tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59978067095648910472024-03-13T02:02:08.605-07:00A Room Full Of Mirrorsboylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-10199963545003283792014-07-12T07:47:00.000-07:002015-06-15T10:16:18.506-07:00Some Times Poems Come as a Mismatched Set<br />
There have been poems that keep slipping between my fingers, like pennies<br />
I can never have enough<br />
Save enough<br />
For the right moment<br />
I spend too much<br />
On trivial shit<br />
A moments pleasure<br />
Like a $5 photo taken with an aging Llama<br />
Or words cashed in <br />
On lovers who never loved <br />
Me<br />
We<br />
start again<br />
With outstretched palms<br />
And empty<br />
Pockets.<br />
<br />
*******<br />
It's 9 pm<br />
Time encrusted with<br />
A perfect sunset<br />
Your mountain is<br />
Blushing<br />
Warm pink<br />
With lavender creases<br />
I think even<br />
The landscape misses<br />
Your smile.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-90250002893346190462014-07-12T07:43:00.004-07:002014-07-12T07:43:59.608-07:00Jim & Michelle<br />We talked last night about the Champagne flutes<br />that we never could find<br />and the beer steins<br />serving as substitutes<br />that we found in a junk yard <br />An Oakland treasure<br />We called them ours<br />despite the names Jim and Michelle<br />etched into the side<br />an open secret<br />You called them dead<br />I called them divorced.<br /><br />We stole a story<br />from Jim and Michele's trash<br />took it to our wedding<br />and had a toast<br /> to humor<br /> and forever<br /> to live<br /> and forget<br /><br />These now empty glasses that weren't <br />what we wanted<br />have shifted in our landscape<br />bulky and heavy<br />with names that aren't ours-<br />metaphors <br />that will take our lives<br />to understand<br />We have built <br /> a story<br /> a house<br /> ourselves<br />on these two beer steins<br />that were not what we wanted-<br />That may or may not be in the attic.<br /><br />On the sunrise <br />of our five years<br />with rings, tears, laughter<br />I can't help but see <br />the poem start to emerge<br />Singing to the bird who still has yet to land<br />and to the hermit sculpting stories in the dark<br />beauty is about perspective<br />and love is as large<br />as we both can imagine<br />some times it's not about what you want<br />but what you've got.<br /><br />Jim & Michele<br />Forever.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-80239948176651433102014-07-12T07:36:00.000-07:002014-07-12T07:36:01.832-07:00The Anticipation of Loss<br />Whenever I come to visit there are many little moments that feel meaningful, but I never can seem to wrap my heart around them. They fall like sand between my outstretched fingers.<br /><br />My grandmother asked me if I wanted coffee, but what she meant was--did I want coffee to take home? Apparently, there were several pounds left over that my father had sent from Puerto Rico and nobody would drink it. She took 8 lbs to the senior center and gave it away. I want to think of the coffee as the peace offering that my father would never offer. I want the moment that I drink this coffee to know that our souls, if not our hearts, are absolved. I want to think that I could live with only taking what he offered, even if it was not offered to me.<br />*****<br />We ate outside in the garden, even though there were only 13 of us. There are many things that my family does wrong but taking care of our elders is not among them. We are eating here instead of at one of the lake houses because this is where she is and she, even with her bitterness, is where our heart is.<br /><br />My grandmother has aged severely in the last year, shrunk just a little more into herself and lost what ever was left of social inhibition. My sister has brought a boyfriend on this trip-- the boyfriend who will probably be her last. It's an important moment. The boyfriend gives my sister the last bite of my grandmothers famous rice and my grandmother looks at him and says "Don't let her get fat". We laughed. We laughed because it wasn't funny, we laughed because it's in our blood-- a natural response to an uncomfortable situation, we laughed because there was nothing left to do, this was not a battle anyone would choose to fight with Grandma. The boyfriend blinked repeatedly, and said ever so softly, "I used to be fat." No one heard him over the laughing.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />There is a sadness that hangs here and I have been trying to figure out exactly what it is hung on. I can't tell if only I can see it or if everyone see's it and laughs anyways. I like to look at all of the photos, not because I remember the moments or want to remember the people, I look because I have always looked, it's the searching that's familiar.<br /><br />There are no photos in my house. My history lives here in neutral colors and white trim. This is the only place that smells like home though I have never lived here, this house and my memory reek of dial hand soap and sofrito. <br /><br />I feel the loss coming like October rushing toward July, the change is riding the mid afternoon breeze.<br /><br />She doesn't want to have surgery on her shoulders and tells me that her heart hurts and soon God will say, "Aida you have been a bad girl." This loss has been on it's way to arriving for the last 89 years. She is ready, I am not.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-2956852320781218362014-07-12T07:29:00.002-07:002014-07-12T07:30:27.175-07:00Noon <br />
Trying to write at noon on a Tuesday, is like trying to drive my truck without gas. It just sits there in the bold sun, sweating. The words were all possibility two hours ago and now they have retreated like morning glories at sunset.<br />
<br />
I want the words to come out before my family arrives, before the dogs come home, before the afternoon gets away from me, like water in a drain.<br />
<br />
Seattle isn't suppose to be hot and still, we should be packed in by clouds and a west wind. We should be drinking drinking black coffee and brooding. <br />
<br />
The windows are open and the curtains are doing a modified tango with the breeze and yet the words are not wandering in, the stories about my mother, a fourth of July gay bashing, group homes and California's fault lines, are not willing to sit with me today.<br />
<br />
Writing at noon on a Tuesday calls for an iced tea and private conversation with Sherman Alexie out among the sunflowers. No notes, no pens, no keyboards. Just whispers stitched on to the underside of my heart out in the bold and rare sunshine.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-30182296500148773312014-07-12T07:24:00.000-07:002014-07-12T07:30:41.526-07:00Thoughts on Pride<br />
As we zig zag though side streets, she turns and says "You know, I go to the Cuff to sort of make sense of it all". I suppose that's why we go to gay bars--whatever we are trying to make sense of. I think about the history of pride month, the various uprisings, lifetimes of an up hill battles, the gore mixed with glitter. It's three days before pride and you can feel it rising, the bigger smiles, bigger drinks, it's a little bit like the rise of rainbow feeling acid reflux. Our bodies are trying to digest our once a year gorge on the beauty of our experience, despite whatever it is we lost. We all have lost something/someone-- in battles there are always losses.<br />
<br />
I grew up a little bit east of everywhere, where one small town bleeds to the next. Pride mattered, the internet was still stuttering and the winters were long. There was no corporate sponsorship. Just people, in park, on a summer day. I was 16, I didn't know about uprisings, I didn't know what love felt like but I knew that I belonged there some how, I didn't yet know what it would cost me to belong, or that I would end up on the outside anyways.<br />
<br />
<br />
********<br />
<br />
It isn't true you know. <br />
That rainbows and glitter<br />
some how make it better<br />
it doesn't get better<br />
it gets different<br />
its like growing up<br />
and looking <br />
at that old bike with training wheels<br />
and somehow<br />
it looks smaller<br />
and we forget<br />
that we got bigger<br />
I think a photographer<br />
would say<br />
It's about perspective<br />
no one talks about the storms<br />
that blow in the rainbows<br />
or the glass that was shattered<br />
to make the glitter<br />
there's a story here<br />
that we just can't seem to remember<br />
but it's etched into our bones<br />
buried in our veins<br />
covered in cobwebs in our history<br />
and we forget about the pain<br />
because rainbows<br />
are rare<br />
and beautiful<br />
but fading with<br />
ever breath, step, march.<br />
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boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-54116936161606261412014-07-12T07:21:00.004-07:002014-07-12T07:32:57.257-07:00Bones<br />People talk about<br />the bones<br />like it matters<br />I always imagined<br />steel bolts and solid wood beams<br />a heart buried among<br />the sawdust and spiders<br />A soul crushed between<br />dry wall and latex paint<br />I thought character was about bones<br />and foundation<br />and there's a wall<br />laying haphazardly<br />in the back yard<br />chucked out a window<br />200 lbs of bones<br />melting away in the rain.<br />I asked about why we add <br />texture to walls<br />my guy tells me<br />to hide the imperfections-<br />industry standards.<br /><br />It's the imperfections<br />that grab me,<br />the plaster that wasn't quite even<br />in my inexperience<br />and the nail hole that was missed<br />in the caulking<br />the slight chips of time,<br />it's the scars that make the character<br />not the bones<br /><br />the bones are what the scars <br />cling to<br />in a summer storm.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-78311877243348549082014-06-24T07:35:00.000-07:002014-06-24T07:35:08.302-07:00ScarsYou asked me to tell you about a scar. Instantly I thought about my chest, the bilateral scars that snake along the underside of my pecs. Then I moved lower running my thumb along the scars in my abdomen from my hysterectomy, following the path downward I settled on what I tend to imagine as the old man in my knee. The cadaver ligament I acquired last spring. But these scars get plenty of attention.<br /><br />Two scars come to mind. One is not mine and the other not yet real.<br /><br />The scar that is not mine belongs to my sister. The upper corner of her lip met a flaming marshmallow, just after sunset, the winter we were practically kidnapped. It was cold, we did most of the cooking on a grill outside the double wide trailer that rested among oak trees in central California. Some how she got bumped just as she went to blow the flame out on the marshmallow. I remember screaming before she even realized what had happened. My father grabbed a wet towel and put it over her mouth, trying to cover up her wailing more than ease the pain. Today she's 30, and the old triangular scar the size of a lucky charm is no longer visible, but bodies them selves hold memories, and they even sometimes hold memories that don't belong specifically to that body. I don't like roasting marshmallows, when I see them, I see her 8 year old face full of excitement catch fire. The image is burned in my memory like the California's landscape after a wildfire. Still smoldering, black and strikingly empty. I asked my sister about the scar, and she said, "What scar?"<br /><br />The second scar is a currently a figment of my imagination. Sometimes in some cases this is how scars are born. I am still debating whether I want/need surgery on my ears again. This new scar will not be hidden like the others. It will rest on my temples as if my ears will forever be held at gun point. It could cause a whole host of problems, it could be the tombstone for my sense of taste or my ability to feel my face. It could also be a memorial to my time that was silent and now only sound will always exist. I will not be able to remove it and move through sound or silence at will. This theoretical scar will pin me down forever as one or the other. I have never been very good at one or the other.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-44235793649466353132014-06-23T18:43:00.001-07:002014-06-23T18:47:03.555-07:00Bacon<br />
I have always been afraid of bacon. Really afraid of bacon. <br />
<br />
It took me years to put it together. <br />
<br />
Sometimes during the weekend, while I was little, my father would make breakfast. This is the only time I ever saw him cook before my mother died. He would get up early wearing only a white t-shirt and BVDs. A while back, my sister had her only Puerto Rican boyfriend who upon looking at a photo during this time period said, "He looks straight out of Watts". He did. Dark brown skin, thick muscles, the slow gait of heavy lifting and light pay. Some times he was gruff and as monosyllabic as a Spanish speaker can get. Sometimes he was kind, taking his time after breakfast to brush out my waist length hair from the bottom or letting me cling to him after yet another ear surgery facing uncontrollable vomiting. <br />
<br />
During these weekend breakfasts I never knew which side of him we would get. I liked watching him cook. I liked watching the bacon shrivel as if by magic, the ritual of putting down a paper towel and laying each piece out dry. Without my hearing aids in and even then before I "needed" them, I cannot hear bacon sizzle. I get the concept, I can see the concept and after two very recent kitchen fires I am very aware how heat works in the kitchen. I wasn't aware then. Maybe I was five years old. I didn't hear him tell me to stand back. I remember distinctly what it felt like as the oil and fat hit my arm. It leapt out and grabbed me, burning a hole into my memory. My father told me it was my fault and to never go near cooking bacon again. And I didn't. For years and years, I was afraid and despite my love of bacon, I shunned it. It began to represent my fear of my father, the oil just grabbed me like one of his bad moods and I didn't even see it coming.<br />
<br />
I suppose that people are resilient and my love of bacon has led me to being able to fry it up, keeping the parts of my fathers ritual that served me. The early morning wake up, cooking the entire package at once, black coffee and paper towel for the final lay out. I still stand back though, still have the fear of oil, fat, anger-- reaching out and grabbing, pulling me back to a snot nosed kid, with a several burn marks and new void in my world where the magic of frying bacon use to be.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-58973092856481283722014-06-23T18:41:00.003-07:002016-03-15T20:11:28.449-07:00Red Ribbon Hospice<br />
<br />
We play Skip Bo<br />
Like we are in a Casino,<br />
It's fueled <br />
black coffee quick<br />
and the minutes tick<br />
by<br />
hours,<br />
ticking by days <br />
washing up years<br />
and Lucy died yesterday<br />
with her favorite red nail polish still wet<br />
and it's Pride month<br />
and I am sitting with forgotten ghosts<br />
People talk about AIDS like it happened<br />
and George tells me about falling in love <br />
with a soldier<br />
in the Vietnam war<br />
They tell me about their lives<br />
like they happened<br />
like the story is at it's epilogue<br />
<br />
Here, among the florescent lights <br />
hangs<br />
every Tuesday,<br />
scattered coffee mugs,<br />
left overs from lunch<br />
and lives<br />
that aren't<br />
quite<br />
history.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-19786877038716680222014-06-23T18:39:00.003-07:002014-06-23T18:39:43.710-07:00The Sound of Silence<br />It took losing my hearing to fall in love with Yo Yo Ma. It happened on a Wednesday in rush hour, riding in a the picturesque modern day cowboys truck actually named Truck Noriss, skirting downtown traffic, with a Texan who had beat thyroid cancer twice, who had years ago fallen in love with american sign language, and was taking me to a bar where we would huddle in the back with just enough light to almost make out our abc's. He wanted to introduce me to this album he had fallen in love with, I wasn't sure until he turned up the bass so loud the dash board shook and his coffee cup was practically leaping out of the holder. This is the only way to listen to Yo Yo Ma. I put my feet on his dashboard and fell, completely in love. I let the bass notes tumble up and down my spine, let silence rest on my sternum until bam -- my heart woke up. I now know that it wasn't exactly Yo Yo Ma that I fell for but the the curves of the cello. Some days I can hear the whisper of the notes but mostly I just feel them, it was the cello that taught me that there IS sound in silence, and that there will be another world, another way of being, new unexpected love randomly and mismatched just around the corner, the cello makes me less afraid of letting my hearing go, the cello has shown me that life is not what I have expected it to be, and deafness isn't either, two years ago with 60% of my hearing intact, I couldn't hear a thing.<br /><br />*****<br />There is something about a sunny day, a Chevy pick up, and rock and roll. I was half way through listening to "Free Falling" when it hit me. I pulled over, along side lake Washington and a late spring breeze. I pushed up the volume as far as it would go. I tapped gently on the steering wheel, I let the bass vibrate all the way up my spine, I could feel the clash of the symbols on the left side of my ribs, just beneath my heart. And the words jumped off the windshield gently nibbling the back of my neck. My hearing aids were tucked safely into my front pocket, I wasn't hearing a thing. Not a goddamn thing. I have wondered what sound feels like in silence, it feels like the rush of Christmas morning as a child, the excitement of a first date, an earthquake, an orgasm, it feels that my body is a boat on an wild but tender river, it tastes sweet and metallic, it feels like success.<br /><br />I have been mourning my loss more and more, trying to get my self to a place where I can treat my hearing as essentially a library book. It was good for the time I had it, I loved the story it told, a perspective of the word that I experienced but now it's time to give it back, of course it's a loss but there is a whole new world to experience, and this world is all new and totally mine. So here I am free falling into the sound of silence that is so loud and full of a million vibrations, it's deafening.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-76834142785045304112014-06-23T18:35:00.002-07:002014-06-23T18:35:55.064-07:00New Paint<br />Most people think I am white<br />shit,<br />sometimes <br />I think I am white<br />but I have been painting<br />and the paint is peeling <br />from my knuckles<br />my brown skin with white gashes<br />I am a stain from <br />some long ago, never spoken about, incident<br />in the tobacco fields of Puerto Rico<br />I pull the bright white latex paint<br />from my skin,<br />piece by piece<br />and only my worn brown skin<br />remains.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-18081078237057186872014-06-23T18:34:00.003-07:002014-06-23T19:03:55.978-07:00Learning my ABC's<br />
A year ago, all I knew were my ABC's. My hands were awkward and shy. I was afraid. <br />
Afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid of being inept, afraid of not fitting in. Afraid for my hearing loss. Afraid for my life.<br />
<div>
<br />
And yes, while signing at a play party, instead of saying nice to meet you, I have signed nice to fuck you.<br />
<br />
And while sitting on a city bench at a busy intersection, instead of saying to my friend, "a woman behind you just tripped and fell." I instead signed, "a woman behind you just tripped and died."<br />
<br />
It all started with a new set of hearing aids and the news that my hearing is on it's way out. The news came to me the same way someone might say "garbage day is on Tuesday."<br />
<br />
It started with learning, learning how to use a phone with assistive technology, how to set captions in color on Netflix, how to ask for what I need. It started with the ABC's and colors, with numbers and with "what's your name?"<br />
<br />
And now, the fear is gone. Hunger replaced it. I want to know about classifiers, word order, verbs and facial expressions. I want to know more about ASL, Deaf culture and art, I want to know more about other people who have lost their hearing. I need vocabulary, I want to leave my aids in a drawer, I want to be me- stand on the line between hearing and deafness- drinking with the jims (beam and Morrison)--grieving what's been lost, celebrating what's been gained and loving music in silence.<br />
<br />
It's shocking how much a year has changed my hands, my outlook and my ability to trust that I am not perfect but growing perfectly.</div>
boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-25500304215632969862014-06-23T18:31:00.000-07:002014-06-23T18:31:05.771-07:00Sunflowers<br />I find myself on the edge of a storm, sowing seeds ever so carefully. I don't know why I find myself in the garden when it's about to pour. I stand on the very edge sweating in the last corner of sunlight, with the heavy gray sky whispering her secrets to the last few days of spring. I find my tattoo'd knuckles warm in the dirt, literally burying a metaphor with my sunflowers. It's prayer to summer, to tomorrow, to that rainbow I feel on the back of my neck.<br /><br />It's taken me years to admit my love affair with flowers. Somehow I was afraid of not being enough--man enough, butch enough, to pass for normal.... enough.<br /><br />I never was butch, I had the swagger but not the heart, this has always put me on the edge of tears, and I have never known why.<br /><br />I think of the years I spent in the fields of Watsonville, I think of the men who would get up early in the morning and lay down the 14 foot pipes to water. I think of the lettuce and kale. I think of my favorite flowers--agrostemma-- the roses of heaven. I harvested, I boxed, I washed, I loaded the truck, I ran the market.... it was working on the farm that led me to being able to harvest sides of myself. It was at the farm that I could finally love flowers and still have my masculinity. It was working for a farm that gave me the support I needed to transition, no questions asked. Live and let live. As I tended to produce, I too, blossomed.<br /><br />And today with the whisper of rain, and my sweat mingling with a rainbow, I sow my prayers to summer, to tomorrow, to sunflowers. boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-46869536799674968322014-06-23T18:19:00.002-07:002014-06-23T18:25:59.718-07:00Monuments of weeds and gentrification<br /><br />Not long before I moved to this block, the city started a pilot program. They redesigned the block to be a multi-use space, a place to walk, drive, bike and even play in the street. They put in random gardening plots, forcing cars to theoretically slow down. They put in trees, and plants and then they forgot about us.<br /><br />Five years later, the plots now sit as thrown out overgrown poems with stanzas of weeds. Some times they serve as forts for the neighborhood dogs to win and lose in the still of a hot day. Sometimes they become mini landfills overnight. And then there are moments like these that they loom as monuments to gentrification, alive with whatever will exist throughout a war. I have heard that dandelions can live just about anywhere.<br /><br />Last night as the rain was just becoming a storm, it seemed like a good idea as any to work on the plot in front of my house. It seems like my plot is a beacon for volunteer trees, and one began much too close to another one. All it took was a warm winter for this a little seed to become a 6 foot tall giant stealing space it was not meant for and had no fruit to offer as means of rent.<br /><br />It's a sad thing to fell a tree and this is my second this spring. It took 6 of us-- two being onlookers-- to tie the tree to a truck bumper and yank it out. It gave way with a pop and it's roots stayed completely intact, as if it always knew that one day it would be forced out with no home to ever return to.<br /><br />boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-11075778862100413372014-06-23T18:13:00.002-07:002014-06-23T18:28:24.031-07:00Rock Me Like a South Bound Train<br />I forgot that trains, like memories have pulses and heartbeats that do not always run in sync with mine.<br />I forgot that memories like trains have hidden conductors and engineers. I don't know how memory works, I don't know how trainswork. I just know that they work but there can be accidents and they can be devastating.<br /><br />Yesterday, I found a handful of birds swooping around my back yard picking off the yellow jackets for a late afternoon snack. It took me back to Oakland and bee keeping right off telegraph avenue, shoved up between whole foods and gentrification. A group of us rented a house from an old Berkeley hippie who was heading south, the agreement was to at least care for the bees, if we could not come to love them. I remember standing on the back porch one warm afternoon watching Oakland pigeons do their ghetto version of murmuration and I noticed swallows swooping into the yard and snagging bees as they came and went from the hives. I remember calling the home owner panicked. She told me that it was okay, the birds needed a little protein and this is the way of the birds and the bees, she told me that the birds would not take more then they need.<br /><br />I need to remember not to take more than I need.<br /><br />I need so much lately. I think I have been a smoker to chase a need that can never be fulfilled. It's really not about the habit, or the nicotine, it's trying to fill a hole, or maybe it's several. I feel like a shooting victim, riddled with holes and the bullets are memories laying on the floor, still and dead and difficult to find among the carnage. I am trying to make my self whole again. It's not just cigarettes or trying to fill all of the holes by swallowing fire, it's a need to consume. Some times it's cigarettes, sometimes it's coffee or french fries and sometimes it's booze. I feel so empty, with my memories littering the floor.<br /><br />This feeling of being in pieces, clings to me, it's become a residue that can never be washed off. It makes me think of my father and how he came home from Vietnam with the residue of war. A residue that we call Schizophrenia. He will never be free of his residue, and what I want to know, what I need to know--- will I ever be free from mine? Can I be whole again?<br /><br />I read somewhere once that "nothing important is learned; it is simply remembered." I constantly change my mind about whether I am chasing my memories or running from them. I want so badly to remember more about my mother, I want to understand why I cling to her. A few weeks ago I was moving her old sewing table into my studio space. I was gearing up to make the transformation from a useless piece of furniture to a wedging table and I opened one of the drawers. I found a needle and thread, a tin of laxatives and a receipt from Lucky's grocery store dated 1987. The items on the receipt are as follows; 2 packs of Marlboro reds, a box of Oreo's and a diet coke. These three items are the only things I have ever known my mother to love.<br /><br />Some times I can remember a lot. The color of fluid in my mother's IV bag, my fathers eyes, addresses, the flowers of the magnolia tree that hung so lazily next to my Grandmothers old house. Some times I can't remember my phone number, birthday or social security number. I never can quite seem to remember who I am. But I always remember the calm that my sisters voice had on me when she would sing. Whenever we were scared she would sing. Sometimes it would be songs my parents loved. Something by Tracy Chapman, or Frank Sinatra. Sometimes it would be from Disney movies or what ever was on the radio. My sister and I both learned early that art--art is something one clings to, because everyone needs to cling to something-- and god had stopped listening.<br /><br />There is this feeling in my memories, this sense of a search. A shared fabric though them all. I am looking for home, looking in every moment, breath,trip to the corner market. It's not exactly myself that I am looking for, it's a place in my heart to call home. And it's been right here all along-- not the random hotel outside of Portland, or in the rains, or in a tiny house in Rainier Beach. It's in words, it's in writing. This is home, this is where the train fueled by my memories has brought me.<br /><br />Home. To writing. To me.<br /><br />I am the conductor, the engineer and mechanic of my own memories and every story is a beat in the heart of my life.<br /><br />boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-85771527563253192942014-04-06T09:40:00.000-07:002014-06-23T18:29:16.735-07:00Resistance<br />Usually when I make art, it’s quick, messy and thick with a sense of urgency. With ceramic sculpture I will take my time to make sure that it won't fall apart or blow up in the firing process but I won’t smooth out fingerprints or nail marks or that little dent just to the left. It’s often imperfection that makes something beautiful or at least lends some sense of meaning. When I paint or draw or write all of this still applies, it may all be patched together quickly or hazardly but it will be standing come morning. This is my resistance.<br /><br />I rarely go out to buy art supplies, I have never been very good at allowing myself this indulgence. So, I find them. Discarded wood on the side of the road, already painted on canvas at the thrift store, old stove tops in a junk yard, free house paint on craigslist. The greatest gifts I have ever received in life have been art supplies. Trying to create something from what the world has given me has turned into an art practice in itself.<br /><br />My Mother was an artist but I didn't understand this before she died. As a kid, the fact that she sewed was boring. Sure, I loved the blankets that she made just for me and was even some what intrigued by the dolls but I didn't understand the skill that went into it. I didn't know about fabric choices and colors and stitching it all together. I did not appreciate quilts or afghans or the beautiful dresses. But I married a seamstress and once again find myself more often than not in fabric store on rainy Saturdays. And it’s the patterns that I notice. I loved them as a kid, I loved fingering through packets upon packets of something I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand. Maybe It’s the unbearably thin paper with the notches and dotted lines that magically make clothing, or blankets or something useful. Everything is exact, complete with instructions on how exactly to cut this unbearably thin paper, it makes me think of surgery and skin and blue prints. There is an art to stitching it all together, to making it work, to linking one piece to the next-- this too has become part of my resistance. <br /><br />Most days I have no idea who I am or how I got here or if I have even arrived. But I know that I have stitched something together despite the fact that I can’t even thread a needle. I know that I have become a sculpture of found moments, grief and distant memories to painful to be anything but abstract. It’s all here, stitched together quickly at midnight or maybe it was 4pm every thursday for the last twenty years. Some of it’s glue, some of it’s clay and some of it’s tears. It’s messy and childish and strong enough to weather a storm. I don’t know if it comes apart, I don’t know if I want to take it apart, I don’t know if I can look at it piece by piece, moment by moment, because it’s all just thrown together with everything I have, it’s private and ugly and the most beautiful thing I have ever sculpted from nothing.<br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br />Some days I want to show it to you, even in pieces. And everything feels wrong and I know that this is the answer, to peal back the moments like an onion, to reveal why the sculpture still stands come morning, to revel in the masterpiece of becoming and creation.<br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br />And I resist in sharing and telling and the truth because silence and resistance have become the glue, the substance that is holding me together. Resistance is everything, it’s all I have left. And I am going to cling to it because that is survival. Resistance is living, it’s what brought me to this moment and what will hold me until the next. I can not stop resisting, this is the pattern, the stitching, and all of the lint in my metaphorical pockets-- I let go of this and everything --sculpture and all come tumbling down. Resistance has become the fiber of my being and sculpting my secrets into meaning has become my art.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-44636845652915189812012-12-04T20:28:00.002-08:002012-12-05T13:03:52.190-08:00A random letter written on a Tuesday in June or Glitter does not make everything okayFor years now I have been a letter writer, often having several other writers to write back and forth with. This is a letter written last June.<br />
*****<br />
Have you ever seen the documentary "Paris is Burning"? If you haven't -
you should. It is one of
the best documentaries I have ever seen plus it's focused on queer, and
poor folks of color- without even trying too hard. I tear up every
fucking time.<br />
<br />
For some reason the film makes me think of Alice, I wonder if she
ever saw it, I wonder if it would have made some sort of difference, I
wonder if I am an asshole because I never thought to suggest it. Some
times it doesn't feel real that she's dead. It doesn't feel real that
trans people just don't make it to adulthood, because it's too hard and
drugs are too easy and glitter doesn't make everything okay. I still
have her last boyhood item stuffed into my back pocket, it's funny how
much masculinity we put into a little leather money holder, and she
thought it so fitting to gift it to me. There's something about a boy
who never wanted to be a girl, trying to teach a girl who never wanted
to be a boy, how to become a masterpiece. Some days I think I failed
when I think about the little seventeen year old hooked up to life
support in Oakland's children's hospital and some days I think back to her
giggling, talking about girls and clothes and think that at least she
died being open and honest about who she was. But wouldn't it have been
better if she had lived, grown up to show the world the masterpiece she
had become?<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #888888;"></span><br />
If you haven't seen it yet please check out the book Alice's mother has been working on- it's heartbreaking, beautiful and real. Really. Go now.<br />
<a href="http://laurustina.com/the-complicated-geography-of-alice/">http://laurustina.com/the-complicated-geography-of-alice/</a><br />
<span style="color: #888888;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #888888;"><br /></span>boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-32831134666653342052012-11-30T17:09:00.000-08:002012-11-30T17:10:26.498-08:00Metaphor<br />
He gave me silence-<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
the kind of silence<br />
that only snow can bring to<br />
New York City.<br />
<br />
He gave me his hands,<br />
brown, worn and angry.<br />
<br />
He gave me my body,<br />
his body<br />
Leviticus- tongue to cheek.<br />
<br />
He gave<br />
hair patterns, books, philosophy<br />
and the tight rope between<br />
51 and 50.<br />
<br />
He gave me her, only<br />
on loan, a Mother.<br />
<br />
He gave me breath, bullshit, butterflies<br />
and <span class="il">battleship</span>.<br />
<br />
He gave me silence,<br />
but left me
words<br />
and I gave his hands<br />
my<br />
tattoo's.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
****</div>
boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-38301057593695671162012-11-11T19:20:00.000-08:002012-11-11T19:20:33.303-08:00Louder please<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
If I could tell you anything,<br />
I would say-<br />
<span class="il">Speak</span> <span class="il">louder</span>.<br />
No. Don't shout, it just makes you look angry.<br />
Please don't say- Never mind<br />
Learn to rephrase and not repeat,<br />
I didn't understand the first time. Choose different words.<br />
Step into the light and don't cover your mouth.<br />
<br />
If I could tell you anything,<br />
I would advise you not to ask me why I wear hearing aids so young, unless<br />
You ask every person<br />
Under thirty why they wear glasses<br />
Please don't ask if I like them or whether you should get some. Please just see
an audiologist.<br />
Do not ask how much they cost, they cost a whole lot more than money, in fact
they cost more than words.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do not ask about the percentages of my loss, there is no way
to break it down,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Could you ever put a percentage on how many times, you
missed a joke, missed some one asking for help, whispering a prayer or saying fuck me?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Could you ever put a
percentage on the inability to hear your own voice? Or how many sunny hours
were lost as a child in speech therapy so you wouldn’t have an accent?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I would also advise you to <br />
not move your lips around with no sound coming out and ask me if I can hear
you, this makes you look like an ass, in fact this <i>does</i> make you an ass.<br />
<br />
If I could tell you anything-<br />
I would say <span class="il">speak</span> <span class="il">louder</span>,<br />
<span class="il">Loud</span> enough for my heart to hear you,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="il">Loud</span> like the dawn chasing the night away<br />
<span class="il">Loud</span> enough to make the floor vibrate</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="il">Loud</span> like a smile and an extended hand<br />
<span class="il">Loud</span> enough for me to not have to say "sorry, could you repeat that?"<br />
<span class="il">Loud</span> enough for me not to apologize for my disability, again and again<br />
<span class="il">Loud</span> enough for me to say, I understand.<br />
<br />
If I could tell you anything,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I would say </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="il">speak</span> <span class="il">louder</span>.</div>
boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-45269344544934674512012-11-11T19:16:00.001-08:002012-11-11T19:16:57.779-08:00Thoughts on writing I write because I have to, when I write- it becomes bearable, real,
alive. When I write, I am no longer choking back the words but finally
breathing fire. When I write, I take the knife and go right up the vein,
not across- mind you. When I write, I no longer exist. I long, some
days, to no longer exist. Words become color and sound, blue warmth and
thunder heartbeats. I miss Midwest summers when the thunder would become my
heartbeat and the storms would hide my shame. When I write, discomfort becomes
my friend, driving the words like a herd of sheep towards the some day
greener pastures and the sheep know only to follow. I can only follow
the words as they move faster, become larger, make the leap from
nightmare to dream and I am still standing when it is all finished. I
lean quietly on dangling modifiers, semi-colons, and enjambment, not the
sort of thing one wants as a foundation but it is a start. When I
write, I am finally breathing, releasing, living. When I write the
demons come out of the shadows and take shape, they can be named, I can
be free. When I write memories are no longer mine, but some thing else
entirely, a moment outside of my secrets, a window into someone else's
story, a journey towards something shared. There's a stillness to words,
even as they move faster, space to breathe between letters and periods.
There is a silence to words that is louder then any other sound that I
have ever heard. A silence that can be bold and full of explosions and
never uttered aloud. There is safety here,even with a knife to my wrist.
It's up the vein- baby-never across. boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-15559499900592042192012-11-11T18:53:00.002-08:002012-11-11T18:53:36.031-08:00My Fathers Childhood bedroomYou asked about my memories- unspecific but demanding. It was a gesture of mercy that you allowed me to write them down.<br /><br />And Fakir, with piercing blue eyes, whispers, "this is not about being stoic".<br /><br />
There was always something about this room, it chills me even now,
twenty three years later and the house has been sold. This room with
wood paneling, dusty trophies, vertical blinds, the heavy desk, the
stench of onions and my fathers childhood. This is the room she left us,
side by side tucked into a full bed. This is the room where I learned
to swallow my prayers, snot and screams. There was always something
about my mother leaving. It started before I can even really remember.
Back before my parents lost their house, the few times my mom ever left
for an evening out, I wouldn't just scream, I would wail. I would wrap
myself in one of the multicolored afghans she made and fall asleep next
to the window, hoping to know the minute she got home, the minute I
would be safe.There was always something unpredictable about my fathers
eyes. But this time was different, this time my mother wasn't coming
back. A month or two is an eternity to a seven year old especially left
in the care of a grandmother with different ideas concerning soap and
the multiplication tables.<br />
<br />This is the room, where as my mother lay in a hospital, I memorized
my "our fathers"and "hail Marys", on my knees- carpet worn but still
scratching through a thin floral night gown. This is the room where at
ten years old, only months after my mothers death, I had to tell my
grandmother about the blood in the bathroom- she clutched me to her
chest sobbing about the woman I had become and I was sobbing about the
woman I would never be, the shame on my cheeks matching the spot on my
underwear. This was also a moment meant for my mother, and even that was
taken from me.<br />
<br />This time, both of my parents stood awkwardly in the door frame- his
dark skin framed by her light, they promised she wasn't going to die,
promised that we would all be a family again. She was leaving for IV's,
nausea and hopefully more white blood cells. I sobbed, holding my pillow
to my chest- shaking and begging her to stay. Pleading- because my life
depended on it. Instead of focusing on my feelings, I focus on the
room- the ceiling- where I would lay on my back and stare for long
enough- shapes would twist and emerge like watching shapes come alive in
the clouds, or how at sixteen it was in this room my fathers brother
told me how my mother embezzled thousands of dollars- hundreds of
thousands. This room has become the coffin of my childhood, and this
memory it's first nail. The nail being my first understanding of loss-
the first time- I understood what it meant to be alone. Like the first
time when I lived on my own, and spent all night vomiting in a bathroom-
wishing to have someone to hold my non existent hair back- wishing to
be the sort of person that some one would want to hold my hair back.
Wishing for my mother. <br />
<br />My sister is just a wisp in this memory, perhaps too young to have
understood what was happening, to young to be a comfort to me- often she
was more of a chore, but in the end- it kept us both alive. <br /><br /> My
Mother did come back for us, some time in the end of March but in this
moment I knew she was going to die, even though it happened three years
later. This was my first taste of my life without her, that first kick
in the gut - that I never really recovered from. They say that you learn
to live with it- I still sleep holding a pillow to my chest.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-5084241061606036112012-11-10T19:03:00.000-08:002012-11-10T19:03:20.386-08:00Strong (piece still in draft stage)You gave me a box of rocks<br />for my 30th birthday.<br />30 rocks in a pocket sized box,<br />tied together with a ribbon.<br />You brought them back from the coast of California.<br />a coast staggered with pine trees, fault lines<br />
the ghost of john Steinbeck<br />
my history<br />and acres of vineyards.<br />You told me each rock represents a <br /> year that you have survived,<br />and all I could see was a little monument to the pieces of me <br />that died each winter, marking solid thoughts and misguided respect on misunderstood tombstones-<br />
You told me that you are strong<br />but not like the rocks<br />like water<br />picking one up- you asked me<br />how big the rock was once before the water got a hold of it, how long the water worked it until it washed up on the shore<br />
and to think of the strength it took to mold its current shape.<br />Again you say<br />
you are strong like water<br />a strength you don't even know that you posses-<br />strong like water.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-70133268304960208622012-11-09T14:23:00.000-08:002016-03-15T20:09:20.865-07:00At Sunrise<br />
I was a delivery driver and my first stop was south of Market in <span class="il">San</span> <span class="il">Francisco</span>.
Five days a week- I would look up just a block over from Hotel Utah and
there he would be silhouetted against the day, thirty stories up
walking out to the tip of his crane, lunch box in hand.<br />
<br />
Rain or shine, 6:04 am, steady feet, blue jeans and we would watch the <span class="il">sunrise</span>. My day started with this dare, if he could keep walking without a safety net, so could I.<br />
<br />
I often left my house at 2 am, biked all the way down <span class="il">San</span> Pablo Avenue in Oakland, dodging johns, heroin, short skirts and vomit. The
worst was the beginning of the month and end of the month--here,
everything depends on a paycheck, in whatever form it comes. I saw
things here, ignored things here-- that still give me nightmares-- that
still shame me to silence.<br />
<br />
I often didn't sleep, too many people, too many beers, a
hopelessness all too familiar. But most days, I would force myself out
of bed (in three bedroom apartment with six people) bike the 7 miles,
load the truck, ignore the ache in my still bruised and swollen but flat
chest, to get to this moment. This <span class="il">sunrise</span>,
this man, this death defying promise that he would make it. He
introduced me to god and faith and love, and in return, I have simply
loved him. Every <span class="il">sunrise</span>, every day, every
year-- I owe this man my life, he never fell- surely and every day that I
was there to witness, he walked, one foot in front of the other,
silhouetted against the dawn.boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-30621134904783679442012-11-01T16:47:00.000-07:002012-11-01T16:49:09.854-07:00The Verbalist recordingI performed at a very interesting show in early October. It was five writers and the theme was modern story telling. The show did a recording (you will find the link below). I was honored to be selected for this show especially once I heard the other writers stories. They are really good. It's worth your time.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.seattlestar.net/2012/11/verbalists-presents-a-seattle-star-audio-recording/">http://www.seattlestar.net/2012/11/verbalists-presents-a-seattle-star-audio-recording/</a>boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5997806709564891047.post-25477643023359923002012-10-30T18:14:00.000-07:002012-10-30T18:14:31.910-07:00SuccessI found this poem laying around my drafts in gmail. I think I wrote it about 6 months ago. It is very reminiscent of my writing style about 10 years ago and that tickles me.<br />
<br />
<br />
That lazy afternoon beneath<br /> the Asian pear tree out back <br />you told me that I <br />would be happy<br />with a job that pays decent<br />with a truck that starts most of the time<br />with a wife, two dogs and a garden to greet me at the end of a day<br />
and that I could <br /> do better,<br />you wanted more for me-<br />you told me that I have gift<br />and pointed to the the garage full of half made sculptures<br />and poems written on black boards<br />You told me that I could be famous or at least well known and I-<br />
I thanked you.<br /><br />I thanked you because I didn't know what else to do,<br /> you meant that I was special<br />that I was a flower that had yet to bloom,<br />an activist yet to find a cause,<br />a revolutionary looking for a revolution<br />
that there was more to me somewhere yet to surface-<br />But what you did was<br /> call me complacent<br />what you did was<br />
stand on a pedestal and look down <br />and here I am with dirty hands and empty pockets <br /> wanting simple things,<br />
things I never thought possible at <br />16, just a number on a nameless social workers case load with a brand of "at risk" stamped in red,<br />without a family, without a home and without words for who I am-<br />things I never thought possible,<br />
as a transsexual,<br />as a brown man without an education,<br />as a survivor without memories<br />as a writer without words,<br />complacent, it sticks in my mouth like too much bullshit and peanut butter,<br />like I sold out,<br />
like I did something wrong<br />like I didn't dream big enough<br />and I never knew that dreams could be judged <br />but I have<br /> what I wanted<br /> those things that -<br />well, let's face it we know the statistic<br />People like me "just don't make it"<br />
and here I am with<br />a place in the world<br />a place called home<br />and a garden to call my own<br />and baby, it's not complacency that you are looking at<br />but success,<br />and it's not yours<br />its mine<br />beneath the Asian pear tree, with a dying branch<br />
that I promise to prune come winter<br />and there are lentils cooking on the stove<br />and bills that we have the money to pay<br />a bed waiting for me,<br />do you have any idea how many nights that I have slept without a bed?<br />
No, it's not complacency,<br />and I may not exhibit my work at a gallery and maybe I will write letters instead of books<br />and I may love that beat up Chevy that starts most of the time<br />but please <br />be quiet and listen<br />
there are blooms dreaming of the fruit that they will become on the tree<br />birds belting out a lullaby for the day<br />and our dogs are playing a game of tug of war while the sun is hanging on the horizon dead set<br />on just one more moment of light<br />This maybe your complacency-<br />but this is-<br /> my success.<br />boylightsfirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10976330823707986790noreply@blogger.com1