Showing posts with label humanity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanity. Show all posts

Saturday, February 1, 2014

That Friend You Hate

Louis CK talks of a friend we all have
The friend we secretly hate

C'mon we all have one
Says Louis CK

Mine has called me "Spoiled Brat"
Nearly all of my life

Just as my father's pet name
For me was "Dumb Kid"

Louis' says his is the type person
Who asks, if you could time travel

Where would you go, what would you do?
Secretly, Louis feels, you only asked

To tell your own answer, besides
Who do you think you are?

Like you could really kill Hitler
Although I've never met him

I realize I am Louis CK's most hated friend
Or I would be, but he's got me all wrong

It really is about the game, the discussion
Not my hopes of spiking my point down your throat

Maybe if I could go back in time, I should
Go back in time and unmeet you






Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Waiting

Morning.  I am sitting in my front doorway with Peabody, hugging his small furry body tight to my face.  I can hear a chainsaw in the distance, a small dog is barking, cars hum down the neighborhood’s streets, people talk to each other.  I can’t make out exactly what they say.  I have had so many moments like this it seems like when I look back over my life, I have always been alone.

In my mind, in an instant, I am sitting just near the fence line on my parents’ property, I can hear the wind, the cars on the highway.  The ground, hard yet slippery, with loose topsoil underneath me.  I can feel the tension of waiting for my mother to call.  I can feel the precariousness of having no solid rights to support me.

Then I am at UC Davis, sitting outside Sproul Hall, the cement hard and cold beneath me.  Bicycles tick tick ticking by me, the hum of fans nearby, the murmuring of students talking.  I take a sip from a small carton of chocolate milk, wonder why it tastes so different from chocolate milk you mix yourself.  I am eating lunch outside my next class, which is still 40 minutes away.

Next I am sitting on the floor near the bathroom at the hospital.  I am so tired the air feels thick like maple syrup around me.  My palms, braced against the carpeted floor, are damp with sweat.  The back of my head, my shoulder blades and my butt cheeks brace against the wall.  When I blink, my eyelids choose to stay shut longer than normal 50 percent of the time.  A nurse passes me, taking a second to enquire if I am all right before she moves on.  I answer yes, but in reality, I feel as if I am caught in the travel portion of a very long vacation at which I never arrive.  One floor above me, my father, who has recently had a stroke and who I have come to visit, sleeps.

Snap, I am in my living room, Daryl is half a world away, taking a plate full of food to his daughter while I sit and wait.  Skype makes the computer speakers whirl like something with a cyclical motion has been set off speed.  Impact seems imminently ahead.

Waiting.  My life is composed of waiting, moments waiting, hours waiting.  


Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The things I wrote to you and about you

Aren't mine anymore

They relocated to a neighborhood

Where all the things we wish were true
Walk the streets with all the things we're glad are not

Ghosts

thoughts you can't quite remember, stuck
almost on the tip of your tongue

You know them


demanding attention

look at me look at me look at me 

I will not be ignored

the cries of those who do not reflect

but only absorb

take

and 

take

you know them, they’ve sucked your breath from your mouth while the world burned around you, they push you down like you’re their handrail

brace me
support me
help me 

and you try

you are the very best handrail money can buy
stainless steel
rigid with purpose and intention

When he had tried to brush her aside ....

She clung to him like that bit of snot 
you sometimes catch on your hand 
when you touch the end of your nose.

It usually manages to stay there 
until you brush it against 
some other surface.  

Today I watched "Marty" with Ernest Borgnine

Marty's aunt in the movie is 56 years old and she acts as if her life is over.
The whole movie makes me just stare 
So innocent, yet so cruel.

As a kid …  I developed a crush on Marty …
Not a romantic crush, I just liked to watch his movies.  He made me happy   
He looked a bit like my dad, except he was softer and warmer, smiled and laughed a lot more.  

I don't think I almost ever saw my dad laugh where I wasn't the butt of the joke.

Sometimes I think I miss Ernest Borgnine more.

It feels stupid to admit I can miss people I've never met.

In a way …  it is like every human being is their own little radio signal .  .. that can be appreciated and enjoyed ….  and it is sad when ones I found rich with wonderful aspects … suddenly go off the air .  .  never to delight with their special taste again.