Apotheosis

We, a heap
Of moving mortal flesh
In this most spiritual of moments
Eyes opened wider than ever
Enlightened by the clamor
Of our tangling limbs
And bashing bones
So painfully, joyfully
We are becoming
Gods

intentions

when you call me, i will show up at your door
with big blinky eyes and pink lips
and behind them a sweet smile of shiny white teeth
and behind them a mouthful of sweeter venom
so toxic that after you kiss me,
even if you bleed to death
you will never
get me out
of your system

calling "oh sinner, come home"

in an attempt to simultaneously avoid rush hour traffic and satisfy an intense fried mozzarella stick craving, i had dinner at the jack in the box across the street from school after class on wednesday night. i ordered two tacos for 99 cents and, against my better judgement, a 6 piece box of mozzarella sticks. i also got a small drink, which i filled with strawberry fanta, orange fanta and sprite. i don’t know, i guess i was feeling adventurous.

anyway, i waited for my order and then brought it to a table near the door of the restaurant. i ate one cheese stick and took a bite of my taco, and then i heard the door open behind me. these two people walked in, college aged kids, one guy and one girl. the guy looked at me like he knew me, so i looked back like i was trying to remember who he was. turns out i didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me, but he asked me if it was okay if he talked to me for a minute about the word of God. i said “i’m already a christian, does that count for anything?” and he got all excited and asked if he and his friend could sit down. then he proceeded to tell me all about the gospel, ask about my church life, and ask me if i knew i’d go to heaven if i died that night. regular evangelical kind of stuff. nothing extraordinary, although the guy didknow his bible verses.

lately i’ve become disenchanted with religion. i think it comes with getting older. the world starts to make less sense the longer you live in it, and you come to realize that many of the things you once wholeheartedly believed in may not be as absolute as you might have thought. you learn, you go to college, people die and you question everything. such is life.

i watched this guy talk to me, this look of genuine love and concern on his face, and he seemed to me like a child. i imagined him for a moment as a kid walking away from a magic show and telling his friends at school about all the amazing magic he saw, never with any idea that none of it was real.

“and then the magician sawed the box that the man was in in half and i saw his guts and everything, and then he put him back together and the man came back to life!”

he said God gave his son so that we might be saved, and that our sin became his, and that through him we will have eternal life.

“and then the soldiers nailed him to a cross and there was blood and his legs were broken and everything, and then they buried him and God brought him back to life!”

i began to feel sad, i was touched by how earnestly he shared his beliefs with me, and i was saddened by how deeply he believed in them. how is it possible for anyone to believe like that when the world is such an awful place? how can anyone who watches the 11 o’clock news still believe in God? only children can believe like that. it’s like believing in Santa, in super heroes, in magic. once you begin to learn things about life, it becomes impossible for you to believe that these things are real.

i began to cry. i didn’t want to tell him that i was crying because i pitied him and his unquestioning faith. i didn’t tell him i was crying because i knew one day something would happen to him that would shake his faith to the core, and possible shatter it. i didn’t say why i was crying. i just said that i really respected him and his friend for going out and sharing their faith with others, and that i was really glad they came to talk to me. “i respect you, i respect you” was all i kept saying. what i meant was “i envy your naiveté, i respect you for having the courage it takes to blindly follow something.”

they prayed for me. i looked at them while my eyes were supposed to be closed, both of them with hands folded and eyes squeezed shut, and i wondered if they thought they had reached me. i wondered how they read my tears. we said amen together and i thanked them again. they gave me a flier for some church thing and then they left.

the remaining five mozzarella sticks had gotten cold. the cheese was no longer melty.

anatomy

i like your bones
and the way they move
under your flesh and skin and muscles
when we're moving
together

and i like your hands
and the marks they leave
on unseen parts of me
like modern art
or rorschach tests

and i like your knees caps
and hip bones
and collar bones
and spine
and teeth
and lips
on mine

my father's father

I never knew my father's father. He died before I was born.

As a child I never really thought anything much of the fact that he wasn't there. I just knew he was in heaven. I knew someday I'd meet him.

All I ever heard about my grandfather, until very recently, was that he didn't talk much, that he was a helicopter mechanic, that he made a pineapple upside-down cake so sweet it made you dizzy. I have a jar full of rocks that he collected and tumbled. In younger years, I sat for many hours examining each rock, rubbing my thumbs over their smooth, glossy surfaces, thinking about my grandfather doing the same.

I never heard my dad talk about his father. Typically, when he'd come up in conversation it was because my mom would remember how he was shocked when she tried to hug him after she married my dad, or how he would say "mhmm, mhmm, mhmm." quietly as you spoke to him.

"Remember, Philip?" she always says to my dad when she brings up my grandpa George.

"Mhmm." my dad always says.

I always wanted to ask my dad to tell me about his dad, but I never wanted to make him sad, so I never did.

All Saints Sunday is the day where you remember people who have passed away. In church on All Saints Sunday, I sat with my family in our regular pew. I listened to the pastor ring a bell once for every person who passed away that year. Ting, ting, ting. We got up and took rocks for all the saints we wanted to honor and left them at the altar. I took one for my Papa, my, grandpa George, and my friend Jason. I left the three little grey stones at the altar, looking at the flame of the little candle through tear-blurred eyes. When everyone had placed their stones, the pastor told us to share memories about our lost loved ones with the people in out pew. My dad began to speak, quietly.

"The last time I saw my dad alive, he was in bed, at home. I remember I went to go visit him, to make sure he was okay before I went to play softball with the guys from work. I was in my softball uniform, I was just stopping by to check on him. I spent a couple minutes with him, but then I had to go. As I was leaving, he asked me not to go, he asked me to stay and I said I couldn't because I was going to be late for the softball game. That was the last time I saw my dad alive."

My dad had his arm around my shoulder, his head was hanging and his eyes were pointed down toward his lap. I was crying. I was imagining my father in his softball uniform, in the excellent shape he was in the 80's; tall, handsome and young, rushing away from his dying father, my grandpa, who was begging him not to go. I was so sad for my dad, so sad that he didn't know it was the last time he'd ever speak to his father. The lint from the kleenex I was using was making me sneeze. My makeup was running.

Every time I leave to go anywhere, every time I leave my family, I tell them I love them. You just never know when it will be the last time you get the chance.

reoccurring dreams

this is how the dream goes.

i see you somewhere. a restaurant, a classroom, a friend's house. i approach you with the naive confidence i had in my early teenaged years. i'm about to tell you that i like you, but you beat me to it. then you smile. it's always the same smile. and then we kiss. it's always the same kiss. and somehow in my dream it feels so real, and somehow it still feels too good to be true, and in my dream your lips feel exactly the way i remember them.

when i wake i feel certain that your hand is in mine, that your body is curled around my body.

but when i snap out of my morning fog, i always find that i am alone.

Medusa's Rape

Medusa was beautiful, once.

Before she was cursed she was a virgin priestess in the temple of Athena, young and sweet with lips like cherry blossoms. Her hair was long and lustrous, catching light from everything that shone, flowing like a waterfall of black silk. Her eyes, cool and deep,were the color of pebbles tumbled and smoothed by a river.

Medusa was beautiful, once, and Poseidon took notice of her as she prayed alone one day in the temple. He came to her and pressed his cool, moist hands against her shoulders. Startled, Medusa cried out, but Poseidon silenced her lips with a violent kiss from his own.

In the dark of the temple Poseidon and Medusa moved. Her alabaster skin against the stone floor bled as she struggled. His arms wrapped tight around her fragile body glistened with sweat and salt and sea. In the emptiness of the temple, Medusa's muffled sobs echoed like the hissing of wild animals. She twisted and writhed on the cold temple floor, silken hair tangled into strange ropes mingled with blood and sweat.

Poseidon left her motionless before the altar. In the grey half-light of the temple Medusa's torn skin and flesh looked like raw, beautiful marble. Her hair caught the light from the altar flame in a mysterious way and gave one the impression that her twisted locks had come to life, slithering almost imperceptibly around her head.

The world is a terrible place to raise a child.

Spiderman,

standing at the foot of his front door steps,

no more then 3 feet tall and

undoubtedly smiling underneath his mask,

flexes his foam muscles

for his uncle's camera

and stands with his little chest puffed out

filled with joy

and childish excitement

ready to go into the night

to gather candy

and shoot imaginary webs from his wrists

at Iron Man, Luke Skywalker and Buzz Lightyear.

Spiderman,

innocent and small,

no more than 5 years old,

is gunned down by baddies

and later dies

in a hospital.

Don't be alarmed.

I don't have a fear of heights because I'm afraid of falling
I have a fear of heights because I'm worried that one day
I will no longer be able to resist the urge to jump.

Happy Birthday, John Lennon.

You were such a curious creature.
I regret that I never met you, that I never saw your boyish smile in person or stood in a crowd to hear you sing in that way that I've always admired, like you were unaware that anyone was listening to you.
I've always had the idea that you were too good for this earth- too beautiful and real and pure, made of stardust or something, made of the universe. You were love in its purest form, an unadulterated piece of the beauty of the human spirit. You were otherworldly. That's why you left so soon, because this world wasn't for you. You were needed elsewhere, among the stars where you were made. Had you stayed any longer you would have lost your magic, the glow of the extraterrestrial matter with which you were made would have dimmed and slowly died, leaving you as a shell of a mythical creature,a meteorite in a science museum, a dead light bulb. You would have been old and sad and the world would have turned it's loving eye toward someone else. You would have be vaguely remembered and revered with uncertainty as a relic of some sacred time when music was more real, more true.
I wonder, did you know how magical you were? Did you understand why girls screamed at you everywhere you went? Did you understand how deeply you were loved? I wonder, what did you think of your fame? Did it embarrass you or were you unaware of it, having never noticed anything had changed? Maybe, through your eyes, the world seemed different, more awesome, more inspiring. Maybe you understood something the rest of us never will.
Maybe you're out there singing and laughing among the planets and stars, with your guitar and your glasses, orbiting around the earth, smiling in childish wonder of the view.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

your lines

i can't believe i waited this long

to realize how much i care about you

and i'm sorry that i made you cry

but i'm glad you waited for me

to come around

because now we have each other

and it's really amazing

how lucky i am

to have a girl like you

cause i still think you're beautiful

with no makeup

in flannel pajama pants

with your head in my lap

dozing through re-runs

of myth busters

and through the wormhole

and i don't even mind

that you're drooling on my knee

and i only hope that as you fade

in and out, from waking to dreaming

that i'm the one you're smiling at

in your sleep.

and really, i could never want anything more

than this

except

maybe a cheeseburger

or a burrito.

something..

i lost it

my something

and most days i miss it

because i don't know where it could be

and i don't know what it is that i've lost

i just know

i want it back

because i feel sad and empty without it

vaguely, i remember my something long forgotten

and it clouds up my mind

like a fog

like a whisper of the ghost of a memory

returning.

things you learn about yourself

somedays, when i look in the mirror, i have no idea who's looking back at me.

i look away and then look back really quickly to see if she was staring.

somedays, i can feel myself leaving myself. and i can imagine my soul saying as it floats away

abandon ship! abandon ship!

abandon

still

when you asked me to dance

i couldn't hear your voice

through the deafening music

but i saw you smile at me

and even if you may have been kidding

i did want to dance with you

cheek to cheek

slowly in circles

like we were alone.

when i'm old i'll remember

fragments of that night

the beatles

moon clouds

the top down

the wind

we shouting

an exclamation point

Eric y Estrella

"Teacher, I'm bored."
Estrella has a knack for standing where you can't quite see her, just outside of your peripherals so you have to turn around a few times to figure out where she is. I look around and notice the chaos of lunch recess raging around us.
"You're bored? Why don't you go play four square?"
She shrugs, puts on that indifferent face, lips pursed and eyes looking who knows where.
"Those boys, they hit the ball too hard."
I nod. She nods. we look out across the playground. The sun is high in the sky and the heat from the blacktop is raging up through the soles of my shoes. I feel my head sweating under my giant straw hat.
"So, where's Eric?"
Instantly Estrella's cheeks flush and she starts to fidget.
"Playing baaasketbaaaall."
"Which one is he?"
"In the blue shirt with stripes and blue pants. Kind of over there, I guess."
She stands behind me as if to make sure he doesn't notice that she's watching him, even though we're on the complete opposite side of the playground.
"Why don't you go keep score for him?"
I turn around to see her covering her eyes.
"But I'm nervous!"
"You said he smiles at you a lot, right? And he laughs when you keep score? That means he likes you."
"Naahhhhh. I don't think he does."
She looks down at her shoes. We stand there for a while longer, she gazing at the basketball courts from behind my back.
"Let me tell you a story, Estrella."
She perks up, stands hands behind back and eyes wide, looking up at me.
"I like this boy. I've liked him for a long time, seven years."
"SEVEN YEARS?"
Her eyes are the size of silver dollars.
"Yeah, seven years. Crazy right? That's a long time."
She nods in agreement, hair plastered to her sweaty forehead.
"Well anyways, I liked him for a long time, but I was always nervous to tell him that I liked him. But little did I know, he used to like me back. By the time I got around to telling him that I liked him, he didn't like me anymore. And you know what he said?"
She shook her head, eyes wide as ever.
"He said he used to like me a lot but he thought I didn't like him, so he moved on. He gave up on liking me."
Estrella frowns, leaning back on her heels with eyes pointed someplace deep inside herself.
"That's sad."
"Yeah, I know."
I watch her think for a moment.
"Well, I'm gonna go play now."
I watch her run across the blacktop to the basketball courts. I don't blow my whistle at her or tell he to walk, even though running on the black top is against the rules. I let her go.
I turn to face the handball courts, watch the kids playing, wipe the sweat dripping from my temples. I turn to the basketball courts and see Estrella looking back at me nervously. I give her a thumbs up and she turns and walked towards the boy with a blue striped shirt. I watch her say something to him and then I turn away. Moments later I see her running back, hair bouncing, he funny little steps growing louder and louder.
"What happened?"
She hides her face in her hands. My heart sinks.
"ItoldhimthatIhaveacrushonhim."
Her voice is muffled by her little hands.
"And??"
She stands quietly with her hands over her face. Then she rubs her eyes and sighs deeply.
"He said maybe he kinda likes me too a lot."
A little smile spreads over her face. She taps her toes on the blacktop.
"See? I told you he likes you!!!"
She laughs and bounces around clapping her hands. Then she runs away. I shoo a bee away from my bright orange noon supervisor's vest. The bell rings and I yell at some kids to freeze. I blow my whistle and children blow past me to get to their lines. Among them are Estrella, followed by Eric, both with cheeks flushed red- maybe from the heat, maybe from the excitement of their new found secret. I see him laughing as he chases after her. I see her trying to hide a smile.
I'm glad that you learned to be bold now, Estrella. When you're young it's easier. You're braver because you don't know what it's like to get hurt. Take chances while you can, because one day you'll be old and jaded and scared of another heartbreak like me, and you'll let your nerves get the best of you, and you might let the best one get away.
I watched Eric and Estrella run to their separate lines. I saw him smile at her and wave. She waved back. I walked to the my car, smiling to myself from underneath my big straw hat.
Outside the sun beat down heavily and brought the asphalt to life with the illusion of sparkling, dancing water.

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

you only keep me around
as a backup plan.
you say i don't know
to keep me hopeful
and guessing
and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting
andfuckingwaitingonyou.

seriously.
it makes me sick.

some minor adjustments

note to self:

never say "I'm starving", because you sure as hell don't know what that really feels like.

also, don't say you hate things so often, because do you really? do you really hate it? it can't be that bad. get over it.

don't judge people so quickly, don't get mad so easily, be more patient, try to be happier, stop being selfish, and clean your fucking room.

oh, and don't forget how fortunate you are.

you have a job, have money in the bank, you have food, water, clothing, shelter and an education. you have access to modern medicine and technology. you've never had to flee religious persecution. you have no idea what war is like. you're in good health, you have family and friends, you have a car, a cell phone, a laptop, an ipod, way too many shoes and way too much free time. your biggest problem as of right now is what you're going to wear to a party. i mean, come on. seriously.

YOU HAVE NOTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT.

just a friendly reminder.

---

i don't want to write another piece about love.

but the truth of the matter is, i can think of nothing but love. i'm uninspired by everything except love. love is the only thing that is of any importance to me right now.

quite honestly, i's frightening to me that it's possible to love someone. it especially scares the shit out of me that it's possible to love someone so much and that it's possible that they won't love you back. and frankly, i am scared to death that i'm never going to get over this. i'm so scared that i'm going to spend the rest of my life thinking of ways to win you over, waiting for you to change your mind.

i don't want to write another piece about you.

but how in the world can i avoid that? you're stuck on replay in my head. i'm caught up in remembering you, overanalyzing the things you say, reveling in dim remembrances of long past feelings. i can't even wash the dishes without thinking about you. i don't know how to operate without you on my mind.

i really didn't want to do this. i didn't want to sit here thinking of how to say the things i feel about you, but these words and thoughts spill out of my mouth and eyes and fingers every chance they get. i'm overflowing with love, with you, with love for you. if i could get to my rooftop, i would shout from it that i adore you. if i didn't get carsick on winding mountain passes, i would go to the highest peak on the highest mountain and yell at the top of my lungs until my words echoed all the way to you, saying forever "i'm in love with you, i'm in love with you, i'm in love with you"

i would whisper it to you as you lay in my arms, if you'd let me.

i love you.

well because here's the thing

see, i don't sleep

in the night time

because, well

i've somehow arrived

at the preposterous

conclusion

that intruders

only intrude

between the hours of midnight

and 5:30am

(probably because

they need to get some rest

and change out of their

intruding clothes

before they head off

to their real jobs

at 9am

like the rest of us

because their coworkers

might be alarmed

if they showed up

in ski masks

or black gloves

covered in something

that strangely

resembles

blood.)

please let me keep this memory. just this one.

"I'm deteriorating."

I wondered why you would say that. I looked at you and noticed how tan you'd gotten. I caught a glimpse of your two rows of straight white teeth through that crooked smile you refuse to show for cameras, let my eyes linger on the roundness of muscles underneath your white v-neck and I looked at your thick black hair. Deteriorating? My ass, you're a fucking perfect specimen.

You'd just recounted a story, insisting that it had been me who was with you when you bought that sun block chapstick at CVS that tasted really bad. You remembered wrong, though. That's what you meant by deteriorating, you said. Your memory had failed you yet again.

I wish I could so easily forget you and misplace you in my memory. I sometimes wish I could erase you altogether. It would be so much easier for me to get over you if I could remember you only as a friend, if I could forget that I ever kissed you, that I ever saw that look in your eyes, that I ever laid with my head in your lap in the late hours of the night watching art shows and infomercials with you stroking my arm.

I sat and stared at you some more, not really listening to what you were saying. I sat, just remembering.

On my drive home I thought about the memories I wouldn't want to let go of. If I could only save one memory of you, which would it be? I thought and thought, driving past places that brought back memory after memory. I wouldn't want to let any of them go, really. It would be sad to forget.

I thought about the time you gave me your white shirt to wear, the one with the little breast pocket and the rust stain. You said it looked good on me, probably because you could see right through it. We held hands and looked up at the night sky. We wondered what it would be like if the world was ruled by giant birds, and how scary pterodactyls must have been. We wondered if deep sea creatures would explode if we brought them to the surface. We kissed.

I remembered watching the moon disappear in the sky from the bleachers at the park. I put my arms around you because you were cold. You felt soft and sleepy. We kissed in the absolute dark of a total lunar eclipse. A man walking alone passed us as we sat. You pulled me close, to protect me. "You never know, he might have been a serial killer." you said. We sat in the baseball dugout. My shoes were covered in red clay when I got home.

I remembered the way you looked at me the first time we kissed, I remembered you dropping me off at piano lessons and wishing me luck. I remembered how every night that you took me home you would wait for me to get inside my house before you drove off. I remembered that time we got pulled over for running a stop sign because the cop was tailgating us, you teaching me how to light a match without tearing it out of the book, you waiting in my driveway with Journey blasting from your car speakers, I remembered all the times you opened doors and pulled out chairs for me.

If I had to keep only one, though, it would be the memory of that morning in May when I woke up on a couch with you on the floor beside me in a house that was neither yours nor mine. We gathered our things and left quietly. I was wearing a purple shirt and blue jeans. You were wearing a white undershirt and black dress pants. I asked if you could give me a ride home. You said "Of course." We held hands all the way back to my house. It was early morning. You stopped in the street in front of my house. I didn't want to get out of the car. I leaned in to hug you and you buried your face in my shoulder. You squeezed me tightly and kissed my shoulder, my neck, my cheek. You breathed deeply. I didn't want you to ever let go. We sat there in front of my house, your engine idling, the warmth of the newly risen sun turning everything a curious shade of red. I never want to forget that memory. Never.

We sat there, embracing.