Boquete, Panama (January 2013)

I'm sitting on a big rock by the river. The wind is a strong steady force that whistles through the trees and carries my hair and thoughts in all directions. The sun beats gently onto my back like the softest drum in the distance. Clouds race past in a hurry to cross the sky, constantly heading to nowhere in particular. All is loud and peaceful at once, this town may do with us what it will. We are not here to tell the wind which way to blow. I pray only that we are carried safely upon its tail. Le vent nous portera...ahora y siempre

Arooj Aftab

Training Wheels

Beleza

What is it that draws me to you so?

I am intrigued, this much is true. But why do you insist on infiltrating my subconscious? Why do I want your story so much to be mine?

I am moved, indeed it is true. You wouldn't care if I was here or there, yet I need to be a part of you in some way.

My story is my own. My heart beats with the drums of truth. So play, and I'll play mine. And if it happens that we become one, I make no assumptions that mine is the only heart that has ever met your palm.

Let the drums of life lead us where they may. From heart to palm we communicate as one.

Stop Beating Students

Me Gustan Los Estudiantes

Que vivan los estudiantes,
jardín de nuestra alegría,
son aves que no se asustan
de animal ni policía.
Y no le asustan las balas
ni el ladrar de la jauría.
Caramba y zamba la cosa,
qué viva la astronomía!

Me gustan los estudiantes
que rugen como los vientos
cuando les meten al oído
sotanas y regimientos.
Pajarillos libertarios
igual que los elementos.
Caramba y zamba la cosa,
qué vivan los experimentos!

Me gustan los estudiantes
porque levantan el pecho
cuando les dicen harina
sabiéndose que es afrecho.
Y no hacen el sordomudo
cuando se presente el hecho.
Caramba y zamba la cosa,
el código del derecho!

Me gustan los estudiantes
porque son la levadura
del pan que saldrá del horno
con toda su sabrosura.
Para la boca del pobre
que come con amargura.
Caramba y zamba la cosa,
viva la literatura!

Me gustan los estudiantes
que marchan sobre las ruinas,
con las banderas en alto
pa’ toda la estudiantina.
Son químicos y doctores,
cirujanos y dentistas.
Caramba y zamba la cosa,
vivan los especialistas!

Me gustan los estudiantes
que con muy clara elocuencia
a la bolsa negra sacra
le bajó las indulgencias.
Porque, hasta cuándo nos dura
señores, la penitencia.
Caramba y zamba la cosa,
qué viva toda la ciencia!
Caramba y zamba la cosa,
qué viva toda la ciencia!

Dear Life,

Hot damn, you sonofabitch! Keep it comin'...

-Dre

My Mind

If you want somebody who keeps what is on their mind to themselves, keep looking. It isn't me and it will never be. Keep looking.

August, First.

The screams echoed throughout the neighborhood like sirens alerting the town of danger. All motion ceased as listeners froze in fear. Again, the cries ring out. Everyone follows the sound to their front doors and there they are at the end of the block, ambulences and fire trucks. A tell tale sign of misfortune, these flashing monsters of the night. When no one in sight is running or rushing, our shoulders slouch with grief. Another soul is lost in the chill of a long summer night. We hold our loved ones nearer, whispering words of prayer and gratitude for each other and promises of a better life once the sun is risen. Just feet from the now muted weeping, life continues on in cars and speeding bicycles. So brief are the moments of silence that pass, the summer night is long with pain.

Sleep

You are no friend of mine tonight.

Death

He keeps sneaking up on me. Never quite grazes my skin, but I can smell him all around. I taste him in the morning like he has been lurking overhead all night, pushing into my dreams, the scent of death on my mourning breath.

These recent days have taught me that without life there is no death. And without life, there he is, waiting for my surrender.

Life shakes me out of sleepy spells and counts my blessings for me. I have forgotten to count between the self pity and unwritten the pages so now my swollen fingers lead the way for me. I've spent so much time reading the lives of others that mine went dim in the ever fading background.

Here I stand in the shadows. Waiting for my close up, my chance to touch the world. All the while chanting, all the while meditating in the cool breeze of dawn. My blessings never left me, they just disguised themselves as the clothes on my aching back.

Life

It comes and goes (lately)

Sooner than later for some, but we still all serve a purpose somehow.

Why hesitate?

Tears

No sense in crying when I'm allergic to my own.

Hey Vanessa

Remember when we were kids? You left a trail through my mom's planters so she added some bricks just for you. 15 steps to get you here, 15 to get you back. We got excited when they put the Blockbuster there and Tegan Rd was still a skinny little shit next to a field. We had to psych ourselves out to walk to the drugstore for candy on those blazing summer days, but it was always worth it once we hit that air conditioned dream of a place...whatever it was called back then. The twins know you like a sister now and my mom still kisses your head when she goes to sleep. So many families have come and gone through that same house, but I still refer to it as yours. You'd come over to talk to me about problems at home and sit on Laura's teeny tiny bed. We both had the same routine any time we entered the house; see who's watchin what, say what's up, open the cupboard, open the fridge. Man, you always tried convincing me to make us somethin to eat when you know damn well you could make it yourself, ha! Ass. And now we're both visitors there. It seems like that was a lifetime ago, but then again, I guess it was. A lifetime ago.

Good Morning Construction

To the day I woke up with that feeling in my gut. To the kicks that will carry me through my strut. And to you construction workers who lately have served as my morning wake up call, GAH! Bless you all...

Red Sweater

These days are a lot unlike those ones, at the same time we are all running parallel to ourselves. We dream and eat and live and all the while think we know what it is to ever wake up. What has been defined as dreaming, I'm finding, is quite the opposite, and so it goes for living. All I know are feelings. All I feel is what I'm allowed, or what I allow myself. These days are not unlike the ones I imagined, but where to draw the line between me and you? You are as real in my dreams as in what has been defined as my waking life. As for me, well perhaps it's just as well. Dreams don't end like books. Nor is there an underlying moral or theme. It's all of the in betweens and crosswalks and childhood record books and a mother's touch to bring me back...to sleep.

Humbled

*I come and go with the rain

*Dreams serve as my moonlit dinner for two
all goes my way when it's me who guides the bow across seas of string

*And she, the earth, my darling cluster of grace and chaos. My every will to dance, to work, to bleed, she bears the stake through which I drive me. She bears my every blow. It is she, the sea against my bow

Big Mouth

strikes...again.

where Does one draw the line between honesty and feelings?

exhausted.

His Visits

they spin my head and flip my insides over and release the streams of unwelcome light into my life. it's not the kind of light that leads me to the right, it gets me into fights with me and he claims the victory. so many years passed and back to that upward reaching kid. back to long phone calls between strangers (slash) twisted relatives. i said i loved him too. he said he loves me like i should believe him and i said i loved him too because i did. at least at some point in my life i think i did. but now they're just words to me. everything he might have said, anything i might have said were just words. but what i know to be true has never come from him directly, no. nothing ever comes from him directly unless if (and only if) it is coated with manipulation and ulterior motives or a fist.

To Be Continued...

One time, I fell in love..

"THE SYSTEM VOMITS PEOPLE."