-

I was with a girl,

walking after it rained.

It was night.

The lights bounced

off the pavement.

It struck her eyes,

which in turn struck me.

Eyes so honest—

perhaps nervous like me.

I had been high,

trying to escape lies, promises—

someone told me.

Such a pity I must

have seemed. But

someone broke her heart too,

as we spoke in a car,

covered in raindrops.

Raindrops were in her eyes.

Such pretty eyes she had.

I was nervous and I was wild.

I spoke fast with

easy words. I threw

sentences together that

had no context. I wasn’t high.

I was out of my mind.

I kissed her and have

never tasted lips so sweet.

We had done loops

on our feet, crossing

bridges where ice,

had made its winter home

underneath.

The city lights made

it what it was,

as the raindrops

washed away our hurt.

The Trade

I knew a man on the coast. I wasn’t the mastermind behind the treacherous acts. They were inhumane. But I was a part of it. Here’s how it goes. He’d bring them into the shore onto the docks overlooking the Gulf of Maine. There they would become part of the system, a scheme or mechanism if you will, that was and is: the trade. Skip was the seaman’s name. Then again no one knew him that well. His real name and birthplace weren’t known. People spoke about him. And under hushed voices they said, “killer,” “baby-eater,” as well as many other things. He was a man no one would dare cross. He had a grizzly smile with rotting yellow teeth. He was short and stout and had the accent of the coast. He talked about clam chowder yet never pronounced the –er at the end of chowder. He wore rubber boots with his tight jeans tucked into them. His hands were always wet and cold, but they were what examined the trade. The trade— it was popular all over the world. There are often many aspects of the trade that people practice in which all sense of the word: are illegal. There have been laws in some places where certain parts of the practice no longer exist. Long ago the young ones were taken, and with them their mothers. They were loaded into a cramped setting on a boat. They were taken from their native homes and inflicted with the utmost pain. But it depends on how one defines pain, and if these creatures could feel it. For this is what this is about. And a creature is what they were called. The humanity that is sometimes hard to find within the purest of souls, the primitive side of man is what haunts my dreams. It makes me cringe to see what has happened through history and what is happening now. Oh how I loathe the world! Yet then again, my hands are not clean in these deeds—and I am not an innocent man. I have been guilt stricken and loathe the most inner parts of my heart with such contempt, that I write these lines as my last words.

Skip was wicked. He took them all. No matter where they came from they were forced into the rules of his vessel. Entire families were stripped of any value they had, and they became his capital. His hands that examined each individual had shaken the hands of countless businessmen. Mothers were of lesser value for they couldn’t provide the elite with what they wanted. The children were simply appetizers in the cruel entrée of the trade. It was the men who had the most value. They were the ones most sought after and through their absence—societies abroad lost their patriarchal influence. Women and children were left to fend for themselves. Populations would slowly decline, as there was no way of reproducing. Reproduction was done out of necessity. Their once fiery existence of lust and love—were extinguished with drops of seawater from the hands of Skip. He took them. He took them all. Men were sold to the highest bidder. Next came women that would be forced into a similar fate as their companions. And the children were to live lonesome unimaginative lives—until they like those before them—grew into their death of torture.

How wicked I am. How wicked we all are to allow such things to exist! For when does one not look for love in the eyes of a companion? Do we search strictly for the short satisfaction, the planting of the seed, the continuation of a species? It should all be ended. These lives we live and world we live in should be wiped clean from the universe. Like a star we should simply pop out of existence. And though there would no longer be such things as love and poetry—neither would there be such hurt and suffering. Alas, my part of the story comes into motion. And as I write these words they are like the wick of a candle. Each minute that goes by the wax drips slowly. Yet when the wax, like my words is finished—I will be snuffed out. I am trying to prolong this for I have decided already what must be done with the last stroke of my pen. I will die by these words like martyrs for their causes have died before me. And there is no turning back now. This is the end for me. I will die a death much more pleasant than those I mention. I know this because I was responsible. I killed hundreds if not thousands. I could have been a difference. I could have said, “No!” Yet I went along with what I was told to do. And I will suffer the consequences by the violence of my own hand and the judgment before my Lord.

Skip came to me through all those that practice the trade. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was young and inexperienced and was quickly taught how to be merciless. I took the ones I thought would sell and threw them violently. They lived in a cramped sitting. Misery floated through their existence. Drenched in an abyss of suffering they changed. Their eyes were dark before yet changed when their time came. Oh their eyes! Such beautiful things I marveled at— never fully understanding what I was doing. I knew deep inside somewhere within my heart that what I was doing was wrong. But I continued for society deemed it necessary. Even the government supported these intolerable crimes of hatred—inspired by an appetite of unmentionable prose. Yet their eyes looked at me with such indifference: as if they had known from when they were born that their fate was to be filled with such misery. Their eyes were darker than any other man’s I have seen. They had eyes so black that they were darker than the night skies. Thunder and lightening would run to back to Zeus screaming how the darkness of these eyes scared them. I looked at those eyes each time. I took them from their cells—their holding tanks and began the procedure. I weighed them up for those that would make them their purchase. They often commented bitterly. They yelled at how weak they looked. They were astonished that I even picked up a dead one—one that had died from sadness. They wanted the greatest survivors. They wanted the gladiators of the mix. Large and masculine they were. They had massive arms that could crush me and cause a great deal of pain. I prepared them to be sent away and each one I sent away took a piece of my soul with them.

Yet it was the act that I must now begin to sharpen this knife. This knife I hold is clutched with my own sense of justice—for the injustice that I have caused this world. It will reach my heart shortly and spilling upon this page will be my tears for a world God lost and the blood that I have been drenched in for long enough. It was this act that I repeated over and over again that I must face my convictions of what I have done and realize my guilt. I took them: all of them. Sometimes they were alone and sometimes they were together in massive clumps. I opened up a door and began to fill it with water. When the water reached its mark—I brought them into submission. I was like Skip in doing so. Their hands were tied and they couldn’t fight me. They extended their bodies inward and outward—silently condemning me. I shut them inside the chamber and turned a switch. Fifteen minutes later I opened the chamber as steam rolled out. The smell of death filled my nostrils and there was my guilt. I bagged them and gave them away to their investors. They would take them home and feed them to their children. And now, I die.

For the future: March 17 - If weather permits that is...

These nights seem to linger on. They grow so large and so immense. It's long cool nights with shivering hands that I try to find reason for our lives. We live each day with a struggling heartbeat, climbing up hills of lies and dishonesty. What will we find when we reach the peak? Will there be truth? Will it be ourselves in the company of other misguided souls? The wind whispers its answers, but our ears don't respond kindly. We bundle ourselves with emotions, keeping our hearts from the cool breeze. Let it blow away the hurt! This world is so painful in so many ways: it's heartache with love, it’s contempt towards injustice, it's lies that we find out. It’s so many things that keep us lost. Truth is hard to come by in this day in age. If we aren't misguided, we are simply naive. We have become ignorant of this world's functions. Yet where does this fault lie? Is it upon our backs filled with labor? Is it our brother that does not work? Is it the sister that has a child? Or is it mother and father that need our care? It is lies we perceive as truth! It is injustice in the eyes of the poor, greed in the eyes of our leaders, and broken hearts, for the broken mothers who lost their sons in a broken war. What religion supports this hurt? What government dictates this as law? We are not represented. We are given what is needed to live a life for individual struggle. No help is handed to those that need it. We try to send democracy overseas, a helping hand to those oppressed, yet we are oppressed in our homes. We are represented by intellectuals that give us false hopes. There now needs to be a change. These nights will no longer linger on as hopeless nights for hopeless causes. Our shaken hands with our shaken souls will find their strength from within community upon community. And with our own found truth, with our descent from injustice toward a land of compassion, we will find a fist raised in the air: one of resistance, a united hand not shaken by these fears, but a fist that shouts fear into those that build their lives on our fears. We will not be afraid any longer. Peace will become our threat and our war will be for societies abroad.

07 March 2007 - Untitled

It seems so late. My eyes are tired and dry. My nose is itchy. And I've been here in this chair, mostly thinking. It's 10:36 p.m. Numbers I'm used to. Numbers. They're funny things. They fit together so well around everything we all find important. The day a couple married they began to burn a candle. A candle that would be lit every year on that day, those numbers that began the rest of their life. When a child came into the world, friends were born also. Those friends take that baby into the world--to drink, to love, to party, to celebrate the birth. Numbers. They're important. So much so that we are disappointed when they aren't what we expect. Today I played in a basketball game. I explained my thinking later on to a friend. He didn't understand and perhaps thinks I'm a lunatic. But it's okay. It doesn't matter. None of it does. And I'll tell you why--through numbers.

I didn't play much. And so I thought of this. There's 8 minutes each quarter. Which is 32 minutes total because there are 4 quarters. But, due to fouls, foul shots, the time to set these kinds of things up--the average basketball game always lasts more than 32 minutes. There's two opposing teams: one blue and one yellow. For me I chose sides for what they represented. Yellow was that of fate and blue was of my essence for I was blue. If blue wins I said, then I could be what I choose. Through my own free-will I could go into this world and dictate what happens to my life. Those that I love, I could make love me in return. I could run across the sea, I could swim underwater discovering small kingdoms where there aren't woes like those on land. Under the water, between the molecules of sodium, hydrogen, oxygen, and all the elements that make this world run like the flames in a candle: or the time on a clock in a gym in a small city, of which the coordinates I can't recall. Here there is no violence. There is no hunger. There is nothing of hurt that is experienced on dry land. Those that fall in love stay in love. Those that try to fight always end up losing, but then find themselves in bliss--for they realize their mistake. Competition doesn't exist here. And through numbers, perhaps someday I could find how many fathoms it takes to reach this place I dreamt.

As the numbers ticked away on the clock in the gym--I must admit I was somewhat excited. But I realized more and more what fate is. It's tall kids. I didn't get to play that much and it irked me how I couldn't have my hands on that ball. Perhaps I could shoot the winning shot! That ball is me, it must go in my hoop, I must score all the points and win this game--or my essence is of insignificance. I found as each quarter passed heartache for what I could not control. And those in the game, scrambling, running back and forth with huffs and puffs from their lungs--I saw in their eyes my fears, my hurt, and my ambition. It came down to a certain numerical value. I wasn't sure of it's meaning. I can't even remember the exact score. It was somewhere along the lines of 32 to 32. Like that of the total minutes allowed--32 minutes that trickled by slowly yet drenched in excitement. The running and yelling raised in me some kind of new feeling. The blows from the whistle--the squeaking of shoes on an old gym floor awakened me from some kind of sleep. I've always been uninterested in sports. But this moment, in the late afternoon on an extremley cold day--I found with inside the doors of this gym--what life is.

Well it came down to this: blue versus yellow--my ambition and drive in life fighting off the uncontrollable factors of fate. Factors. It came down to mathmatics you could say. 32 to 32. 32 minutes in the game. 32 seconds or 1.875 of a minute. It all related somehow. I couldn't put it together though. I still can't. The winning shot came and people jumped up. I heard "Ohhhh...Yeah!" I heard excitement for something I can't truly comprehend. But I learned something in this game. No matter how hard I try to do something; I must never disrespect fate. Because it doesn't matter in the end how ambitious we are. The things we try to do that are good, may in the end hurt all of those we love the most. I have hurt myself. I have hurt others. But the yellow team won. Fate won. My essence and my ego were shattered. It wasn't because I thought I could win the game-but simply because I picked the wrong team to win. But they were my team. They were me. They were the best for what I desired. The win. The understanding of intellectual things that I could finally come to realize. They represented all my life thus far; and they lost. It doesn't matter. And I realize how silly and insignificant this all seems. But it's important to some. I would like to think it's important to me. But I'll forget my metaphors and I'll forget my pain. Just like people forget how to love, just like people forget certain dates, just like how those that I love will forget me--and someday my essence will cease to exist. It will cease to be. What a game.

Ojala y que tu sonrisa de verano

yo odio esta noche. porq con esta noche hay los recuerdos de ti. y tu sabes. a lo mejor entre mis sueños tu sabes. tu sabes q toi enamorado. y quizas es la verdad de esto que no quieres. la verdad fuerte de mis sueños. pero tu sabes. y yo, weno--chiquita mia no sé...cada vez, cada noche, cada dia, es pensar en ti.. y lo es algo que no quiero si no quieres tampoco. y a veces pienso que la verdad de mis sueños no es la verdad de tus sueños. no me voy a estar en tus sueños ni tu futuro. y es que, lo que quiero es algo que no quieres. verdad? a veces siento que vivir sin ti...tus palabras, tus fotos, tu voz q puedo escuchar por telefono....vivir sin estas cosas es no vivir...no puedo escribir en este idioma..pero estoy intentando ahora...quieres saber algo? te amo. pero lo tu sabes. y cada dia que vivo sin ti, es un dia no me importa. pero a ti, no es el mismo. un dolor gran eso...pero, debo vivir. debo vivir porq sé. y quiero decir que no sabes. quieres saber que no sabes? te amo.

con todo de mi corazon porq tienes mi corazon, porq estas noches, estas dias, son un poco important sin ti a mi lado. quieres saber algo? te amo. dime. dime, que quieres decir? la distancia, la verdad, los niños, mis niñas, la guerra, mi chiquito...NO LO SABES! pero chiquita, a mi yo sé. lo quieres saber? te amo. pero chiquito, no-- no puede pasar porq eso y esto. pero, chiquita, te amo. y me voy a tu pais a verte. me voy a aprender el idioma para ti. me voy a hacer todo para ti. porq quiero vivir contigo. quiero amarte. y quieres saber algo? te amo con todo mi alma. y tu, tu tienes mi corazon. escribame. dime. no es la verdad? porq a mi...es la verdad para siempre hasta la muerte. te amo, te quiero, y tienes mi corazon si quieres o no.

chao teté, el junio es para ti. y entre estas palabras, nadie entender que estoy escribieno. nadie sabe. quieres saber algo? te amo. alomejor esto no quieres. pero te amo.


Ojala y te me borraras de mis sueños
Y poder desdibujarte
Ojala y pudiera ahogarte en un charco
Lleno de rosas y amor
Ojala y se me olvidara hasta tu nombre
Ahogarlo dentro del mar
Ojala y que tu sonrisa de verano
Se pudiera ya borrar


Vuelve corazón
Vuelve a mi lado
Vuelve corazón
No vuelve no vuelve no vuelve no

Ojala y te me borraras para siempre de mi vida
Para no volverte a ver
Ojala y te borraras por las noches en el día
Para no volverte a ver
Ojala y te me esfumaras de mis sueños, vida mía
Para no volverte a ver
No, ni en sueños