No (love?) Lost

My brother (who has been married for almost two years now) says that I do not understand what it means to be in love.

He's probably right. Not that it's my fault.

Maybe it is.

Love.

I guess I don't really know what it means. I wish I could understand it, but at the same time, I really don't. If what I've been through wasn't love, it hurt bad enough that whatever love might be scares the shit out of me.

Have you ever wanted someone so badly that you thought you would die if you couldn't be near them? And then, you find out that you can't. Love breaks her promise. You can't have what you wanted and it didn't kill you. You have to live without it.

That's why I never pitied Romeo and Juliet. At least they had something that was real. They both felt it, and once it was gone, neither of them had to endure that loss for very long. I, on the other hand, am a living, breathing regret. A monument to loves broken promise.

I talk to God a lot about this stuff. I try not to yell or swear, but it rarely holds up for very long. They say that he never wastes a hurt, never hurts us more than we can handle. There are days that I find that hard to believe. I feel like a dog with a choke collar. Sometimes I just doesn't understand that I'm supposed to move when it tightens around my neck. And love was pulling strings in my life for as long as I can remember. Can I be free of it for just this once? It's got a hold on me, and I can't find anything positive in it.

That's why I shirk away from the question when people ask me if I'm "interested in anyone." As though mild interest was really what it was about. As if it were that simple. I feel like that question is like asking someone if they want to stop by the dentist for a root canal. It's a ridiculous question. That's just not the way things are done. One must first decide if it is something that is necessary, and if they can afford to cover the cost.

Because it does cost.

Sometimes with out the payoff.

So no, I'm not "interested in anyone" right now.

I'm still catching my breath.

Life of a Starving Artist in Haiku

I was trying to come up with something to read at my open mic night this week. I've been really busy, and I haven't had time to write anything really long, so I tried my hand at haiku. I wanted to write things about my life that frustrated me. I wanted to get like three or four of them, but I had so much fun that I did fifteen. I really want to share them with you all. I categorized them for easy reference:)

JOB

Hello sir. Can I

Get you a glass of wine to

Wash down that smug look?

Thanks for applying

We want you to have this job

Oh. You're an artist

I have a B.S.

It's really a B.A., but

It's in film, so... yeah.

Account overdrawn

I want to change perspective

Paycheck underdrawn.

I am a waiter

Until something better comes

my job is to wait.

GIRLS

You must wait until

My heart stops beating so fast

Then I will call you.

ROOMMATES

I will wash dishes

When hell freezes or I write

My English paper

Arhythmic snoring

If you take requests could you

Sing soft in your sleep?

Your girlfriend giggles

When you tickle her elbows

I'll cut off your hands.

Heavy metal songs

Fill my ears in the mornings

I need a Q tip.

I wish I could say

"Go to bed, it's 3 AM"

In Vietnamese.

I like loud music

until I'm tired and have to

work in the morning.

I know how to sleep

With the lights on and a big

pillow on my face.

MISC.

Bumbling hornet.

How are you inside my car?

Did you bring a friend?

Is it chocolate chips?

I found in my silverware?

Never mind, rat shit.

Haha. Sorry about that. It made me giggle.

A Prayer For Cindy Park

Awake in me

Soul of a floating shipwreck on a war torn sea

Whose tidal patterns never cease

To tear

At the foundations of the rocks who stand firm

on the ever- decreasing shore

Break this ship from your beach

Sign your sail to the wind

That echoes my name

This untamed ocean of mine moves

In shifts

In phases

Effaces

The shore lined sand castles

Where all my children used to live.

Break free of this earth

And let your heart be led

To a place where feet will find no solid space

to tread

My love

Means never wondering when

Your toes will touch on solid earth again

I will rename you in ruin

In the salt

In the pounding current events

Floating driftwood, keep your lungs

Just above the water

Just beyond the vanishing point

My thoughts of you

Would eclipse the moon

If I could stack them on your tired head

Drown in me

Let slide to deep

These skeletons that you carry

On your slowly breaking back.

Never will you stand on your own two feet again.

Oh waves, hold me back

Oh ocean

Oh beautiful

Floating shipwreck.

Beautiful Hurt

Besides the arhythmic snoring and teeth-grinding of my roommate, it's completely quiet here at home. I'll miss him when he's gone. I said that once before, when it was a distant thought, a glimmering possibility, far off enough to almost be untrue, but now I know. Acceptance letter arrived a few nights ago. He's going to be an architect.

I'm so proud of him. He worked so hard and he deserves this.

I'm letting it sink in that I'm going to be alone soon. That I will have to share this room someday with a stranger (though I'll likely be the stranger of us two). I'm not sad about it. I've stretched and worn my supply of sadness in this life, like moth-eaten winter coat. Like a pair of ripped burlap shoes that should have been thrown out long ago. I'm not able to be sad anymore.

I carry all my hurt with me. It's been a long time.

I went to a party tonight. Surrounded by people I know and love. It was Rika's Birthday party. I just wandered the room for most of the night, watching them all. I still don't know what to do around people. I like the quiet. The stillness of night time. The hush reaches a deafening pace about 1 AM. It helps me remember.

I've been hurt. I've been hurt a lot, with few moments of real remembrance. I have no interest in why anymore. I don't feel the need to keep asking that question. Not in the quiet, black speckled with black night that I don't have to share with anyone. This time is ours. My God and me.

Is it vanity? Is it narcissism? That I imagine I can feel the Earth picking up speed, swirling around the sun at such a rate that I may one day just slip off it, and be crushed under the gravitational thrust of something so much greater than me? I feel pinned to the ground of this great massive weight of sky, like a bug trapped in a spider's nest.

I am not afraid.

Fear will do me no good any longer. I've lost. I chose loss, and it found me. It sought me out, and tried to remake me. Now I carry the weight of my pain on my back. I carry all of them. The ones that hurt me. The ones that tried to help me. The ones that see me as beyond helping.

People ask me about it all the time. This pain that I keep hidden. They want to know so that they can lift it off my shoulders, perhaps so that I might breathe again.

I gave up on breathing long ago. I wouldn't trade my pain for a world of happiness, if such a thing existed. I met you through it. I can see something in it too. Something deeper than happiness. My pain is a beautiful pain, that I can't put completely into words, or paint on any canvas. None will stretch far enough.

I am grateful. I have been touched by something deeper, darker, and more rich in color than anything I could ever have taken upon myself. I have fallen head over heels for the hurt that found me. Alone is not a punishment. Pain is not a punishment. I will not run from it any longer.

Birds On The Brain

Last night I went to an open mic night.

Not my open mic night. Someone else's.

See, I met this guy two weeks ago who said he could hook me up with a venue in Santa Ana so that I could have a fundraiser for my movie that I have to make this year to prove that I'm not a failure. I can't remember who I am trying to prove this to, but it's important nonetheless.

This guy said he was going to the open mic night at The Gypsy Den in Santa Ana. I'm decide that I'll go too, since I want to network with him and the circle of artists he knows along with the ones I know... I'm not really sure if that's something I care about or if it's something I know I'm supposed to care about so I fake it when I'm around people who do.

Doesn't matter. I'm here.

And he's...

...not.

I don't think there's such a thing as wasting your time (with the exception of most things you can do on the internet). I think that if you're paying attention, something cool can always happen. God does stuff like that. Plus, the guy that runs the event says that if he can get through 25 people on the list, he'll let me read. Alright, I'm staying.

I'm working on a collection of children's poems, in the only way I know how to work on a collection of children's poems: By NOT working on a collection of children's poems. Although, if you were to ask me what I was doing, I would say that I was working on a collection of children's poems. In fact, that's what the girl sitting next to me asked, and that's what I told her.

I was doodling.

I feel like I might have met someone like her before. She reminds me of one of my sisters. Not any one in particular, just that she had a look, a manner of speaking and dressing herself that reminded me of the four intelligent, capable women that I have come to spend most of my time thinking about and interacting with. That's probably why we ended up talking so candidly. She came by herself, and so did I, and since the place was crowded, we elected to sit together.

The funny thing is, she had almost no interest in my poems. She kept staring at the picture I was drawing. I was drawing a lot of birds. Don't know why. A few of my good friends are afraid of birds. I think that makes birds even more interesting. It's not like they mean to frighten anyone...

We ended up talking about a lot of things, like why one should use a music stand, the existence of God, stage fright, and weather or not there was a long line in the bathroom. About 3/4 of the way though the set, she gets up, and begins one of the weirdest interactions I have had with a stranger in a long time.

"I have to go. But I think you should draw pictures for people."

"What?"

"I think you should draw pictures for people. I really do."

"Um... okay, I'll think about it."

"I'm serious."

"Yeah, okay."

"No, I'm really serious."

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

Then she walked away. This easily qualifies as my WTF moment of the month. If anything stranger than that happens in the next two weeks, I will let you know.

Does anybody have any idea what that could mean?

Tornadoes and Chicken Stock

Question: What happens when a poor post-college student who has survived for the past year on canned pinto beans and macaroni finally makes enough money at his job(s) to afford groceries?

Answer:

Be nice to me, my loyal reader(s). I have leftovers.

And perhaps jump to my defense against Sean, HyounJun, Jon, Jairus, and Peter, because it's 2:30 in the morning, and I'm totally not cleaning up the mess I made in the kitchen until tomorrow.

It's still raining down here. It hails sometimes, and it rains a lot. Everywhere I go in Orange county today, I see something flooding.

Sean said that this could be the beginning of Armageddon. I think that when Armageddon really does come, it won't take more than a couple of days of rain to wipe out the OC. We're pretty spoiled down here, so I figure... why waste the fire power?

It was funny to go to work during the tornado warning. Every adult in the school had this pale, dead look on their faces. Probably because they are responsible for the lives of so many little children. Not that they had to work so very hard to keep the children from worrying...

I remember Yessica. Six years old with a smile that pushed the boundaries of her ears. She was spinning around, dancing in the rain. She twirled in small circles with her fingers up in the air as the weather could not even hold its sour expression for long after meeting her. The rain began to cease. The sun began to shine.

"Everyone today is scared, but I wasn't scared."

"That's good, to not be scared."

"Mr. Stephen, do you know who Dios is? God?"

"Yes I do."

"I told him to stop the rain, so that no one would be scared anymore."

I guess all you have to do is ask.

She smiles and the sun shines. She talks to Dios, and He sweeps the storm clouds out of her way. Now I understand Why Jesus said that we had to be like children. Not because we need to think more simply, but because they understand something that we forget when we grow up. It is not easy to remain that way.

But it is possible to learn.

We were walking to the back of the school to wait for parents after tutoring let out for the day. She was walking far ahead. I moved quickly to catch up, the others trailing along beside me. She looked back, and quickened her pace, smiling. I moved faster as well. Those behind me followed suit.

Does anyone out there remember what it feels like to run as far as you can, as fast as you can, just because you can? I forgot what that was like. I got to remember, as we raced to the back fence, laughing and doing our best not to slip on the wet blacktop. Diego and Marian finally passed me up, right as we saw the fence, their faces red with the type of laughter that just barely escapes your cheeks when you breathe. They don't really speak English yet, those two. I think I will learn a lot from them this year. It makes sense. I've learned so much already.

Curl up with a hot bowl of soup this week, and think about what six years old feels like. Is it just me, or does being an adult sound like some sort of punishment we endure for doubting the source of the rain?

The Smell of Raindrops on Rooftops, Black Tops, High Tops

There's something about the smell of fresh bread baking in your oven while it's raining outside that makes it extremely satisfying to be alive.

It's raining in Orange County.

Real rain, like the kind that washed your car for you. Like the kind that makes your socks wet when you misjudge the depth of a puddle in front of the house.

My socks are wet.

It's raining.

I remember that I am now an adult, and that I am supposed to be very serious all the time, now that I can drive a car. I am supposed to watch television and movies to enjoy myself, because they provide a form of escape. I think I won't escape from today. I think that today I missed my cue to exit.

Happy Monday, world. You didn't get the best of me this time.