8 months
It's been 8 months. 8 months since I stood in front of my mirror uncontrollably crying telling myself that it was over. Even when I told myself that I could never chase you out of my mind no matter what. I tried , I forgot about you when I was out when the warmth of the sun kissed my skin. You were no where to be seen. But when night hit. The moonlight wasn't enough to burn you out of my head . I didn't miss you but I just thought "how is he". After everything I still thought about your well being. After you ignored mine. You made me physically ache, with you I truly knew what heartbreak is. but yet here I am 8 months later wondering if you're okay.
I’m Reaching
Most people say they shoot for the stars and dream in the clouds. I'm tethered to the ground, bent over a well, straining for the specks that drift below in the dark mud water. Dreams don't send you high, they don't take you to dizzying heights of ecstasy. Not mine. It's dangling your arms over the barrier, contemplating if what you want is worth falling head-first into the unknown.
Because you know that those muddy specks in the well are not stars, and you could very well break your neck for a puddle.
nostalgia
there are moments like this where I can't find what I want to hear. I can't find what I think I need to be fulfilled. I'm a special case. Always living in the past but worried about the future, unwilling to face what's in front of me. I'm standing at the crossroads among everything, protecting myself, because if I choose the present or the future I am unaware of what I will face. I take comfort in knowing the pain I had. I greet it like an old friend and miss it when it's gone because its visits were so long. I don't know how to live without it anymore. I get curious. I want to know what the other paths contain. I'll do anything for a simple glimpse of what awaits. which in the end is worth nothing, when I can't let go. One hand is shielding myself while the other is holding on to you.
The Best of All the Lost Arts
I'm 31. I've been married for not quite eight years and have three kids. My daughter, the oldest, started kindergarten today. My middle child has autism. He doesn't talk. My youngest is still so little the only personality traits he shows are curiosity and hunger.
When I met my wife we were in college, neither of us sure what we wanted to do with our lives, only that we wanted to be in each others'. And that was enough.
I bounced from shitty retail job to shitty retail job, and ended up with an okay city job. I have Fridays off, and a pension. She stays at home, being a mom.
It seems like there is never enough money. We're not destitute, and it would be unfair to say we live in poverty, but it's all I can do to pay the bills. If I'm lucky I pick up side work painting houses. We have to start Christmas shopping sometime in September to spread the cost.
At night, I put my autistic son to bed. I put on his pajamas, hold him down to brush his teeth, (he's unreasonably strong for a four-year-old) and carry him into his bedroom. I hold him and put his hand on my chest and say "Daddy." I put his hand on his chest and say "Eli." I repeat this until he takes his hand from mine and pats my beard. Sometimes he smiles. Sometimes he makes his "not-happy" sound, a mix between a coyote yip and a native war cry. Sometimes I can't take it, any of it, and I hold him and weep quietly in the dark where my wife can't see.
My son can't talk, and I love him.
My life isn't easy, but it's mine.
I'll take it.
The Essence of Aspiration
A young man sits alone at a bar on a Friday night. Perhaps he is drinking alcohol, aiming to forget his sorrows; or maybe just water, passing the time and awaiting a new beginning. He drinks steadily, as he has done for the past year. Walks slowly, meticulously, with a small limp in his left leg. Quite possibly from birth or maybe a childhood accident.
Nobody knew much of anything of the man. Only that he was in his mid-twenties and he wasn’t from around the area; nobody had heard of him until he started coming to the bar. Every Friday for a year, the man came in and ordered the same enigmatic drink, sat alone at the end of the bar, and conversed with nobody. There was an unspoken agreement, since nobody ever seemed keen enough to want to talk with him either.
The others in the town were just as dejected, only they created a lifestyle around drinking together. They would gather to forget their displeasure and make room for more. Most importantly, the people from the town had always been. They grew up there. Their parents grew up there. Their kids would grow up there. The town was as it is, and will be as it lies.
The peculiar man was known around town simply as the man at the bar and he was not talked about any more than that. Until, one Friday, the man didn’t walk into the bar. He didn’t limp through the door, didn’t order his same undetectable drink, and didn’t sit at the far end talking with nobody. He was simply gone.
“Where did he go?” people began to ask. “What happened to the man at the bar?” For weeks people speculated about what could have happened.
“I heard he jumped off a building,” was a common rumor, “Well I heard he was hit by a car,” the popular response. Each person in the town formed an elaborate story of the man’s death. For a couple of weeks, that is. And then, just as quickly as it began, people stopped talking about the man altogether. He became the ugly truth in the corner of your eye that nobody wants to look at, washed away by the tides of alcohol.
Another year went by and still the man had not returned. Nobody ever expected he would. But then, to the shock and awe of every person who knew of him in the past, he resurfaced. This time not at the end of the bar alone, but on the TV, resting in the corner of the room. What people saw on the TV was a man who was purposeful, confident, and willing.
“That’s him, I know that’s him,” the others in the bar began saying, “turn that up.” So, the bar was silenced but for the voice of the man who used to drink alone in the bar.
“Tell us, how did you go from being nobody to being somebody?” Asked the interviewer. And with his answer, the town knew, the man would never come back. The man had broken the cycle and he had flown free. The man said only this:
It is only when we realize what we are not, that we realize what we want to become.
For you.
A young soul sat around an empty table, happy with a moment preserved in memorable bliss.
Lost in thoughts of a future without promise yet holding potential for beauty and joy.
No restraint of imagination but something still held back, a fear of chance,
afraid to let go of what is and always has been.
Careful, this may pass as what always will be.
Head up, walk valiantly towards the raging current.
Stand strong, emerge as desire has laid out.
Thinking of a dream, an aspiration that was so beautiful yet just out of reach.
No excuse too great, no task too hard;
For a dream is resilient and overpowering, there to help when others may not.
As for you, there will always be a dream and there will always be hope.
Hesitation
How nice it must be
To live without regret
Awake with confidence
And conquer the world.
How nice it must be,
Endless opportunity awaiting
A decision of a lifetime.
All it takes is yes.
Could you ever know?
The struggle with those three letters
The weight on your chest
Holding you back. But for what,
Something better? Something easier?
Perhaps guiding you towards fate
Or leading you into oblivion,
From which there is no escape.