May 2013 – Barrett Nash

Reflecting on Family

When was the last time I saw Tory. I don’t remember. I know the last night, lying on his bed watching a television show eating pizza. Him nagging me, but good naturedly. I’m sure he made jokes about my hair. We were close, or at least I felt close.
Reston, did he walk with mom and me to the bus station? I can’t remember. I do remember also the last night, going to a party, were we that drunk I don’t remember. There was some outside party, people wearing costumes and I was by myself but that is not Reston’s fault. I remember being on his balcony earlier in the day, sharing some craft beer he really liked, I thought it was expensive. Beer is beer. The talking was nice, I felt pride in my brother, I’d forgotten how intelligent he was.
I can’t remember the last time I saw my father. I see him on Skype every now and then, bumbling good naturedly in the background, a cheerful HEY BEAR before getting itchy feet and going back to watching television. How did I get to the airport on that trip? Did we go together? I remember being in a restaurant with him in Goa, him telling me his fears, that he was unsure if this was the life he’d dreamed about. Interesting to hear in those we look to for advice such similar sentiments that eat at our own hearts. I remember meeting him in Dar, his plane early, him sitting on the curb like a little boy waiting for the school bus. He even had a back pack, why did I suggest that? Shit, when was the last time I saw my father? I remember taking him to my favourite dive bar, the Cambie, and watching that strange woman try to flirt with him, strange that women might flirt with my father. Should I fabricate a memory? Should I go through my photos and try to determine. How dare I not remember my own life. It has been over a year since I have seen him.
My mother is an easy memory for the last time I saw her, her voice always breaking at the very end, myself watching her go through airport security and when she is gone she is gone, was her visiting me here in Kigali just a dream?
Who else enters my mind? Jordan at Mount Rushmore, what a nice trip that was. Running with Victor in Lethbridge, Mike’s place, a family that was my family but won’t be my family again. Alexia being sweet, leaving that shitty Mexican restaurant, our hearts close together but I don’t know if they speak anymore. Pedro and me getting drunk into nothingness, the glow of being a finalist at MIT 100K. I think he walked with me the morning after to the subway, did he leave me there, at the top and watch me descend the escalator? Julia in Kampala, making sure she got on the bus, seeing her only so many hours, just enough time for her to make me feel a love for a family that is my own and still is my own but is so far away. Who else is there? Could I go on like this forever? Just meandering through my memories, pleasantly opening doors as I walk around. I remember going for a walk trying to go through my life in reverse, remembering all the different beds I had slept on in my life. I need to go to the pool, but let me open a few more doors. Lyndsay at a coffee shop trying to order concert tickets to a band I’d never heard of but now I sing karaoke to in Kigali. Amie dropping me off in her RAV4 with there being the thinnest crust of snow on the ground. My grandma waving from her window at the top of the retirement community. Guy, all I remember is there was emotion in his voice. Ceri at fucking Newark, or was that her coming? Harley on Skype yesterday wearing grandpas chain. Roberta in Toronto walking through the cold air along the water.
Let me go to the pool.

Randerson Ridge

On a big mountain looking for dinosaur bones. Swing sets in the background, I played on them but not right now. They are full anyway. Let me lift my legs mightily and reach the top and now I am here and I don’t really expect to find dinosaur bones but who knows, the world is full of mystery and every day I am experiencing novelty. Is that true? I wonder where Shaun is now, I did now know we were friends then, maybe it was not Shaun, maybe I was by myself. I walk down the back of the mountain and I don’t remember what I did next, I’d like to think I lay in the grass and floated into the blueness of a forever large sky but I doubt I cared enough. I used to like skipping, not skip rope but the way of walking. Maybe I skipped back to class as the bell rang, past all those others whose names I can remember but whose lives have disconnected from me. What was the sound of the school bell?

By Luang Prubong

Bike riding down the mud road, I am lost in my mind. The fertile green hills surround me, where am I? I am lost and that is a wonderful feeling. I know I will be found, the world is not such a large place, but for the moment let me be lost. Pedal pedal. Pedal pedal. I wonder what I was thinking about on this day? Strange that memories can be incomplete. I imagine I was a bit hungover that day, why else would I bike around for hours and hours. Where was I? Luang Prubang. Was that this life. Let me not get lost, there is something here I want to capture. The story of jumping off the water truck. I saw it from a distance, it looks like a gasoline truck. Parked half way in the water, women and men clustering in front of the little dam at the front of the lake. They are fishing? Cleaning? I can’t remember. There are these really beautiful boys jumping off the roof of the water truck, lithely climbing up the hulking frame to jog down the curver roof and leap into the water: canon ball. They are beautiful for their freedom, for their communal humanity, for the fact that they are having fun for the sake of fun and that is all the purpose they need. I remember watching them with envy: what a terrific amount of fun. Then, I remember opening in my mind a thought, unveiled to me like the mystery inside of a just bloomed flower: I am free too, why can’t I join. It’s dangerous, the water is shallow, what if there are rocks, what if I slip. Death and its specter always choking me, the shuddering fear enters my lungs. But I am free. Let me die, let me slip, fuck the world and fuck myself: let there be action, let me be my own master. I grin and I grinned. I stripped down to my underwear and the boys see me and start cheering me on. I wonder if they will steal my phone? Let them, but let me trust them, for a moment let me not be me, let me be one of them. I start climbing up the ladder to the top of the truck. It is taller than I thought, I am high up. Shit shit. Do I go to the edge and look? No. They jump, I saw them, let me just do what I need to do. I tell my feet to run and I do not think, for a moment my brain is weightless, without though. I was alive for that moment, how wonderful it was. The water embraces me and its crisp temperature reminds me for a moment of some forgotten memory. I was with my brothers, that is the only thing I know. I come back to the surface and am greeted by smiles. Not just from the boys but from all the others. I don’t mean to smile but I do, just the pleasure of life, the meaning of life, this did not have to happen but it did and I love it. I laugh for a moment. Then I get control. I put my clothes back on, give a kinda curtsy thing with another big smile, but this one just show respect, let me share my pleasure with all these others, may we enter each others heart together, then I hop on my bike and continue being lost.

Memories From The Riu Hotel

waking up in the middle of the night

grabbing a bottle of tequila

it is finished

take the vodka

still drunk

blood slurring from left to right

in the pitch black flash a smile

pour a glass and praise god

pour a glass and praise life

open the door, careful, don’t slam it

they are asleep

let this moment be without them

the dark air fills lungs

breathe in

breathe out

freedom

go outside to the music

all the other like you are in their beds

let all these be the others

see them smile at you

they know who you really are

your real brotherhood

a moment of love in your heart

ahhhh a table

and a pen and paper

you know the words will be lost

you even leave them on the table

tomorrows trash

but let, for a moment, the words flow

praise god

praise life

praise alcohol

praise sin

praise the devil

praise yourself

worship the inadequacy of the words

worship the moment

then

another glass

was it rum not vodka

was it gin

it’s all the same

go back to

go back to life

let the moment disappear

never remembered

is life different for it having happened

Sitting Outside on a Keyboard

Sitting outside type on a keyboard. The keyboard is not very good, the words don’t flutter naturally. He is sweating so much. Why?
He is not at peace but he does not know why. He has been drinking in the last night, but that is normal. He has been howling at the moon but that is normal. He is older than he was, but isn’t that true of all of us. Is he happy with his days? Maybe that’s not the question.
He is not at peace with himself. Shall that be the story? What right does anyone have for peace. Why is peace something worth fighting for, life should be without peace, mankind forced to fight and fight and fight and fight.
This man is a bit of all of us. There would be something to learn from understanding his discontent. But what sort of a story would that be? Boo hoo, a man who does not know his place in reality. What a novelty. No, he story has been said by other who are better, and even for them the words mean nothing.
The answer for this man is to live life, or to not. Each is the choice, and only our own choice to make. To wake up and say today I choose to live, then to follow through and actually live with the repercussions of that choice.
This story has no beginning, middle or end. This story is not a story. It is just a question, a question whose answer we all have the key to, but don’t want to open the door.

A Day of Smiles

a day of smiles

grimacing cheerfully

don’t let this be like all the others

fear and grace leave these words

let there be just emtion

but specific emotion

words in a heart

heart in the words

that is like all the others

those things that don’lt say what need to be said

breathe in breathe out

the words are not these

do the words exist?

breathe in breathe out

is being alive a pleasure?

yes, yes. why not

there is no emotion

there is a bursting,

the dam does not break

is there a we in these words

if we could stare each other in the eyes

quietly

to just exist

but that is not real

not lonely, but everyone is alone

interconnectedness is not the fate of man

to search and not find

to find what is incomprehensible

bark at the night

scream at the day

all is something

let there be a primality

a free growing towards the sun

let us not understand

the words are not here

where are the words

the words are not here

what is it that needs to be said?

breathe in breathe out

whitenuckled

the words are not here

what if we never grow up

what if we never grow up

just the yardsticks keep pushing

chasing meaning

dreams always a step away

endless idealism keeping our smiles strong

we will be those things we dream of being

smell that sweet rose

basking in the hot afternoon sun

the water is good

but it is still wilting

the smell does not go away,

the scent may even become stronger

but we can see how it will rot

pedals fall, pulled down by gravity

the end of its life

yet, why see it at this moment

even as a seed we new that decline was its only future

out of bloom

the pedals begin falling

yet we can also look backwards, remember the seed

time a two way path

seed to death

and death to seed

we were never going to do those things we dreamt of

but life is ours, seed to death

death to seed

life mapped before a single breath

everything predetermined

the only unknown

whether we take joy in the ride

Self made soulless abstraction

Fighting with vigor but no heart

All I want is to hear something that makes me sad

All I want is something that makes me smile, a smile without care

To feel

Endless control, I will stare the devil in the eye

I will stare god in the eye

A force of nature, but not by choice

An immovable statue

Solid granite in an ethereal world

Watching all these fragile dancers

Splashes of color, mutable and transient

Let us look at each other with envy

Shall we not trade?

Or is it too late?

Let me invest in my granite

May I become an ever stronger rock

But how I wish to dance

Attempts at euphony

Found again lost again found again

All in just a blink

Waking up some days in bliss

Waking up some days self loathing

Life is a trip

Everything beautiful and fun

To smell the sweet fresh air

Or look at glistening stars

From the dock on the lake

With a beer in my hand

Not those things dreamed for

Where is the nobility in quiet moments

But perhaps they are the things that should be dreamed for

What happened to childhood dreams

Then, maybe, it is good I did not become a rapper

What happened to childhood whimsy

Then, did I not teach a child to fly

Or lie to that girl about being a Baron

These musings do nothing

An unconfused mind with a dedication of purpose

Looking for something to push against

Life is imperfect

I suffer

And am sad

But no more than the other

Things are the way things are

I choose to be blissful

I choose to be peaceful

I choose to be dedicated

I choose to see beauty

If there is any other truth

Then I accept it

Then I ignore it

And I carry on as myself

brainstorm no forgiveness novella
What If there is no forgiveness
A novella
Alone in beda memory of she who isn’tA certain lonelinessTo never see each other againEvery day climbing a mountain without topA door that will not openA real lonelinessA light extinguishedAn end that came too soonAnd an another that can’t comeSoon Enough

Month: May 2013

After Completing A Man Dies Peacefully (Loose writing)