Home » Posts tagged 'life' (Page 2)

Tag Archives: life

Listening To Brian

Posted on by | 1 Comment

He says his name is Brian.

That he’s been addicted to heroine and meth for 30 years

but woke up a year and 8 months ago,

decided to get clean,

and has been ever since.

He wants to know why he can’t get closer to our film set.

So I tell him it’s nothing personal, that it’s protocol.

He says he’s taking courses provided by

The California Department of Rehabilitation.

That he likes to edit video, how his instructor is very supportive

but he only likes to edit the things he shoots—

how some days he wakes up with extreme anxiety,

depression, and can’t get the idea out of his head

that he’s going to die.

He wants to know what PM stands for and why the woman in gray told him he couldn’t hang around the cameras.

I tell him that means Production Manager, and that she’s the production manager.

He maintains balance with his walker, and says he understands.

He says the hardest part wasn’t getting sober, but that after he did he realized that he really had no one.

No friends. No lover. No family.

I try to get a word in edgewise, but know it’s not my place.

He talks a while longer before wrap is called, then asks my name.

I tell him that it’s David.

That he should be proud of himself for the changes he’s made.

We shake hands and say goodbye.

For the next two hours I pick up other people’s garbage, wrap cable, and load a production truck full of equipment.

For the next two hours until now

I think of Brian, my life, and what we have in common.

Is it the night that’s hard to get through?

Or the day that’s just the same?

He says his name is Brian.

I hope he’s doing well.

Our Wedding Day

Posted on by | 2 Comments

Today I marry my best friend.

Who even in our times of separation

has never left my side.

Do you know how truly special you are?

Because I do.

Allow me to explain.

For years I tried to deny my love

curiosity, and admiration for you.

For years I tried to keep you

buried like treasure, in poetry and words—

(so sure that one day you’d forget me)

For years I was a fool

desperate for attention, and scared to tell the truth.

Do you ever feel ugly or impossible to love?

Like no matter how hard you try,

there’s always this voice urging you to quit?

What boggles my mind most

is how long I spent pretending.

Trying everything I could

to become something that I wasn’t.

Believing that if I kept us a secret

I wouldn’t have to face reality.

The reality that I am a sweet, honest man.

The reality that I am dignified and true.

The reality that no matter how hard I’ve tried to forget—

you’ve never forgotten me, and I’ve never forgotten you.

So today, I marry my best friend.

The sweetest person I’ve ever known.

You’re the love of my life.

You’re the fire to my stone.

And now, my love

we are free to do anything.

I Think Of You My Friend

Posted on by | Leave a comment

You would have been 34 years old, Alvaro

if not for that motorcycle accident

that turned your body cold.

I guess nobody knows until they know

how fragile life can be.

Or how in the blink of an eye

someone so kind, could be taken from us all.

Because at the ripe age of 27,

we don’t think in terms of death.

We think in terms of life.

We think in terms of speed.

And all the nights we passed the time with nothing else to do,

but laugh until our eyes grew wide with nothing much to prove.

And how you must have known, it meant so much to me.

Just know it’s with a heavy heart, I think of you my friend.

And from this chair of memories, I’m glad to have known you then.

Halfway through the day, tired but still going.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Hugging Blake, I tell him,

you remind me how amazing people can be.

Shaking hands, he says,

“you know you’re always my first call.”

We work hard together, so

I’m honest with him, and he’s honest with me.

Wiping sweat, we share a laugh and talk about our spouses.

“I just wanted to give you guys something that would help,

not something you’d get rid of in a year or two.”

We’re halfway through the day, tired but still going.

“I’m really happy for you both,” he says, “you can use me as a reference.”

Going back to work, I understand the world a little more.

And in my tiny nook of it, I know

that nothing is forgotten.

while gazing at the lonesome desert

Posted on by | 1 Comment

from the window of my soul

the land just rolls on by

and I’m surrounded by the sun

the road, and beautiful minds—

where all I can think of

while gazing at the lonesome desert

is how wonderful it’s going to be

to hold you in my arms

and know that I am home.

Remembering again, that semester in the park

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I wasn’t seeing anything clearly

that semester in the park.

All that I could see was

everyone else talking, and

their perception of me.

So I fell silent in paranoia,

paralyzed by the idea that no-one could help

this growing unrest only I could feel.

And what an awful feeling, crippled in fear

that the mind, like a bridge, with enough force

could so easily collapse.

Because I wasn’t who I was a year before.

Or a year before that—I didn’t want to be.

I didn’t have a clue of who I was or where I wanted to go, you see—

It felt as if my sense of meaning had dissolved.

As if my efforts were for not.

And as I sat staring, watching all my friends disappear

it felt as if all my life had been a lie,

like someone else was pulling the strings.

And the longer I kept quiet,

the less there was to say.

The longer I stood still,

the more I wanted to run.

See people don’t just drown,

they tread water till they no longer can.

Some try for shore, others the horizon.

Except I wasn’t seeing anything clearly

that semester in the park,

trying to rationalize my fathers death and why

I hated myself so deeply for something no one could explain.

You know, if I close my eyes long enough I can still see that teenage me doing everything he could to keep it together.

Confused.

Isolated.

Stone faced and embarrassed.

And what’s a stone to do best?

It sinks.

And I Think To Myself

Posted on by | 1 Comment

It’s all a bit depressing,

like singing in the rain.

The over-sentimental

mere dreamers all the same.

It’s all a bit depressing,

like Pollack splattered paint.

Squandering potential,

my spirit slowly wanes.

Hard-Boiled Eggs and the End of This Chapter

Posted on by | 2 Comments

This coffee shop is cold.

Reading Murakami

my vision’s blurred by

inconvenient tears.

Why are all your thoughts so uncertain?

It’s knowing that any explanation is probably false.

Coming to these kind of places

in search of conversation? To escape myself?

This place where everyone seems so distant?

Propagated by the idea that coffee shops are for intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals alike

so for that matter, what’s even the point?

To think there was a time when I’d walk up to any of these strangers just to invade their private world.

Now reading Murakami,

I barely lift my head.

Restless Peace

Posted on by | Leave a comment

At restless peace I am

with the wind and sidewalk rustlings.

I hear no evil

but listen, careful

to the teacher in my head—

Ahem, it says, you see my boy

with an air of confidence,

before the mind had time to grow

to stretch it’s arms and wiggle toes

from abc’s to no means no

it was already in survival mode.

So from that time it tried to be

chameleon, I mean everything

to everyone without a doubt

as quiet as a field mouse,

the pressure grew and grew.

So that it’s not a man I see

or reckless boy in front of me

it’s simple with perspective, he’s

finally catching on.

What’s done is done is done.

The rhyme is just for fun.

If you can’t learn the lesson now,

there’s one last question that I’ll ask—

At restless peace, I listen

then watch the flowers grow,

focus on the question

and answer best I can.

Tired eyes and apprehension.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Getting away turned out to be the easy part—it only took 12 years.

Getting here would prove to be a chaotic mess—22 years hence.

Except I never got better, we never got help, and it slowly got worse.

I could draw the parallels between my father and I

but what would that matter—you only know us from one side.

And they say that children being a product of suicide tend to show a lack of interest, almost as if nothing really matters.

Well, to be candid, let’s just say I know a guy who can vouch for that.

I mean, how do you explain being on a train

wishing it would crash, just so life would slow the fuck down?

Just enough so that even the slightest change of scenery made any sort of sense.

Is this room ok? Isn’t this house nice?

How do you explain not wanting attention because it made you so damn nervous that even the easiest task seemed incomprehensible?

Do you want to go outside? Make some friends?

Who do you turn to when you can see through everything and everyone, knowing they’re in just as much shit as you?

So inward you go—wanting nothing but to be alone.

At some point you come to realize that it’s the only place you can control.

The only catch is, that train never crashes. And everything you thought at some point would be figured out, is just another heart racing conversation you swore you’d never have again.

The only parallel I can draw between the two, is chaos.

The other is our attempt at a logical excuse.

But there is no excuse.

Only tired eyes and apprehension.