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.

Syntax, Semantics, and Sentences

In my very short lifetime, I've learned enough to get a greasy little Mexican boy out of the gutter, and into the hearts of too many people to count. I debate how my presence in their lives effects them. Am I the pulse that keeps their life flowing: the electrical burst that revives them from stagnancy? Or, am I the blood clot that restricts oxygen-- paralyzing half of their face? I can't be sure of the answer to this, but what I am sure of is how I respond to them.

Here's what I do know:

I'm a deficit. I was born missing things; I was born without knowledge, experience, wisdom. I was born a small malnourished infant; I didn't scream upon delivery. I never made a fuss. I quickly learned that a voice is something that was answered with violence. I was born without Love. True Love. Yes, I was fed, and I was clothed, but everything I had never penetrated deeper than my skin.

Why am I so fascinated with my life?

Because(,) I. Am. A. Deficit.

And yet here I am, surrounded by people who love me (people who have faith in me). I've followed that bread trail, and picked each crumb up. And now I have enough loaves to feed an army.

I am a deficit, but my life has given me everything I've needed to change that. Somewhere along the way, I found knowledge. I found experience. I found (a very young and malleable) wisdom.

I found Love.

Somehow, somewhere, someone decided to turn my life into an Easter Egg Hunt, only instead of colored jelly beans, inside each egg was a person. And they gave me something I can't comprehend how to repay, and I'm not sure it's something that requires repayment.

Here's what I do know: I found my voice, and it couldn't have been done without my friends.

I found Love. And that's the only thing worth finding.

-t

My purpose...?

And here is my stream of thought:

At the moment all I can see is my subconscious...and it is malleable. It is an awkward putty like substance that seems to constantly wrap itself around this thing called "Life." However, as if rejected by some electric current, it forms a hollow shell--literally translated to an egg (that of an ostrich, or to be more exotic: the Emu).

Here is my subconscious (I promise to make the repetition of "subconscious" as annoying as possible before I end this rant, and after I make it apparent) symbolized by the very thing that represents Life; the very thing that represents Rebirth. And here I am completely angry with the way I have thwarted myself from achieving the goals that another Me could have done in his sleep.

Where am I different from "i?" Why was i so talented, while I can't seem to buy a pair of shoelaces to replace the ones Brus ate out of Anger?

who are you, little i?
(of 5 or 6 years old?)

Yes, I stare at the gold of November sunset and I weep-- I weep because I've lost, and that which I've lost can never be replaced.

Q: What can you put into a barrel, that makes it weigh less?

A: A Hole.

Experience seems to erode this shell; my life seems to be encased in this protection that is slowly cracking. And while I have not this hole, I have a very prominent crack forcing me to think ahead; forcing me to worry about what is to become of the contents of this egg.

Only then I remember: my egg is hollow. And then I remember that I am just a man trying to wrap his head around something he can't see, but knows is there: Purpose.

-T

Tolerance

Such funny creatures they are. If you throw a frog into boiling water, it will quickly jump out. However, if you place him in lukewarm water, and slowly raise the temperature over time, he'll grow tolerant of it, unaware that he's being boiled alive--he dies. I want to meet the scientist that came up with that experiment.

Funny creatures, they are...funny creatures indeed. The frogs are funny too...

How many lives does a cat have?

Every time I discover my old blogs, I get this, sort of, awkward "did I really write that?" feeling in my gut. I want to say because I've learned so much since writing it, but that's clearly a lie (insert chuckle here). It's actually an awe of how little I've actually learned that surprises me. I think, as people, we like to assume that we're incapable from making the same mistake twice, but who the fuck are we kidding? I wasn't an idiot at 21. In fact, I was actually kinda remarkably brilliant.

::pats myself on the back::

And yet here I am fully aware that all I've gained, since my last post, is the ability to actually not care. Life and experience has slowly eroded and weathered down my will power, leaving nothing more than your stereotypical Thriller-esque zombie. Only, in my version, there is no "king of pop" money to keep me going. Instead, there is a very confused, and frustrated little latin boy, who still has absolutely no fucking clue what is real, where he's going, or how he's getting there.

That's not to say that I have this iron clad ability to "not care" about things, 'cause I absolutely care more than I know I should. I still hurt and get childishly moody over things I know I shouldn't be whining about. But, maybe that's how I've learned to cope with the big issues. I know I whine about the insignificant, to avoid thinking about my real problems...so maybe I unconsciously get upset over little things so that I don't go insane over that which I have no control over? I dunno. I'm only 24...almost 25...and I still feel just as lost as I did when I was a minor.

Maybe that's what growing up really means--this epiphany that life will never make sense, you'll never understand it, so just stop trying. Maybe that's where happiness lies: in your ability to stop trying to make sense of the world. People with money are born with this privilege, and dumb people aren't smart enough to see they've been given the short end of the stick. And I'm neither rich nor dumb. I'm fucked.

Wah Wah.

-T