saci (ghost boy in the whirlwind)

you say i met you in the midst of you own great depression
i walked in to see you, this man amazing
yet to be
i didn't think much
and taught you how to dance.

that moment
you broken and lost
missed me by a few unmeasured observational moments.

from then on you would be my b boy and i would be your sweet and tangye.

no love lost in the distance
we would ebb and flow out of each other's lives for some time

i have something that belongs to you
something i have been meaning to tell you i've had.

i forgot about it in the midst of the next big super storm that would hit NY
which was your death.

not yet processed i keep coming back to your page to remind myself of the new truth.

when she told me
i wasn't really sure what she meant
but as the days have settled and things have not changed
i have sat with the silence and tried to feel you

perhaps you have been drifting in and about
and i have witnessed you in my dreams

i hear laughter
which is how i choose to remember you and all the others that have been lost to my touch

i don't feel the urgency of you being confused about who and where you are-
i feel you are content b boy.

the calm i walked in on that day may have been a disillusioned sense of grief
but it is settled now
and i am happy for you in this new found standing.

your favorite plate which has now become my favorite
will continue to present me with food and a reminder that we are all feeding ourselves the same truths
of how ugly and beautiful this life can be

thank you for the lessons i have yet to learn in your passing my brown, queer brother.
i am grateful to have an angel at your caliber to guide me into my own transformation

but then again you belong to the world and everyone you have touched in spirit, word, and laughter

sending you off b boy is not something i wanted to do just yet
we had more laughs and silly realizations to share.

but now you are everyone's ghost
and light.

from here to gone i will recall you brandon boy
and maybe one day i will get close enough to tell you i love you...

blood ties remade...

louder
lips speak louder.

she tells me she went there to bring me home.

i was capsized by the very small place in the world that i felt i occupied.
death
and truth
all held a strong precedent to the forgiveness that came before.

i tell her now
sitting in the comfort of our home
that i never thought i could provide for her
or myself-
i tell her
that my life has been first and foremost a lesson in forgiveness.

simply put.

i would be an orphan yet again if i was stunned by the inflexibility of forgineness.

but then again, wouldn't we all.

so here we are, walking wounded in the world believing that we are martyrs for learning to forgive the biggest and baddest trespasses against us
regardless of religion inside.

never a victim
but merely in the places that didn't have our best interests in mind,
we walked into a moment that was unforgiving and weak with someone who was even weaker and forgive less.

no sense to walk out of what we walked in to
we witnessed
and recognized,
even if years or decades later,
that something,
some body was not where it was meant to be.

nevertheless
we moved through that moment
and into and onto another.

our scar tissue thicker and stronger the more wounded we became
the more resilient we were.

i have never wanted it to have been any different, really.
i have merely said,
shit happens,
and it breaks you
or it doesn't.

i have chosen to live by the later
and i am fine.

so, back to her strong sense of non forgiving
she is a self appointed reckoner of misdeeds in my life
she holds those memories and she holds the list of mis doings against me.

i tell her to breathe into the space between me and those past moments
to fill up the space the same ways i have

but she stands guard differently than the others
she is more awake.

i now know why that is.

she is my keeper
and to ask any different of her
would be asking her not to be her.

for her solidarity to me
i feel safe
i feel strong

and i feel more room to forgive..

under your breath..

seriously i'd give anything for her to give me a minute in her mind.
so much time in this life of mine showcasing,
reminiscing,
replaying,
remembering words she said and then the words she never said thereafter.

i have loved this girl/woman since i was 13. i mean seriously been in LOVE with his woman/girl since i was young. i have tried to make myself important to her but in reality i am nothing but aluminum cans in a bag to her. i am unable to move forward from her despite how far ahead i push.

first love is never ending the same way yelling 'falling timber' never loses it's meaning.

i don't know how to stop it,
how to digress,
or forget her.
she denies me and the memory of what she taught me. married with 2 kids she is hardly the lesbian vixen she was in 10th grade.
hell, none of us are.
but still i crave, and i want some recognition in her, something to admit that she remembers those adolescent moments where she moved me from girl to young woman.

same but not the same with those boys with their endless needs. i don't feel the need to reconnect there. i may have loved those boys and men but with tracy there is no comparing.
with her i want to go learn my lesson in love again and again despite the ceaseless heartache that would endure.

i am still manifesting her to me in some way. i don't want some drawn out love affair some 23 yrs later
i just want some recognition.

tell me, there's nothing wrong in that. i just want to end the back room yearning so i can bury the memory.

parsons bed...

it takes a while to shake this shit loose in me

it takes a while for me to step into the moments where i can make sense between the heart and mind.

in my ears i hear a profound rhythm and despite not having made one of my own in quite some time- i appreciate the movement and precision entering me.

i am ready to strip down
i ready to remove the city on my skin
and let the road take me away

it's been long enough that i know i don't belong
and i know i need to get back to something simpler.

it's sickening to never be reminded, in a world fabricated,
that we are merely moving in empty cycles that don't resemble and often overwrite our true intentions.

i am a perfect poster child for consumption. i want and i want.
i told her of how i wanted another in the beginning, someone who i thought beautiful and broken who was not even close to being fixed the way we endlessly work to be fixed. i asked her who she would want if she could have that moment of abandon and of course she mentions some top tier, totally together woman who no one could ever hope to evolve to, successfully.

i sat in admittance of failure in my lustful wish of make out dreams and i sat straight up and said- i recognize and am drawn to the unfinished soul merely because it's a comforting reminder that we all have work to do. why would i lust for the "perfect" being, unless i was convinced i was settling for failure?

needless to say i love my choice despite how faulty and human she is. it only made me love my ellen more, because i recognize how close to fine she is, which is so unlike me.

and i like that.

dizzy, loud and free...

time..
as i follow through the awkward movements of moving forward
i am suddenly summoned back
to the time when things were intact-
a little-
or perhaps more than they were thereafter.

i am reckoned by the mail i received
and the message shortly beforehand
and then again by the introductions that came many years and lifetimes after.

loudly they call my name which i recognize in the formalized spelling and swift emails.
i miss you all i think to myself
and then again i don't.
the faces and places that we shared remind me that life has moved forward
that life has carried on with and without the ones i have loved.

i am contemplating returning.
to those very places that wounded me.

words said by a big brother
darkness and ill intent all live in those places
in that state
that i was resigned to grow up in.

in one way or another
i want to return,
says the woman i am now.
i never want to return,
says the memories of the child that still resides in my bones, done growing and getting older.

i have memories

and some are not pretty.
some moved me up in the experiences i shared,
the loves i found,
and the stones i turned without direction.

in those places i have friends
some who never knew
some who had their own stories
i never asked to know.

still, we ask and we crave to see those faces that knew us when we were young
and presumably innocent.

i crave those faces
for reasons that have nothing to do with my place and my knowing in the world,
pushed further along in the worldly experience than i had a right to know back then.

i crave those faces because they set me up to return to a place where love lived.

and that is enough to release the unreconciled child in me.

do as i say...

I don't know how to make myself less available.

i tell this to few who know me and i get feedback that helps if only i could hear it.

i am lost.
i am in transition.

and i feel fucked up.

i am bleeding and
it's a full moon.
venus is passing the sun
and i feel compelled to allow the chaos to take a hold.

i climbed the fence
and i danced in the rain.
i am challenging my laptop to the rain
as i refuse to sit inside
and be un assertive to the weather that feeds my mood.

i am here
with who i am
and i am confused.

i am digging deep
for no reason other than it suits me
and i am no closer to conclusion.

the book(s) i've read
in the last year that almost marks the full year since your death
dizzy me in the forceful reminder of you being gone now for almost a year, brother.

they force me to believe
and give me strange ideas
as to who and where you are now
and further more how you are here with me.

i follow your shadows as they reveal themselves
and i call your name.

i call the names of others whom i don't yet know

and they all respond in their own way.

i don't know how to gap the living from the dead but i make sense of my reality as best i can.

i ask you brother to show me the way and i hope that you are still in a realm that includes me.
i get distracted messages and i hear myself in the midst telling me to just notice the silence of things and listen.

i am trying to listen
and i am also trying to ask the right questions.

i walk away sometimes defeated by my own voice
my insecurities
and i am reminded, by the right people, to stay true to myself.

i beg of the world one thing.

to call me out on my shit

and the world today said-
if you were listening right to yourself
you wouldn't need the outside world..

i heard it and i didn't.

i want interaction.
i know i can't do this on my own.
i need leaders
and i need mentors
i have been asking for them
and they have yet to appear the way i can recognize.

i know i have to first quiet my own discourse to see it
to feel it.

and i'm on my way.

but sometimes my own feet don't move fast enough...

my girl is..

anything than i thought she'd be
she's stronger than superman
she's lighter than a shadow of light
she's smarter than under dog and wonder woman the same

the girl has more on anybody than fishnets
on a drag queen or dancer in a dark hall.

she can mesmerize me with her logic
and she can woo me with her wonder
she's one of a kind in a million.

i like to work it loud
on my drums
in my voice
and with my swaying body to a mismatched rhythm

but she's there
winking at me from the basement stairs
on her way up
so aware
of what's going on
so in line with where i'm at
in the moment of release.

i can't forget that what i got is
better than what's out there
she's a believer and an advocate of
everything inside of me.

to her i owe so much.

my love,
my back
my everything.

as she sleeps upstairs amidst my yells of release in some top 40 song
with the dogs uneasy of my angst
i realize
finally
that i have someone who gets this
gets me


and that's everything

my girl is...

my normative..

the last thing before her death that she said was- i'm going to freshen up then i'll be back to suck you dry.

it was that that has stuck with me-
i am besieged by moments like these that represent both insightfullness and ignorance.

i am left with a feeling of despair-
not only in her death
but in the the lack of awakening-
at birth we lose ourselves as we evolve and subscribe to the awkward residence of being human.
i left the darkness of that stage disappointed with myself and everyone i've ever come across because we blindly and willingly lose ourselves to the status quo.

no one challenges the indoctrinated canon anymore.
no one thinks this is all madness to such degrees that they'd rather be blind than to witness such disgrace done to and amongst us.

i am one of "them" and one of "those"
and i hate that.

i hate that my chest is tight whenever someone and something creative breaks open and challenges the so called typical life that i've come to live. i cower to the outsider and seek the shelter of my fellow conformers.
i recognize that my creativity is so boxed- at least what i reveal to the world.
i challenge myself and i fall to the wayside of typical time and time again.

it's not about clothes,
it's not about purposely not using commas-
it's not about feeling like i have to maintain a certain weight to be loved by my lover-
it's not about being polite and feeling obligated to make others comfortable
and it's not about giving a shit whether what i say is kosher enough for the ears that over hear and secretly check in on what i'm saying and how i deliver my message.

i have become a product.
i have become another voice piece for brands.
i have become exactly what they want me to be.
which is nothing.
which is predictable.
which is not the real me.

i was born to a place where i was like everyone else
and i was raised in a place where few looked or acted like me-
yet somehow i have found my sub culture
blends nicely within the masses.

we are political
we are educated
we have opinions
and we are creative

yet somewhere along the lines
we gave in
and gave up
on trying to beat the big boxes
and the big white males
that already had a plan for us

and that was to be exotic,
and to have false impressions of ourselves
and our sisters
and to feel like our own bodies
were not truly ours-
but
available
and purposeful
only if someone could buy our ideas and our minds
and our bodies..

i am angry that i have so willingly given in to this idea
that america-
that loving women
and saying what i have to say as i have learned my truth
out loud is shameful
or likely to get me deported
or likely to get me punished for no other reason than to scare me back into my place.

i need
i want to change who i am
in this
i want to change who i have become
i want to claim myself
for myself
and only me
and be beautiful in my way and no others.

but mostly i want to undo the submission
and the lackluster life that i have come to represent
not just in theory but in every way..
that i know and don't know how..

fuck the establishment
fuck everyone who gives up
and takes the easy way out
fuck you for giving me few options
and telling me there is no other way
i will continue to find the way that is true to me
true to this
and true at all...

summation...

the smell outside reminds me
i am alive.

the scent of her reminds me i've been dishonest.

the warmth of my lover tells me i've changed

and the aches and pains throughout my body
force me to recognize that i am still in training
for this life.

my strong voice and stronger appetite
reminds me that i'm a force to be reckoned with
if that's what it takes.

smiles unreturned tell me that someone has been failed
somewhere along the way.

missing the truest love of my life at this hour
reminds me that i have been healed.

pictures of strangers and the stories they tell...

perhaps my views of her are outdated…
what a fucking concept.

My issues with the mother figure in my life are expansive.
Always withholding
Never fully present
Too much scar tissue to get through
It’s a burden I carry
And one she has faced for 36 years. I don’t know how to fix it
Or me or
Even her.
I am acting out of memory
I am acting out of self-preservation
I am acting out from a place of fear.

I have never been able to describe how deep the fissure runs
Or how wide the gaping void is
I have simply been largely unreachable-
a poker face donned with little makeup.

My memory doesn’t serve me well in causation
I couldn’t give you a lot of specifics
But my skin and my mind remembers all too well
Why it is that I protect my only diamond shaped heart so fervently.

But again the question begs to be asked
Are my views outdated?

This shell of a woman who’s mentally unfit
Physically sick in so many ways
possess’ the very things I’ve always wanted-
Unconditional love
Gentility
Acceptance
Truth.

Yet she has blasted and choked me with the time and tides of her cycle
Angry and then soft.

I am merely protecting myself.
I have learned the lesson so many times.

Like the big bad wolf she has played to my vulnerabilities only to lash out
And use me like a pawn.

I do not know how to un date that.
Explain that to every fiber of me
Who has to remind myself every day that I am not the full grown woman that she once was to me
I am so much stronger and resilient than she ever was-
I have nothing to lose
Only that’s where I lie to myself.
I do have so much to lose
I am afraid that I will never have the motherly things that could complete me
From her or anyone else.
Her 26 years of threats and attempts to abandon me, and her children
Have finally turned me to the emotional stone that you would expect.

Love surely resides
But it comes in fits and starts.
That seamless river has been damned and severed

And as much as I’d like to say I’m untouched and unscarred
I am not.
The result in me is a knotty fleshed muscle so capable of strengths
But afraid to fully unfurl…

letter to a talk show...

a million

that's how many times i've asked myself the same question.

how much?
how much can i interrupt her in this journey?
how much should i intervene?
change the outcome?
manipulate her into caring?
or at least thinking she's worth it?

i struggle on most days
which i suppose means i've gotten better at taking care of me and taking on less of her emotionally.

you see i gave up years-
carried a guilt that was never mine to carry
thinking i wasn't working hard enough, trying with all that i have
to make her happy.

sometime ago i let it all go
and stepped aside to hand off the baggage that i was carrying
that belonged solely to her.
i've been happy and more light in my own journey as a result.

i've been reading more about the soul's immortality and how we each must learn lessons and work through our earthly vices in order to fully move on.
if we don't or aren't able to we carry those burdens into our next life.

on some level i think to myself that she is merely not learning her lesson
and in this life she is suffering
she may or may not mean to cause others suffering but when you love
you're inevitably, unequivocally affected.

i think i am not her nor capable of showing her the lesson that she fails to see-
though in my naivete i thought could fix her.

how wrong i was.
and how depressed i was.
to learn that love cannot heal the sort of void she carries.

i could give a thousand explanations for why i think nothing can help her at this point
because she has long but given up
but my reasons are from my truth which may not be hers.

to say that i struggle many days of this life, as her daughter born from another womb,
is to say that she understands who and where she is as opposed to what she is-
the answers are opposite, i know
just as the recognitions and seeming awareness in each of us.

today as the solar storms plummet unseen distances with a force unknown
and the moon shines in her delicate and fierce beauty
i hurt a little
with the familiar thought

that i've asked the same question a million times
and still can't come to a resolution...

15 minutes of possessions...

15 minutes is what i've committed to for writing.

where to begin.
i lost another man in my life feb. 19th. and in that i got a visit from my father bringing possessions of grandparent's that i cherished.
dust has settled in places my eyes have passed over since i was a child and only now do i see the details up close.
dresser drawers with hidden secrets of forgotten socks, always golf socks and so very soft, and a head scarf for hair that was fuzz when i last saw her. i begged her not to be ashamed of her beautiful bald head- i rubbed it and told her it looked good on her.
stories he told us in my new living room, in my new house, while i sat her her chair turned his chair as he held on to anything that brought him closer to her. the chair, it was a surprise. i wasn't expecting to get such a prized item, that i secretly wanted for years- only because it fit her and it fit me so well.
my father brought needlepoints and paintings. the one of her front porch and her favorite flower and two hummingbirds- exactly like what it looked like for years. even after she died..
grampa held on to all those precious things and lived among them until he had nothing to give. he wanted to go to be with her and at last he was..

my home feels more complete now that i have my haven of loved one's possessions. too many at once but all individual and perfect just the same.

the day dad left i opened all the boxes and i wept and finally let it catch up to me- that all of them had gone. the pain was seamless and spilled from every broken place inside of me.. the hurt caught up as the blind went up. the dog barked and i knew one of them was with me.. it's all i needed- the reminder. if only everyday was a day spent recognizing when loved ones are with us. with time and tide we wander further from the one's we anchored ourselves up to. i am thankful for the reminder of each of them. i am happy to relate to earthly possessions to be closer to them for a little while..

my 15 minutes of possessions is almost up. and my mind is at ease and slowly falling blank...

colorless stand alone..

how can we truly know what it takes to sustain another
small gestures offered in periodic attempts
prove to be insufficient again.

i blame and i judge myself thinking i could have done more
i could do more
but don't and i didn't.

or did i?

too many people in my arena of this familial circle
believe in little
and give maybe less than what is needed in certain situations
and in this case it seems i've been handed the same sort of shortcomings

it hurts to lose another man in my life
it hurts that others have shut out and down on their own-
just out of reach.

pictures remind me that she has moved so far on from him
and she's taken a daughter with her.
she is deserving of the love
they both need someone they can rely on
but it's like swallowing something sideways to see evidence of their joy so soon.
i don't know if i'm protecting the brother who didn't offer more
or if i'm protecting what i see as loosely mine or ours.

so many things are shifting as i try to lay down my own roots in a 4 walled little house.
i'm beginning to realize roots have nothing to do with where your materialistic accumulations lye.
i think they are deep and unseen in letters that tie you to others.

T A N G Y E.
you have felt foreign to me at different points in my life
but now i am burrowed in your crevices
i am searching for some shelter in what you've held in the years i've belonged to you.
it seems the clan is dismantling quickly and things have begun to unravel.

who will remained aligned
and who will jump ship?

i'm needing some space
and some creativity mixed with a little self destruction.
i want to fill my lungs with the smoke of my youth
the careless wandering
and the endless resolve.

i want to forget the missing parts of this clan
and fall back to when things were quiet
out of choice
and not abandon.

can i get there if i wish hard enough?

i'm insatiable
and not finding what i thought i was looking for anymore.
perhaps feeling lost is where i will find myself again.

they say being lost is the best way to find creativity.

i could use a little of both..

he danced to the end of love...

leonard cohen sang me to the news of your passing grampa-
a melody for the tracks of tears to follow
there is no one story that i can share that summarizes 90 years of your life
there is only the sweet emotion of memory and calm that describes you to me.

i've long given up on memory to remind me of the story
i allow a single emotion to hold you close
as well as a snap shot of your hands.

so gentle and sweet you were-
with words of love
you'd respond
"i love you back"

i am sad but happy for you to finally be with your love again-
dad says you left us one day short of gramma's 7 yr anniversary of passing.
i find a beautiful melody of life and love in that.

you know i was with you and asked your angels to be there to greet you when you arrived.
i believe you have met your loved ones again

and i rest easy in that.

thank you for the wonderful father and brothers that you gave me along your journey.
i love my tangye men
as they are different parts of you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGorjBVag0I&ob=av2n

we are answers..

things could get serious here
as i warm to the idea of babies and how to deliver friends from the floors they cave to.
i'm on a blunt sort of waking
where i realize the future and the present are limited and in need of resurrection-
one where though i cannot bring him back i can bring someone new to the picture.

someone who could be him and someone who could be anyone.

i've never married but i have a desire to make her mine
despite the differences in meaning it could be a while until she and the rest of the judgemental world eyes see my way.
so simple.

you could test an ocean not to grow
but this tide in me continues to surge
and flow
and the only land i swim upon is her.

i think she can see me in it
and i think she knows it takes an ocean to move things this way
as they have in me.
as i hope they do in her.

you can trouble me now
but i don't ever want to get over you, love
i want to have a place to hang my worries and my fears
safe in your bare breasts
as you draw me in.

i will find my closure
and will find the words
to bring you to my side of realizing what we have yet to be.

so soon
so now
so you and me..