Afternoon Delight

(A Ghost Is Born, 2009)

In times of sunken ships and sailors looking for land to call home. In times of desperate need, and for friendship that can last a life time; the storm will take you, the storm will take me. To the depth it will, I say, but we'll be together on it. In turning seas and death kisses on the brow or on the cheek, we will survive (just about anything). Plunge, plunder, and pulverize until pieces are made, until dust is all that remains. Take what is left and send it by sea, or by air, to all those we have known. Let our bodies be that reminder of ventures too dangerous for most folk, and let our particles be freaks of frightening things for even Ridley could not believe.
Away under palm-shaded skies, sipping a lifetime of paradise amongst the crashing waves that hiss and thunder in the most beautiful ways, we live, we survive, I with a beard, you with a bikini. Pinky swearing of our stay, pinky swearing for the rest of our days. To never leave, to never be discovered, this is just about the just of it; the best of it, and I don't think we could ever get sick of it. We'll build monuments, I'll dedicate mine to you, and to your everything, and you'll build what you build, and I will be taken, and inspired through the eyes of bending light, of new wave and avant, of each of your impressions to mark a stone and to carve a branch. What grace have you here, I am small, hidden under your belly, and yet you make my likeness in truth, I never saw a reflection so dearing. Once we are done with our hands, we will destroy what we have created, we will burn it all down only to do better tomorrow. Let's just say tomorrow together, right now, really, the story ends here.

T O M O R R O W.

So Much For Words

(Living as Twins, 2009)

So much can be said, but silence can be even more spoken than words themselves.

Boston, New Zealand

(Welcome To The Jungle, 2009)

I'm a really bad liar. I'm also really bad at this. Picking up the shards of my favorite cup, I wonder if someone had just died. My pocket vibrates and it's my mother, this is too weird. I let the phone pulsate in my hand until my palm is numb.

Hello.

It seems that life is random, and my broken cup, my favorite cup, is a lost cause, and not a cause at all since it has nothing to do with anything. I once tripped and fell over, broken my pen in my favorite pants, and soiled my pocket with ink. When I looked to see what had caused this accident, there was nothing, when I questioned the stability of my legs, they looked fine, they felt fine (besides from a slow-forming bruise above my right knee(the bad one)). I looked around me to see if anyone had seen my embarrassing moment, and a young woman smiled at me as she towered above. She came closer, and just tripping over my fallen body, she stepped over me, and left. Two years later, I would meet her again, and upon our reunion, I would say, and she would say, and then I would ask, and she would say, yes, we heard it all before, it was fate!

The date went well, and we would continue seeing each other for a few months, and then I moved away, and the letters we promised each other would dissolve, and soon we were reduced to commenting on each other's internet pictures, and then just "liking" them, and finally, the once a year (twice a year for both ways) there were the happy birthday messages, and a how-are-you-doing,-it's-been-a-while.

I think back on the day I fell for no reason, and where I once put a red string, a string of destiny, I now put a solid piece of dark matter. I stopped writing love songs, and I started to write about the stars and black holes. I could be found quoting Hawkin's, and I do I really mean impression of his computer voice. People will laugh, and eventually they will sigh since they all, including myself, hope for his health.

A rock once fell from the sky, fell a foot before me, and I realized that if I didn't stop smoking cigarettes the day before, then I would've been stroked by that falling rock from the sky (the sky is falling?). I stopped all my bad habits from that day on, and slowly over the months, I regained most of them, including a few extra pounds. The next day, the woman I had left, appeared at my door, and she said in a whisper to my ear, "surprise".

...

How do I hold on to these things, how do I call you friend, before an enemy, how do I know to step foot into my fading future before me, and when shall the sea decide to not roll back? When will the greatest monuments fall, and when shall we forget each others names? Only when you think of me again, that random, that fateful occurrence, o'eureka, m.i.ss.i.ss.i.pp.i, and (one) one-thousand, for one is the lonely number since five, four, three, two, one...

Zero.

Sung or'Hung

(The Sea Before Kalaupapa Valley, 2009)

It's like watching a ship go down, those final last breathes of a captain and his lady bubbling up to the surface, and the bubbles burst with sounds of screams and cries. I would like to say his last words were I'll never be a legend, or I'll be back (in a half-gurgling sound). He was a friend, and now that he is gone, and the crew and I were on the ship of our captors, there was this void feeling of loss, mixed with the bitter taste of defeat. No, we're weren't "pirates", atleast not in that romantic notion so saturated in modern cinema of the twenty-hundreds, we were Filipino robbers and thieves, that happened to have a neck for ships and maritime, roughnecks that really cut throats, and were criminals. Juan has four counts of murder under his belt, and how he escaped prison with nothing but his one arm, and rotted teeth alludes me, I think the captain picked him because he reminded him of how wonderful Rick Allen of Def Leppard is at drumming.
Carlos was a ladykiller, he really killed them, but he also was a good-looking gentlemen, he was just messed up in the head. And Lif, the newest member of our crew was twelve, and knew how to tie a knot that would rip a man's flesh with the slightest amount of struggle, and he was the only one of us that learned how to disable the technological advancement of tanker or freighter's secruity system.
Sure, we were wild, wild and scary men, that the rest of the world feared, but what we were up to in those seas, what made us who we were, and what accounts of this and that such crime was our passion. The world looks at Napoleon and his manifesto, Che and his journey, and that guy from Catch Me If You Can with dreams, and wishes of their own. Everyone's a sucker for the romantic notion of leaving the rest behide, and becoming wild, and free, whatever that freedom is or was. We were dirty, we were sick, but most importantly, we were free...up until an hour ago, and now awaiting to be hanged (I still argue hung sounds better), by the people we robbed from, the people we'll never see, and only a hand upon a hand will be the last of our accounts at our journey, from when we were young, when we first stole fruit and bread to eat, then moving up not down, stealing bigger and better, and all for survival until it was too rich in our blood, it was in our spit, in our eyes, in everything we longed for, we were thieves of pleasure, like a magician alluding his audience in mystery.
And where do all my last words go, when I am gone, when I am longer, who will speak of my legend, of the places I have seen, the people I have stolen from, or even put to waste, there is no author of my immorality.
I would like to think one day, my story to serve as a lesson to those of my hometown, of fear and shame, to never step foot in the shoes of Vincent Santos, for you will be HUNG to death.

The Sound of Her Voice

(November 4th, A Tree Base Stripped of Its Skin By Unknown Origin, 2009)

There is this sound every once in a while I remember as clear and as piercing as the day I heard it. It is the sound of a ghost that appeared one night every January in my room and my room alone. Every year it was something a little different, the first time it was some weird noises and glowing hand prints on the door, the other was that rustling and another ringing noise. Each year, another noise, odder and more frightening than the last. What separates the noise I speak of, the last one I heard was how it groaned from a place outside of anything I knew. It was the fear of the unknown itself that was struggling to breath, and so it just cried in a haunting matter, and let a thirteen year old boy lay on his bed, covered in blankets and with eyes pointing to a dark corner of his room where evil and demented sounds are originating from what could be an opening to another dimension.
I still get goose pimples when I think of that distorting sound with metallic textures and human vocal cords, and how it was straight out of a horror film, but it wasn't a movie, and it wasn't a nightmare, it was real, and unexplainable, real unexplainable. Even to this day, I wonder what that noise was, and I still believe it had to be a ghost, demon, or animal spirit of some kind (coyote, wolf, or owl?). The evidence is all there, a lady had died in that house, in January, and she probably died in that corner of my room, and my room alone, and I could only hope the new tenants aren't being disturbed, aren't being awoken in the middle of the night by a calling from another dimension, and fear that it will strike, that it will take you away, but not before it rips you apart, and steals your soul, not before that, please, not before that.

Every Morning

(Untitled, Nocturne, 2009)

In a time not too far from now there was something in the place of a missing chair, a cabinet to the left, and in my chest. I called it by name, and now that name is lost to me. In my hands are the same wrinkles that I had when I was a boy; my future is the same, my hands are just bigger now.
In the wake of a year, the parallel of the seasons I feel empty. I shall burrow in my gut, feed from the flesh, and become one again. Yes, alone again.

Time has told me with so many words, how meaningful can be meaningless like a shell or skin of an orange, missing it's fruitfulness. Of longing of things passed, and of wanting of things to come; patience is a blessing I call the impossible. Like dreams upon waking, I drift away in sunlight, and I call to the day speaking of the milky-way. Like stars, like the moon, afloat in the darkest of seas, swallowed whole, and alive still to shine through.

Maybe another day as I drift to sleep, of possibilities, of nameless strangers, and for chance to play. I'll call you Tomorrow.

A Dog's Love (for his owner)

(Suck It!, 2009)

My first dog's name is Tumbler, he was clumsy and often stumped his paw on this corner of furnishing or that leg of that furnishing. He got excited every time I came home from school, he jumps, he barks, he tries to bite my fingers, tries to bite them softly; just enough to tell me with the slightest pain that he is really happy I am home. And it is nice to be home with him, he loved me like no one else. He has knocked over enough of my mother's china to build a broken bridge to China, and he gets it from my mother. He tries to learn only to fail and do it all over again. My mother continues to put her China out on display, with a new cabinet every so often with hopes this one is the one and only she'll ever need to protect what is dear to her. But all of her memories of fancy luncheons and her travel souvenirs are lost when Tumbler's get lost in excitement leaving substitutes of how things once were.
It is a dog's love I tell my mother, but she knows best, he is a good but bad dog, and tries hard to listen and do, but fails to keep her memories unbroken, and he would show more remorse if he wasn't so happy. My father doesn't bother with Tumbler, he has The General, an old german shepherd that has gone on every hunting trip my father has gone on in his adult life. The General sees my Tumbler as young-and-dumb I'm sure, but there's enough respect there to keep them living under the same roof.

Tumbler died in the coldest winter I could remember, and it was a day I felt a deep sense of something leave me. I still don't know quite what that was, but there is a deep and sharp hole in the middle of my chest, and it is the color of dark red against white snow. My mother had enough I'm sure, I was old enough to take care of my dog, and when Tumbler being Tumbler excited as his puppy days knocked over the one and only cabinet, breaking the remains of her china and the memories they served, killing the cat, Stanford, and almost hitting my baby brother, Jeremiah, enough was enough. I wasn't home of course, and in a way, it was easier, and I feel guilty. I feel guilty for a few more things while I'm talking of guilt, and then I think of today, how it has been three years since, and I feel guilty moving on, and often forgetting the name and memory of Tumbler in the last years of grade school, and the world becoming a much different place than I had thought as each Spring is marked by the sound of birds returning and the new leaves on the oak trees that line the walk from home to school, and school to home, and over again.
My father doesn't talk much of him walking the dog in last few steps, and how it was surprisely not hard to lose the dog far enough to aim and fire. Or how Tumbler just sat there, confused, longing for his owner to return, and for a moment he was graceful like a watch-maker fitting one tiny gear in perfect place to fit another even tinier gear so that everything around it will function in perfect harmony until everything becomes rust.

I try hard not to be clumsy, I try hard to speak clearly, and to not to get so excited. I try hard not be a mess, but the truth is you drive me crazy.

Lay Down, Slowly

(Lay Down, Slowly (documentation shot), workinprogress, 2009)

Pushing the tall grass over, and making crop-circles, I hope you find this one day and decide to lay down. I want you to come here, I want you to take a load off, I want you to find peace. Rest with fallen leaves before it is too cold to press your face to the earth. Look up to the sky and see the sun shining between the trees. Over there is someone's home, and just along the path there are folks speaking of how wonderful this day has turned out. Enjoy it while it last, and remember the peace you found by sitting down for a moment, and breathing it all in. Lay down, slowly.

The Relative Stranger Project Begins

(What They Took and What They're Taking from Robin, R.S.P., 2009)

http://relativestrangerproject.blogspot.com/

Learning To Love Yourself (More) pt. 10

(Mother, 2009)

Easier Said (Then Done)

It's that sorry that isn't as much a sorry but a word to fill the required response. Tell her anything, you no longer matter. Hold her hand, and think hard on something nice, something wonderful that is far from her pain and sadness. Speak on impulse, speak of hope. Tell her everything is going to be ok, and leave it at that.
But something's missing, she's still sad, she's still crying, and your heart aches the more, and the more. Power slips from your smile, your eyes are useless, she lives in her shadow, alone and lonely. Nothing to say, and nothing to do, but you cannot leave, nor do you wish to. Help her through this, take her pain in your body, and leave her empty of it. Run out the window, smash through the glass, and on to the street, taking your life in a Hollywood ending. If only, you think, if only you could...

This time will last, and it will fall. Her color will return, and the dark times will be soon forgotten, and in its place will be something you both missed, and both didn't realize how much it mattered. These are the good times, holding and holding on. These are the good times, taking in every last detail, for you never know how long it will last.