Dreams and Paper-cut Epiphanies

Dreams and Paper-cut Epiphanies

Ever since starting the University I keep having a reoccurring dream, where I think I am being understood by the world only to open my mouth and speak Latin. As disbelieving and contradicting as it may sound, it isn’t easy for people to see me but at the same time I catch the eyes of many. I like to be unseen and unnoticeable though. It makes getting work done easier; makes writing easier; makes living life easier and writing about life easier.

The questions that are given- What do I do in life? What kind of work do I like doing? Do I feel at home in this country? Do I feel alienated? What does literature really mean to me? What do I love to read? Why am I here? What do home me to me? Is there a single place that means the world to me? Am I satisfied?

Firstly, I am never satisfied because I was spoil as a child. When my mother was dying, the single most important place in the world to me was by her side. If I close my eyes and try really hard I can still smell the decomposing fragrance of her body under the hazy of incents and perfume of our home. Or her husband’s home I should say. I didn’t mind the stank, I never did even at the very end.

As I child I wanted to dance, to be a ballerina. Before my mother married a second time, before we had money, and before my brother and I wasn’t denied much of anything anymore, I took lessons briefly. I will never know how my mother managed to pay for it. I was 6 years old. My cousin, whom I used to think, moved as a graceless newborn kitten, was in the same class as me. I used to envy her before I even knew the meaning of the world, and a small part of me still does this day. Even though I know I am smarter, more well liked, and not a druggie. I envied her greatly, for her magical power of being able to fit in better because of her light skin. I didn’t want to be dance anymore after the other girls started calling me Blackie.

Do I feel at home in this country? I was eighteen, attending a university party of irrelevance and making polite conversation when I found the answer to that question. When my turn came to tell the room my major and passion in life, I was gift with this callous response from the host, “Oh, journalism? Just to let you know seriously that the only reason you will probably be hire in news broadcasting is because you’re black and a woman and they probably need to fill a quota.” Nobody found anything wrong with her statement. No, I do not feel very much at home in this country at all.

The loneliness of my alienation in this country is like a prison. I feel captured and want nothing but to escape pass the overbearing iron gates of my inner isolation but the exit is bolted. I miss my mother when I am awake. Melancholy consumes swiftly and sometimes thoughts of death become a weighted heaviness inside me; it feels like a gilded key resting in my palm. Even if I am too appreciative to actually do away with myself, one can still dream cant they? And if there is one thing that I have learned in twenty-one years of existing is I dream very well and that preferring the company of books over people keeps my dreams vibrant. With each novel painting an intricate mosaic across my mindscape, I find solace every time I look upon its vivid reflection.

Literature means I get to see my mother because I dream of her often. She takes the form of my villain and my heroine of the latest piece I manage to conquer. I see her and I hate her for being so beautiful and healthy and so painstakingly there. She does not smell of decay and if I dare to touch, her skin will not freeze hell over. I know this intimately because my dream tells me so, in that funny way dreams do. I often lie and like to pretend I am not the daughter of a dead mother and delude myself in thinking I am not bitter.

Sometimes, I feel like the tiny black period placed at the end of a Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet XVLL or a Sylvia Plath’s poem. The ones that make me cry when I have thought there was going to be nothing sad enough for me to cry over again. I love to read poetry.

At the age of twenty I stood in the poetry section of a bookshop on the corner of Lake Drive and Robinson Road with no intentions on buying anything but just to smell the old pages. I remember, as I told the clerk I was searching for a mother’s day gift and that I won’t need help finding it, trying not to feel too much satisfaction in lying, but its hard to not smile when they are so easily fooled. I didn’t even fill a twinge of emotion when she replied earnestly, “Oh, you are such a good daughter. My son barely remembers to call on my birthday.”

I randomly pulled tomes from the shelves and flipped through them, hoping to get a paper cut even though I knew most if not all the books had long since lost their crispness. I don’t recall the time of day, but I remember it was warm inside the shop and dim. I stood in front of the poetry section idly flipping through a random book when something to my left caught my attention. It was a man, a rather short and husky man standing on his toes with his arm stretched above his head trying to reach a book that was too far out of his grasp. I was about to help when a painful sting in my finger distracted me. I had gotten a paper cut. I walked out that bookshop with a newly purchased used ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’, the poems and drawings of Shel Silverstein because I decided along with writing cookbooks food and music reviews I wanted to write children’s poetry and prose books.

There used to be a time when I thought home was in the arms of my mother. The one place where my dark skin was beautiful, my female body was a temple and my passions bright enough to light the world. Now I am not so sure, because ever since my mother died I keep having this reoccurring dream, where I think I am being understood by the world only to open my mouth and speak Latin.

Loneliness draft

Loneliness is like a prison. You feel captured and you want nothing but to runaway from it. Darkness consumes you and thoughts of death becomes comforting in the most relieving way. Even if you are too feeble to actually do away with yourself, one can still dream cant they?

The freedom of happiness looks like a hopeless wish. Its like looking in through a glass shield, you on one side and everyone else on the other. Every person around you seem to have joy eating them from the fucking inside out…looks painful. But no matter how painful it appears to be its nothing compared to the pain of being lonely. Who wants to be happy anyways? Its overrated and now a days its artificial anyways. But who am I fooling, I want to be happy, even if it is fake.

However, if you do ever find escape from your prison the feeling is mind boggling. Its like you’ve been born again and you have a fresh start. You have found someone or something that brings a reason for you to live again. They brought you the key of love and it is now beating through your body, but this is also something new there in place of that loneliness. Its a sensation that follows and have a tight hold on you. Its terror.

Fear that one day loneliness would come and find you again putting you back in to that dark, isolated prison. That is worst than simple loneliness itself. To have found and tasted freedom then to have it snatched away from you. It hurts like a bitch. So now not only are you back in that fucking prison there are chains holding you down to the floor.

Its subtle but when your first thrown back in to solitude you don’t realize it at first. However, slowly but surely you start falling into the alienated pattern of life you once was so accustom to. It happens and one day you find that you are now stuck in a drift of seclusion.

Once again your empty, lonely, and lost you want to die but the past wont let you. So now your back at the beginning but now the feeling is worst. For now you have the bitter sweetness of having haunting memories to keep you company, but now you have haunting memories to keep you company.

“We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.”

Orson Welles

Letter #214

YOU.

You. Yes, you. I am writing this for you.

I know you are reading this. And I want you to know I am writing this for you. No one else will understand. No one else knows. They think that this is for them. But it’s not. I am writing this for you.

I want you to know, life…it’s hard. Every day can be a challenge. It can be a challenge to get up in the morning. To get yourself out of bed. To put on that smile. But I want you to know, that smile is what keeps me going some days. You need to remember, even through the tough times, you are amazing. You really are.

You should be happy. You are gorgeous.

I know that the weather might not be perfect. You might have to turn your back to the wind or feel the cold nipping at your nose. But you know what, at least you are there to feel it. At least you can enjoy the sun’s warm rays on your face. Or that cold February wind biting at your cheeks. You know what that means?

You are alive.

Everything will be okay.

~ Letters I'll Never Send ~

Smoking moon

The man in the moon is awake
And he is tired. Taking the blame for the lonely nights. Fading, expanding. Burning in his chest wont let him sleep. Inhaling the clouds and letting the smoke carry him away.

A dark exchange.

Sunlight over me no matter what I do. My heart is being burned from Within my chest. No longer protected, no longer being held warmly in your palms and kissed softly with your poetry. Everyone holds flashlights that reveals my burnt spots. I try to block. Sunlight finds me no matter where I go.

Where ever you are, do you think of me? As I think of you. Are your hands cold and dark from where my heart once were? shadows that used to hide us from the world, are my shadows I can't seem to find. I want them back, damnit please. The sunlight hurts my eyes and burns my heart and leaves dry spots on my skin.. Give me back, give me back, give me back...my darkness.

need creates what idle curiosity does not

Runaway fast as you can

This one here's for the douche bags
This one here's for the assholes
This one here's for the scumbags
Every one of them that I know

This ones here's for the childless mothers
and the alcoholic fathers.
This ones here's for the brothers with misunderstood sisters
and the sister with insane brothers.

For the blind man that sees heaven
and the skeletons in the convicts closet.
For the celibate pedo
And the fatherless nun.
And the loosing football team

This one is for the bald chemo child
and the playground bully with low self esteem
This one here is for the class clown
without a best-friend.
For the second place prom queen

For the manic-depressed desk-worker at the office with his
cornflower blue tie and dead end job
And for the 2nd year collage counter girl at the cafe
down the street who's pregnant test just turned pink.

This one is for the rebels without a cause
and for the rebels with a cause
For the dirty red politic and the dirty blue politic
For the idiotic bank executives
And for the naive nation.

This one is for the rained on bench
and the dust that settles after the settlers
For the aching labor pains
and the still smoking coughing 30 years old pothead.

This one here is for the deaf man that sings hymns
and for the people who drives in circles from home to work
from work to home and repeat
This one here is for the ones that are stuck on repeat

This one here is for that couples favorite make out song
and for the divorcees living in hotels
For the sterile newly weds
and for the hoarding, spying neighbor

For the solder's mother
and the fire-man's wife
This one here is for the 17 year old convict
and the 84 year old convict also

This one here is for the Haitians earthquakes
The Japanese Tsunami
And the Indian Ocean Tsunami too
The Orleanan's Katrina
The Guantanamo Bay Prisoners water-boards
For the Tangshan earthquake
And for China's flood
For the immigrants and refugees
For the child solder's

This one here is for the street solder's too
This one here is for the only child
and for the youngest.
For the introverted smart kid in the back with just two friends
one of them being imaginary.
and for the lonely extroverted social butterfly.

This is for the ones who have to deal with the single to
its complicated status updates
and for the ones who have no new messages
for the past four days

For everyone
thats been puttin' up with shit on shit for just way too long
I think it's time for us to have a toast
Let's have a toast for the douche bags
Let's have a toast for the assholes
Let's have a toast for the scumbags

You guys know what do right?
If you dont then all you have to do is
ask someone who knows the plan.

Those Curious Knives (spoken word poetry)

The first time I heard the sounds of sex I was 8. Standing with fear and curiosity outside my parents bedroom door. Clutching a bag of stolen chips and a glass of grape juice. I was going to have a late night tea party but instead of innocent giggles of imagination I got very real debauchery. Even at the age of 8
my plans always had an annoying way of turning to shit.

And my over active imagination went for a walk down a dark path.

From the cries and pleading, moaning and groaning I thought my mom was getting murdered, mutilated. and stabbed. Which technically she was just not with a knife. Oh no not with a knife. I didnt investigate but made flight for my instincts to fight was undeveloped. And by morning the incident was already forgotten as most memories of childhood fade into the minds dark night. But in that moment standing outside that door a seed was planted.

The first girl I ever kissed was named Santanna. She had the softest lips. Two moth wings, virgin-touches brushed mines was the most tickling sensation I had ever felt.
If my black skin could blush I would have been a cherry. A cherry that I would have given Santanna to pop but wouldnt understand the intricate, delicate, meaning of such a gift in my prepubescent idles.

She had straighten permed hair. That laid flat on her head. Her skin was darker than mine. A kind of black that was purple. She told me she didnt mind it if I called her Blackie since I was special. But I never did. Because I was not a cruel school bully with low self-esteem but a girl with a love-crush. I thought we would get married in a tree and kiss in the leaves just because we could.

When I first realized that if I nibbled on Santanna's ear and tweaked her nipples she would moan my name, as if I was her God in that moment from that planted seed years ago a monster was born. A horny, curious, mannish little boy with a secret. The fruit dont fall far from the tree and I was definitely my father's daughters though. But I wanted to be the husband fuck being the wife, because boys had more fun.

The breadcrumbs of the pleasure are meant to be followed by the starved, and I had just tasted the donuts, croissants, french breads, gateaus of all cakes. Santanna was the filling that I craved, my own slice of American pie that I wanted to fuck in the kitchen.

When my father found Santanna and I kissing he gave me a wink and a round of applause.

When mom found Santanna and I kissing I received no standing ovation. It was a lazy afternoon, on my bed. Naturally, me on top. Santanna's Crying and pleading, moaning and groaning. Her lips still softer than rain so I drank. Every. Last. Drop.

With Mother listening with wide eyes, trembling hands, and silent fury which didnt remain silent for long.

I couldnt help but to wonder if her first thoughts, standing outside my closed bedroom door, holding the days laundry, were that I was murdering Santanna with my knife that wasnt really a knife.

The And Series

Ball and Chain

I want to love you.
I said to my body.

A type of feather-light love that wouldnt
strain bone, crack spines or
bruise my lips when I lie.

Body. I said, this shit aint fair
what your doing to me.
Your too heavy and I am sinking
into this wine too hard and too fast.

With your heavy love feeling like the
ball and chain around my thighs
My thighs are, sore thighs.
With the amount of strangers that keep
falling in betwixt and between.

I want to love you,
but you make my arms too heavy.

Honey I said, this shit aint fair
what your doing to me.
As I sink into
the winetoo hard and too fast.

--

Dependency versus Cruelty

Dependency is not a weakness but a default in ones character that is priceless.
Cruelty is never being able to spend another night in another arms.
Afraid of waking up to them fucking me bloody, bruised, red, and raw.

---

Blood and sTeam

I fill the hollow inside your bones.
And pounding on your ear, till I become known.
Do you feel me run my

fingers calmlyalong the sides your chambers?
I have no choice but to float
as you force me, pump me, and push me.

Do you feel me behind your eyes
As I see you before mines?
I turn cold inside your shivers.

So please dont feed me too much
sugar and clog up our world with too much
fucking syrup and honey.

--

Dehydration and Sex
Lips softer than rain
I drank. Every. Last. Drop

--

The Bed Spoke and Smiled

The bed was crowded; not that it mind. Havin' a day off from bein'
weighed down by her loneliness was refreshin.

---
Untitled and Melancholy

Hope only breeds eternal misery
When you look into the abyss

The abyss
will be looking back into you.

So be careful in what you hope to find,
you may receive hell within
your own confines.


---

I dont love you anymore.


Her stare was hard.
Like a rock that was thrown from her hand
and was caught by
my face.

I can taste blood
from where I accidentally bit the insides of
my cheek.

And fuck did it hurt.
the stare. Not the rock metaphor used
to describe the stare.
That was all figurative

But the 5 words that
followed was the actual pull of the trigger
 to the gun that released
the metal bullet which pierced
my heart and literally killed me.

You're sick, sick as all the
Secrets that you deny
Give me something to cure
You, please.

Unfinished...

Our perception of what we think is perfect changes.
As we can only live the lives, we call our own.

Only two eyes can take in human daily exchanges,
For more would only bring confusion to his song.

Most can't understand the melodies of a Lucifarian Lullalby
How can a mere human fully understand separation anxiety.

When there exist angels whoes halo viberates with each line
In humbling yet frightening vulnerability.

Moment to moment is unfortunately how most will live human lives
Instead of feeling to feeling,

mmm...

"My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mid, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Ch. 4

Desires

"I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Ch. 1

Oscar Wilde

"The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Ch. 1

I am a greedy bitch

The breadcrumbs of the pleasure
are meant to be followed by the starved.
Casual touches and confessions
dictates how badly craving hurts.

Pleasure being a fucking tease.
Art making it easy to moan out ballots
and love-
Oh love, you are
an illusion of my desire.

A liar with knack for making me yearn.
A thief that steals my breath
every time it knocks on the door asking,
'Please let me in. It's hot
all I ask is for a small drink.'

A very good liar.
Really love you are asking for something more.
Something more than just a simple sample.
More than a simple pleasure which
I could give
but only in small quantities.
And we both know that will never be enough
for your parched throat and empty tummy.

But any more would be
taking away from the meal that I
plan on feeding myself.
Lucky for the both of us
And I am a greedy bitch.

Sad Poems

Sad Poems

Anais Nin

Anxiety is loves greatest killer.
It makes others feel as you might
when a drowning man holds on to you.
You want to save him, but you
know he will strangle you with his panic.

In some we see

I have an headache
From sleeping in the sun for
too long.

Trying my hardest to dream my life away
For I am the daughter who longs to
Return to the dark womb

To take the place of her stillborn sister
And have only undeveloped dreams
Of the chilled outside world.
Unaware of demons, gods, angels, saints, and spirits
Unaware of expectations you didn't want
Lover you desperately need

But I am 20 years too late with my request
Said mother because there is no way your getting your
ass back in.

But I was relentless and determined and tired
I ask, well can't you take me in your arms instead?
Let me rest my head against your bare chest
And sway me to sleep?

I still think till this day I broke her heart
She saw herself in my broken sadness.
And saw that she couldn't fix me because
She was fighting, battling, and tossing and turning
herself

The next night mother wore her favorite light blue
nightgown, and went to sleep hanging from the ceiling.

Now I am stuck alone
with 20 years of experiences
20 years of unrest and
20 years of living a still death.

So far only being able to find
3 ultimates trues of life

1. That the most intimate place to kiss a women
is on the Inside of her wrist
In between the creases because
No two lips coming together
Will ever be sacred again

2. Empathy is a weapon
Ignorance is the gun
And the target is man

And I have been walking around
With the biggest fucking target painted red
On my forehead.

3. There are three kinds of insomniacs in the world
Those who won't fall asleep
Those who can't fall asleep
And those who can't stay asleep.

The frustration lay in knowing you
Can and knowing you can't at the same time

Happy April Fools day.
A boy in my french class.
S'mpelle Christian
Its his birthday today.

Happy Birthday Christian

I am uncertain of everything
Not so sure in my actions

Be my puppeteer says life
But you must tie your own strings

Uncertainty.