Not Now Please

I’ve waited for hours and I can’t stop thinking maybe I shouldn’t have. It’s the beginning and the end all at once bringing excitement mixed with chest pains. Heartaches sound more accurate but I won’t touch those.

I push everything, everything that allows me to feel uneasy. Everything that makes me question. Everything that doesn’t have a clear voice. Your voice though I hear clearly and it’s telling me to wait. I don’t like that. I don’t like waiting.

One Please

My mind needs peace today. There is so much noise in there that it’s hard to stay focused on anything. So instead of trying to clear out the clutter, I close the door and watch whatever new Netflix TV series is popular; only to wake up the next day and have it start all over again. Maybe a moment of stillness just to let the voices in my mind resolve their conflict will help. Maybe a few deep breaths and the constant rotation will finally decide to stop. Maybe it will be replaced with a calm sway like a hammock or a slow dance.

Untitled

I thought I’d never write again. I’d admire the work of the real writers and move on from page to page, but god forbid I allow my true words to surface. I feel as though I don’t have the right to revisit the old me when it no longer serves. I gave everything up for something shapeless. For abstract considerations that I feel will make the grandest difference in this complex winner’s world stationed in the imagination. Odd that I want to be a writer but use every excuse to forgo the activity. Though it appears I’ve overcome, in a minute I can go back to the state of Bones that I’ve been in for the last two weeks. I want my contract to feel the same as it did moments earlier. Come back.

Strange Occurrence

The air touches more than the surface. Everything almost given remains hidden by land, one may be too tired to cross. A conversation un-had with emotions held at bay. Before name exchanging even existed. Before moments of awkwardness became attractive. Before the static sounded like music. Before numbers were man’s one true quest. The love that splits into twos never gets sent or picked up. Stopped by tumbleweeds and aggressive wind. Strangled by the absence of a body and one small reminder that a home phone sometimes never rings.

I hated my dad’s classes. He would take out his “Black Tapes”, his Black Law books, and his printed-out thick packets of information from whatever minister or professor he liked then and turn on his computer. It was only occasionally, but the topics of our history always left me feeling uneasy. As I’ve grown, I realized it wasn’t his fault the topics were oppressive to deal with, but I am fortunate he tried to prepare me for the outside world I was entering.

He is good at that.

I was homeschooled and in one of our many classes, I remember he made my brother and I draw a circle on the page in front of us and write these words.

“The space inside this circle represents my realm of knowledge. All that I think I know about whatever I think know is depicted right here within this circle! I must keep in mind that there is more to know than what is within the circumference of my awareness.”

I admired his way of storing and sharing information. His eyes lit up when he had the chance to but other times, he just kept his head in a book or focused on the new installment of monitors on his desk; only to interact again when his friends were around. The people who seemed to matter most.

What he does to me, I do to him. Even though in the deepest parts of our hearts all we want to do is hug each other. We choose to dance around it. We hurt each other, but we do it with love. I know it makes no sense, yet it’s true. I say nothing to protect us and he tells me nothing to keep my image of him from being damaged forever.

Everything he taught me I absorbed. I stood on a podium and to 300 people. I told them that quote he told me. I made them make a circle with their hands and recite these words, again.

“The space inside this circle represents my realm of knowledge. All that I think I know about whatever I think know is depicted right here within this circle! I must keep in mind that there is more to know than what is within the circumference of my awareness.”

I saw him watch me and I could feel how proud he was without having to look. There are moments when I love him with my whole heart and there are moments when I can’t because it hurts. But I always listen to him, just like I know he listens to me.

I love you in the way rain always escapes the forecast. It surprises me how much I always forget my umbrella. I love you and it’s hard because it’s hard to love myself sometimes.

We talk and clash because we both want to be right and since he can’t respond I will part with a piece of his song:

"A baby boy, amazing grace. The 20th of July, a special day. A father’s smile and mother’s tear. Through that special reunion, I appear. So full of life and so many dreams. Raised in the ghetto the eldest of three."

This sounds like me:

"A baby girl, amazing grace. The 25th of July, a special day. A father’s smile and mother’s tear. Through that special reunion, I appear. So full of life and so many dreams. Raised in the ghetto the youngest of three."

And this part sounds like us:

"Plans were made to visit Grandma and them. But underneath pops’ wings is where you’ll find me. Right before bed was the best of times. I swear moms can read a book and make it come to life. But maybe life pressure got to Mom and Dad. Made them change directions from the ones they had. Buckets of tears running down my face as I watch in pain my hero’s separating."

But with me and you, there are no separations.

I started this by looking up what love is. As we know it’s a quirk of ours to always have the right words with the right meanings. Yet, I stopped halfway through my inquiry right before being sucked into the argument; if love is a physical or an emotional state.

I stopped because I felt I didn't need anyone else’s theories, ideologies, or philosophies to express why I love you.

You challenge me.

Every day I wake up and I am invigorated by your need to know things — sometimes useful and other times just because.

I catch myself smiling when you take out your phone to search for the answer to anything that you come across that you don’t understand. Living with you is like being in a classroom with new lessons every minute. I say every minute because truly that is how it works with you. You love trying to understand how things work. All things if you could that’s why it’s hard to focus. Everything is attractive to our curiosity but we’re so limited in our time.

The human dilemma of time is another one of your favorite topics to stay up late and journal about.

I love your journals. You have a million of them, all decorated with the outline of your heart and mind —your process for trying to get them to understand each other.

I am captivated by the unraveling of you. The total abandonment of masks that I have the pleasure of being witness to. You are a challenge, worthwhile.

Love,

Me