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.
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
no
that is like all the others
those things that don’lt say what need to be said
breathe in breathe out
breathe in breathe out
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
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
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
Me
Me
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