I Am Blessed

This is what I know.

     I know I can't keep lying to myself. I know I'm not happy. The accumulation of my consequences has outgrown any possible benefit I have in denying it. I attempted at killing an ant colony one ant at a time and it's left me with a lawn full of ant hills and a body covered in ant bites. I know it is time to dig up my lawn, destroy the facade I keep so dear to myself, and start over with fresh dirt if I ever hope to have grass as green as the other side's. 

This is what I know.

     I know I have no idea what I'm doing. I know I've given up. For years I struggled. I strived for the best: food, friends, alcohol, clothes and drugs. And now what? I've grown complacent. I've grown tired. I've grown angry and frustrated, and tired and annoyed, and scared and tired. And why? I stare into the faces of people who whine and bitch about their lives, and wish my life onto them so they can see how utterly pathetic their cries are, and yet, I fail to realize that their pain, albeit confusing to me, is valid. I don't find The Exorcist scary, but that doesn't mean I can completely disregard you there hiding behind the couch after she f@$&s herself in the panini with a crucifix. Your fear is real. I have to learn to do more than accept it--I have to learn to respect it. In giving your fear a face, in learning its name, I hope to recognize my own, if only, to combat it. 

This is what I know. 

     I know there are those few poor shmucks, that despite how far I fall, despite the bitter words of hate and contempt I spit at them, they still seem to light a candle for me at mass. They keep me in their prayers and their opinion of me never falters despite my every attempt to burn that bridge. I've learned to use this push and pull from my loved ones as a test of sincerity. To what end will you love me?  The most frightening thing for me, being the fact that there are indeed people who've yet to give up on me.  They stagger on, towards me like an army of the undead: burnt, mangled, and starved. And while their salivating gnarls are scary as shit, they are only traits that I impose onto them. I know I don't deserve them, thus beginning the most malicious off catch-22's. I push out of shame, and they love despite. So I push out of more shame, and they love despite. So I push and they love so I push and they love. I'm a monster. 

This is what I know.

     I know I know nothing. I know it's time to change that. I know I must press on. I know I owe certain people more than I can give, and I know they'd never expect me to pay them back. I know I am lucky. I know I am loved. I know I am a brother, a son, a friend, a man. And for this I am blessed. 

This is what I know.

A Cup Full Of Water

This is the only way I know how to deal with this.

My first memory as a being--as a thing that feels, and thinks, and remembers--is that of me at an age before I understood what age meant. Before I could grasp quantity that didn't involve "more" for me, and "none" for you.  I was sitting alone, which wasn't exactly out of the ordinary, but I remember thinking it was "too" quiet.  I wasn't afraid to be alone, but suddenly I was overcome with the need to find my father (it was his turn to baby sit me).  I only needed to make sure either him or my mother were sleeping to affirm my safety. I still don't have many memories of interacting with my mother prior to my father leaving us.  I couldn't tell you a single word uttered to me by my mother up until she came home with my little sister.  It's not that she wasn't present, I remember seeing her all the time.  And she of coursed did her fair share of baby sitting. My father, though, he was different.  He explained the world with a certainty that I still find inspiring.  He spoke to me with confidence, and respect.  He asked me my opinions and let me make decisions.  And when my mother forced him to hit me, he cried.  He sat me down and explained why this was happening.  He taught me about consequence, not because I was in trouble, but because despite how bad that belt hurt, I knew he was hurting more.  My actions hurt others.  I hurt others.  

He wasn't in his room.

I searched for him, afraid he had in fact left me alone, which was not something I could digest.  I see it in other children now, the comfort of touch--the safety that comes from your parents.  It's something I try to process now, how they can distill a certainty into a child that only they possess.  I hated being touched, at least I remember hating it later.  I didn't want hugs, I hated shaking hands, and I wanted to die everytime an aunt kissed me hello or goodbye. But I still needed that comfort.  I still relied on them to keep me tied to the ground.  I needed to belong to them.  I needed them to never let me go. Just please don't leave me.

I found him.  Collapsed on the floor in the kitchen as if a dog had come in and tossed him around attempting to get whatever it was dogs look for when they are engrossed with ruining every toy you buy them.  I remember staring at him in confusion, afraid to make a sound, afraid to disturb whatever it is I just walked in on.  "I shouldn't be here." I felt bad, like I had wet the bed (again).  

But I needed to understand.  I needed him to make me feel safe.  So I walked over to him and asked him if he was sleeping.  Why would he sleep here?  And why was he laying like that?  I pushed him. And then I screamed at him. And then I kicked and bit and hit him.  Nothing.  

Before I could count, before I could pronounce "tiger" and "tire" distinguishably, I understood this.  I understood he wasn't here; I understood I was alone.  I laid on top of him sobbing, begging him to wake up.  To please come back.  How I knew that phrase, "Come back," I don't know.  Where had I thought he gone?  To Sleep? 

I cried for what seemed like forever.  I cried so much the sun went away.  I cried so long, I ran out of tears (something I can't seem to do now).  And I just laid there in the dark with him, my head on his belly.  I wasn't thinking.  I wasn't asking him to come back anymore.  I was just there, with him, two shells with nothing but the sound of the ocean hidden deep inside.

 

He always had a very distinct smell to him.  I knew I would smell it on other people sometimes, but for me it was his.  I would later inherit this smell as my own, after I started binge drinking.  

Here's when I know my memory is lying to me.  How could I love this man so much already, if I can't remember anything prior to that moment?  How could I know that smell was his, if I don't remember smelling it before laying my head on him?  Why is this moment always the destination when I try to push further and further back into my childhood?  

I remember the refrigerator would start to hum for a bit, and then it would it tire, and stop, only to start back up again later.  But then, in the dark, there was a hum, that was different.  It was deeper, more pained.  I heard him try to wake up, body completely still.  

My father came to.

He groaned some more, and then coughed, and then puked.  He slowly sat up, and looked at me like I was a deer he just shot.  And this conversation will never leave me:

Juan:  Why are you sitting in the dark, mijo?

Tony: You didn't wake up.

Juan: You should have tried to push me.

Tony:  I hit you.  You didn't wake up.

Juan: Ah, I'm sorry.  Did you try throwing water on my face?

Tony:  Why would I do that?  Why didn't you wake up?

Juan:  Next time just throw a big ol' glass of water in my face.  Ok?  

Tony: You didn't wake up.

This is when he got up and he left me there in the kitchen.  On the floor.  In the dark.  With the humming of the refrigerator.  And the smell of his vomit lingering in the air.

I don't remember being relieved.  I don't remember feeling silly.  I don't remember feeling angry.  I just remember sitting there in silence. And promising myself not to forget the glass of water next time. 

At least he was in the same building.

A Room Of One's Own...Or Not

I've recently become obsessed with a lyric, "Black sheep, Black sheep, in the aftershocks, thought he could survive in the black tin box. Black sheep, black sheep, in the aftershocks, thought you could survive in the black tin box." Why does this matter? I don't know. Why can't I get this these four lines out of my head?

My mania is probably on 10 right now...

So I've come to realize why I find it so hard for me to live in one place for longer than 6 months. I think subconsciously, I try to run from "home." In specific because I've never had a place I can call "home." As a child I was afraid to come "home." And then as a teen, I literally didn't have one. I remember the day Bonsol gave me my first set of house keys. He came to my place of employment and flagged me over. I remember staring at these 3 little specifically shaped pieces of stainless steel in awe--a dream become tangible. I remember staring at them, the glint of the reflection on their surface. I remember everything else suddenly becoming darker than those 3 little reminders that life is possible to live--that hard work sometimes, does pay off. And then as my eyes swelled with tears, I realized that finally, I could stop moving. I could stop and stand still, and not worry about where I was sleeping next. I had the most amazing 3 years of my life, then. I had a home, for the first time in my entire life, I felt like a person.

That plane crashed and burned, and left me there alone to pick up the pieces of a life I took for granted. And so here I am, 3 years later and afraid to crash again.

"Oh, shut the fuck up, you goddamn whiner!" I know, I know--add this to the list of personal issues.

Well, moving forward, I have 2 more days in my current apartment before I have to move out...I spent 5 months in this house and never once called it home. And now instead of finding a new place to live, I've decided to temporarily live with my friend for a month, to buy me some more time. I recently reconnected with a cousin of mine after about 12 years. And it turns out we have a lot in common. It's kinda absurd really. Well, whenever I sleep over (as she lives far away), I prefer to sleep on her couch than on her spare bed. She finds this odd, and I never really thought about it, until one of her daughters asked me, "Why, Tio Tony, do you like sleeping on the couch?" I honestly had no idea how to answer her. I didn't even realize how very uncomfortable the idea of sleeping on her bed made me feel. Yes, uncomfortable. I felt a discomfort over it.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this entry. It has no structure, it has no point. I have no structure. I have no point.

-T

Love, and some more crap.

Something that I find myself thinking about a lot lately are the basic foundations for our wide array of emotions. If we evolved from a single celled organism, it would make sense that our mental capabilities evolved in a similar fashion. If our ancestors operated on a few key primal instincts is it ok, then to assume our emotions grew out of those same instincts. To use a visual (and a very dated metaphor), our emotions are like the spectrum of color. But at it's very core, there are only a few basic colors that then are used to create the others, allowing our emotions to be as complex as the paint store at Home Depot.

The next question, really, then becomes which of the emotions are the bases of the rest. I've distilled them, so far, down to 3 basic emotions. But that being said, I would argue that those can be broken down even more. I call these emotions my Three Primes. Fear, Joy, and Anger make up these primes. And from these, all other emotions are created. And then, like a Mad Scientist on a mission, the different amounts and combinations create the bajillion other emotions: Hatred, Love, Calm, Resentment.

Two of the emotions I think about most are Love and Hatred. Two emotions that our society like to pin against each other; two opposites. But it is these people who hinder our very understanding of what those emotions actually mean. While yes, they are related, they are not complete polar opposites--they're simply sisters, slightly different, yet fundamentally similar.

Love at it's core is born of Fear and Joy. How much you "love" someone depends greatly on how these two interact. Love, is the fear of losing Joy. It is the need to keep that Joy and the understanding that it isn't permanent. For an example, I love my sister. She brings me Joy. The Fear I have of losing her is always present, whether I understand it or not. It is always in the background, however, I don't feel it because it isn't necessary. It is only through a traumatic experience that the Fear rears it's ugly head. 

Let's say someone I love gets in an accident. Instinctively, I think about their safety. I am overwhelmed by a fear that they are in pain. Basically, I am afraid that I will never feel that Joy that she brings me, again.

Moving on, I want to address the irrationality of Love. Love, at it's core is an irrational emotion. It is the constant preoccupation with losing something. Whoever (whenever), decided to use the phrase, "think with your heart, not with your head" hit the nail on the head. Because your "head" will tell you that you're being irrational. It is this disregard of rationality that allows us to Love.

AAAAAAAAND, It's late and I'm tired. This rant to be continued tomorrow.

Good. Night. World.

-t

Icarus

He longs for sleep. At times, it feels like it is the only thing he can think of; as prominent on his mind as a glaring sun breaking through his eye lids in direct sunlight. Yet, the more he thinks of sleep, the farther the reach it takes to obtain it.

“Today, I will sleep” he promises himself, as he stares at himself in the mirror. And then one more splash of water to the face, one more promise, “I will sleep tonight.”

***

Leaving his apartment, he is overtaken by the worry of missing his bus. “Please, don’t let me watch it drive pass” he thinks to himself, becoming aware of how heavy his eyes are. “I should have left earlier…”

***

He reaches into his pocket for his lighter. “I deserve a cigarette,” he tries to convince himself, hoping it will ease the guilt he feels for not being a better person. A woman who’s hair needs to be combed smiles at him, kindly at the bus stop. Her eyes are as heavy as his. He quickly diverts his gaze away from her, pretending to be captivated by the pigeons fighting over a crumb, seemingly unaware of any human presence, aggressively looking back at him waiting for the bus as if to say, “give me more.”
“It’s better if I don’t say ‘Hi,’” he convinces himself—always convincing himself.

He finds his lighter in his pocket and pulls it out. He knows the cigarette will make him sick to his stomach and yet those 2 minutes of lightheadedness somehow seem worth it. For those two minutes the world will disappear, as the image on an etch-a-sketch slowly disappears with a gentle shake. “I deserve this.”

***

He pulls the cigarette to his lips and lights it, desperate for the nicotine, desperate for that gentle shake from whatever bored hand created him, when he notices the girl still staring at him, only closer. She’s moved closer to him. “Fuck.”

Very rarely is there ever anyone else at this bus stop, that’s why he picks it. He walks an extra two blocks in order to avoid idle chit-chat with strangers. He prefers to avoid the monotonous “Do you have the time?” or the ironic “Beautiful weather, huh?” in a storm. The fake smiles and the obligatory responses have become too taxing. “Maybe once I sleep.”

***

Finishing his cigarette, he immediately wishes he hadn’t smoked it. “I didn’t need that” he thinks, coughing up the taste of tar. He’s going to be annoyed by the lingering smell of his weak will. The smell of smoke stains his fingers and palate. He wants to crawl into his backpack and hide until he gets to work, riding on the back of this shape that people recognize as him. The pigeons have stopped fighting and are pecking at the cement robotically, in search of food that must be hidden from the naked eye. He finds it odd that these birds are content on the ground when they have wings. He stares at the birds daydreaming about how it must feel being able to fly off and away at any given moment. If he had wings, he’d fly away. He’d fly away just because he was able to, flying in any direction until he tired, until nothing was familiar. He’d fly until he fell from the sky like a drop of rain, and crashed down onto the concrete. “Stupid pigeons” he mutters aloud to himself, “stupid fuckin’ pigeons.”

***

The bus pulls up to the curb and he quickly climbs on, careful to avoid the girl’s eyes. He takes a seat in the back at a window, still able to see the pigeons and closes his eyes just for second. “Today, I will sleep” he repeats to himself. I will sleep.” And then he slowly drifts off, taking flight to the moon, a few moments of quiet, until the jerk of the bus stopping 2 blocks away to pick up strangers, wakes him.

“Stupid fuckin pigeons.”

Confessions of the Defeated

It's funny how certain sayings or phrases can attach themselves to the bottom of our tongues for our entire lives, waiting for your pallate to cleanse so you can remember it's there. Then, when you least suspect it, you find yourself whispering it to yourself all alone, in the dark, without realizing it. "And so the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper." The first time I heard this, I was struck still. "The world started with a bang, it only makes sense that it would end in the complete opposite fashion" I thought to myself. But, to be honest, I never completely understood what that phrase actually meant. But one thing that I do know, is that even now, fifteen years plus later, I still find myself thinking about this line. Most of my friends assume it's because of my melodramatic need to be melancholic. But here, at 25, I can start to asses the pattern that is my behavior. The world, is our "I"--our Ambition, Motivation. It is our Love and our Hate. To be blunt it is every positive aspect of our state of being that we have come to, very pompously, self identify with. And here it is: again, I found myself, very robotically, whispering these words to myself on my way to my NA meeting. And that's when I started asking myself "why?" Why is it that I can't seem to shake this fuckin' phrase from my memory? And today I came up with an explanation. That whimper is what happens when you grow tired of lying to yourself. There is no "EUREKA!" moment where all is made clear; when revelation walks up to us and turns on a light. There is no slap of sense that happens by destiny that shakes our perception. Given, reality may slap you in your face, but your perception and evaluation of said events happens at a slower pace. That whimper is made when you sit at rock bottom and you look up. It is the wheezing of air you make when you stop trying to rationalize what has happened. That whimper is the sound you make when your lungs are deflated of the Pride. That whimper is the sound you make when you realize you're locked in a jail, only you're not alone. You share this cell with Defeat.

The Answer Was Always "Yes"

You have lots of them, Barbies. You sit out on your porch with your favorites, introducing each one by name to your visiting cousin. You point out the homemade dresses your mom made for them and explain which ones got pregnant by Ken, and which ones aborted the babies before it became a sin. You explain the weird triangles between Ken, Barbie and her younger sister, Skipper. There are so many Barbies and stories, it becomes too much to handle with out raising my thick eyebrow and putting my hand to my head to stop it from exploding.

"Come play!" you tell me rather than ask.

"Ok, let me go ask my dad" I say "come with me, he'll have to say yes if you're with me."

We go up the stairs to the one bedroom apartment me and my sisters and my parents live in. He's drinking a beer and talking to his friends and you stand behind me and I go and I ask him.

"Papi, can I go next door and play? Her cousin is here and they want me to play." He looks at you and asks,

"Oh how nice, what's your primos name?" you giggle and correct him,

"Not primo Señor, prima. We're down stairs playing with my muñecas."

"Is that right?" he asks no one, "Why would you want to play with Barbies, Mijo? No, I don't feel comfortable letting you go to other people's houses."

"But there isn't anything for me to do!"

"Ya te dije que no!" he says clenching his fist. My cheek hurts just looking at his fist but I know he wont hit with you next to me. You get nervous and back away. Doesn't your dad hit you, I wonder. "Go play with that baseball I bought you."

"But Dad, I'll play with the boy barbie, I swear!"

"I don't care if you play with Barbie's" (a lie) "I just don't want you in other people's houses. What if you break something?"

"But I'm not going in! I'm just going to sit on the porch." My eyes water and yours ask me if you can leave.

"Hijo de tu pinche madre, no!" He pounds his fist on the table and you run--scared, back to the safety of outside. I don't say anything else and just walk away. What's wrong with playing with Barbie's?

You have lots of them, Barbies. You sit out on your porch with your favorites, trying to pretend like you don't see me staring. You with your Barbies and me with my ball that I will never throw, well at least not the way my Dad wants me to. And I sit and stare with a confusion that burns inside me--a fire burning a question into my swishy hips and flared wrists. The answer is "Yes."

My answer is "Yes!" but I won't know it until much later.

You tell your cousin about the time Ken sent Barbie to the hospital because he caught her sleeping with his brother, talking louder and louder to make sure I can hear you, so I can at least hear, if not touch. And your voice raises and fills me like smoke.

"One day," I think, "One day I will play with Barbies and no one will be able to stop me." But for now I sit with this clean ball in my hand, afraid of what will happen to me once my Dad's friends leave.