands with delicacy you didn't know existed in this world. A love stronger than this explanation. Love so strong that it transcends human thought and language. It is the kind of love that you don't think you deserve, but you take it with the intentions to never, ever give it back."
"Oh...no, no I don't believe. Not really."
"I didn't think so."
"Really? Well how'd you know?"
"A while back, after Julian's birthday. Everyone left and we were sitting around your dining room table, finishing a bottle of wine and talking about literature. You told me you love Oscar Wilde. You told me you love his quotes on love and marriage. And that's when I knew you were broken in ways that I couldn't fix, and I knew I had to stop loving you because you would never be able to love me back. And finally, it all made sense to me. I knew that you weren't capable of loving me like I'd hoped you could, I just never realized all I had to do was go ask Oscar. "
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Door Knobs
This morning he asked me why I didn't want to be loved. Why I didn't want him to love me. And it's times like these that require grace and understanding, compassion and intimacy. It's times like these when I fail to deliver. The curtain goes up, spot light is on, but no one is standing in it. It is in that very moment where my inability to grasp on to the last bit of my humanity leaves me tongue twisted and terrified. I wish questions didn't require answers because I never seem to have a good response to the important ones. What I want to say is that I do want him to love me. I want him to love me with every ounce of his entire being. So that breathing gets harder when I'm not around. I want his heart to scorch his chest; third degree burns every time my eyelashes hit his cheeks. I want him to love me so much that he'd tear off his skin if I ever left him. The only problem is that I don't want to love him back. Not the same way. Not at all. The queen and her jester. The host and the parasite. The relationship: one gains everything and the other losses all. Love is a gamble. You're all in, the stakes are high. But I'm no lady luck and these odds aren't in our favor. I want to say all of the beautiful lies I can think of so that he never stops believing in love. Cause I know what it's like to not believe. Somewhere along these crooked lines I've stopped believing in anything at all. I want to say things to him that make him start building our future in his head. But I won't and I can't. I can't say anything at all. It's actions that matter. It's what you do that counts. So I throw back the sheets, lift myself from the bed. I grab my keys, my bag, turn the door knob and close the door behind me.
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