Solar Powered

The warmth of sunlight pours down on me
Dripping through my pores and lighting up the insides of my veins
My white blood-cells and microbial bacteria will have some light to battle by today
Before the radiation washes them all away

In and out of love

I spend so much time proving myself to you. But there is nothing left to prove, because you are a poor judge. We simply wave our hands now, faking emotions we once had. Never expressing the ones we really dwell on.

Bacon and Maple Syrup.

We stand in the basement. The lights are off, and laughter bounces off the stairwell walls down towards us. The party continues upstairs, we can't hear the music but the bass reverberates and shakes our bones.

A single window, high to the ceiling, lets the sky in just a bit. The moon is full and high and bright in the sky, peeking in on us. A large square of milky white light lies on the green carpeting. It's enough light to make out her face.

Her hair is jet black, as are her eyes. I stare intently into them, hoping the darkness of the room masks what my intentions are. I see glimmers of red, embers of a fire burning deep within. She stumbles a bit. The alcohol is taking more effect. She laughs loudly and makes an embarrassing comment, about a dozen decibels too loud for the quietness of the basement's darkness. I can feel the alcohol in my own veins, sluggishly restraining my movements. I can feel it slowly filling my brain, making a fog of my thoughts.

She makes a soft comment. I'm not sure what it is. I lean forward to hear what she says, and she wraps her arms around my neck. I place mine at the small of her back, suddenly painfully aware of who she is, of where we are. The alcohol seems to evaporate from me.

She whispers into my ear. "Please..."

It takes me a few seconds to process what she has said. But she doesn't give me more time to think about it. She turns to face me, her face hovering in front of mine, eyes closed. At this point my brain begins to sound alarm bells. She's drunk and doesn't know what she's doing!


She opens her eyes again. She peers into mine. Her hand runs through the hair on the back of my head. The embers that glimmered in her eyes a moment before are now a roaring fire. Her eyelids slant downwards from her nose: she is beginning to have second thoughts. Embarrassment begins to creep in. It has an extinguisher at the ready, ready to douse her.

I feel a pang in my heart, and then in my stomach. A feeling of pity. Then of desire. I imagine a click in my mind, something has come loose. I am free.

I close my eyes and plunge. Even without seeing it, I can feel the surprise on her lips. Hard and tense, but slowly begins to soften. I can feel the heat emanating from her. The urgency builds, her hand pulling me towards her just a bit harder. I can feel her coming loose in her own mind as well.

Suddenly my eyelids are awash in harsh yellow light. We spring away from each other, squinting at the lights turned on. She falls back into an armchair, and I half lean on the wall behind me. We can hear feet and voices descending the stairs. They approach, and begin to talk to me. I glance at her, her eyes are closed. Either feigning sleep, or fallen into a drunken stupor. I continue to chat, but make for a blanket folded in a pile on a nearby table, draping it over her as she sleeps. I go back to the voices, hushed now in the presence of a sleeping body. We laugh softly and return upstairs to the party, in my drunken state forgetting what transpired moments ago.

~~~

I wake with a start. In an unfamiliar room, asleep on firm yet carpeted ground, my mind races to recall how I got here. I am suddenly aware of a hand grasped in my own. I let it go with another jolt, the second surprise in as many seconds. I half sit up, peering around. Memories come flooding back to me as I realize I am back in the basement. Instead of moonlight, the sunlight shines through the window. A curtain has been pulled on the window, and the sun pulses behind another curtain of clouds. The exact right brightness for a Sunday morning. The room is empty save for the armchair, a TV, and the table piled with blankets. One blanket is strewn from the pile, leading to my own body. Another leads from the armchair to the sleeping body beside me. She also begins to stir, her hand opening and closing, probably looking for warmth again. I take her hand again and lie back down on the pillow, staring at her face. A smile is spread wide across her face, angelic. I shudder once in silent laughter at the sight. This is enough to wake her up.

She opens her eyes, the confusion I felt moments ago now passed onto her. She sits up and looks around, slowly understanding, and then lying back down. She doesn't release my hand.

I whisper "Morning"
She closes her eyes again "Hey. It's too early"
"I know, but I'm wide awake"
She opens her eyes again "Yeah, so am I."

Her hand flexes around mine, and she releases it quickly. She must've just noticed now where it had been. She continues, "We shouldn't be though. I can smell breakfast being made, someone must be awake. That must be why we're awake"

I sniff, and smell maple syrup and bacon in the air. My stomach growls in response.

She laughs "I guess we didn't really get much of a dinner last night, did we?"
I laugh as well "No, not really."

She sits up again, running her fingers through her hair. I get up as well, stretching and yawning, the last ebbs of sleep retreating away.

I look to her, "Shall we?"
"Sure."

I offer my hand, which she takes and rises up. She brushes off her clothes, sending dust and crumbs flying from her clothes. We start up the stairs in darkness when I stop her. She turns to face me, standing a step ahead of me, her eyes just a few inches above mine.

"About last night..."
"What about?"
"About what happened down here..."
"Oh... that... " I can see red flush her cheeks, shame coloring her voice.
"Oh no, it's okay. We were both a little drunk, these things happen. It's not like I didn't enjoy it"
"Oh?"
"I'm just glad we didn't do anything we both regret.,,"
"Oh..."

My mind screams at me. TAKE A CHANCE
"I'm glad we didn't do anything we both regret... because I like you a lot, and I would hate for us to start off on the wrong foot."
"I... I like you too. I'm guess that's where that came from last night." She smiles again, her voice sounding confident once more.
I placed my hand at the small of her back, and I can feel my heart leap from my chest up into my throat, wriggling to escape out my body before I make a fool of myself.
I smile and swallow it back down, and pull her in again, closing my eyes. Our lips meet again. But not with urgency or lack of restraint. Shy and chaste, like unsure footing of an inexperienced mountaineer on the side of a craggy cliff. I pull away again. We both smile widely. She takes hold of my hand, and turns up the stairs, drawing me behind her.

We ascend over the threshold of the basement, our noses barraged with the smell of eggs and bacon, of syrup and pancakes.

To this day, the smells of breakfast brings me back to that moment in that dark basement.

Love letters I never sent #9

I read a lot. I used to read a lot more, but not so much anymore. I read because I was searching for something. A word. A word that could describe the feelings I felt towards you.

I was so sure the feeling I felt was love. I loved you with all my heart, but the word 'love' didn't quite describe it. So I started reading. Certainly someone else must have felt the swell that I was feeling. They must have felt it and wrote it down. Or told an author about it in enough detail, that the writer said "Aha! I know the perfect word for that" and put pen to paper about it.

But I read. I read everything I could find. It became quickly obvious that romance novels were never about love. Not about any kind of real love anyways. The same went for all other fictional books. Although I suppose I should've known: why look for real emotion in fake literature?

So I moved on to biographies and other stories of fact. There, I found out about the quiet and reserved kind of love that older couples feel. The kind that doesn't shine brightly, but burns forever. I found out about the firework kind of love. Explosive and larger than life, but fizzles out shortly after (is that really love?). I found out about big and small love. I found out a lot about lost love. But none of it seemed right. None of it seemed exactly the same.

This is around the time I started to doubt myself. Maybe what I'm feeling isn't exactly love? Maybe it's something else altogether. But no, that can't be right. I moved on to poetry.

Most of it seemed to either follow the fake love or real love I had read before. The different varieties and quantities and shapes and colors. But never anything new. Some came close. In fact, in poetry, love is perhaps best expressed. The writer is not limited to sentence structure or themes or continuity. The English language can move like water in poetry, surging at points and trickling at others as necessary.

Yet still, nothing quite like I felt.

This is when I gave up on reading. What I feel for you, I am now convinced, no person has ever felt for another before. You might find that hard to believe. I did too for a long time. But it's true.

"I love you" has no place in it. There are all sorts of variants I could use. Adjectives I can append and pages upon pages I could write. But there is no combination of words that expresses exactly the breadth or depth to which I feel for you. There is not enough words in the dictionary to describe it.

The closest I can come to explaining, is how the sun must feel about light. It doesn't think anything of it: it is the status quo. It can't see anything else, or feel anything else. The sun must not even know what it is, that it is a star or what. The sun must think it, itself, is just light. Light and nothing else. Nothing else exists for it.

Similarly, for me, you are my existence. You are all there is in my existence. Nothing else exists for me but you.

Does that make sense at all? At any rate, that's why I don't read anymore.

Love letters I never sent #8

Sometimes I wish I could talk to you in person. That I could be upfront with you. To be as sappy as I want to be with you, and say all the corny lines that come to my mind as they pop up. That you would laugh and blush at them, and then give me a hug and a peck on the cheek.

I wish we could sleep in on Sundays intertwined and tangled up in each other, letting the day grow long. I wish we could hold hands and laugh at the funny hats on the stands out on the street. And then go for a delicious meal in an empty restaurant with an old lady covered in wrinkles serving us food.

Sometimes I wish I would finally tell you how I feel, and that you would say you felt the same way all along.

Sometimes I wish it would just work out.

Love letters I never sent #7

I saw an old couple today. They were sitting on a bench outside the mall, and making out like crazy. They must've been 80 years old each.

It was pretty gross.

I hope we are that gross when we grow old together.

Love letters I never sent #6

I am scared to write this to you. I am scared to even feel this way. I have learned from a lot of lessons from my past mistakes. I have a lot of scars that show where I come from.

And every single broken heart, every single tear that has fallen, every sleepless night, all scream to me from my past "You are making a huge mistake!"

There are so many good reasons not to love you. For one thing, I am positive you could never love me. That alone should be enough. I'm not even sure you could like me. But more than that, I love you, but I don't even particularly like you. You're kind of repulsive to look at. You get angry with me all the time.

But when my conscious is laid to rest, when my brain is left to wander and I dream at night, it always comes back to you.

I love you, but there is no rhyme or reason to it. I don't know how long it will last. I suspect not very long. And I know you deserve to be loved. By someone more loving, more deserving than myself.

But this I write to you, hoping that maybe I am wrong. That maybe you might love me, or maybe even just like me a little. That maybe we can coax this into something more. That maybe the nothing that is between
us now could become the something neither of us can live without.

I love you without need and without encouragement. Perhaps that is the best kind of love. The most honest.

Love letters I never sent #5

I have had a crush on you for a long time. I will admit that it wasn't much to begin with. You were beautiful and interesting. It was enough for a spark. But again, it doesn't take much to pique my interest.

What is interesting is from that moment on, you did every single thing possible to turn me off. You acted in ways that I either found appalling or embarrassing, or shared views I found outdated or just plain wrong. You seemed unaffected by issues I thought were massively important.

And yet, still, I was attracted to you. Am attracted to you. Perhaps its the fire with which you speak. Your complete and brutal honesty.

Perhaps I am just more superficial than I thought.

Love letters I never sent #4

I am going to be late coming from work. It was a long day. I was stuck in meetings so I couldn't call until now, and I'm about to go into another.

While sitting in the last meeting I was thinking about that time. When we sat on that park bench eating ice cream together. Your face had been drenched with sweat, it was a pretty hot summer day. I remember back then I had just focused on the ice cream, how cool and delicious it was. I remember I had mostly ignored you. I remember I had bitched about all the shit that had been going on in my life, and you had listened without interrupting. I wish I had paid more attention to you then. You were so beautiful, so perfect. You had your own problems that you had wanted to share, but I had ignored you. I was so selfish then. I still am, but maybe you just don't notice.

Anyways, I'll grab a bite to eat on my way home, so don't worry about me.
Love you!

Love letters I never sent #3

Do you remember that time, long ago. We were only children. We cuddled under covers and played at being in a tiny pod rocketing through space. Just you and me, and no one else for light-years away. Our only companions, the asteroids that fell into step behind our little piece of home.

We giggled, and searched for each others eyes in the dark. You took my hand and held it to your chest. You rested your hand on my cheek, and then on my waist. You laughed and told me a scary story. Like this was all natural. Like we weren't doing anything.

I don't think I heard a word you said. I remember vague memories, but my senses were overloaded. Too much was happening for my tiny brain at once to comprehend. All I really remember was the butterflies in my stomach. More like pterodactyls. Snapping at each other in my belly. I couldn't see your face. And yet I distinctly remember your smile. Maybe I simply imagined it in the dark. But I remember seeing it there.

I remember thinking I loved you so completely then. I remember thinking that I could die right then, and all would be right with the world.

I wonder if there is anything as total as childhood love. I want to love like that again.

Love letters I never sent #2

There was a time I was cowardly. I would hide in my ivory tower and contemplate society, ideology, and my place within them. Or more accurately, without them. There was a time when all my time was spent on the past, paralyzed in fear of the future. Constantly critiquing my past performances and trying to avoid repeated mistakes.

At times I think that this was wasted time, but I know it's not true. It's the suffering I had to endure to become the person I am. To guide a path from me, to you.

You taught me to leave the past where it is. To visit it at happy times, and look at it through rosy glasses. To learn lessons and move on. You taught me not to fear the future. To ignore it. To ignore the "what ifs" and to plunge.

You taught me the phrase "fuck it".

You glowed with presence. With permanence. You showed me life is worth living for right now. That money is transient, is better shared than hoarded.

You taught me how to live.

You taught me how to love again. How to stitch pieces of a broken heart, how to fill it with the snatches of love you find everyday, discarded and unwanted by strangers. You taught me to see only beauty in a world I find so ugly.

Love letters I never sent

I want to love you so fiercely, that anger, fear, and jealousy will go scurrying into the remotest corners of our hearts.

I want to love you so completely, you will forget that we ever loved before, that we ever will again.

I want to love you so purely, that every day is a competition to be the best day ever. And each day will always win.

I want to love you so singularly, that we could go months, years without seeing each other, and still come together like best of friends every time we meet.

I don't think I am mentally or physically equipped to love you that much. But at the very least, I want to love you enough so that you know you are loved, even if I don't show it all the time. Even when we fight and argue. Even if I don't say I love you.

I love you.

Dear Warren (A love letter I never sent)

Dear Warren,
I write this to you knowing it will never really reach you. I am holding your hand in mine as I grip my pen in the other, trying desperately to make you hold on just a little longer, so that you might open an eye and read this.

I wish I had listened to you when you were still around. You were so quiet, it was hard to notice you. You came looking for me, I know. I realize now I am extremely judgmental of those I don't know. I jump to conclusions, and always the wrong ones. I admit now, if I was meeting myself for the first time, I would jump to the same judgements about myself. I see a lot of myself in you. It's for good reason I think. We have been afflicted by the same hardships. The same fatal flaws. But where I struggled to push out of the ground, you bloomed. You may have been hard to take seriously, but so many people respected you regardless. So many people liked you. Well and truly, with no exceptions or conditions. You have always been so soft spoken.

I didn't realize it until now, but I think I have always loved you. Not how a woman loves a man, or a mother their child, but how two children love each other. How race, color, caste, and creed play no part of it. I love you even though I shouldn't. I could always see a great sadness in your eyes. As if gravity pulled extra hard on your smile, willing it to furl downwards. I never thought to question why that may be. I never thought about a lot of things I should have. Isn't that just how it is? We think of all the "could'ves" and "should'ves" when it's all too late. I remember those little tokens of care and affection you left for me. The respect and awe you always had in my present. I am but a child in your eyes, but still you treat me with undue reverence. I never understood that. Why would you ever treat anyone like that. You hold yourself with such humble nobility. If you had claimed to be a king of a long lost and ancient race of peaceful warriors, I would have bowed to you without question.

I wish I had known the struggle you had gone through. I hope you didn't suffer, even though you must have. I wish I could go back to all those times you rode alone on the subway, shoulders hunched from the weight of the world resting on it. Sitting on the last car away from the people for a chance at solitude. I would hold you up, and share it with you. I would cry the tears you never let loose; would destroy the things that caused you your grief. If nothing else, I would have been there with you, not to talk or to listen. Just to be another soul in mourning.

I can't help but feel so hopeless and lost. We never were close, and yet without you I don't know where I am, or what to do. I don't know how to make sense of anything.

It should have been me, not you.

I hold your hand and write this, hoping that you will somehow read it, hear me, feel the pain I am feeling. I know it won't reach you. The heart rate monitor has deadened to a steady tone. Your fragile smile is gone. Gravity has finally won. You fought a glorious fight.

I miss you so much.

Anticipation (A stream of conscious)

The waves at the peak of the crest as they approach the shore
Muscles clenched, ready to explode at the starter's gun
Pencils in hand and eyes on the clock
Heart beats just a little faster
That look in your eye, just before you know it will happen

Tranquility (A stream of conscious)

Unpeturbed
A body hanging lifeless in a vat of honey
Snow absorbing the sound, reflecting the light
You lover, hair tousled and spread around her head, smiling in her sleep
Kittens curled into warm bundles in cardboard boxes (because that's what they prefer)
A cloudless night in the countryside
Sky filled with stars, the moon just slightly larger than normal
A foggy country path, the grass tall and green, small stones crackling underfoot
Early morning after a night of drinking and partying
Friends strewn across beds, couches, and floor
Gentle snoring and shut eyes
Peace

Boredom (A stream of conscious)

Waking at opposing hours
Drinking tea to pass the time
Watching the grass grow
Running on autopilot
Canned responses for typical conversation
Routine itself is a routine
Memories of minutes, hours, days, weeks, all the same
Your funnybone hobbles on a laughtrack crutch
Next week looks the same as the one past
Starting fights just because
A complete and utter lack of drive
A total waste of time

Being Homosexual used to be wrong, but isn't anymore (rant)

By wrong, I mean in a purely biological sense. If our purpose is to reproduce and try to propagate our genes as much as we can, homosexuality is wrong.

If, however, you consider that now, modern medicine allows homosexuals to still reproduce with their own genetic material to raise their own kids, it is a somewhat roundabout way of getting the result, but it gets it nonetheless. This is an intellectual evolution that we, as a species, have developed to overcome the genetic mutation of homosexuality, if we can consider it that. For argument's sake, I will continue to assume it is a genetic distinction. 

So in this day and age, no, homosexuality is not 'wrong' in a biological sense because I, as a homosexual, can still perpetrate my genetic material while remaining a homosexual to whatever degree I choose. 

However, from a social point of view, being homosexual (regardless of why and how it is determined) has no bearing on anything, and isn't 'wrong' in the slightest. There are studies that are either inconclusive, or show that homosexual parenting has no bearing on a child's own sexuality, or of any deprivation they would endure because of their parent's sexual orientation. And just with common sense, why would it make a difference? We live in a society where broken homes are the norm. Children are consistently raised in homes with either no father or mother, or with fathers or mothers that are not the same throughout their childhood. 

If there are some issues regarding bullying, I would argue that we address the issue of why a child would be bullied for having two mothers, than to try and simply shield the child from that bullying. If a child is fat, or wears glasses, or is simply different in any way, is the fault in the parents that raised a child that is different, or in society (or at least the parenting of the other children) that thinks it's okay to make fun of them for it. 

This is similar to the argument for whether women should dress 'slutty' or not in Toronto. Or the argument for the 'burka' in Paris. Is it a woman's fault for dressing in a provocative way, or is it society's fault for thinking this is grounds for unwanted attention/rape. 

If a child is bullied for having gay parents, do we blame the child, or the parent for having decided to raise them at all?

If a woman is raped, do we blame her for leading on the man?

If a man shoots another man, do we blame the one shot for getting in the way of the bullet?

Limits

It's not easy,
to never be the one
    who says "This is far enough"
      or "we should turn back now".
It's not easy,
to find and know your limits,
scared that they are much closer than you think.
It's not easy,
to always want to continue
    and never having someone to come along,
always having to stop,
        or forced to go it alone.
It's not easy,
to never see light in your horizon.

Hamlet of Zephyr

I met him in a place called Zephyr. He wore an old brown torn up hooded sweatshirt, drawn up and over his face. His hands were grimy, and his dog looked half starved and mad eyed. He asked me what I was looking for.

I said I was looking for him.

He grunted in derision, then took me by the hand and led me into the thicket surrounding the four houses that made up Zephyr. We walked for what must have been miles. Me never asking questions, him never answering them.

Finally we came to a small lake. The surface was crystalline, with a perfect island in the center. On it, a swan sat, atop a pile of old clothes.

"You have finally found it. Is it what you expected?"
"No. But nothing ever is"

Falling Awake

When I dream, I usually feel trapped in my body. Like I am sitting in a giant mechanized suit that I am willing forward by pushing on my limbs. My walking will always be slow, my arms dead. Like trying to move through quicksand.

Other times when I dream, I dream that I can fly. It's a very realistic sensation, I would imagine if we could fly, it would feel much like it. Typically, a giant gust of wind will blow through, and I will step forward, lying down onto the gust, and be picked up like a kite. If you're driving in a fast car, and you stick your hand out the window so your fingers are in the direction of the car, tilted slightly up, then you know what this sensation feels like. You move forward, but feel like you are going backwards because of the wind blowing on you. In fact, if you closed your eyes, you would just feel like you are being blown backwards instead of gliding forwards.

Sometimes dreams where I am flying (or even just regular dreams), I feel like I am falling. I think this is pretty typical for a lot of people. I always, ALWAYS, fall face first. There was one point, when I was 17, where I can a recurring dream of falling. I could never remember what led up to it, but it would end up with me on the roof of a flat building, looking out into an abyss. In front of me are a line of logs, set up like dominoes, balancing on nothingness, just kind of hanging in the air. I jump from the rooftop to the first, trying to balance, but failing. So I jump to the next, and the next. But the logs topple faster than I can jump across them. This inevitably leads to me falling off.

As I fall, I feel that sensation in my stomach. The feeling of my insides slapping against the inside of my back, hugging my spine. I can feel the air rushing past my face, the fear of death. And of course before I hit anything, I always wake up, bolting up and wide awake in my bed.

It always takes a second for gravity to reorient itself. After all, I had just been face down falling, to face up in a bed.

And some rare times, when I wake from dreams of falling, my eyes are completely unfocused, blurred. I can't make out colors or shapes, just one large amorphous blob. When this happens, it feels like my head is in a fishbowl filled with water. Like I am still in a dream, and this is simply the current reality.

Nobody sees life as it truly is

The world is divided into two types of people. 

Those who think life can be reduced to silly stereotypes, 

and those who don't, but do so anyways.  

Buddy Legend

There are some places you go to in your memories, when times were better, and sunlight just a little brighter. Then we visit these places again and see it as it truly is, gum black and hardened on rough pavement, graffitti hastily scrawled on bus shelters, strange people walking the streets.

You remember they were all there before, hiding in forgotten passages in your mind. You remember the feelings they invoked before. Fear. Wonder. Excitement. The specifics of the minutes were lost, and found again. They may not be the exact same flavors, but it is like your favorite food. It is never the exact same twice, but it is still savored nonetheless.

Phoenix Down

The place where you grew up, where your fond childhood memories take
place: is it still there?
If you went there, would it still be there, untarnished or aged?
Would that park still be there, that lot?
Would the trees still look the same, towering over you but still thin
and small, like how you were?
Would your old friends meet you there, to play simple childish games
and have no worries of the greater world?
Would you tell each other secrets of immature crushes and make believe gossip?
Would things like war and death, heartbreak and loss, politics and
religion, all cease to exist?
Is there any way back to that place?

Mako Reactor

The earth has seen species come and go. Has seen life spring from near nothingness, and grow into towering giants. Has seen a tiny rock erase it's landscape. Has seen a race rise from the primordial slop, wipe itself down, and leave it's mark on it's face. Has seen wars char and raze pieces of itself. But one day we too will pass, like a bad flu.

We will all be gone and the earth will still be here.
The earth doesn't need saving.
It is already dead; it has and will live forever.
It is us who needs saving.

Innuendo Unveiled

All I want is to embrace you,
without it meaning more than the affection of two friends.
Or just for comfort when either of us feels alone and unloved.
I want to flirt and have it be a joke.
I want love to be black and white.

Buried alive

I am trapped in this shell. A shell within a shell within a shell. As if hidden in the center of an onion, an infinite number of layers thick. The light pierces through at times, but mostly it is the echoes of times long past. All that is left is a grimy window to peer through outside.

I don't know what I am like, from the outside looking in. I no longer find the mirror trustworthy, nor the words of those around me. I feel as though my listening comes through headphones, screens play images to my eyes. Showing me the world not as it is, but how it must be. I claw at my eyes and ears, hoping to get them off, but of course they are not there. This is all there is to what I see and hear.

I lie back, away from the windows. I shut my eyes and plug my ears. I have slipped one shell deeper from the world.

How to be Alone

Not something I created, or am even affiliated with. But this spoke volumes to me today.

Mandir

A tinny voice and unmenacing drums squeaks from a small box hidden in

the rafters.

The open space is cold, it always is this early in the morning.

Old delicate women shrouded in swathes of brightly colored lace step

lightly on the thick carpet.

They carry little brass cups, filled with burning camphor.

It makes the air smell ancient.

Everyone is quiet and reserved.

Some sit hunched, peering into well creased prayer books.

Others stare intently, mouth silently agape and moving, 

hands alternating between folded and clenched, to open and pleading.

Some sing with the gospel hymns. Most quietly, others loud and joyful and off=key, clapping all alone and offbeat.

Suddenly bells start to ring. Dozens of small ones. 

Like a herd of sleigh bell adorned reindeer, all galloping together.

It instantly humbles everyone in the room. 

Everyone looks up, hands held intently.

They all know the rituals and rites by heart, equally meaningful and meaningless all at once.

Walk this way, bow here, gesture that way.

All done with the deliberance of a wisened ox, 

yoked and carrying the same vat of milk on the same path it has done it's whole life.

It is liberating, leaving the mind free to pursue grander luxuries. 

To dream of what could be. 

To regret what has been. 

To convince what needs to be done.

The bells chime again, and everyone is snapped from their trance.

Voices, once forgotten, seem to return.

Soft conversation wafts in the air, muscles tensed begin to move and work around.

People begin to stream out, introduced back into the sun and noises of the world.

But it all seems just a little more subdued than it had before, more serene.

The presence of a higher power, once invisible, appears to struggle to strain loose of it's physical shackles all around.

The first blooming flower of spring. 

The first patch of grass. 

The life teeming from blue sky to black asphalt.

Questions of 'how' and 'why' disappear, and I forget why I had ever questioned this at all. 

Why I didn't see all this for as it truly is.

Your giggle

Like a bubble of light escaping the suns milky surface
Like a feather dropping on a marimba
Like an exclamation mark, followed by a question mark
Like a burst of nitrous oxide to the nostrils
Like a guitar chord immediately muted
Like a shutter dropped on a blue sky
Like vision in a land of blind mice

Mon petite chou

Sometimes when she smiles, her whole body smiles. Her face glows just a little more. Her ears stick out in that cute way it does whether angry or happy. She shrugs her shoulders just a bit, almost bashful. Her hair seems to lift free of gravity. Her nose scrunches just a little.

But her eyes, they smile all on their own. Just looking at her eyes I can tell whether she is smiling or not. And no matter how down or depressed I am, no matter how self involved, when I see that twinkle in her eyes I can't help but smile myself. Can't help but think of her, and her only.

Speaking your mind

Never mistake impolite acquaintances for brutally honest friends.
The latter is rare to come by.

Use of the word 'bitch' (rant)

I recently had an experience at work that has altered my perception of the word 'bitch'. 


It started at work. I should begin with the characters. 


My boss: Bob - he's in charge of our department, and he's a generally nice, understanding guy. Someone I typically thought to be unbiased, and generally of good judgement. 


My co-worker: Jennifer (Jen for short) - she started around the same time I did. She is generally as capable at the job as I am, we do the same sorts of work. She is nice when you get to know her, but as a work associate she is generally mean, demanding, impatient, short tempered, and in general, a "bitch" in the stereotypical sense. She has even been quoted to say "I know, I'm a complete and total bitch". Ignoring this, she is generally smart, but there is this perception that she isn't quite as smart as everyone else who have been around as long. She has admitted to this fault herself. 


The situation:

We were all called into a meeting: Bob, Jen, myself, and maybe five other men. In the office we discussed many things, mostly about work and the kinds we were doing, what projects we were on. Everyone was generally talking all at once, with three or four people addressing Bob himself at once. He was finding it difficult to focus on any one person, so he seemed to respond to us at random. It wasn't a very efficient meeting. 

Someone asked what I was working on, and I mentioned that I didn't know. I turned to Bob, who then said "I have something interesting lined up for you, you should like it". Jen at this point immediately exclaimed

 "What the hell! I've said I wanted to do interesting projects forever and you didn't do anything for me!" but Bob didn't hear her (again, many people talking at once). 

I started laughing at this, and Jen blushed. Bob turned to me and asked what was so funny, and Jen said "Of all the people here, HE is the only one who heard me" and nodded in my direction. We all kind of chuckled at that. 

But then I started thinking about every other conversation I had ever been in which involved her and other people. She tends to keep her mouth shut a lot in meetings. I didn't think about it before, but even when she does talk, nobody tends to listen to her, where people do listen to me. When she does talk more, but people tend to dismiss what she says quicker. She makes completely valid points, but it just isn't absorbed, people either don't hear it, ignore it, or scoff it off. 

At first I thought it was because she's so generally unpleasant. Or maybe it's this idea that she is in fact less intelligent (ignoring whether she is or not, that is the perception). 

I caught myself thinking "maybe it's cause she's just a bitch". 

And that's when I came to my epiphany. The word 'bitch' only REALLY makes sense for girls. Or at least, there is this very specific stereotype for women, and it's called "bitch". And it can't be applied to men, because it just doesn't sound/feel right. It's not the right word. The next closest thing is "asshole" but even then... it just doesn't fit for women. And there are, DEFINITELY, men I have met who are just as "bitchy" as Jen (even more so), but I think in our own minds, we can't simplify and categorize these people using a single term because there is no single term that fits, and that might make them a more substantial character in our mind. 

If you can look at a person and say "they are a bitch" and that's as much clarification as you need, that simplifies the type of person you imagine them as. You apply stereotypes (even unconsciously) and may not let them leave that role in your mind. 

If you didn't have a word for the type of person they are (i.e. you need a bunch of adjectives and nouns to classify them in your mind), then they are automatically a more substantial person. They aren't shallow or easily classifiable. In your mind, you cannot easily predict what they may do or act in a given situation. So you can't stereotype them into a role, and they may be more capable of something that breaks the role of "bitch" which they clearly are, and you will now consider it because you didn't simplify them. 

So while in THEORY the word 'bitch' can be applied to both genders, in practice it rarely isn't (even if we don't say it out loud), and it could, in some ways, foster a negative female stereotype. 

I used to think maybe Jen is just treated the way she is because of the way she is. Now I'm thinking maybe it IS a form of sexism. And it's one that'd be EXTREMELY hard to beat because it's not one that's ever talked about or even understood at a conscious level. It's just kind of unconsciously fostered in us, due to culture. 

Basically the end result is: The use of the word 'bitch' has created an inequality in naming/stereotyping that makes it easier to classify a woman into a negative role than it is for a man. 

I think I mentioned this before, but it's kind of like 1984: if you don't have a word for something, it makes it MUCH harder to think about. If the word 'bitch' simply didn't exist, we would be equally incapable of putting a bunch of people together into a stereotype we don't have a name for. 

I should go on to expand this to other words though. Words like "asshole" or "douchebag" or "dick" that are generally applied to males only. These also have their own connotations. Terms that describe behavior exhibited in just about anyone, but is only really used to describe men. 

I would then further expand this to the following: MAYBE the problem is that we create these terms to describe the stereotypes we find in genders as undesirable. It is generally undesirable for a man to be with a woman who is controlling, mean, complains a lot, demanding, and thus we give this a term: "bitch". Not only is it a stereotype, but it has the implication that you don't WANT to be with this girl in any kind of relationship.

Similarly, "dick" "asshole" "douchebag" are all terms for men that we use for generally undesirable men. IF a man were to act "bitchy", it's maybe not as undesirable as a man who is being a "douchebag" which is why we don't say anything about a man being bitchy, only a man being a dick or a douchebag. Similarly if a girl is acting like a douchebag, we dont say anything because its not really undesirable, only being 'bitchy' is. 

The morale of the story? Don't judge people based on stereotypes and roles. Don't try to describe or simplify people into them. If you do, you may be missing out on a person so much more interesting or complex than you are allowing. 

Also, maybe I'll start using the word "bitch" a lot less often. 

Parallel Universes

It's hard to imagine a world where the things you value fundamentally don't matter, and the things that are of no consequence at all are all that should matter. What's harder to imagine is sometime today, you will meet someone for whom this exact opposite reality is true.

Mikey

I know many things. I know where the best food spot is after 3 am. I know where the best parties are when the rest shut down. I know what the best kinds of cigars are, and where to get them. I know where the special kinds of entertainments and party favors can be had, the kind you can't ask just anyone about. I don\t look very different, and yet I definitely am. And the funny thing is I look just like anyone else. I look just like you.

Can you do the

Hardwild? It's a crazy new dance. But it requires intensive training. Very few people can do it. It's surprisingly simple though. All you have to do is let go. Of everything. Completely and utterly.

You don't even need music. Or light. Or the floor. Or your feet or even a body. You just need a soul and some kickin' vibe. Everything else is just accessories to the dance, to the groove. Can you feel me?

The Paul Laundries

Three men stand by a revolving door. One shifts the guitar case strapped to his back. The hard cloth shoulder strap cuts through his blazer's shoulder pad, causing discomfort. He voices his concern of the gig, of missed notes and botched solos. He is worried.

The next grips and regrips the handle on his violin case. He nods sparingly, barely understanding his band mate. he cares not for the band or the way things worked out. He cares only for his next paycheck, his next meal.

The last tugs on the strap gripping his broad cheat. The black case. He had been admonished as a child: who would want to play the saxophone. He cursed his work ethic situation.

But they always manage to get into situations where they wish you not to be. They did it every night, drank away their sorrows, and did it all over again the next night. Every night a different bar, hotel restaurant, small pub, every night the same dreary patrons, the same smattering of applause.

Purple and black

When the night is over, no matter how well or how poorly it goes, I still want to take off my heels, and feel the fabric of the carpet between my toes.

Leaving your comfort zone

I know and feel two very different things. I know that I hate intolerance. I know that that is self-contradictory. I feel loathing at myself every time I rediscover this. I feel sad that the world is like this at all. I know that I need a husband, just any man at all. I feel like no man is worthy of my love. I feel like I will one day meet him, and realize I am not worthy of his love.

But I know, and feel, that this moment is right. That an opportunity never seized is an opportunity lost for good, whether for better or for worse.

Ghosts

Two men embrace and kiss intimately in front of me.
They wear baseball caps and are obscenely obese.
I catch glimpses of words I know as they converse,
but the meanings make no sense together.
They furrow their brows in conversation.

They glance conspiratorially at the bellhop passing by.
His whistle jangles on a long golden chain.
Probably brass.
He mutters into a mouthpiece embedded on his lapel.

The concierge nearby replies from behind a grand marble counter.
He eyes the group of youngsters hanging suspiciously by the elevator.

They stand in a circle.
They talk of the places they have been tonight,
where they have yet to be.
They speak of alcohol consumed,
of the liquor hidden on them in water bottles
and black coca cola bottles.
They giggle wildly,
obviously not in control of their baser emotions.
They take seats,
padded a pattern of red embroidered with gold.

They glance at the man furiously typing into his phone, seated beside them.
He seems lost in deep thought,
unaware of the happenings around him.

Only occasionally glancing up at the two obese men making out just above his field of vision.

2532

I am excited. I met her online. I brought a bag from Macy's. It has eggs and coffee. I joked with her about it before. "I like my eggs scrambled and coffee black in the morning". She laughed at that, but didn't chastise me. I am supposed to meet her in room 2532. But the bellhop won't let me up. I need to get up there. This has been my first prospect in months and I don't know when I'll get a chance again. I don't want to find a hooker tonight. I'll try the phone again.

Corridors

I walk through hallways colored red and gold.
Intricate patterns stretch across the carpet.
Green and purple dots the walls.
The ceiling is a pale plaster, concentric circles imprinted upon them.
Regal and esoteric.
I wonder where it is I am.
Where is it I am going?

Do not resuscitate

Your touch, your caress, cannot make up for the years of silence.
Cannot melt the heart you have frozen.

Reach for the stars

Take comfort in the fact that most anything you can imagine, we as a race can design and build. There is nothing we cannot accomplish if we put our minds to it.

It's just when (money/time/politics/religion) get in the way that we fall short.

Hakka Country Tour

Laughter peppers the atmosphere.
A foreign scent enflames olfactory receptors: pungent yet flavorful.
The air feels thick, an emulsion of soy sauce and tamarind.
A waiter speaks softly, as if sharing national secrets brought from India (perhaps they are?)
Wine flows readily, staining teeth and coherence equally.
Smiles broaden just a bit.
An army approaches.
We arm ourselves with clubs and tridents.
We will not show mercy today.
They approach, heads bowed.
They praise us, shower us with gifts.
They bring tribute from exotic locales.
Mountains of rice, all the colors of the rainbow.
Animals unheard of, bathed in brine thats tangy to the taste buds.
We feast for days, while music gently plays in the background.

Then the cheque arrives.

Exorcism

I fight with fury on my face

Fists clenched and eyes wide and rolling

My veins wriggle like pythons struggling to escape under my skin

Muscles flex and contort, storing up for the following blows

You sit calmly

Expressionless

But the fire that consumes me from without

Appears to consume you from within

Afloat at sea

We smoke in silence

White puffs of fumes escape our lips

The tufts from my mouth strain to reach yours

Waltzing sinuously as they join together in a sensual dance above and between our heads

We lie back and stare out the window

As clouds hang in the sky and stare back

As lazy up there as we are down here

The world has been put on pause for this serene performance

Of smoke and shadow above our heads

Escalator to nowhere

You climb the stairs, 

not knowing where they lead, 

not knowing what's at the top. 

You pass by windows,

people sit 'round tables

words silenced by glass. 

You grip the railing,

feeling the roughness of weather,

the bends of time warped into it. 

You test each step,

the metal structure swaying just slightly,

croaking with discomfort. 

You gaze back down below,

pedestrians hurry past below,

unaware of your ascent. 

You look up,

making sure the staircase still exists three steps from now,

and you see me. 

You meet my gaze,

feeling the blues of my eyes envelop you,

trying to understand you. 

You drown in my stare,

your cheeks sag slightly,

eyebrows raise in confusion. 

"Why are you climbing these stairs?"

"Because they go up"

"But they don't go anywhere, I was just up there"

You stop climbing,

thinking about why you had done this,

unsure how to continue. 

You turn,

as I come to a stop beside you,

smiling assuringly to you. 

We descend the steps,

chatting quietly about each other,

over the groaning steel. 

Lorem Ipsum

You can't always take people at their word,
because most people don't even know what they were trying to say.

Unanswerable questions

We all ask for a sign from god, to do the right thing, or to not do the wrong thing. 

To ask for proof of his presence. 

How about that we woke up today? 

That our hearts continue to beat? 

That the cogs of our mind continue to churn? 

Why do we not just accept the beauty of the world as it is?

Why do we not just simply live and love and sing and dance?

Why can we not hear the music in the sky that is very obviously playing a song just for us?

Why can we not appreciate the brand new paintings that fills the sky every day as we wake, and again as we go to sleep?

The Riverside Shepard

I thank the shop keep. I take hold of the bicycle and walk it out a little. It whinnys softly under my firm grip. I pat it on the head, "We have far to go." 

The sun beats down relentlessly on me, and I can see heat waves emanating from the black asphalt. It looks ready to turn back into the tar from whence it came. Not a cloud blemishes the sky. The air is dead still. There will be no refuge today. 

I push out the kickstand, and walk around it, inspecting it. Tires are crisp and new, a pattern of serpentine dragons race around each wheel. The pedals small, with little stirrups for my feet. The body a flawless obsidian, but the sun shining off of it shows that its veins are a deep blue. It almost looks like a dark ocean of water seething within a typhoon. The handlebars curve down, like twin black swans bowing down. 

I reach behind me, pulling earbuds from a hidden compartment on the right side of my sack. I push them firmly into my ears. The sounds of rushing traffic, joggers plodding by, and the crashing waves are replaced with a driving drumbeat. Bass drums kick in. Synths announce themselves. Hands clap along with the beat, I am nearly inclined to join in with them. He begins to sing: the words are simple but truthful, the orchestra jumps in to emphasize his lyrics. I begin to bob my head. 

Swinging a leg over the body of the bike, I secure my left foot onto the stirrup. I grind my foot in just a bit, ensuring it won't go anywhere. I push off with my right, wobbling slightly until i catch my other foot in it's stirrup. I push down once and feel myself lurch forward slightly. I push again, moving a little faster. Again and again I stomp down, willing the bike to a gallop. Even though the wind isn't present, as I pick up speed I can feel the air rushing past me, kissing the hair that pushes up through the spaces in my helmet. The fabric wings on the side of my helmet begin to flap, beating on the sides of my head. The journey has begun. 

I raise and fall with the drums, the metronome keeping track of my ascent. The asphalt is packed looser here, likely due to the proximity of the water running to my right. People move out of the way to make room for me. They almost sense the urgency I convey in my pedaling, my red backpack must announce the precious cargo within it. The communique that must be delivered within the hour. I imagine the clapping in my ears is coming from them, cheering me on as I charge past. 

A little girl waves to me from the side, waving a long tassel. It looks like the ribbon of a rhythmic gymnast. She is mouthing something to me, but I can't hear it over the blaring music. She launches the wooden handle into the air, perfectly timed to fall right into my path. I grab the handle without missing a beat, and the ribbon is violently yanked from it's graceful fall into a sudden pursuit of me. I can feel it tugging on the handle grasped in my hand, whipping around behind me. I turn slightly and fasten the handle to the left side of my sack. I catch a glimpse of the red ribbon, waves forming in it that mirror the steady fall of my feet on the pedals. 

The wind has picked up a little, coming in from behind me and racing along with me. I can feel it creeping in around my ear buds, hissing loudly, trying to be heard over the music, "Are you mad? You cannot outrun me!" The river beside me, not to be outdone, also seems to pick up. I can see the water start to froth a bit, white waves begin to pick up speed beside me, also racing alongside, "Wait for me too!"

The bass drops from the music. 

As if to prove its point, the air slows to a still: I am flying across the black path, the grass beside me is writhing in the wind, but I am galloping alongside it. My hair is perfectly still in my helmet. The water beside me looks still as it matches my speed. A white wave seems almost frozen as it speeds along with me. 

The bass kicks back in, heavier than ever before. The wind and the river take their cue, and pick up the speed. As fast as I am moving, the wind is now pushing on my back. The wave races on past me. I smile slightly, knowing I have been beat. I even raise a hand in a half wave, conceding defeat. 

The tops of my arms feel crisp. Toasted by the sun high overhead. In the short period I have been riding, my arms seem almost a shade darker. A bead of sweat traces a line over my cheek, and pools at the bottom of my chin. My constant rise and fall ensures it doesn't linger there for long. 

The path takes a bend to the left around a hill, and the river widens into a small lake to my right. The path seems to decline slightly, giving my calves a slight break as I coast downhill. 

Around the bend, I can see how far the path goes. It stretches out in front of me, bending back to the right, hugging the lake. The water here is still, lapping gently on the surface. The path continues past it, and into the distance, ending at the golden citadel stretching towards the sky. My destination. 

It stands tall and proud, no other structure, man made or natural, comes close to it's sheer size or beauty. It dwarfs the small, grey, ugly buildings around it. Like a king amongst his lowliest servants. The sun glints off it, the top of the building shining, the towers on top glittering like it's crown. This is where I am headed. 

It will be a long afternoon before I get there.