2:04 am – Friday, April 16, 2010
I am tongue-tied and ready, ready to be pulled, tugged, and put aside for safekeeping, for this unyielding escapade is far from pleasant and terribly nudging at my wits end. My childhood dreams do not possess the ability to avenge me from my conniving self and the self-deprecating errors of my ways, nor had they ever. The place inside my heart that remained a valid necessity to my sanity, was torn away today by no one’s fault but my own. I had been blinded by the steep belief that my curiosity, and desire to be loved by none other than her sweetest downfall, would never allow my composure to fall victim to unfathomable destruction. Sunnybrae’s twenty-year windstorm of instilled confusion, hatred and un-infiltrated love blew me away this morning, and blew down my life, hard. These vicious traditions I deliberately place myself within always glisten the moment before they erupt. My breath stops short, my feelings find themselves digging a whole further into my shallow grave, my sleeping patterns find trouble just around the bend, and thoughts of suicide creep up behind me, all along booming in ample sound like flowers blooming upon my grandmother’s heavenly home on a sweltering summer day in Los Angeles, the city of anything but angels in my eyes. These moments, comprised by my foolishness to feel, do not have a name. I do not victimize myself, and I believe that this hurtful and ill astute assumption has only been conjured up due to the perception accounted for through the peripheral vision belonging to that Grade-A bitch. If anything, I have been a fool to let myself fall too far astray from the call of prospering through the divine matter of hardship that God has blessed over me. I have tried endlessly to gauge it, this calamity I have restlessly fed and watered these past 26 years of my life, only to come up short in a pond, created by none other than myself, fueled by masculine ties that tend to rouse the weakness within, killing the strength that I, as a feminine entity, have rights to acquire in this vindictive, double-standard fueled, social order.
12:25 am – Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Lonesome and friendless, I can explain how much it hurts only so much. I live as a byproduct of two eccentric yet predictable imbeciles, though I have spent all my life fearing their individual demises. Am I an intensifying dream or a diminishing luminary? I spend the hours in a day fearing the next, running situations in my head, and opening my heart up to self-deprecating ridicule. Can I ever admit to some of those bad mistakes that I have made? Will I always be the brunt of the jokes that bitches, those I once called friends, continuously tell? I’ve been a lot of things: a best friend to someone prior to high school and its malicious intentions, an ungrateful child, an outspoken granddaughter, a disrespectful teenage daughter, a pawn in my mother’s game of chess and a victim to the abuse of the sperm supporter who impregnated her. I’ve done a lot of things: I cheated on my first love, an overweight fuck who ruined my self-esteem granted I fucked with his first, during my junior year of high school and its malicious intentions, and I kissed a boy that this girl, one whom I have kept in touch with ever since kindergarten, had fallen head over heels for once upon a time…and frankly, I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.
My reveries are executed in an array of sheer lilac and mint pastels. I will live frozen within the continuum process, sleeping in white, breathing at gray and dying in black. I am waiting for my time; vacated, and void in compelled vengeance against anyone. My legs spread out before me welcoming him into my vagina and its moist earth, my womanliness simply intrepid, and my liquid released in the name of love, as the man of my dreams, with thighs that could crack walnuts, wraps me up in its definition for the first, and final intimate instance of this life’s voyage.
12:43 am – Monday, April 26, 2010
Colorblind, you are. Can’t detect the acquisition of your daughters imminent emotional health, it has no innate value to who you are. If it talks and walks it’s good enough to fuck, to you and many other men like you. It’s been almost a decade, and I am no longer your beautiful child. I may have been nothing but a fool to believe that I could ever have been anything that precious, to you. I bit my lip and you detected hurt in my eyes. As I said yes, you proceeded to ramble on and patronize me for feeling hurt at my adult age of twenty-six. Be a man and own up to your own accusations. Your father will never hold you, as mine will never hold me.
Spanish music blared loudly from the kitchen as I walked through the front door tonight, the front door belonging to my Iranian mother. His wife sleeps in my adolescent sanctuary, the place I grieved over the loss of my first love, the place I wrote my first story while mother tried incessantly to get me to complete my homework instead, the place I’d entertain myself with Party of Five on Wednesday nights, and the place where the soundtrack of my life began with The Five Stair Steps the day he announced his impending departure into the vagina of his Salvadorian girlfriend. He sits around and watches Spanish soap operas with her, as delight frames his face in ways more potent than it ever did when he’d watch basketball games with my mother. I’d love to turn his world upside down, if only for a moment.
You caused this infidelity and it has got to be the most difficult hurdle to have to overcome in my life and as miniscule as it seems to others, it has left my body dilapidated, anxiety-ridden, and apprehensive of having inherited your genes and perhaps committing adultery to another. I used to write stories with this appetite for art that was anything but satiable. I resent you for raping me of my ethereal sense of creativity. I wish sleepless nights and comatose mornings plagued you the way they do me, and I wish even more for your father to make you feel worthless when you try in vain to explain the habit forming issues that derive from depression, but wishes, my dear father, don’t come true. They never have and they never will. If you only knew the sting upon my skin each time I realize that my mother and I no longer share the same name. I tried to run away and you caught me that summer day when my mother’s dear sister called the police with assumptions of my ass being beaten. You caught me with a knife in your hand, granted I had a knife in mine, but what father does that? What legitimate father does that? I will sit stumped upon that thought even after my dying day is through. I was 18 and granted I was still to respect my elders, but I was 18, an adult in my own right who deserved respect herself nevertheless. I was defending myself from a man that had impregnated my mother. What was your excuse for assault with a deadly weapon?
I feel like Doogie Howser and Dorothy Jane Torkelson, as I sit here in front of my laptop trying to end another episode with a brilliant line or sentence. The truth is that, though I have never thought highly of my level of intelligence, flashes used to exist in the past where I felt my words leaving impressions upon my heart with magnitude, magnitude that might have impacted humanity someday.
Now, I sigh with a conflicted smile because of you, my dear father, having robbed me of that too.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
My 25
1. I come from a place called Sunnybrae Heaven, where Nadia and I never grow up.
2. I idolize Bruce "The Motherf**king Boss" Springsteen.
3. My favorite person this side of the Holy Land goes by the moniker D Money!
4. Just one note could make me float, could make me float away. One note from the song Sir Psycho Sexy wrote could f**k me where I lay.
5. I kind of fell into this English major, and quite possibly may not have any desire to pursue it.
6. Michelle Markowitz compels my fierceness to glow profusely!
7. I am missing someone far away who happens to be related to a couple of dragons.
8. My mother is the world's most beautiful Beauty School Dropout.
9. I miss my papa, sunlit days in and calender nights out.
10. I realize that everything just is, and there's no cause in wasting valuable energy on fighting a battle that I won't ever win.
11. I will challenge anyone to trivia on lovely Anthony Kiedis, and win hands down!
12. Never have I made any friends like the ones I had when I was twelve.
13. Stand By Me is one of my favorite tearjerkers. R.I.P River <3
14. I am no longer the Neda I used to be, and I owe it all to my Israeli experience with Assaf and the f**king geniuses.
15. I will make my mark in four months and prove all who doubt me, utterly wrong.
16. Never, in the past 8 years, have I been genuinely happy.
17.The best feeling ever is taking 2 1/2 uninterrupted hours to write a poem, and being able to say "damn I'm good" about it.
18. I imagine a world like he wanted us to, where possessions do not matter and only sky exists above us.
19. My favorite place in the world relies heavily on how it makes me feel content in my Middle-Eastern skin...
20. I belong in Brooklyn.
21. I have finally blown out that crazy shine that I knew would never let me die.
22. I have more than just an obsession with John Frusciante.
23. I have a good life.
24. I have belief in tomorrow.
25. I do and will continue to embrace uncertainty, wholeheartedly.
2. I idolize Bruce "The Motherf**king Boss" Springsteen.
3. My favorite person this side of the Holy Land goes by the moniker D Money!
4. Just one note could make me float, could make me float away. One note from the song Sir Psycho Sexy wrote could f**k me where I lay.
5. I kind of fell into this English major, and quite possibly may not have any desire to pursue it.
6. Michelle Markowitz compels my fierceness to glow profusely!
7. I am missing someone far away who happens to be related to a couple of dragons.
8. My mother is the world's most beautiful Beauty School Dropout.
9. I miss my papa, sunlit days in and calender nights out.
10. I realize that everything just is, and there's no cause in wasting valuable energy on fighting a battle that I won't ever win.
11. I will challenge anyone to trivia on lovely Anthony Kiedis, and win hands down!
12. Never have I made any friends like the ones I had when I was twelve.
13. Stand By Me is one of my favorite tearjerkers. R.I.P River <3
14. I am no longer the Neda I used to be, and I owe it all to my Israeli experience with Assaf and the f**king geniuses.
15. I will make my mark in four months and prove all who doubt me, utterly wrong.
16. Never, in the past 8 years, have I been genuinely happy.
17.The best feeling ever is taking 2 1/2 uninterrupted hours to write a poem, and being able to say "damn I'm good" about it.
18. I imagine a world like he wanted us to, where possessions do not matter and only sky exists above us.
19. My favorite place in the world relies heavily on how it makes me feel content in my Middle-Eastern skin...
20. I belong in Brooklyn.
21. I have finally blown out that crazy shine that I knew would never let me die.
22. I have more than just an obsession with John Frusciante.
23. I have a good life.
24. I have belief in tomorrow.
25. I do and will continue to embrace uncertainty, wholeheartedly.
Happy 200th Darwin.
“Darwin was an indefatigable chronicler and this is evident in the way that he collected
specimens, in how he documented and drew conclusions, and through his writing,” said
Brighde Mullins, Director of USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program. “All of these
characteristics had an impact on the poets of his day, and the poets that followed.”
(http://college.usc.edu/tcc/poetry.html)
Darwin's theory upon evolution has been taught in schools to us all for centuries, and yet few, including me, have begun to realize how much his undeniably brilliant mind, influenced words and the way they artistically comprise this potent form of art known as Poetry. Poetry is science. We collect pieces and fragments of experience and somehow by the graces we inhabit in within our individual auras as human beings with emotions, we emulate a voice that can speak, and does speak, on the behalf of many. Darwin emulated a voice that many poets, in my opinion, noticed and adopted. "His eyes
fixed on facts and minute details."- Elizabeth Bishop
When I think of it, Mary Oliver prides herself on that very notion with unstinting devotion as
well. “Give me that dark moment, I will carry it everywhere like a mouthful of rain.”
I used to wish for a falling star. It was a November afternoon unlike I had
ever experienced in the fall of 2002.
I sat outside the ugly walls that kept me captive, at an ugly community
college, in the ugly San Fernando Valley.
It must have been the rebellious force dying to be heard, the force that had
been silenced by my abusive father for the prior 18 years of my life. I never wrote
before that moment, and I wrote to remember that moment, not my ambivalence nor my
physical appearance, nothing. Yet, I remember it all, better than anything else I can
recall in the short life I have lived.
Terrified, I sat amidst Ivy and her many emerald coats, her frayed amethyst
arms beaten as badly as my own. November 19th. 3:25 pm. Cranberry sauce and acorn
trimmed tabletops, my first of many without pop, only a week away. Her leaves inviting,
drained of any bitterness or poison.
“Poetry, after all, is not a miracle. It is an effort to formulize individual
moments and the transcending effects of these moments into music that all can use. It is
the song of our species.” –Mary Oliver
It’s something about the freedoms we are open to inhabit while lying in her
garden. The only one to one correspondence that has yet to fail me is with Mother
Nature, her beautiful self. Give up the incessant need to succeed in order to, primarily,
become the bearer of otherworldly possessions. Poetry and the moments that society, as
a whole and amongst its individuals, lives a witness to during its quest for success,
encompasses the otherworldly possessions that we strive for the monetary means to
purchase. One must step away from "materially bound and self-interested lives" in
order for the fluidity of words to bear meaning to them, and step into that world that
existed way before currency, expensive clothing, expensive cars and high stature ever
had its place in a “What You Must Need To Survive In This Cruel World” dictionary.
Poetry is the only material that will never cost a cent, and yet bring one a world of
contentment, granted they believe it. Poetry allows me to say goodbye to a pain that refuses to quit, until I get it right someday. I would rather revisit that pain within the beauty that surrounds me, than spend my hard earned money trying to eradicate it with a sparkly Tiffany bracelet for an hour.
specimens, in how he documented and drew conclusions, and through his writing,” said
Brighde Mullins, Director of USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program. “All of these
characteristics had an impact on the poets of his day, and the poets that followed.”
(http://college.usc.edu/tcc/poetry.html)
Darwin's theory upon evolution has been taught in schools to us all for centuries, and yet few, including me, have begun to realize how much his undeniably brilliant mind, influenced words and the way they artistically comprise this potent form of art known as Poetry. Poetry is science. We collect pieces and fragments of experience and somehow by the graces we inhabit in within our individual auras as human beings with emotions, we emulate a voice that can speak, and does speak, on the behalf of many. Darwin emulated a voice that many poets, in my opinion, noticed and adopted. "His eyes
fixed on facts and minute details."- Elizabeth Bishop
When I think of it, Mary Oliver prides herself on that very notion with unstinting devotion as
well. “Give me that dark moment, I will carry it everywhere like a mouthful of rain.”
I used to wish for a falling star. It was a November afternoon unlike I had
ever experienced in the fall of 2002.
I sat outside the ugly walls that kept me captive, at an ugly community
college, in the ugly San Fernando Valley.
It must have been the rebellious force dying to be heard, the force that had
been silenced by my abusive father for the prior 18 years of my life. I never wrote
before that moment, and I wrote to remember that moment, not my ambivalence nor my
physical appearance, nothing. Yet, I remember it all, better than anything else I can
recall in the short life I have lived.
Terrified, I sat amidst Ivy and her many emerald coats, her frayed amethyst
arms beaten as badly as my own. November 19th. 3:25 pm. Cranberry sauce and acorn
trimmed tabletops, my first of many without pop, only a week away. Her leaves inviting,
drained of any bitterness or poison.
“Poetry, after all, is not a miracle. It is an effort to formulize individual
moments and the transcending effects of these moments into music that all can use. It is
the song of our species.” –Mary Oliver
It’s something about the freedoms we are open to inhabit while lying in her
garden. The only one to one correspondence that has yet to fail me is with Mother
Nature, her beautiful self. Give up the incessant need to succeed in order to, primarily,
become the bearer of otherworldly possessions. Poetry and the moments that society, as
a whole and amongst its individuals, lives a witness to during its quest for success,
encompasses the otherworldly possessions that we strive for the monetary means to
purchase. One must step away from "materially bound and self-interested lives" in
order for the fluidity of words to bear meaning to them, and step into that world that
existed way before currency, expensive clothing, expensive cars and high stature ever
had its place in a “What You Must Need To Survive In This Cruel World” dictionary.
Poetry is the only material that will never cost a cent, and yet bring one a world of
contentment, granted they believe it. Poetry allows me to say goodbye to a pain that refuses to quit, until I get it right someday. I would rather revisit that pain within the beauty that surrounds me, than spend my hard earned money trying to eradicate it with a sparkly Tiffany bracelet for an hour.
A Silly Little Dream
So, it's 10:35 pm on Tuesday night and Neda, yes I often address myself in the third person, is doing what she was born to do, procrastinating.
Before I start on my paper, you know the one that was due yesterday, I wanted to speak of this dream I had.
Nadia, it was very surreal.
I, of course, have forgotten part of it, but it's worth conjuring up the rest.
I do not know how or why, but my mother, you, my pops, and my Israeli family were all transported back into 10037 Sunnybrae Avenue, yes I include addresses Nadia and who cares if someone harrasses those who live behind its doors nowadays...I'm thinking Nostalgia dammit, so stay with me here.
I relished in all it's beauty and I truly was awake doing so in the rapid eye movement part of my deep slumber. It was unlike any other dream. We were really there Nadia, all of us...No joke.
Nothing had changed. No one had lived there, though subtle ques would explain otherwise, but when do I ever accept the truths behind any matter? exactly.
My chalkboard covered walls were still intact, and my wooden bedframe/shelf from home depot had been employed to keep some guys books off the floor. My bedroom belonged to someone who was a lover of stories, as I am of words. That notion blew my mind. I was awake Nadia, not dreaming.
He had a corkboard placed on the wall besides my cheap golden-rimmed closet, yes I am a jew as is my carpenter of a father, fake gold is what we do. A diploma, from a Florida based graduate school, dated 1981 or 1979, see here is where I will conjure up some element of the beautiful life that I was handed in my moment of true consciousness, I had not been asleep, hung for dear life by my hello kitty thumb tack. A stamp upon it wore the motto "From the State that brought you Nsync" in a pensive shade of navy blue. Nsync...one subtle que that I was not living in 1990 anymore, and perhaps this house was occupied by someone other than the family that left because of some awful decisions on the father's part and the tumultuous reign of chapter 11 having displaced them from beautiful Porcelianville to down right disgusting MiddleEasternville, in a one bedroom shack on Newcastle Avenue in Encino.
My parents room seemed to not be afflicted by the new couple rumored to be residing in this master bedroom. The ugly silver wallpaper and the strategically placed golden leaves upon it had a few tears. I asked my pop why, and he rambled on using carpenter terminology that of course sparked nothing but foreign confusion within me. He made it seem as though someone had lived in it and tore the wallpaper off before they moved out...I refused to believe this nonsense.
My mother open the closet, and a shit load of my toys were concealed in a big white hefty trash bag; my porcelain doll, whose foot broke off and was duck taped by my pops, The Ceramic Surgeon, on the Eve of Easter in 1992 begged desperately to be freed, along with Kelly, Brandon, Donna, Zack, Slater, Jessie, Kapowski not Taylor, Blossom, Joey and Six...the sole inheritors of perfect popularity whose combined plastic limbs, 40 in total, helped allow you and I to escape into this grown up world, imitating everything we had hoped to become.
No one was living there. My belongings moved out with us, I would have never left them behind.
Of course now the rest of my glorious depiction of the past resurfacing, as I have forever...19 years worth of forever, wished for it to do so, has faded into the land of nostalgic obscurity.
I have no idea what prompted me to write this stream of consciousness, but I am glad I did.
I was never the cheerleader that my plastic Kapowski inspired me to be.
I never had a Zack of my own, and the ones I had are only a figment of my imagination now, never to be seen again.
I would give anything to have been able to say goodbye to that place. The place that encompassed all my joy, all my dreams, and especially, all my family.
A silly little dream, though it brought me much pleasure and undeniable closure.
I pray that whoever must live there has taken care of her walls, her secrets and her eternal youth.
What an exquisite sanctuary she offered me during those tempestuous winters between my folks.
An exquisite sanctuary never to be duplicated again; not in death, not in life, nor in a silly little dream.
Before I start on my paper, you know the one that was due yesterday, I wanted to speak of this dream I had.
Nadia, it was very surreal.
I, of course, have forgotten part of it, but it's worth conjuring up the rest.
I do not know how or why, but my mother, you, my pops, and my Israeli family were all transported back into 10037 Sunnybrae Avenue, yes I include addresses Nadia and who cares if someone harrasses those who live behind its doors nowadays...I'm thinking Nostalgia dammit, so stay with me here.
I relished in all it's beauty and I truly was awake doing so in the rapid eye movement part of my deep slumber. It was unlike any other dream. We were really there Nadia, all of us...No joke.
Nothing had changed. No one had lived there, though subtle ques would explain otherwise, but when do I ever accept the truths behind any matter? exactly.
My chalkboard covered walls were still intact, and my wooden bedframe/shelf from home depot had been employed to keep some guys books off the floor. My bedroom belonged to someone who was a lover of stories, as I am of words. That notion blew my mind. I was awake Nadia, not dreaming.
He had a corkboard placed on the wall besides my cheap golden-rimmed closet, yes I am a jew as is my carpenter of a father, fake gold is what we do. A diploma, from a Florida based graduate school, dated 1981 or 1979, see here is where I will conjure up some element of the beautiful life that I was handed in my moment of true consciousness, I had not been asleep, hung for dear life by my hello kitty thumb tack. A stamp upon it wore the motto "From the State that brought you Nsync" in a pensive shade of navy blue. Nsync...one subtle que that I was not living in 1990 anymore, and perhaps this house was occupied by someone other than the family that left because of some awful decisions on the father's part and the tumultuous reign of chapter 11 having displaced them from beautiful Porcelianville to down right disgusting MiddleEasternville, in a one bedroom shack on Newcastle Avenue in Encino.
My parents room seemed to not be afflicted by the new couple rumored to be residing in this master bedroom. The ugly silver wallpaper and the strategically placed golden leaves upon it had a few tears. I asked my pop why, and he rambled on using carpenter terminology that of course sparked nothing but foreign confusion within me. He made it seem as though someone had lived in it and tore the wallpaper off before they moved out...I refused to believe this nonsense.
My mother open the closet, and a shit load of my toys were concealed in a big white hefty trash bag; my porcelain doll, whose foot broke off and was duck taped by my pops, The Ceramic Surgeon, on the Eve of Easter in 1992 begged desperately to be freed, along with Kelly, Brandon, Donna, Zack, Slater, Jessie, Kapowski not Taylor, Blossom, Joey and Six...the sole inheritors of perfect popularity whose combined plastic limbs, 40 in total, helped allow you and I to escape into this grown up world, imitating everything we had hoped to become.
No one was living there. My belongings moved out with us, I would have never left them behind.
Of course now the rest of my glorious depiction of the past resurfacing, as I have forever...19 years worth of forever, wished for it to do so, has faded into the land of nostalgic obscurity.
I have no idea what prompted me to write this stream of consciousness, but I am glad I did.
I was never the cheerleader that my plastic Kapowski inspired me to be.
I never had a Zack of my own, and the ones I had are only a figment of my imagination now, never to be seen again.
I would give anything to have been able to say goodbye to that place. The place that encompassed all my joy, all my dreams, and especially, all my family.
A silly little dream, though it brought me much pleasure and undeniable closure.
I pray that whoever must live there has taken care of her walls, her secrets and her eternal youth.
What an exquisite sanctuary she offered me during those tempestuous winters between my folks.
An exquisite sanctuary never to be duplicated again; not in death, not in life, nor in a silly little dream.
Crayons Melted in an 84’ Chevrolet
“Long before I am supposed to die, I learn everything I cannot let my adult-self do from my father.” I think this thought out loud day in and day out. I remember the life I once lived, and I remember it all too well. A life lived too well, to the point where living for today seems rather unimportant. It was all too sudden, you know , that feeling you come across when you show up for class and you didn’t know there was going to be a test, and that test is to determine the rest of your otherworldly existence, or what those standardized tests want you to believe as children, that they will be able to deduce. Childhood, it was all too sudden. That hill, riding down it on Sancho’s Skateboard, begging God to build one of these with brakes sometime in the near future, or running down it while mom raced me in her beat up Chevy, you know, the one that Sancho scraped up, leaving her without a true explanation as to why. Oh that hill, she looks younger than I do today.
***
“What is it, you can tell me Neil? Please tell me????” I asked in utter excitement, upon first sight of this awe-inspiring rectangular box donned with electric blue wrapping paper, and orange swirls.
“It’s a pencil sweetheart. Happy 6th Birthday honey, it’s a pencil.” He responded with a smile that is as infectious now as it was then. It’s moments like that that never seem to let be me. “Just leave me alone.” I ask my past daily, and yet nothing is absorbed by her youthful glaze, she didn’t rescue me then and apparently, it seems like she won’t be rescuing me anytime soon. I cannot get past it and find a reason to exist, not sitting around for so long, waiting for Childhood’s phone call. Even if I answer, the pain will only be magnified tenfold, I will never be able to talk to her again.
***
“Give me just one more night, one more night, cause I can’t wait forever.” Sir Phil spoke eloquently in that bar, upon that tiny Toshiba television screen, as Pop and I sat entangled in each other’s arms, relishing in the beauty of Classic American music. I remember those nights when he would make it home barely before the Sunrise; I thought for sure he was Phil, the man himself, since he looked just like him, and what other logical explanation would suffice for a man with a wife and a child rarely being home, other than being on tour? Nevertheless, whatever his reasons were, what I would give to have one more moment in the flesh, with my papa, my own sir Phil.
***
“Let’s go to 7-eleven for some Carrot juice, how about that?” My lovely Aunt’s voice still reverberates deep within my ears. An intangible hold remains clutched upon my heart, each and every time I drive along Parthenia and pass that special source of fodder and delight for both her and I every weekend during those sweet Saturday afternoons of a time past. We’d go for Carrot juice and sure enough I’d con my way into getting a Pina Colada Slurpee and a Chocolate chip cookie instead from her, the family- renowned Dentist we all loved so very much. I remember those Sunday nights with her, as I waited for Mom to come get me from Grandma’s, sitting around, entertained by the labor of releasing Fava beans from their sheltered green hammocks into a colander, alongside Inspector Gadget’s siren and Nickelodeon. It’s moments like that that never seem to let be me. Nowadays, I simply live, holding on to this innate understanding of hope and optimism. They work hand in hand, but they differ entirely and with a high degree of complexity.
***
I was optimistic to go to school that Monday in 1990, with my new set of Crayola crayons, after the weekend where the so called “Pencil” became an orange and blue plastic bike of some sort with training wheels. My mother said to leave my crayons in the car for fear that they might get stolen, I mean after all this wasn’t your measly little box of crayons with the sharpener built in the back, this was a heavy duty, plastic briefcase with each color of the rainbow multiplied by ten different shades, and it had a metal sharpener, not a crappy cardboard boxed one, so of course I concurred and left my crayons with her. I was hopeful to come home that afternoon and find them intact and ready to try my hand at coloring, reasonably, a Picasso inspired piece. Upon my hopefulness, my dismay became clear and apparent when I realized before my zany Middle Eastern mother did, that she had left my crayons on top of the back seat, besides the rear window, for the sun to feast upon them. What was left of the Sun’s lunch was caked into the backseat so rigidly that for the next seven years, it accompanied me to every school function, every family function, and every birthday party, everything until the day the junkyard representative came and took her away.
***
That philosophy of hope and optimism lingers on within me presently. I may hope to see the adorable little girl; with the yellow barrette clipping her bangs aside, again, but hope is something we all have. Hope can come true for some, yes, but is my hope guaranteed? The difference between hope and optimism is that my hope deals with an intangible notion that no one, myself included, can ever reach again, and with a craving like that, then optimism, the kind a sweet child has going to a dinner at Grandpa’s, where all he ever makes is Liver and Onions, is probably light years away from fulfilling what my spirit truly longs for.
***
“What is it, you can tell me Neil? Please tell me????” I asked in utter excitement, upon first sight of this awe-inspiring rectangular box donned with electric blue wrapping paper, and orange swirls.
“It’s a pencil sweetheart. Happy 6th Birthday honey, it’s a pencil.” He responded with a smile that is as infectious now as it was then. It’s moments like that that never seem to let be me. “Just leave me alone.” I ask my past daily, and yet nothing is absorbed by her youthful glaze, she didn’t rescue me then and apparently, it seems like she won’t be rescuing me anytime soon. I cannot get past it and find a reason to exist, not sitting around for so long, waiting for Childhood’s phone call. Even if I answer, the pain will only be magnified tenfold, I will never be able to talk to her again.
***
“Give me just one more night, one more night, cause I can’t wait forever.” Sir Phil spoke eloquently in that bar, upon that tiny Toshiba television screen, as Pop and I sat entangled in each other’s arms, relishing in the beauty of Classic American music. I remember those nights when he would make it home barely before the Sunrise; I thought for sure he was Phil, the man himself, since he looked just like him, and what other logical explanation would suffice for a man with a wife and a child rarely being home, other than being on tour? Nevertheless, whatever his reasons were, what I would give to have one more moment in the flesh, with my papa, my own sir Phil.
***
“Let’s go to 7-eleven for some Carrot juice, how about that?” My lovely Aunt’s voice still reverberates deep within my ears. An intangible hold remains clutched upon my heart, each and every time I drive along Parthenia and pass that special source of fodder and delight for both her and I every weekend during those sweet Saturday afternoons of a time past. We’d go for Carrot juice and sure enough I’d con my way into getting a Pina Colada Slurpee and a Chocolate chip cookie instead from her, the family- renowned Dentist we all loved so very much. I remember those Sunday nights with her, as I waited for Mom to come get me from Grandma’s, sitting around, entertained by the labor of releasing Fava beans from their sheltered green hammocks into a colander, alongside Inspector Gadget’s siren and Nickelodeon. It’s moments like that that never seem to let be me. Nowadays, I simply live, holding on to this innate understanding of hope and optimism. They work hand in hand, but they differ entirely and with a high degree of complexity.
***
I was optimistic to go to school that Monday in 1990, with my new set of Crayola crayons, after the weekend where the so called “Pencil” became an orange and blue plastic bike of some sort with training wheels. My mother said to leave my crayons in the car for fear that they might get stolen, I mean after all this wasn’t your measly little box of crayons with the sharpener built in the back, this was a heavy duty, plastic briefcase with each color of the rainbow multiplied by ten different shades, and it had a metal sharpener, not a crappy cardboard boxed one, so of course I concurred and left my crayons with her. I was hopeful to come home that afternoon and find them intact and ready to try my hand at coloring, reasonably, a Picasso inspired piece. Upon my hopefulness, my dismay became clear and apparent when I realized before my zany Middle Eastern mother did, that she had left my crayons on top of the back seat, besides the rear window, for the sun to feast upon them. What was left of the Sun’s lunch was caked into the backseat so rigidly that for the next seven years, it accompanied me to every school function, every family function, and every birthday party, everything until the day the junkyard representative came and took her away.
***
That philosophy of hope and optimism lingers on within me presently. I may hope to see the adorable little girl; with the yellow barrette clipping her bangs aside, again, but hope is something we all have. Hope can come true for some, yes, but is my hope guaranteed? The difference between hope and optimism is that my hope deals with an intangible notion that no one, myself included, can ever reach again, and with a craving like that, then optimism, the kind a sweet child has going to a dinner at Grandpa’s, where all he ever makes is Liver and Onions, is probably light years away from fulfilling what my spirit truly longs for.
What Mother Wore To Her Court-Ordered Separation
Curls in her hair, ringlets of fire; warm, inviting and tight the way his hugs used to be.
Violent femme’s satin stain upon her voluptuous lips, the ones that never missed at enticing his many erections throughout their disorderly 21-year escapade.
Clay dried upon her aging hands, holding the statue of a man, his wife and his daughter,
Still wet and open to destruction.
Her heart, oblivious to pop’s stance and the blows he had meticulously prepared: warm and loose, depicting the everlasting bout with his love for her, feigning complete impotence.
Violent femme’s satin stain upon her voluptuous lips, the ones that never missed at enticing his many erections throughout their disorderly 21-year escapade.
Clay dried upon her aging hands, holding the statue of a man, his wife and his daughter,
Still wet and open to destruction.
Her heart, oblivious to pop’s stance and the blows he had meticulously prepared: warm and loose, depicting the everlasting bout with his love for her, feigning complete impotence.
Blinded
Open the crystallized hazel panes affirming your vision; the scene
delivered relies upon the culmination of all your minor endeavors;
a life driven by despair loiters beside in that welcoming field
of youthful paradise, abundant in jade yet weakened
by Rain and her deficiency.
delivered relies upon the culmination of all your minor endeavors;
a life driven by despair loiters beside in that welcoming field
of youthful paradise, abundant in jade yet weakened
by Rain and her deficiency.
The Mourning of November 24, 1991
The world shook as the sun rose to the loss of musical splendor.
Promiscuous Mercury, gleaming through the hearts of many men and women, was now only a figment of vinyl’s purest imagination.
The white leotard, which hugged his hips tightly at the seams, hangs carefully amongst his eclectic wardrobe, never victim to a crease again.
Zoroastrian’s famous Queen realized that the direction of the wind’s blows mattered; he lost that world, rocked by fat-bottomed girls, more than a little too soon.
Life had lost somebody to love.
Those feminine fingers belonging to the essential diva, metallic black paint never looking better, still play Bohemian Rhapsody
but only to the sold out crowd at Heaven’s gate.
Promiscuous Mercury, gleaming through the hearts of many men and women, was now only a figment of vinyl’s purest imagination.
The white leotard, which hugged his hips tightly at the seams, hangs carefully amongst his eclectic wardrobe, never victim to a crease again.
Zoroastrian’s famous Queen realized that the direction of the wind’s blows mattered; he lost that world, rocked by fat-bottomed girls, more than a little too soon.
Life had lost somebody to love.
Those feminine fingers belonging to the essential diva, metallic black paint never looking better, still play Bohemian Rhapsody
but only to the sold out crowd at Heaven’s gate.
Acorns & Memories
Heart full of indigo
harvests, this fatherless
child knows no gain.
Something breathes indignation
out there,
the past is what she cannot
resist.
Heart drained of
dreams, frozen
Icicles melted by
instances, belonging
to the nights her warm childhood
never ceased to be amazed by.
harvests, this fatherless
child knows no gain.
Something breathes indignation
out there,
the past is what she cannot
resist.
Heart drained of
dreams, frozen
Icicles melted by
instances, belonging
to the nights her warm childhood
never ceased to be amazed by.
Rewriting Myself
there used to be something about fear written here
but now there’s a sleepless child, smiling.
there was a father, absentminded and handsome
now there’s hope and a future helping children just around the bend.
here was illustrated a broken home; tattered on the roof, shingles fallen from rain
but now ashes of what once held terror, an unsettling humble abode.
once the ashes of his own absent father, my grandfather resting in ruined peace,
now the memory of my child’s grandfather, living dead upon his or her future arrival.
even when I was young, instances of hope lingering beside me, injured within him,
like when mother sprinkled salt on my tongue, saving my heart any tremble after the next-door neighbor’s dog bit my leg.
now I lie, my wrist bathing in salt, scar tissue colliding with depression.
difficult to conceal; these bracelets nearly reach around, sweater cuffs too itchy.
years ago cutting was foreign; words concealed any pain,
but they evolved, my words are used to express anguish.
I do try, daily practicing goodbyes as I practice lies.
I do try, by asking him to hold his daughter close.
I do try, but I cannot make him love me any more than any less.
as the view into mornings break, I
give up trying; nothing changes.
no, things change—
there used to be something about fear written here.
but now there’s a sleepless child, smiling.
there was a father, absentminded and handsome
now there’s hope and a future helping children just around the bend.
here was illustrated a broken home; tattered on the roof, shingles fallen from rain
but now ashes of what once held terror, an unsettling humble abode.
once the ashes of his own absent father, my grandfather resting in ruined peace,
now the memory of my child’s grandfather, living dead upon his or her future arrival.
even when I was young, instances of hope lingering beside me, injured within him,
like when mother sprinkled salt on my tongue, saving my heart any tremble after the next-door neighbor’s dog bit my leg.
now I lie, my wrist bathing in salt, scar tissue colliding with depression.
difficult to conceal; these bracelets nearly reach around, sweater cuffs too itchy.
years ago cutting was foreign; words concealed any pain,
but they evolved, my words are used to express anguish.
I do try, daily practicing goodbyes as I practice lies.
I do try, by asking him to hold his daughter close.
I do try, but I cannot make him love me any more than any less.
as the view into mornings break, I
give up trying; nothing changes.
no, things change—
there used to be something about fear written here.
Seizure of Youth
I felt them frozen, my six-year-old
bones. Mother alone, paste deficient in
bonding a broken home’s foundation,
flats cracked untimely below a former
baby’s crawl. Father desolate, this construction
worker’s belt too tight, water bottle empty as his thirst
rules on a hot summer day. Heaviness; no siblings
to share this pokerfaced nightmare.
bones. Mother alone, paste deficient in
bonding a broken home’s foundation,
flats cracked untimely below a former
baby’s crawl. Father desolate, this construction
worker’s belt too tight, water bottle empty as his thirst
rules on a hot summer day. Heaviness; no siblings
to share this pokerfaced nightmare.
Welcome Home
Ask me of my home. I hear it through pillars of regal
humbleness attributed to an innate,
polished wonder. I see how it raised me fatherless without
support. I remember living, one foot grasping
the steady training wheel, as if the bike
ride to childhood occupancy would
never see the fall of its night.
humbleness attributed to an innate,
polished wonder. I see how it raised me fatherless without
support. I remember living, one foot grasping
the steady training wheel, as if the bike
ride to childhood occupancy would
never see the fall of its night.
Charlie
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
— Bukowski
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
— Bukowski
Frusciante
The one who lifts me out of my chronic fatigue.
The one who speaks the truths that my past escaped with.
The one who allows me to defy the logic of this corrupt society.
The one who speaks so eloquently, sensually soft to the soul.
The one with the crazy shine that will never let me die...
Friday, April 16, 2010
Defining "Graduate" To Her Father
It makes little difference how many university courses or degrees a person may own. If he cannot use words to move an idea from one point to another, his education is incomplete.
~Norman Cousins
So think what you want, and say what you feel, but once it happens, you better watch what you say to me.
You got that?
It's because of you that it hasn't come to her, and it's because of you that she has met tall hurdles that hindered her along the way, up until now.
You let her be, and without any support, she has fallen behind....
But, it's now time to walk in front of herself, and no longer behind you, or anyone's success you use to make her feel like a failure.
There's a reason she has been put here to succeed, and with all due respect, it is the words she compiles from within that allow her to pull through your bullshit, and come as far as she has, within the path that she has been led to follow.
Shut your trap, and when the time comes, you better be ready to swallow some words, because its the commencement of selfless endurance and esteem that will lead her to great things, not the lack of love and harsh criticism that you have thrown like curve balls to stop her in her tracks all along.
She is determined to give Mrs. Robinson's young fling a run for his money, and don't you ever doubt her once she does.
You got that?
Good. Now just make sure you never forget it.
2009. It's her time to shine Pop, not everyone elses whom you make her feel thoroughly less than.
It'll happen, be assured.
August 21, 2009...3 months and a day after...I told you so.
~Norman Cousins
So think what you want, and say what you feel, but once it happens, you better watch what you say to me.
You got that?
It's because of you that it hasn't come to her, and it's because of you that she has met tall hurdles that hindered her along the way, up until now.
You let her be, and without any support, she has fallen behind....
But, it's now time to walk in front of herself, and no longer behind you, or anyone's success you use to make her feel like a failure.
There's a reason she has been put here to succeed, and with all due respect, it is the words she compiles from within that allow her to pull through your bullshit, and come as far as she has, within the path that she has been led to follow.
Shut your trap, and when the time comes, you better be ready to swallow some words, because its the commencement of selfless endurance and esteem that will lead her to great things, not the lack of love and harsh criticism that you have thrown like curve balls to stop her in her tracks all along.
She is determined to give Mrs. Robinson's young fling a run for his money, and don't you ever doubt her once she does.
You got that?
Good. Now just make sure you never forget it.
2009. It's her time to shine Pop, not everyone elses whom you make her feel thoroughly less than.
It'll happen, be assured.
August 21, 2009...3 months and a day after...I told you so.
8.10.09
Epiphanies strike all too sudden sometimes, like impending jealousy when you’ve lived your entire life as “the skinny one” without ever becoming prone to weight consciousness. I had a moment tonight where I realized on the ugly 101 heading towards that picturesque town; the city belonging to studios, that my life’s utter sadness does not depend, and has not depended, upon the miniscule contact with a circle of lessened friends that I have acquired throughout the years after I left that hell hole, which kept me captive for four years of my latter adolescence, but that it depends upon the bitter sweetness that defines itself as sheer melancholy and tactless yet entirely consecrated inner loneliness. It’s 12:41 in the morning, and I could have sworn it was 12:17 but two simple minutes ago. Where does the time go? Where has my life gone? I am but twenty-five years old, and I am simply aging away from adulthood and its validity, insidious and tiresome, slipping through some Casanova’s fatherly fingers.
What It Do, Baby Boo?
1.What was the last thing you put in your mouth? Ghormeh Sabzi, bitches.
2.Where was your profile picture taken? In Pop's victorian-esque looking dining room.
3.Can you play Guitar Hero? Um, can Lars Ulrich play the drums?
4. Name someone who made you laugh today? Perera's sexy ass.(insert giving him an ego boost *here*)
5. What time did you go to bed and why? 1:30 a.m, because Tony Flow was calling in my dreams.
6. If you could move somewhere else, would you? You're talking to Neda here, come on now.
7. Ever been kissed under fireworks? Once, Mr Lee. was his moniker.
8. Which of your friends lives closest to you? Which house? I'm an orphan, remember?
9. Do you believe ex's can be friends? Ask Cool Lenox.
10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper? Gotta love the doctor!
11. When was the last time you cried really hard? Sunday night due to undisclosed information.
12. Who took your profile picture? Pop's big Mac.
13. Who was the last person you took a picture of ? Kiedis baby.
14. Was yesterday better than today? Nope! Going around town on second interviews is no bueno.
15. Can you live a day without TV? Try a year and a half.
16. Are you upset about anything? Tampering with brokeness.
17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it? Why of course.
18. Are you a bad influence? Me? I don't even know the meaning of the word bad.
19. Night out or night in? either one works.
20. What items could you not go without during the day? a shot of facebook.
21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? R.I.P Grandmommy.
2.Where was your profile picture taken? In Pop's victorian-esque looking dining room.
3.Can you play Guitar Hero? Um, can Lars Ulrich play the drums?
4. Name someone who made you laugh today? Perera's sexy ass.(insert giving him an ego boost *here*)
5. What time did you go to bed and why? 1:30 a.m, because Tony Flow was calling in my dreams.
6. If you could move somewhere else, would you? You're talking to Neda here, come on now.
7. Ever been kissed under fireworks? Once, Mr Lee. was his moniker.
8. Which of your friends lives closest to you? Which house? I'm an orphan, remember?
9. Do you believe ex's can be friends? Ask Cool Lenox.
10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper? Gotta love the doctor!
11. When was the last time you cried really hard? Sunday night due to undisclosed information.
12. Who took your profile picture? Pop's big Mac.
13. Who was the last person you took a picture of ? Kiedis baby.
14. Was yesterday better than today? Nope! Going around town on second interviews is no bueno.
15. Can you live a day without TV? Try a year and a half.
16. Are you upset about anything? Tampering with brokeness.
17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it? Why of course.
18. Are you a bad influence? Me? I don't even know the meaning of the word bad.
19. Night out or night in? either one works.
20. What items could you not go without during the day? a shot of facebook.
21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? R.I.P Grandmommy.
Surviving Suddenly
I came across a quote about writing; essentially that it offers society simply nothing if it does not conjure up tears, music or simply a life affirming notion in its process, and it has made me think as I lay in bed after dinner with sweet company tonight, and saying goodbye to lovely Lihi, that my life has already been lived and that no one has the say to state otherwise, unless they feel of my broken, childhood subsistence as it has manifested itself into adulthood.
When I was seventeen, I endured loneliness-prone divorce. My father lived unaware yet like half of a siamese twin, coherent and colorful beside me. I am now twenty-five, and though the lonesome teenager has grown on without me, I still have yet to finalize the disconnect between my parents. Like siamese twins, they lay coherent and colorful beside me, fragile and victimized.
When I met my first love, I was abandoned. When he met me, he was overflowing like my father's Miller Genuine Draft with happiness. Does the end of my forlorn day exist?
Why do resolutions survive like spring's hottest nail polish, and anguished children lay frayed like mother's 25-year-old bellbottoms?
I suppose seventeen will never see twenty-five, and twenty-five will always fall a casualty to it.
Suddenly I have seen, that the secret of living will always play this remembrance of cruel, thus usual punishment upon me, and no one, not even you, can pass judgment upon my dire need to dwell, unless you knew better than me, and as bluntly as I can speak about my emotional state of affairs in life, I can bluntly say that I would agree to put the past to rest if those who have requested that I keep my emotions bottled up, would find it in their right minds to comprehend this bittersweet state of fear that I have been compelled to endure. You don't know shit, until you can honestly say you do. You just do not know, period.
When I was seventeen, I endured loneliness-prone divorce. My father lived unaware yet like half of a siamese twin, coherent and colorful beside me. I am now twenty-five, and though the lonesome teenager has grown on without me, I still have yet to finalize the disconnect between my parents. Like siamese twins, they lay coherent and colorful beside me, fragile and victimized.
When I met my first love, I was abandoned. When he met me, he was overflowing like my father's Miller Genuine Draft with happiness. Does the end of my forlorn day exist?
Why do resolutions survive like spring's hottest nail polish, and anguished children lay frayed like mother's 25-year-old bellbottoms?
I suppose seventeen will never see twenty-five, and twenty-five will always fall a casualty to it.
Suddenly I have seen, that the secret of living will always play this remembrance of cruel, thus usual punishment upon me, and no one, not even you, can pass judgment upon my dire need to dwell, unless you knew better than me, and as bluntly as I can speak about my emotional state of affairs in life, I can bluntly say that I would agree to put the past to rest if those who have requested that I keep my emotions bottled up, would find it in their right minds to comprehend this bittersweet state of fear that I have been compelled to endure. You don't know shit, until you can honestly say you do. You just do not know, period.
I Believe In You
There's no easy way to go about things like this.
I've tried desperately to calm my tears and fears of the future in regards to what will come of it all, but I am simply stuck.
Many words, synonymous with anger and sadness, have rolled off of my tongue only to echo off my bedroom walls to a silent audience.
Things happen and those in higher places known as authoritative figures twist the truth around with the cold, hard facts yet to be revealed.
My mind remains in a state of dismay and my body has layed in bed, comatose yet with worry. Worry for you, for them, for everyone.
What else can one say when things happen beyond another's immediate control? Nothing. I wish they would say nothing.
You will always be you, away from the portrait that has been painted, and dear to my heart.
I love you, and wish your fragile, brilliant mind some peace in dreams tonight, and forever.
Goodnight Love, sleep tight in sheer comfort knowing that the man above would never put us through anything we cannot handle or prosper through, and from.
Never.
<3
I've tried desperately to calm my tears and fears of the future in regards to what will come of it all, but I am simply stuck.
Many words, synonymous with anger and sadness, have rolled off of my tongue only to echo off my bedroom walls to a silent audience.
Things happen and those in higher places known as authoritative figures twist the truth around with the cold, hard facts yet to be revealed.
My mind remains in a state of dismay and my body has layed in bed, comatose yet with worry. Worry for you, for them, for everyone.
What else can one say when things happen beyond another's immediate control? Nothing. I wish they would say nothing.
You will always be you, away from the portrait that has been painted, and dear to my heart.
I love you, and wish your fragile, brilliant mind some peace in dreams tonight, and forever.
Goodnight Love, sleep tight in sheer comfort knowing that the man above would never put us through anything we cannot handle or prosper through, and from.
Never.
<3
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