Dysfunction

Slipping

It's a sunny day finally. A Monday you finally don't mind going through. Again defeated by my insatiable need for needless sleep time, I finally make it out of the confines of my apartment and make my way up Seneca street to the starbucks across the street from where I usually take my bus to work. I go to the starbucks and not the bus stop because I just missed the 545 by three minutes. The thought flashes through my mind that I believe things are always just passing me by, after being almost at reach... foreshadowing...

I stand in line behind a little girl and her mom, she looks up at me with a cute little smile and a very disconcerting, almost adult stare as if she is in on a joke that I have no clue is being played on my by some otherworldly force only five year old children can sense. I tell myself I need to stop getting up so late.

Finally making it to the cashier, I order my tall soy hot chocolate, no whip please, only to hear the barista correct me by repetition, as if I was five years old. "Tallsoynowhiphotchocolate" he yells as I realize his lesson doubles as an order to the other barista who is standing no more than three feet away. The little girl giggles her way to a table, and I stand next to the counter, waiting for my drink.

This is where the game began. Gay boys have this little past time we are always playing, even when we don't even realize it. It starts every time you go into a room, meeting place or congregation of any form really. You venture in, eyes fixed on infinity, as if pondering the very meaning of life, as you walk confidently towards whatever brought you to that place. You then find a good vantage point, with eyes still glowing with the Enlightment and otherworldliness that comes from not looking at anyone in the eyes, but instead on the floor, the ceiling or out the window... Who would think that the key to the Tao would be hidden in such mundane things? Either way, there I was, having done this, at starbucks.

As I stood there, a modern day Siddhartha armed with a cargo bag and waiting for his flavored soy juice, I began phase two, reconnaissance. Slowly and almost indistinguishable to the straight eye, my sight zigzags from newspaper to woman on the leftmost corner, to concrete column, to old man with empty stare to a guy reading a book, where it quickly jumps out the window and onto the cars on the street and lays right there as if run over by the truck that just passed by. I had just moved on to phase three.

This happens to be a game of chance... Usually with pretty overwhelming odds, and passing to phase three is the first diverging point. Slowly and carefully, I go back to the guy with the book. Cargo bag, tight
fitting black shirt, freshly cut black short hair, flared jeans and what appear to be puma sneaks, but could be diesel. The thought flashes through my head that I really want to know what book he's reading, only
to be stomped on by the thought that his biceps look very much in shape. I feel bad for half a second, and realize that while this internal struggle was taking place I had broken Rule #2 - DO NOT BE THE FIRST ONE TO STARE. I look up and he's looking right at me.

Rule number two seems very clear cut. However, Zen teachings tell us that the path to Truth is through Paradox and Confusion. So true to form, you have to also take into account Rule #1 - ONE OF YOU HAS TO STARE FIRST. I usually don't break Rule #2, but this time I had to suck it in, the game was on, and as if in some anime cartoon, our stares were battling each other in a show of strength and conviction. I suddenly remembered why I don’t like breaking Rule #2, because I'm so bad at the ensuing battle. After a second that seemed like a weekend with my parents, I broke it off, defeated, and looked back at something else, I can't quite remember what it was. The clocks started ticking again and everyone at starbucks, unaware of what just went on, went on doing whatever it is that people do at starbucks at that time of day.

This is were things in this game get more complicated. Having obviously lost the first confrontation, lines have been drawn and it’s either retreat or recoup. As luck would have it, while I measured the innumerable variables that come into play in such a dilemma, someone interrupted my thoughts by almost yelling into my ear.

“TALLSOYNOWHIPHOTCHOCOLATE!”

“Shit!” – I thought. I had no problem that my drink was ready, but I’m sure that for a millisecond, I looked very disconcerted and surprised. All players of the game are easily surprised, but a master of the game is never caught showing that he was. Had he seen it? I glance over at the guy with the book. I had just lost my second battle.

I think “At least he thinks I’m a health freak” When really I just don’t like milk… or coffee for that matter.

“Thanks” I say to my coffee-making loudspeaker as I walk over to pick up a straw. It’s time to get a seat. At this point, as in real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. There’s no real good reference point as to where to sit, it all depends on what point you want to make. Should you sit close and risk being blunt, far away and seem dismissive? The repercusions can be catastrophic, from being judged as too cocky or too shy. I thought for a second “Judge me please, but judge me right”… I realized I just thought this and part of me didn’t know if it should laugh or cry.

My brain started to calculate the guy-with-the-book’s complete personality based merely on clothing, skin tone, facial expression and eye color. Once I sat down I realized that I had just decided he was, to some degree, interested, he most likely enjoyed this game and was fairly aggressive at it. It would turn out, as I found out later, that I was right on all counts.

However, as good as I am in the mathematics of flirting, I am well known to have poor follow through performance. Yes, I’m shy. I can play like the best of them, but when it seems like it should be a win for all, I often capitulate. And I say this only as an introduction to the end of my Monday morning.

Things happened in a flash. I took out my phone and started typing this story, being a firm believer that art should not only comment on culture, but also shield me from thinking that I’m playing this game just because it’s fun. I’m so good at deluding myself. And so I started typing “It’s a sunny day…” I really had no idea where I was going with that, and I looked back and forth from my seat which was about three tables away, slightly behind and to the left. The perfect spot so that it wouldn’t be too awkward for him to look back this way, but obvious enough (to me, or anyone “in” on the game) that he had to turn to look at me.

And so he did, numerous times. I relaxed a bit and actually did what I almost never do… in one of our glances, as I turned down to look back at my phone (having already established that I was the glance-breaking one), I smiled. Ok, maybe it was more of a little squirm, but it was definitely in the smiling category and counted as me taking the next step, showing that I was having fun. I was holding up to Rule #3 – NEVER BREAK THE RHYTHM.

But then it happened. The tables turned. Somewhere around the second paragraph when the little girl looks at me, I looked back up at him and he was staring at his book. He had a huge smile across his face.
“SHIT” – I thought again.

See, now the problem was not that I had broken a rule or shown anything that should reflect some ungodly human characteristic. The problem was not that my bus was getting there in five minutes. The problem was that I was now in the lead. I had the ball, five minutes left on the clock and I had to make a play in order to keep with Rule #3.

And this is how we come to the end. While I was enthralled with my thoughts I missed a critical point. At some point when I was lost in my gameplan, he had stood up and was about to leave through the door.
Standard procedure would have me follow him but only if he had been looking at me while he stood up. Unfortunately I might as well have been thinking about an obscure cheese making process judged by the look I probably had on my face when he decided to go for the powerplay.

And there he went and walked behind the glass window, passing by me and out of reach, looking and smiling.

"Ah" I thought "this is fun". And I meant it.

Resonance

Compelled to remember, obliged to forget, I stand in my limbo, at once clear of mind and slightly confused. I can feel the sharpness that change brings with it, I can feel the wind calling, I can taste the desire that's dripping down my skin. I'm ready to stop this complacency, I'm ready to use my own hands and reach into myself to rearrange what's been torn and twisted. I still stand, I still breathe and smell the choices I have to make.

In this barren land there's nothing to seek, you're the one to be discovered. Amused and intent in finding meaning to all that happens around me, I walk in a procession marked only by my heartbeats. The land will flourish, the sky will clear, the day will come, and I will still be walking.

Drench me in despair and watch the wind dry me. Submerge me in your world, I'll show you how to float. Fill me with your history, and I'll show you that part of you that you've chosen to forget. Feed me with your sorrow, it will only make us stronger. Let go of that fear of judgment, and we'll never forget each other.

Interlace your soul with mine. Forget the facade, show me what's dark and hidden and I'll see the brightest side of you. Crumble in front of me, and you'll give me purpose. Give me purpose, and you'll have me forever by your side.

Detached

Every voice seems to come from the end of a long empty hallway. Echoes of conversations and interactions reach my ears with such disdain that I can hear them as they drop to the floor and dissolve into nothing. I don’t like feeling lonely, it’s weak, it’s needy, and it’s almost narcotic. It is also helpless now, I swam too far and floating here seems better than swimming back to shore. I wallow, I rejoice, I let that smoke fill me up and numb my perception, and I like it. My direction is gone; my feelings are elusive, intermittent and unreliable. I stand looking at nothing, with an empty stare and a void that wishes to devour anything that gets near. Emptiness can be a virtue, a form to grow, a chance to reconstruct. But voids imply vacuums, and they consume what’s near, accessible and easy to find. How did I get lost again? Which way is out?

Numb

You grow tired of the nails that keep you trapped, slowly feeling sick from that taste of rust and frustration that is with you everyday. Lost in time and locked in space, your mind wonders why the world seems to have dimmed. No comfort is left, you think, in the banalities that used to lift you and take you away. You touch, but flesh now feels like earth, cold and coarse and at once full of movement but devoid of life. Change has left you reticent, as it washes away your majesty like constant waves desecrate good soil. Now time seems irrelevant, moving beside you but prompting no original thoughts, just an amalgam of recycled feelings that burn a deep vacuum inside of you. In that void, you crave for something you can’t name, that intangible feeling of warmth and lightness that comes from novelty, from lack of experience, from not having lived. That feeling used to run thick through your veins, flowing inward and outward against the backdrop of a soft world that slowly got razor sharp around the edges.

You’re not left empty, as that implies space, and you are full with all that makes you so intent on looking back, leaving you with no future. For you every act and every step, every breath and every path ahead is a sign, ominous and expected. You give no chance for alternate interpretations, for history to prove you wrong, for life to breathe blood inside of you again. Instead you patiently look at those nails that keep you in place, ripping through your flesh. Only the bite marks and that taste of rust remind you that there’s something left inside, the hope that you won’t admit to. And there you lay, exposed but consciously guarded by that fear of dying of fear. There you are thinking in circles, with eyes open and mind closed, naked and invisible, waiting for something that you can’t name or could recognize.

Watchful eyes are set on you, leaving fleeting moments of inspection that make you feel violated. But they come and go, as the faces in your daily life seem to never be the same, a revolving door of characters that have gone from individuals to tired archetypes in your struggle to keep a sense of familiarity in the face of constant change. Yet you yearn for those that came first, in a time when you had no preconceptions and no roles to be filled, when new people would become something sacred and unique. You long for that time before their spirit was killed by definition and category, victims to their humanity as well as your own. You desire to go back to a time when you didn’t know you have always been alone.

And you wait. And every day when the crowd leaves you slowly go back to those nails. In the darkness you try setting yourself free from the irrational guilt of trying to do so, an endless cycle of wasted time. And every night in that darkness you believe the day will never come, but slowly it always does, only to make you stop in fear of everybody knowing that you are not content being crucified by your own past. Silently believing your effort is your demise, sadly believing it has to be contained, hidden away, you spend your days blind to the obvious truth. The time will come when you know that it will take a second to be set free, when you try it in the crowd, in the light, for all to see.

Dissent

Left behind, beautiful things retain their value in the eyes of those who can see what they represent. Forgetting our history would render the present devoid of meaning, always living in a fleeting moment of truth. The world moves forward, time relentlessly washes away our memories and we are left to fight for meaning in that sea of interconnected symbols and conclusions. And as we measure time with the speed of our thoughts, ideas pass by us circling our minds, slowly permeating our days and nights. I reject this revolving path of revisionism, I stand opposed to denying what has come before, and by seeing beauty in what others call waste I reject the notion that what I love today will someday mean nothing.

My Addiction

Air seemed heavy last night, as if soaked in past and present. I stood suspended in my dreams, barely able to breathe inside that thick cloud made of pain and anger. Clumsy and slow, my movements only disoriented me. I couldn't see, there was light all around me, and shadows of so many memories. But my eyes stayed shut, refusing to let time and history fill me again with that hate that will thicken my blood and sedate me with regret. All I could feel was my face, damp with fear and frustration, and the weight on my chest as I inhaled that air, so dense, so confining.

I can’t let go, but there’s nothing to hang on to. My body’s memory betrays me once more and I feel that softness and that warmth again. I feel confined but safe. Intoxicated with your smell, I am suspended in time forever. Willingly lost, I travel the length of your body one last time. My fingertips against your skin make their way from your backside to your lips, all the while feeling your body expand slowly with every breath. Then it’s as if I can feel your soul, warm and inviting, as you breathe me in.

The world turns red, my body convulses, rejecting my desire to dwell inside a life that was. My eyes open, ripping off the layers of denial that made me blind. Cold and cleansing tears, laced with disbelief and resignation, flow and disappear as my face absorbs their memories. The world is born again, light shines on my face and as my hands slip out of that desert made of blankets and pillows, they still long to find your body on their way out.

In the meantime I imagine you swimming in a world of fleeting satisfaction, hurting while I’m mending, out of reach and out of context. If you could feel what I did, you’d never need to swallow another piece of your life away. But now I have to rip my soul in pieces and wait for the time when the air is light, and I can float away from those memories that eat my time, everyday.

Troubled

She runs her fingers across her cheek, while closing her eyes faster and tighter than she intended. She traces the way around her eye and when there's nowhere else to go, her hand stops. The world stops. Her insides stir as her outside stands frozen, as if commanding a silence within and calm that will echo that of her skin. Slowly, her eyes open, unnoticeably screaming for help. She looks outside and sees nothing, she looks at her hands, defeated by time and gloriously vibrant, the only part of her that seems full of life.

She walks, and as she travels she feels as if she's being lifted, away from the crowd while still swimming through it. She could never get lost, she thinks for a second, since she belongs nowhere, and everywhere feels like home. She could roam that world of asphalt until her last breath, and be content. But her mind pulsates with an urgency akin to her desire to always look back. Within, there is an explosion every instant, one high flying idea clashing against another in a show of emotions. Bright and blinding regret that dims into satisfaction, slowly burning out into indifference as their ashes hit the ground.

The day slowly dims, the light softens, and her heart follows. And as her body lets go of the day's warmth, she stops. She stands in the middle, between the crowd and her self. As if from a mountain top, she listens. So many lives, so many needs, such tangled urgencies. She lives at that edge, where the space enclosed in your skin extends infinitely outward.

Dawn comes, announced by a soft wind that travels around and into her. She stays, that cold stream of life flows in and out of her, suddenly leaving her feeling incomplete. She lifts her hands, and her palms softly touch her face, as if she were washing away the fear that seems to drip from her eyes.

The daylight slowly dances into darkness. In a choreographed show of intricate order, the valleys of the city empty out as people follow their routines into the night. She feels found in the grandiosity of that empty city, and the monumental vastness that surrounds her. In that silence, she can feel the city's breath, and her own heartbeat. It's time to go home.

How?

Lifted from the ground, a handful of dirt crumbles back onto it as I try to grasp the reason why my feelings seem to gravitate in the same direction. Hand and mind, they hold an equal truth. A palm turns to a fist, a soft touch to a blow, love into despair, emotion into void.

My grasp tightens with every memory and every second, as my mind tries to hold on to both. How easy it is to see now, the same holds true for both things. I finally understand as my hand lets the dirt to rest, and my mind lets go of you.

The dirt becomes the earth, your memories rest in their place. I believe that is the way.

Perish twice.

The world cools down into a standstill. In the marginal space left for me, I walk the thin line. In a balancing act of indulgence I try to reach for experience. My mind betrays me, forming a scrapbook of overlapping images of you. Slowly my view is distorted, gradually fading my vision to black. Like ice burning my mind, the frozen memories cut through me, strangely leaving me untouched.

[This post was inspired by one of my favorite poems, included below]

"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."

- Robert Frost.

Walls

You say walls surround your world, encasing you in space, time and worldview. Constrained and numb, encased, hopeless, sedated, dead.

Victim.

Get up your feet and fight, get off the ground and yell, get out your shell and live.

"The way that is bright seems dull.
The way that leads forward seems to slip backwards.
The way that is even seems rough."

Live, and flow.