I throw a coin into the well,
Waiting a while to know
it has reached bottom.
Waiting for that sound I wish,
Fixation on the past—
Of lonely nights in bed
Deep red glass on the nightstand—
Fading to imagination.
Free me from this margin
I intone but suddenly find myself
Pausing…
Like creative bursts
From sitting by my willow,
Thoughts trickle into my head,
Without the usual reasonable limits.
A serpent wraps itself around me,
The uncomfortable tightness
in my chest intensifying:
Do I want to be freed from this margin?
I intone again
But there is only silence.
Hearing the distant plunk
I know what I have done.
I have wished to be freed
From this shadow zone.
Heavy in my mind is the realization:
I cannot take it back.
It escaped my lips and drifted off
Into Nature, into a power greater than
My own, a force more supreme and
Evocative than my simple humanity.
Where will I go if I am not in the margins?
I wonder staring up at the sky,
Indescribable blue, unblemished.
It is the place that I have always been,
From the nights as a child engrossed
In the fantasy world on page, unfurling
With talking mice, wizards and ghastly evil,
All seeped in man-made lore.
To those nights after bodily changes began,
cracking voice as body morphs,
carnal desire building, my newfound sexuality,
faggot, faggot I only heard.
I tried to hide it, pretend it was not me,
But what good did that bring me?
To those nights when the queer in me
Was comfortable, resting in my heart,
A point of shame no longer.
Ragdoll vanished, the image of me
sturdy in the wind,
Replaced instead by a disconnect,
Fine gossamer threads collapsed
With feeling like I did not fit in with anyone queer:
Intellectual building,
Postmodern deconstruction, leave nothing standing.
Perform gender…be nomadic,
voices of great wisdom told me.
The result: spectres of past experiences
Hissing acridly, no method of fumigation
When I knew only to question everything.
I found myself deconstructing me!
My body and mind scattered across some
vast landscape, ashes into the wind.
My mouth somewhere other than my head,
Only my ears listening to others,
always contemplating spoken words,
the poetry of it all and the harsh underbelly—
Lies, diminutive and brawny,
Lingering pointedly through harmonious facades.
So wrapped up in thought,
I am thrown back into the present world,
Realizing I am still hovering over the well.
If someone had passed by, I would have
Appeared to be suspended, standing up
Statuesque, in spirit of The Thinker.
Thus I wonder if it is at all possible for me
To ever break away from the margins.
After the proclamation and plunk—
Contract signed—
there has been no change,
Just endless suspension,
the pulling out of everything I tried to suppress,
Bringing a foggy world into a clearing
By shattering my own artifice.
Free me from this margin
I intone again.
But I quickly find myself laughing,
A noise that morphs into a blank expression,
And then again into a river down my cheek.
I cannot be freed and
I must not pretend.
It is who I am.
29.1.09
21.1.09
The Heart
I thought you had a beating heart. I heard it those nights I slept next to you, your arm around me, and felt at ease. But now I wonder if it’s beating anymore. I wonder because you left me stranded in a place I need to leave. You left me stranded, with nobody else, nothing else save my own imagination, and now I have fallen from that comfortable place I once inhabited. I know this week has been rough for you. From the already fragile relationship with your father now completely crumbled, to the break up with boyfriend, times have been trying. But that does not mean I care for you any less or that I am not there for you any less. If anything, it only makes me want to help you more. It only makes me want to see you go on and find happiness and comfort more than ever. If there is anybody I know that deserves that comfort, it is you.
But now I am starting to wonder if you have a glass heart. I have helped you. Yes, you have helped me too, but now, in the moment when I need you most—in this midnight hour when I gasp for breath and heavy tears stroll down my cheeks—, I send you texts, I call you and am always met with the same response: none whatsoever. The icy silence consumes me. In mind, in body, in the air around me, that question “why” haunts me. Why…it lingers so stubbornly in every breath I take. Why…it lingers and makes me wonder if there is ever any resolution. There was a moment in the tears that anger surfaced, that I found a “fuck you” escape from my mouth. But the adolescent angst vanished in the wake of my realization. You’ve gone through your own tears, those violent paroxysms, the moment where you wondered why you had the parent(s) you do, and the loneliness that results from such a disconnect. You may not show it like I do. You put on a steely expression—impenetrable—and walk forward with an air of nonchalance. But I know you’re feeling something. We all feel something.
So I am asking you this: do you have a beating heart or is it made of glass? Do you care about me or do you not? Or, are things really this simple? Must one always have this veined understanding? Or lack it entirely, instead possessing no compassion whatsoever? Maybe it is that you do care, but with your own problems, you are afraid to show yourself as a strawberry in these rare winter frosts? Your nonchalance seems a means of shielding yourself, a protection from that which might destroy any comfortable feeling in your body. But I have tried this before; I have put on my best artifice and been something other than my essence (an idea loosely encompassing the spectres of my past). The result was this: constant moments of disconnect from action and feeling, a gripping psychological drama with my self as the only audience member. I may have done well by external standards, but walking on a long path forward with my true feelings as steam shooting out my ears was not a way to live. Admittedly, I have not freed myself from my past. I have not liberated my present feeling from my essence; spectres still linger on every corner as I take the streetcar down to Canal.
But I am making progress. You cannot expect these conversations with ghosts to be easy. Harsh words, hisses, untamed violence, neglect…they want to rip every good memory you might have ever had away from you. Yet you battle because you want to live. You battle because you want to exist beyond them, apart from them, as a wooden toy and not ragdoll. Whatever you might choose, know that I will be here for you. I have a strong, beating heart. You may have hurt me more powerfully than you have realised, but at the same time, I cannot blame you for everything that has happened. I cannot blame you for whatever ghosts you might have, for how powerfully the vehemence may have resurfaced this week. You are not your self only because of what you have done; your life is the ultimate theatre piece.
I look forward. I stare into a great unknown, away from the hisses and pain. I have dreams of the city. I have dreams of that PhD. I have dreams of that emotional freedom, of unassisted gliding through the invigorating air. Whether or not you choose to follow now is your choice. You will be on my mind because I look forward not just for myself. I look forward for anybody who has ever touched me and deserves that freedom too. To all the queer kids. To all the impoverished in inner city ghettos. To all the women wrapped up in thinking they need to be perfect. And also, perhaps most importantly, to those who have hurt us. I ask, taking in the fresh air, who was it that hurt you?
But now I am starting to wonder if you have a glass heart. I have helped you. Yes, you have helped me too, but now, in the moment when I need you most—in this midnight hour when I gasp for breath and heavy tears stroll down my cheeks—, I send you texts, I call you and am always met with the same response: none whatsoever. The icy silence consumes me. In mind, in body, in the air around me, that question “why” haunts me. Why…it lingers so stubbornly in every breath I take. Why…it lingers and makes me wonder if there is ever any resolution. There was a moment in the tears that anger surfaced, that I found a “fuck you” escape from my mouth. But the adolescent angst vanished in the wake of my realization. You’ve gone through your own tears, those violent paroxysms, the moment where you wondered why you had the parent(s) you do, and the loneliness that results from such a disconnect. You may not show it like I do. You put on a steely expression—impenetrable—and walk forward with an air of nonchalance. But I know you’re feeling something. We all feel something.
So I am asking you this: do you have a beating heart or is it made of glass? Do you care about me or do you not? Or, are things really this simple? Must one always have this veined understanding? Or lack it entirely, instead possessing no compassion whatsoever? Maybe it is that you do care, but with your own problems, you are afraid to show yourself as a strawberry in these rare winter frosts? Your nonchalance seems a means of shielding yourself, a protection from that which might destroy any comfortable feeling in your body. But I have tried this before; I have put on my best artifice and been something other than my essence (an idea loosely encompassing the spectres of my past). The result was this: constant moments of disconnect from action and feeling, a gripping psychological drama with my self as the only audience member. I may have done well by external standards, but walking on a long path forward with my true feelings as steam shooting out my ears was not a way to live. Admittedly, I have not freed myself from my past. I have not liberated my present feeling from my essence; spectres still linger on every corner as I take the streetcar down to Canal.
But I am making progress. You cannot expect these conversations with ghosts to be easy. Harsh words, hisses, untamed violence, neglect…they want to rip every good memory you might have ever had away from you. Yet you battle because you want to live. You battle because you want to exist beyond them, apart from them, as a wooden toy and not ragdoll. Whatever you might choose, know that I will be here for you. I have a strong, beating heart. You may have hurt me more powerfully than you have realised, but at the same time, I cannot blame you for everything that has happened. I cannot blame you for whatever ghosts you might have, for how powerfully the vehemence may have resurfaced this week. You are not your self only because of what you have done; your life is the ultimate theatre piece.
I look forward. I stare into a great unknown, away from the hisses and pain. I have dreams of the city. I have dreams of that PhD. I have dreams of that emotional freedom, of unassisted gliding through the invigorating air. Whether or not you choose to follow now is your choice. You will be on my mind because I look forward not just for myself. I look forward for anybody who has ever touched me and deserves that freedom too. To all the queer kids. To all the impoverished in inner city ghettos. To all the women wrapped up in thinking they need to be perfect. And also, perhaps most importantly, to those who have hurt us. I ask, taking in the fresh air, who was it that hurt you?
19.1.09
17.1.09
Beginnings of an Essay for Pomona College
I’ve always found myself in the margins, the place poet Mark Doty likes to call the “the edges no wants, no one’s watching.” When I was younger, it was a product of my shy, intellectual disposition; I was kid you’d find wrapped up in a 400 hundred-page book at ten years old. Through time these margins evolved a great deal, becoming a product of my burgeoning sexuality, as I realized I didn’t fit in within everyone else because of my desires. By the age of 16, I started coming out as gay to family and friends. From how I view individual actions and opinions differently, to the organizations and causes I have been most active in, my sexuality has been the lens through which I view the world. While such a lens has complicated my movement forward, as the spectres of a queer past linger with sunken eyes, it has also given me the desire to stand up, with pain and sadness floating coursing through my blood, and transform the inequities—whether based in race, gender, sexuality or class—that mark our society today.
11.1.09
Mindful
He buckled his belt and looked into the mirror, making sure that his hair looked nice, his face was clean, and that there were otherwise no problems with his features. He went through this routine daily, of course, but something about this evening proved to be different. An unusual lightness could be felt in the air, as if a vacuum removed all impurities and weight. His heart was fluttering more rapidly for another guy than he had ever remembered. A romantic interest. The first in a while, definitely not the usual Mr. Right, but the sort of figure one finds so attractive because of imperfections and the intrigue that builds from them. As he looked into the mirror one final time, he saw the exterior he may have wanted to see—bright blue eyes, clear skin, the unmistakeable happiness—but internally, he realised the mess he was faced with. Everything about his exterior may have suggested a person confident and at ease, but a million questions exploded in his head like a whiz-bang fireworks display. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I am not what he looking for? Do I really look good physically or am I just delusional? And so on, as each question he tried to answer only created another one until he was sufficiently nervous.
As he walked out to his car, the internal confusion only continued, increasingly intense with each beat of his heart. If it were any other night, or any other person, he might have just walked back inside and curled up with the latest volume of one of his arts subscriptions, but something about tonight was different. Having had a long series of romantic failures, and the all too frequent nights alone sipping a glass of wine and reading a book, he wanted something new, the personal change that he had long talked about but never tried to enact. It wasn’t as if he had never wanted to change before; every single day he wished to be the better person he imagined so easily in his mind. If he had the means, he would have packed up his bags and moved to one of the cities of his dreams—San Francisco, Portland, Boston or New York City. But as a struggling graduate student in college making a meagre income from a 25 hour a week job, that was simply not possible. So he was trapped in the city he liked to call ‘a broken dream’, New Orleans, because it is where he found himself back in his undergraduate years, and it was the only place he knew to be outside of his home in the Midwest.
It was not that he didn’t try his damnedest to push for change around him. He was active as much as he could be, considering his schedule. And while he enjoyed the milieu of the city—the way in which the uneven sidewalks cast shadows in the moonlight or how the trees seemed more imposing than the buildings themselves—there were limits to his happiness. All around him, that strong sense of brokenness pervaded the air. High per-capita crime rates, people still in trailers from Katrina, the chocolate of the city ignored for the vanilla, bitter stinging anger still fresh on faces, and no real movement or purpose. He thought about how there were lots of promises. He paused and thought again yes, lots of promises but nothing real, no action, as if the engine of the action was old and ragged. With these discarded promises, there was a sense that opportunity was lacking for him in the city. While there may have been a vibrant arts scene that channelled every powerful emotion into something healing and transformative, there was nothing there for him. Not the type of lifestyle that he wanted to live. Not the type of art that he wanted to do. Only the uncompromising feeling of being trapped in a void—heartbroken, uneasy, and uncertain.
He chuckled at how naïve he had been when he first welcomed himself to the city and Tulane University. He never really wanted to go to the university itself, feeling it was overpriced and lacklustre, but he went for the city, for the lights, and instead came to find darkness. But it was that option or going back home, and too many haunts were there to find any comfort. With a startling abruptness, his phone rang. Looking down at the number, he saw it was the guy he was going to meet. His heart fluttering, he picked up the phone.
“Hey…I am doing well, thanks. How about you…Oh, okay…is it a problem? No, of course not. I need a few extra minutes to get ready myself…See you soon!” and he clicked the off button on his phone.
His date was running about fifteen minutes late, an idea that normally would have annoyed him, but was welcome in that moment. He had fifteen more minutes to process thoughts in his stormy mind; fifteen more minutes to try and quell any bit of nervousness and self-consciousness he may have felt; fifteen more minutes to abandon the thought that he could never find a guy that worked well for him. Instantly, he was thrown back to why he never seemed to move anywhere romantically. It was not without having making efforts, but he never seemed to move beyond failure. Since love was inexpensive, free even, his financial resources were not holding him back. Perhaps it was something else, he thought as he put the key in the ignition, perhaps it was something more powerful and difficult to escape. A single word entered his mind: fear. But what? What was he fearful of? He had a nimble intellect, the fiery eyes, a top-notch education. And yet he was still afraid. Of what? This time the question was more urgent; it demanded an answer and would not leave his head until it got one. Thank God for fifteen extra minutes! And he began to drive away.
The traffic, usually heavy at this hour, was the lightest he remembered seeing it in a while. While he could have easily gone down Claiborne Avenue, he always ended up choosing St. Charles, if for nothing else but to see the mansions. This evening they seemed particular fitting, illuminated by old-fashioned gas lamps and an emaciated moon casting a little light on the perfectly manicured lawns. What was he fearful of? He had tried to push the question out of his mind by focusing on the grandeur, but it was a stubborn houseguest that would not leave until any and all means of exposition had been exhausted.
As he walked out to his car, the internal confusion only continued, increasingly intense with each beat of his heart. If it were any other night, or any other person, he might have just walked back inside and curled up with the latest volume of one of his arts subscriptions, but something about tonight was different. Having had a long series of romantic failures, and the all too frequent nights alone sipping a glass of wine and reading a book, he wanted something new, the personal change that he had long talked about but never tried to enact. It wasn’t as if he had never wanted to change before; every single day he wished to be the better person he imagined so easily in his mind. If he had the means, he would have packed up his bags and moved to one of the cities of his dreams—San Francisco, Portland, Boston or New York City. But as a struggling graduate student in college making a meagre income from a 25 hour a week job, that was simply not possible. So he was trapped in the city he liked to call ‘a broken dream’, New Orleans, because it is where he found himself back in his undergraduate years, and it was the only place he knew to be outside of his home in the Midwest.
It was not that he didn’t try his damnedest to push for change around him. He was active as much as he could be, considering his schedule. And while he enjoyed the milieu of the city—the way in which the uneven sidewalks cast shadows in the moonlight or how the trees seemed more imposing than the buildings themselves—there were limits to his happiness. All around him, that strong sense of brokenness pervaded the air. High per-capita crime rates, people still in trailers from Katrina, the chocolate of the city ignored for the vanilla, bitter stinging anger still fresh on faces, and no real movement or purpose. He thought about how there were lots of promises. He paused and thought again yes, lots of promises but nothing real, no action, as if the engine of the action was old and ragged. With these discarded promises, there was a sense that opportunity was lacking for him in the city. While there may have been a vibrant arts scene that channelled every powerful emotion into something healing and transformative, there was nothing there for him. Not the type of lifestyle that he wanted to live. Not the type of art that he wanted to do. Only the uncompromising feeling of being trapped in a void—heartbroken, uneasy, and uncertain.
He chuckled at how naïve he had been when he first welcomed himself to the city and Tulane University. He never really wanted to go to the university itself, feeling it was overpriced and lacklustre, but he went for the city, for the lights, and instead came to find darkness. But it was that option or going back home, and too many haunts were there to find any comfort. With a startling abruptness, his phone rang. Looking down at the number, he saw it was the guy he was going to meet. His heart fluttering, he picked up the phone.
“Hey…I am doing well, thanks. How about you…Oh, okay…is it a problem? No, of course not. I need a few extra minutes to get ready myself…See you soon!” and he clicked the off button on his phone.
His date was running about fifteen minutes late, an idea that normally would have annoyed him, but was welcome in that moment. He had fifteen more minutes to process thoughts in his stormy mind; fifteen more minutes to try and quell any bit of nervousness and self-consciousness he may have felt; fifteen more minutes to abandon the thought that he could never find a guy that worked well for him. Instantly, he was thrown back to why he never seemed to move anywhere romantically. It was not without having making efforts, but he never seemed to move beyond failure. Since love was inexpensive, free even, his financial resources were not holding him back. Perhaps it was something else, he thought as he put the key in the ignition, perhaps it was something more powerful and difficult to escape. A single word entered his mind: fear. But what? What was he fearful of? He had a nimble intellect, the fiery eyes, a top-notch education. And yet he was still afraid. Of what? This time the question was more urgent; it demanded an answer and would not leave his head until it got one. Thank God for fifteen extra minutes! And he began to drive away.
The traffic, usually heavy at this hour, was the lightest he remembered seeing it in a while. While he could have easily gone down Claiborne Avenue, he always ended up choosing St. Charles, if for nothing else but to see the mansions. This evening they seemed particular fitting, illuminated by old-fashioned gas lamps and an emaciated moon casting a little light on the perfectly manicured lawns. What was he fearful of? He had tried to push the question out of his mind by focusing on the grandeur, but it was a stubborn houseguest that would not leave until any and all means of exposition had been exhausted.
6.1.09
Retrograde
Living in the past...
Yes, I have my body in the present—
touchable, soft—
but my mind is elsewhere,
inhabiting a series of spectres,
my former selves.
I want, want, want nothing more
than mind to jump to the present,
To exist in the present,
NOW.
I want to walk jovially into the future.
The hard-to-reach corners of my dreams
bending toward me.
I grab them!
But only in my imagination,
not on the concrete sidewalks,
obscured by misty indecision.
I am retrograde
in my mind.
As if harsh lines of my jaw
fade to softer features......
assurance slips out from
under me,
romantic interests pop up
suddenly and
I shout out, I shout out
I WISH I COULD TAKE IT BACK.
Silence,
then the cicadas,
constant annoying buzz
on the hot summer nights.
I am alone, save them
and my mind begins to wander elsewhere,
down the knotted paths
to my home life,
troubles in the family,
disordered life, depression,
and then it all comes out,
everything of the past...
It just explodes and all around me are the pieces,
all around me are the pieces
but I want nothing more than to move forward,
to buck the retrograde,
witness the spectres dissolve,
hold the novel
I have always wanted to pen
in my soft hands, the rustle of the pages...
but I can't seem to figure out how to do that
and
nobody else has answers.
There seems nothing there to give me the kick.
Only more silence now,
the cicada hum lost to
memories of the past,
the body without the present mind,
the mind without the present body.
And I ask myself - why?
Yes, I have my body in the present—
touchable, soft—
but my mind is elsewhere,
inhabiting a series of spectres,
my former selves.
I want, want, want nothing more
than mind to jump to the present,
To exist in the present,
NOW.
I want to walk jovially into the future.
The hard-to-reach corners of my dreams
bending toward me.
I grab them!
But only in my imagination,
not on the concrete sidewalks,
obscured by misty indecision.
I am retrograde
in my mind.
As if harsh lines of my jaw
fade to softer features......
assurance slips out from
under me,
romantic interests pop up
suddenly and
I shout out, I shout out
I WISH I COULD TAKE IT BACK.
Silence,
then the cicadas,
constant annoying buzz
on the hot summer nights.
I am alone, save them
and my mind begins to wander elsewhere,
down the knotted paths
to my home life,
troubles in the family,
disordered life, depression,
and then it all comes out,
everything of the past...
It just explodes and all around me are the pieces,
all around me are the pieces
but I want nothing more than to move forward,
to buck the retrograde,
witness the spectres dissolve,
hold the novel
I have always wanted to pen
in my soft hands, the rustle of the pages...
but I can't seem to figure out how to do that
and
nobody else has answers.
There seems nothing there to give me the kick.
Only more silence now,
the cicada hum lost to
memories of the past,
the body without the present mind,
the mind without the present body.
And I ask myself - why?
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