Monday, October 6, 2008
Planet of the Apes: Group Discussion (10.2.08)
In our group discussion, I chose to speak of how Planet of the Apes, the movie versions, can be categorized as a Blaxploitation movie, which is defined as a genre of American film of the 1970s featuring African-American actors in lead roles and often having antiestablishment plots, frequently criticized for stereotypical characterization and glorification of violence. In the book and movie, there were many racial elements apparent. The notion of the Apes disbelieving the fact that Ulysses could read and write can be compared to the way slaves were treated way back when. In the article that our group posted on Web Ct it mentioned how the traditional association of blacks and minorities with apes and monkeys was invoked to explain the 1965 riots in Watts, California. The Rodney King riots in 1991 also reminded me of the racial aspects found in the book. I feel that when it comes to African Americans and minorities , society always wants to find a way to bring them down, and as one student mentioned in class during our Planet of the Apes discussion, the police stood back as if nothing was happening until the riots in 91' moved throughout the surrounding cities in the Los Angeles county until the riots threatened Beverly Hills. It was only until money, stature and wealth was incorporated that the Police cared enough to protect anyone. In the book, the Gorillas and the Chimpanzees were the ones with the darker skin, which can be a mirror to the slaves and laborers, and the Apes, with the light and fair skin, mirrored the superior race in society then and in some cases today, the race minus any minorities.
English 312. Web Ct Posting 9/11/08
Message no. 73
Author: Neda Levi
Date: Thursday, September 11, 2008 1:15am
In response to the class' discussion about the Pledge of Allegiance signifying a sort of
Hate Week or not, I don't mean to offend anyone, but its completely up to interpretation.
I have never thought of it much until yesterday's discussion, but this so-
called "Multicultural Melting Pot" really strikes a chord with me and the discrimination,
anger, resentment, and ambivalence I have come to harbor within myself, living as a U.S
citizen, born and raised, though as a descendant of a certain country causing quite the
commotion in recent political and state affairs.
I am just as American as any blonde-haired, blue-eyed caucasian is seen as being, but
because of my dark hair and middle-eastern features, I get called a foreigner or a
terrorist if you will.
I guess I agree with the Pledge of Allegiance as a kind of Hate Week due to the fact that
throughout the years, and after September 11, 2001, I have never been more disgusted
by this country and the way it treats its true citizens, just because they may not seem to
fit the ideal mold, physically or culturally.
Why should I have to pledge allegiance to a certain banner when that American flag, the
one that I am qualified to be protected under, seems to shun me whenever the chance
comes?
I find it quite amusing you know, perhaps I am going off on tangents but I must speak
my piece on this pressing matter of hate in this country, but I am sick and tired of fresh-
faced "Americans" calling me Arabic or Iraqi just because I speak a tongue that tends to
strike fear within them. I pledge allegiance to a country whose true people, the ones who
do not fall into an ethnic minority category on a ballot, do not understand the notion that
the MIDDLE EAST IS NOT a category intended to be seen as ONE COUNTRY IN IT OF
ITSELF! I am not related to Osama in any way, shape or form. I am not Arabic nor am I
Iraqi, but my beautiful best friend is, and If I was, I would have no shame boarding a
plane and saying so.
I am half Iranian, and half Israeli, and yes, I know that people might fear me for my
ethnicity alone, but that does not make me any less American than someone whose
Ancestors come from, I don't know, a region in the midwest.
This country is made up of IMMIGRANTS, period, and I am sure that some others would
agree so, so why then must I pledge allegiance to a country that fears me, decides
to "RANDOMLY CHECK" my Middle Eastern ass in a line of more than 30 white Americans
boarding the same plane, and limits my endless capacity to make a difference in this
world just because I do not seem to equate their ideal form of what constitutes an
American?
I do not mean any classmates any offense, and if so I apologize profusely.
I am just outraged, and I have been the victim of hate ever since September 11 2001, as
has my mother ever since she stepped foot into this country more than 30 years ago. I just
do not understand this country and its treatment against minorities. Frankly, the Pledge
of Allegiance does not do me any justice, as a true American in my own right, anyways.
Author: Neda Levi
Date: Thursday, September 11, 2008 1:15am
In response to the class' discussion about the Pledge of Allegiance signifying a sort of
Hate Week or not, I don't mean to offend anyone, but its completely up to interpretation.
I have never thought of it much until yesterday's discussion, but this so-
called "Multicultural Melting Pot" really strikes a chord with me and the discrimination,
anger, resentment, and ambivalence I have come to harbor within myself, living as a U.S
citizen, born and raised, though as a descendant of a certain country causing quite the
commotion in recent political and state affairs.
I am just as American as any blonde-haired, blue-eyed caucasian is seen as being, but
because of my dark hair and middle-eastern features, I get called a foreigner or a
terrorist if you will.
I guess I agree with the Pledge of Allegiance as a kind of Hate Week due to the fact that
throughout the years, and after September 11, 2001, I have never been more disgusted
by this country and the way it treats its true citizens, just because they may not seem to
fit the ideal mold, physically or culturally.
Why should I have to pledge allegiance to a certain banner when that American flag, the
one that I am qualified to be protected under, seems to shun me whenever the chance
comes?
I find it quite amusing you know, perhaps I am going off on tangents but I must speak
my piece on this pressing matter of hate in this country, but I am sick and tired of fresh-
faced "Americans" calling me Arabic or Iraqi just because I speak a tongue that tends to
strike fear within them. I pledge allegiance to a country whose true people, the ones who
do not fall into an ethnic minority category on a ballot, do not understand the notion that
the MIDDLE EAST IS NOT a category intended to be seen as ONE COUNTRY IN IT OF
ITSELF! I am not related to Osama in any way, shape or form. I am not Arabic nor am I
Iraqi, but my beautiful best friend is, and If I was, I would have no shame boarding a
plane and saying so.
I am half Iranian, and half Israeli, and yes, I know that people might fear me for my
ethnicity alone, but that does not make me any less American than someone whose
Ancestors come from, I don't know, a region in the midwest.
This country is made up of IMMIGRANTS, period, and I am sure that some others would
agree so, so why then must I pledge allegiance to a country that fears me, decides
to "RANDOMLY CHECK" my Middle Eastern ass in a line of more than 30 white Americans
boarding the same plane, and limits my endless capacity to make a difference in this
world just because I do not seem to equate their ideal form of what constitutes an
American?
I do not mean any classmates any offense, and if so I apologize profusely.
I am just outraged, and I have been the victim of hate ever since September 11 2001, as
has my mother ever since she stepped foot into this country more than 30 years ago. I just
do not understand this country and its treatment against minorities. Frankly, the Pledge
of Allegiance does not do me any justice, as a true American in my own right, anyways.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Dystopia: Gentrification, Institutions of Learning, and Materialism.
Levi, Neda
English 312
September 22, 2008
So I sit, in Tarzana, south of Ventura Blvd, outside the steps of my teenage home, across the street from the other home that kept me sheltered for three years, five days a week, six hours a day, and I ponder upon my dire need to strike yet another moment of genius, a moment away from this debilitating bout of lyrical word impotence that Creative writing majors often seem to face. I sit outside these steps often because the spirits of my mother and I drinking tea on a sweet Saturday morning years ago, keep me in their prayers, and allow me to think rationally away from all the corruption I see before me. These adorable teenagers cross the street and talk uncontrollably fast on their cell phones…Wait a minute. I ask myself, “Cell phones? And these kids are only 13 years younger than me. So in 1995, when I was what they called a Scrub in the sixth grade, did my girlfriends and I have cell phones?”
I see this sweet angelic face caked in vanilla frosting, and upon second glance, I realize it's makeup gone horribly wrong. In 1995, the only girls wearing makeup were the stars of Clueless, not my 12-year-old companions. I then got to thinking on the topic of Clueless, and questioned myself, “Weren’t you and Nadia all about the knee highs, and argyle vests that Alicia Silverstone and Stacy Dash made popular?” All of a sudden, I felt the lyrical bout of impotence stop in its tracks and word vomit was about to pounce, or was it my lunch?
I am someone who deeply detests this country in terms of its materialistic, superficial flaw. I have come to realize that our institutions of learning, beginning at the elementary level, display quite a Dystopia, and in watching these kids, blinded by the infectious desire to want rather than need and how they begin to mean the same thing to them, the bigger scheme of things became apparent to me.
Last summer, this private construction company bought out the rights to demolish about 5 eateries, and 10 clothing stores, which had been in business on the southern corner of Yolanda and Ventura Blvd, since about 1990. In order to beautify Tarzana, and hopefully attract an influx of higher income families into it with its newfound beauty and riches, many of those business owners, who perhaps depended on their businesses profit for all of life’s necessities, had to be displaced without any contracts stating the renewal of their businesses. I worked at one of those stores, and I had found out that only about five of those businesses were cut a deal to have their property space remodeled and re-opened to the public with profits higher in volume than before the gentrification began, and the ones who were cut a deal were the ones who you knew, just by their appearances and their automobiles, could put thousandths upon thousandths of dollars up front for the positive future at hand for their companies.
This economic recession is utterly dystopic, and it has, to some big spenders, sparked the need to reestablish the lustrous city of Tarzana, and I hope that it does work out for my father’s sake, a contractor without any employment in the past eight months, and raise my homes value back up to its selling price or perhaps higher soon, but at the same time I feel that this improvement is only going to hinder the city more because they are planning to build 72 condominiums a top a Whole Foods Market. The fact that I live across the street from a middle school that clearly adds to traffic, upon the traffic I can foresee erupting by the 72 occupants, at the very least per house, and the “Organic Food” sanctuary, I can only fathom the interrupted rush to get down the two way street that leads directly on to Ventura Blvd, each and every morning.
The city of Tarzana does not need to be beautified. What is needed is a contractor with enough money and some heart, wishing and wanting to help with his monetary fortune, putting it towards aiding the world with compassion for those who have lost their homes and their jobs due to this recession. It all goes back to materialism.
Why do many people move further and further into the United States from California and New York? Simply to get to rural and suburban areas offering the same simplistic countryside, or farm life beauty though without the negative force and impact that the absolute necessity of money makes obligatory. I have come to realize that money does not bring happiness, and that was the only motto I stood firmly against for so long. All one needs in this life is food and shelter, and if wanting an education is something they strive for and if they still thrive on a life depended upon materialism, their success will allow them the means to bask in whatever their cold hard cash can by them. If only the people in power; government officials, money-makers, city-planners, and the official associates that established medical insurance eligibility cared enough to make a difference, allowing all human beings to start off on a solid foundation, evenly, then this world would be a much better place.
This situation reminds me of Orwell's 1984 and the how Julia spoke to Winston about what happened in room 101. Both her and him wished that their individual tortures were shifted upon the other, and these mutual acts of betrayal depict the truth in how the Party won their final psychological game. Despite her feelings for Winston, after the party sets them both free, Julia comes to an understanding that she knew, in order to come away from the party and their ties to corruption, she had to yearn for the torture that Winston would eventually come to face. In the end, the party proves to both Julia and Winston that the physical pain that one endures and the fear that comes with it, will always lead someone to betray what they strongly believe to have been true. This reminds me of the ones who are facing this economic recession without feeling slightly effected by any of it, whether it be the loss of their businesses, profits, depreciation in the values of their personal estates, and etc. These contractors can rack up millions of dollars by building more grocery and retail stores to vamp up the rich side of the boulevard, but what about the traffic that they are funding to cause with the 72 townhomes they are building right next to a one way street, near a public school, above what has become the holistic utopia of a food chain for New Age Hippies? What about all the lower incomed families who could benefit from the money that these rich folk probably see as nothing more than chump change? These rich people want to get richer, while the idea of people becoming poorer still breathes life and lives idly by beside them, just waiting and hoping for that day when these money hungry, social tycoons decide to look into their hearts and away from the hollow pit of the utter riches that they disgustingly inhabit, and give them a handout or to convey that long-awaited moment of important awareness towards them, that they have been waiting for for centuries already.
English 312
September 22, 2008
So I sit, in Tarzana, south of Ventura Blvd, outside the steps of my teenage home, across the street from the other home that kept me sheltered for three years, five days a week, six hours a day, and I ponder upon my dire need to strike yet another moment of genius, a moment away from this debilitating bout of lyrical word impotence that Creative writing majors often seem to face. I sit outside these steps often because the spirits of my mother and I drinking tea on a sweet Saturday morning years ago, keep me in their prayers, and allow me to think rationally away from all the corruption I see before me. These adorable teenagers cross the street and talk uncontrollably fast on their cell phones…Wait a minute. I ask myself, “Cell phones? And these kids are only 13 years younger than me. So in 1995, when I was what they called a Scrub in the sixth grade, did my girlfriends and I have cell phones?”
I see this sweet angelic face caked in vanilla frosting, and upon second glance, I realize it's makeup gone horribly wrong. In 1995, the only girls wearing makeup were the stars of Clueless, not my 12-year-old companions. I then got to thinking on the topic of Clueless, and questioned myself, “Weren’t you and Nadia all about the knee highs, and argyle vests that Alicia Silverstone and Stacy Dash made popular?” All of a sudden, I felt the lyrical bout of impotence stop in its tracks and word vomit was about to pounce, or was it my lunch?
I am someone who deeply detests this country in terms of its materialistic, superficial flaw. I have come to realize that our institutions of learning, beginning at the elementary level, display quite a Dystopia, and in watching these kids, blinded by the infectious desire to want rather than need and how they begin to mean the same thing to them, the bigger scheme of things became apparent to me.
Last summer, this private construction company bought out the rights to demolish about 5 eateries, and 10 clothing stores, which had been in business on the southern corner of Yolanda and Ventura Blvd, since about 1990. In order to beautify Tarzana, and hopefully attract an influx of higher income families into it with its newfound beauty and riches, many of those business owners, who perhaps depended on their businesses profit for all of life’s necessities, had to be displaced without any contracts stating the renewal of their businesses. I worked at one of those stores, and I had found out that only about five of those businesses were cut a deal to have their property space remodeled and re-opened to the public with profits higher in volume than before the gentrification began, and the ones who were cut a deal were the ones who you knew, just by their appearances and their automobiles, could put thousandths upon thousandths of dollars up front for the positive future at hand for their companies.
This economic recession is utterly dystopic, and it has, to some big spenders, sparked the need to reestablish the lustrous city of Tarzana, and I hope that it does work out for my father’s sake, a contractor without any employment in the past eight months, and raise my homes value back up to its selling price or perhaps higher soon, but at the same time I feel that this improvement is only going to hinder the city more because they are planning to build 72 condominiums a top a Whole Foods Market. The fact that I live across the street from a middle school that clearly adds to traffic, upon the traffic I can foresee erupting by the 72 occupants, at the very least per house, and the “Organic Food” sanctuary, I can only fathom the interrupted rush to get down the two way street that leads directly on to Ventura Blvd, each and every morning.
The city of Tarzana does not need to be beautified. What is needed is a contractor with enough money and some heart, wishing and wanting to help with his monetary fortune, putting it towards aiding the world with compassion for those who have lost their homes and their jobs due to this recession. It all goes back to materialism.
Why do many people move further and further into the United States from California and New York? Simply to get to rural and suburban areas offering the same simplistic countryside, or farm life beauty though without the negative force and impact that the absolute necessity of money makes obligatory. I have come to realize that money does not bring happiness, and that was the only motto I stood firmly against for so long. All one needs in this life is food and shelter, and if wanting an education is something they strive for and if they still thrive on a life depended upon materialism, their success will allow them the means to bask in whatever their cold hard cash can by them. If only the people in power; government officials, money-makers, city-planners, and the official associates that established medical insurance eligibility cared enough to make a difference, allowing all human beings to start off on a solid foundation, evenly, then this world would be a much better place.
This situation reminds me of Orwell's 1984 and the how Julia spoke to Winston about what happened in room 101. Both her and him wished that their individual tortures were shifted upon the other, and these mutual acts of betrayal depict the truth in how the Party won their final psychological game. Despite her feelings for Winston, after the party sets them both free, Julia comes to an understanding that she knew, in order to come away from the party and their ties to corruption, she had to yearn for the torture that Winston would eventually come to face. In the end, the party proves to both Julia and Winston that the physical pain that one endures and the fear that comes with it, will always lead someone to betray what they strongly believe to have been true. This reminds me of the ones who are facing this economic recession without feeling slightly effected by any of it, whether it be the loss of their businesses, profits, depreciation in the values of their personal estates, and etc. These contractors can rack up millions of dollars by building more grocery and retail stores to vamp up the rich side of the boulevard, but what about the traffic that they are funding to cause with the 72 townhomes they are building right next to a one way street, near a public school, above what has become the holistic utopia of a food chain for New Age Hippies? What about all the lower incomed families who could benefit from the money that these rich folk probably see as nothing more than chump change? These rich people want to get richer, while the idea of people becoming poorer still breathes life and lives idly by beside them, just waiting and hoping for that day when these money hungry, social tycoons decide to look into their hearts and away from the hollow pit of the utter riches that they disgustingly inhabit, and give them a handout or to convey that long-awaited moment of important awareness towards them, that they have been waiting for for centuries already.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Serving Her
7/27/08 10:28 pm
An appeal composed. A handsome voice, immensely dignified.
His memory serves her well.
Willingly trapped within her fundamental infant nature.
Green walls purple with wind; reverberating white air.
Not hoping for tomorrow; awaiting life as another woman.
Her potential name is now her ticket out; where her budding wants and juvenile needs, Vanilla or Chocolate pudding, once seemed more so promising.
Peach leaves and autumn rain a top; inhaling a heart of gold underneath, exiled from the cold.
Masculinity, sexual desire transpired by heat, an asylum from her fragile state of affairs; a divine creature in memory serves her well.
A pardon for what love seemed to be about has washed ashore; never defining its true condition runs profound within a sea of crimson, collapsing upon her trackless seams.
He awakens her senses, rids her of the leeches, in her pond of insecurity, leaving her body wilted and insensible.
She greets his image in dream, and passionately accepts his invitation: physical, discreet, sexual, and fearless.
She breathes love and all its designation.
The thought of his arms leave her potent and secreting a profusion of lyrical moisture, emotional condensation and objective, sensual prosperity.
Her dream has come true, and his memory serves her.
Delightfully aching with the touch of his thighs, entering estimable states of pure nirvana,
The bare thought of his stature returns her the favor.
A dream only, as she lies aware in wish.
Alive and well.
Her Stream Of Conciousness...
1:53 AM 7/1/08
Ugh! I can’t write unless it sounds poetic! Whoever put the idea, that everything in writing must leave a sense of awe within the minds of everyone who is exposed to it, into my head must pay!
Am I ever going to succeed?
If you can only comprehend the thoughts I keep playing in my head minute after minute, and hour after hour. I’m scared. I am the laziest human being ever, and I can sit here and tell you that this really isn’t me, but what if it is? It isn’t what if. It really is me. I don’t know why I chose English to major in, and I don’t know why I walk around telling my parents that when I strike it rich, they’ll swallow all their criticisms of me….
I will never make that kind of money, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Or does it?
I don’t want to turn into my mother.
I don’t want a broken heart, shedding tears on my unborn child, while my husband makes love to another overseas.
I thought my only pain was learning how to say goodbye to my past.
I haven’t thought of it much lately. Does this mean the fond farewell was truly accepted by both the recollections, and the character whose most difficult task in life was bidding those recollections adieu?
Constant Craving.
Attempting the inevitable even once, remember to make it last for all time.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Anywhere but here...
The vices which capacitate this world and its severe ugliness will never again, due to any emotional, mental and physical state of being known to man, get the best of me. I will find my way, away from here and the reality that social services only exist due to the lack of social justices being served. Serve yourself, and let go of this society and the crazy breed it harbors. I know I will, as I already have. I will never be the same. I assure you.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
My skin stings as I retreat back to its divine simplicity.
Like a lifelong dream,
a dream with only one solitary outcome in mind,
I wish to hear the motions of a life witnessed through the gaze of an engaging juvenile.
Voices of people unaffected by time,
Walk by preaching, “Say goodbye to yesterday.”
“Have no regrets, and do not look back….”
Why didn’t anyone tell me this?
Why wasn’t I told before she walked me outside to play, upon the sour patch of what was Sunny Brae Heaven?
Why wasn’t I told, as she put on my sweater those countless times?
Was it to keep me warm from the autumn fall, or sheltered from the winter ice that was yet to come?
It’s like she sang.
This used to be my childhood…
They say the best things in life are always free…
I wish my papa were here with me.
I can see your face, and all its beautiful compassion. They say you’re not a memory, but the truth is, that is all you’ll ever be to me.
Today will always be tomorrow’s yesterday.
Yesterday will always be where I felt life the best.
Yesterday will always be where I last heard my mind beat.
Yesterday will always be where I knew you loved me…
They say her spirit’s not dead, but
Yesterday will always be the only place where you could still hear her contagious laughter,
Loud, happy, and carefree to roam the kingdom of childhood…
The one place which, in Yesterday’s safe haven, remains the only realm that will never die.
"Don’t ever look back", they say.
Life is nothing but a short time to experience paradise.
Stuck in a minute, a blissful moment captured in the essence of 6 years.
A short time spent, yet with 18 years of bitter discomfort to show for it.
Melting away like ice cream cake, on a child’s hot and syrupy, June birthday.
Her voice longs to resonate in surround sound.
It simply resists the act of renouncing her motherly wisdom.
Obvious vocal attributes, reiterating...
“Don’t hold on to the past.”
The resilience of an echo, a voice muffled by tears yet survived through the crimes committed by the incomprehension of a guardian’s fatherly-bruised psyche, answers back…
“Well Mother, that’s too much to ask.”
How can one allow years of their life to past them by?
How can one believe that they have allowed life to past them by, when all they wish to live for are the exact seconds of a time that sweetly, notwithstanding its boundless anguish, in reflection has yet to pass them by?
It breathes life simultaneously.
It is every chord of the instruments that accompany the soundtrack of those charming adolescent days.
It is the random breeze felt via the car window on the corner of Parthenia and Corbin, on a Wednesday afternoon at 2:23 p.m.
It is the imagination of a young girl lying on her Grandmother’s Persian rug, entertained by the labor of string beans along with Inspector Gadget inside the once grayish house, that runs wild in her head.
It is the memory of the excitement in sharing the news that she got a 90210 calendar in 1992, and the look on her cousin’s face when she simply stated, “Honey, it’s December and 1992 is over. What are you going to do with it?”
It is the simple mind of a child. The effortless thoughts, and the somewhat profound awareness that a child attains that lead her to answer, “I’ll use it the next time it’s 1992.”
She remembers, and beneath the tears and yearning…begins to smile, as she thinks out loud,
“It was the most beautiful life I ever knew, and it was the most beautiful life anyone could have asked for. I can cry and fall deeper away from what I have become, but the ability to smile with a heart broken from a love lost, is the most profound gift I could have ever come away with. It may continue to leave me in a state of despondency, and on the verge of death as I wake up, live through the day, and lay my body down to sleep, but the constant craving of just one more minute, though it feels like someone literally cut a valley through the middle of my childhood essence and ripped the core of my being away from me, will always remain the most intense, disconcerting, terrifying, painstaking, and beautiful high of continuous longing known to man. A state of inestimable nirvana that no drug can ever produce.”
Nothing hurt, and it was all frightening.
Everything hurt, and it was simply divine…
Everyday is another yesterday that’s past.
You see, that’s the trouble with yesterday,
It will never be today or tomorrow, at least not in enough time for anyone to realize it.
…and most of all, unfortunately, not in enough time for her.
a dream with only one solitary outcome in mind,
I wish to hear the motions of a life witnessed through the gaze of an engaging juvenile.
Voices of people unaffected by time,
Walk by preaching, “Say goodbye to yesterday.”
“Have no regrets, and do not look back….”
Why didn’t anyone tell me this?
Why wasn’t I told before she walked me outside to play, upon the sour patch of what was Sunny Brae Heaven?
Why wasn’t I told, as she put on my sweater those countless times?
Was it to keep me warm from the autumn fall, or sheltered from the winter ice that was yet to come?
It’s like she sang.
This used to be my childhood…
They say the best things in life are always free…
I wish my papa were here with me.
I can see your face, and all its beautiful compassion. They say you’re not a memory, but the truth is, that is all you’ll ever be to me.
Today will always be tomorrow’s yesterday.
Yesterday will always be where I felt life the best.
Yesterday will always be where I last heard my mind beat.
Yesterday will always be where I knew you loved me…
They say her spirit’s not dead, but
Yesterday will always be the only place where you could still hear her contagious laughter,
Loud, happy, and carefree to roam the kingdom of childhood…
The one place which, in Yesterday’s safe haven, remains the only realm that will never die.
"Don’t ever look back", they say.
Life is nothing but a short time to experience paradise.
Stuck in a minute, a blissful moment captured in the essence of 6 years.
A short time spent, yet with 18 years of bitter discomfort to show for it.
Melting away like ice cream cake, on a child’s hot and syrupy, June birthday.
Her voice longs to resonate in surround sound.
It simply resists the act of renouncing her motherly wisdom.
Obvious vocal attributes, reiterating...
“Don’t hold on to the past.”
The resilience of an echo, a voice muffled by tears yet survived through the crimes committed by the incomprehension of a guardian’s fatherly-bruised psyche, answers back…
“Well Mother, that’s too much to ask.”
How can one allow years of their life to past them by?
How can one believe that they have allowed life to past them by, when all they wish to live for are the exact seconds of a time that sweetly, notwithstanding its boundless anguish, in reflection has yet to pass them by?
It breathes life simultaneously.
It is every chord of the instruments that accompany the soundtrack of those charming adolescent days.
It is the random breeze felt via the car window on the corner of Parthenia and Corbin, on a Wednesday afternoon at 2:23 p.m.
It is the imagination of a young girl lying on her Grandmother’s Persian rug, entertained by the labor of string beans along with Inspector Gadget inside the once grayish house, that runs wild in her head.
It is the memory of the excitement in sharing the news that she got a 90210 calendar in 1992, and the look on her cousin’s face when she simply stated, “Honey, it’s December and 1992 is over. What are you going to do with it?”
It is the simple mind of a child. The effortless thoughts, and the somewhat profound awareness that a child attains that lead her to answer, “I’ll use it the next time it’s 1992.”
She remembers, and beneath the tears and yearning…begins to smile, as she thinks out loud,
“It was the most beautiful life I ever knew, and it was the most beautiful life anyone could have asked for. I can cry and fall deeper away from what I have become, but the ability to smile with a heart broken from a love lost, is the most profound gift I could have ever come away with. It may continue to leave me in a state of despondency, and on the verge of death as I wake up, live through the day, and lay my body down to sleep, but the constant craving of just one more minute, though it feels like someone literally cut a valley through the middle of my childhood essence and ripped the core of my being away from me, will always remain the most intense, disconcerting, terrifying, painstaking, and beautiful high of continuous longing known to man. A state of inestimable nirvana that no drug can ever produce.”
Nothing hurt, and it was all frightening.
Everything hurt, and it was simply divine…
Everyday is another yesterday that’s past.
You see, that’s the trouble with yesterday,
It will never be today or tomorrow, at least not in enough time for anyone to realize it.
…and most of all, unfortunately, not in enough time for her.
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