In 1492, I sailed the ocean blue. Stumbled into the Land of the Taino, naked as the day they were born. Trusted me, saw the good in me, accepted me, allowed me to call them by another name. I claimed this land for myself and my people and soon enough, our impact spread like the diseases we brought. I fear I have depleted the soil, caused native plants to be over-grazed, incited violence, and brought death upon the innocent. I see the wreckage I have allowed. The culture of the Taino is now nearly nonexistent, their children only know life as it is under the oppressive hand of my men. As I prepare for departure upon allegiance to the crown and motherland, I know that I can't stay. But I don't want to leave. How can I go somewhere else, when this feels like home to me? I've fallen in love with this place and yet I must go. I feel there is a more deserving, loving hand to tend the land and begin its regrowth. I keep stiff and stern, and sail away, leaving my heart on the shores.

Two Southwest Drink Vouchers In

(A noun, an adjective, an adverb.)
A lifestyle, an escape, a damnation.
Roll over minutes into the present.
Present me without limits.
Bend time and more limes,
please
and don't assign me
a title.
Now Midol.
What were the drug interactions?
Idk, to your satisfaction,
I'll act like I've packed up my trunk
fly me outta this funk
and maybe it's junk
But it's chill cause
I'm crunk.
Yaknow,
drunk.
Drunk:

Self Consumption

"...in general, respiration is nothing but a slow combustion of carbon and hydrogen, which is entirely similar to that which occurs in a lamp or lighted candle, and that, from this point of view, animals that respire are true combustible bodies that burn and consume themselves" Armand Séguin & Antoine Lavoisier, 1789

you are only the first in the decrepitude of your art

Syncing Souls

Without want of floating

divine sense

But sir, what hypothesis does your experiment disprove?

Prufrock, J. Alfred

But when the monitor sounds for the last time,
will I remember our first?

Time: 20th minute. Bring out the coffee spoons

Legally dead and still illegally parked

Well by the looks of this drought,

that's how I'll have measured it out 

Spoon after post after spoon after Like

Ever After never mastered

But damn mami how you looked so good

When all else falls, is that what will have stood?

So let me now try to under Stand

This death bed of mine is that of dreams

When I drift off there, my blanket seams

won't keep me warm from the cold of the flames

Burnt all this time to freeze my youth

Sephora, Clinique, michellephan, and the crew

The beauty blender is an essential, but for whom?

For the people, by the people, 

For the pizza, Bye Felisha

And still they come and still they talk

Of Michaelangelo to Banksy and please don't stop 

Because I never went I never walked

Thought too much of running it tired me out

Dried me out, now cry me out

A river to sing the sea unbound

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

wait for it

The selfless farmer who tends his neighbor's dying crops will leave his healthy field vulnerable to the crows

Deciduous Decisions Come as Autumn Does

To Build Myself

I, too, will lay each brick down here, as perfectly as I can. I was getting good at it. It's just that... the air was cold as he stripped me naked. Now, I have half a wall here, half a wall there- and I've run out of bricks. 

Sleep Paralysis

The first two or three times I had sleep paralysis, I was in high school and was merely confused at why I was awake but unable to move. When it struck again, I felt- though did not see- something pushing heavily down on me. Eventually, I would come to hear voices- sometimes female, sometimes male- and finally dark shadows shaped like humans with even darker holes for eyes and a mouth. These shadows choked me, and eventually started screaming at me. They even laughed at me and called me "stupid bitch" once in a while. I learned how to "talk" back to them, though it was really just mentally because I obviously was physically incapable of moving my mouth or making any sounds. I was inspired by Kill Bill's "wiggle your big toe", and this actually works wonders. (Although it is a little hard to do when a threatening demon is shrieking into your ears.) I got so good at asserting myself to those shadow creatures that I could make them disappear under a minute or two.

Yesterday, I fell asleep while studying (surprise, surprise). After years of being free, the sleep paralysis came back. But this time, there were no evil shadows lurking in my room, no satanic growls, and no one forcing all the air out of me.

There was only music. Music I had never heard before in my life. A husky male voice, an electric guitar, acoustic rhythm guitars, sweeping violins, and a seductive bass drum. Every musical line was crystal clear. I can't remember all the words..but it had to do with inside versus outside, and someone not being there for long. As I did my usual "wiggle your big toe," the room vibrated to the sound of radio static, as if I had to change the station to wake up. I got out of bed and was so convinced my dad was just blasting his surround sound again and that the song had just wriggled its way into my sleep paralysis hallucinations, that I just went back to studying without bothering to find out.

At dinner I asked my dad what he was listening to today, because it was pretty cool. He was confused. He didn't listen to any music today. Whoa.

I've dreamt of new music before. But never was I able to hold on to it like I did yesterday. Dream music was always like the floating pieces of dust I'd try to catch midair as a kid. The little bastards that only flew away faster when I got even remotely close. And now, thanks to this sleep paralysis I've slowly learned to control- this state of being partly in reality and partly in my dreams- I've snatched that little bastard right out of the air.

Sleep paralysis used to keep me up all night when I was younger, afraid to fall into another episode directed and produced by my unfortunately dark mind. But I guess that when you become the master of the things you fear, your most beautiful dreams have the potential to become your reality.

Here are fragments from that strange song my subconscious conjured up.

(Cringey) Burrito

Continuation of "no backspacing allowed".

At one of my graduation ceremonies, we were each given a chance to speak about what we will be doing after leaving UCLA. Oh. my. god. Why did I come. Can I slink out the back without being seen? Waves of fear came over me. A million pounding feet in my heart trying in vain to run away from this tsunami nightmare. I drowned myself in fatally negative thoughts about myself as everyone else talked about starting law school, starting med school, starting their own company, traveling the world. "You've accomplished nothing"- one stab. "You've failed the Bruin legacy"- two stabs. "You have failed yourself"- three stabs. By the time it was my turn, I had already buried myself under the perfectly watered lawn of the Sunken Gardens and let someone else take over my body. The person who walked up to the podium was insecure. She measured her own worth by sizing up others. She overcompensated for what she thought she lacked. Half-way through talking myself up, I felt like vomiting. This was the actual moment in which I failed myself. Disgusted with the words coming out of my mouth, I took control of myself again. It wasn't a theatrical moment of a single ray of light peaking through gray clouds to remind myself of who I really was. No, it was hot as hell, the sun was beating down on me, and my hair was getting nappy. And no, I didn't suddenly come to a realization that, why yes, I have grown immensely as a person as an undergrad and have succeeded in many ways I just wasn't aware of. That may still be a work in progress. But by the grace of the cartoonist in the sky, the person I drowned, stabbed, and buried within the span of 15 minutes was able to at least come up for one more, life-saving breath. One breath that was just enough for me to speak the only words I confided in and felt were true to myself. They were the last five words I spoke into that microphone.

"I will never stop creating."

Arranged for VCN under the guise of fitting a scene of choking isolation. In reality, it gave me a chance to borrow bits of three songs originally worlds apart that have found temporary dwelling in the clashing corners of my soul: Radiohead's "Creep", a Vietnamese children's song, and Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek".

"It's like when you wake up in the morning and it's light outside, but the sun hasn't risen yet. You have a source of light coming over you, though you can't see that source of origin yet. But you know something is coming. A change is about to occur [...] A hint, or a guess, at something beautiful."

Like Neosporin

To remember

To forget

To learn

To teach

To argue

To accept

Writing works for everythang

Thank you, Mr. Smith

"Write down those things you completely fear the most. Don't rationalize them, acknolwedge them in their darkest form. Seeing them outside of yourself will take the power away from those thoughts [...] the point of those activities [meditation or yoga] is facing what's burning internally. If your method of choice is writing, write honestly. If you need to sing, sing your heart out. No need for something fancy or new."

A paradox is the truth standing on its head to attract attention

Why I Write

That which separates black and white- a distance of such width yet reeks of height. I smell my fear from a mile away, since at times I become they. They have cliches and sayings of sorts while I lay still and lie further short. Whether capturing every pigment, whether capturing none, infinite-ess I've not yet overcome. Weather it comes, weather it stays, droplets of rain or Rainbow Skittles sun rays. If they color my world, why is there no pattern? The truth stays silent in screeching gray caverns. The only thing I know about wrong from right, is that I learn to know what's right by Write.

Thin Music

"Maybe it is but we’re too thick to recognize it. Maybe thin places offer glimpses not of heaven but of earth as it really is, unencumbered. Unmasked." E. Weiner, NY Times

Everyone has a Pedro Paramo. Be it a person or an idea, a once-had dream- it doesn't leave.

Let's Not Play

The Blame Game is a one man band and the audience is herself.

http://www.wimp.com/travelsworld/

I don't want to point the finger at myself for missing out on this one

Rubato

(noun) the temporary disregarding of strict tempo to allow an expressive quickening or slackening, usually without altering the overall pace; Italian for stolen time

You still feel like a California Screamin launch in the middle of a pink, try to breathe in but forget to, SoCal sunset. I'm still dole whipped and even my turkey leg is weak kneed. Your Tower of Terror sends me plummeting from the eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second thousandth story, but such unearthly acceleration makes me wonder when our rubato roller coaster will have to make up for all this stolen time. A laugh here, a morning there- to steal one with you is the sweetest crime of two churros and six beignets that make my eight sticky fingers- my sticky, kleptomaniac fingers- loot all the hands of every grandfather, mechanical, and quartz. I bend seconds to hours cause they should be ours, just for now or, maybe forever. Just long enough for me to die in the fire of your life-inspiring touch. Just long enough for me to bathe in the cool waters of your scent. Just long enough for me to drown out the cacophony of voices in my head. Because, love, I'm weary of the day when these voices will start lining up as we're slowing down. I don't think this last fast pass works for anyone but you. Our sweet nectar meets a sweet nocturne at the start of a tempo and that's when the single riders lane might be the only way to keep up.

Eventually soulmates meet, for they have the same hiding place
-R. Brault

Paranoid Anhdroid

If everyone is out to get me, I must have something they want. I must be worth something. Chicken or the egg? Paranoia

Yolk Night

The river murmured gently as it carved its night path nearby. The blue jays had long since been fluffed up in their nests. The rest of the girls were tucked in. And there we were, standing on the steps outside the cabin. A familiar darkness that night seemed to provide for us the safest vulnerability, if one could ever exist. Gigantic ants and dusty moths- she didn't seem to care anymore. She spilled and I spilled, two leaky faucets in the woods but in need of no repair. It was the cloudiest of nights, and the sky was a gray blur. I couldn't see them, but with every word this child spoke I felt as if one by one, all those forgotten dreams- what Stang called stars- blazed up and fell back onto the earth as shooting stars. These were reminders of the simple secrets I once knew and cherished. The fuel to my ambitions. The beauty and goodness of a human. A human growing, a human giving, a human being. Thank you Bubbles, Cindy Lou, Freckles, Kirby, Raspberry, Skip, Strawberry Cheesecake, Waffles, and Pumbaa.

This Week

I will rest with want of wake

I will wake with strength in weakness

I will weaken the will to waiver

Pitch and Pay

Trust none, for oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes, And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck

Why do you church

A penthouse in heaven is furnished by no good deed of mine. I fuel the engine of this world with whatever good I can manage. That is all.

To feel time

I think I've tried so hard to suppress how much I miss you that my body realizes it before my mind does. Sometimes I sit there and suddenly smell the summer burnt leather dashboard of your old blue car. I always hated running errands unless they were with you. Sitting in a classroom sometimes it'll be the smell of Milk Bones. I was the one who went with you to buy Lucky and you let me name him. These smells, Di Giao, and Lucky are the closest things I have left of you. I was just a pup myself when I chose that name but maybe I already knew how lucky I was to have you as my uncle. My pal.

The time being

One blog and two separate journals. Coffee stained papers, bleach stained pants, ink stained fingers. An addiction of signing-on to things--it doesn't matter what-- just to do...?

Nothing. The epitome of my hatred and that which I fear is of my demise. Nothing creates nothing and nothing is certain but death but nothing compares to you.

You and I have that lazy-type...where ecstasy reigns in a single embrace on an idle bed with you. You make me want to do nothing and everything at the same time. While time ticks on and talks wind down to whispers then slow, deep, dreamy breaths, I fight the urge to close my eyes unless it gets me to you quicker.

Wake- that is for me. For the future, those kids, that backyard tree...I awake for my dreams.

But live- that's partly thanks to you. And nothing becomes something

No Vacancy

People speak of meaningless past lives. They speak of voids they never knew existed. They speak of the one who filled these craters like no one else could. Me, I speak of all the wrong doors I've taken and the right ones I've neglected. Swinging doors, creaking doors, door frames all too wide. He speaks of all the places pieces of his worn out soles are now left behind- places in other people's hearts and places he loses himself in whenever he reads. We speak of our dreams. We speak of our fears and we speak nonsense. We speak the words which linger on the curls of our lips and hang in the air cycling between his lungs and mine. We speak the words we actually never say. 

I was whole then as I am whole now. Him? He was no-assembly-required, and self-satisfaction guaranteed. Fate just happened to turn her head by chance when we stumbled through the same motel door. My suitcase was full of souvenir knobs and his shoes, though worn, had no holes to be filled anyway. 

So maybe one day we'll find this room we share too empty, go off to find different exits, and leave with everything we came with. I speak only the truth. He is my complement. He is not my completion. But I'd be a fool if I said I'd walk out this room the same woman I was when I came. No. I'd walk out that door a better woman than I'd ever be if not for him.

And so, I speak of bravery. Motel room or not, I've already unpacked my bags next to his unlaced sneakers. It'd be nice to settle in here a while longer.

Person. Mother. Human.

"Tell me."

I can't.

"Tell me what you think of me now."

You are everything I don't want to be. 

"Please try to forget all of this."

..because you think I purposefully try to remember? 

"...do you still love me?"

Always.

Act II

"You are amazing dont ever die. I think that you make up for a lot of shitty things in this world"

Shaky ground. Uncertain why. Remember how to stand alone? Cue aria

She and I

He is one of the few who hold her reflection in his gaze. A girl. Blink. A beast. Blink. She made music in the same manner that she created her world. To others, it is a manner which knows no manners, and dismisses all reason. But if you insist that purpose in her cruel world must have existed, it was to create the illusion of spontaneous generation. She sat at the piano bench with eyes closed, self-control relinquished, hands without a master, and notes spawning from nothing. There, she made melodies of maggots crawling out of the flesh once belonging to a life she never intended on taking- never thought would be harmed because of her empty decisions. So on and on went the reckless runs and capricious crescendos, drowning out any voices pleading  with her to stop confusing naive with cowardly, and impulsive with irresponsible. It was far from the beautiful, raw art she wanted so desperately to convey. When he came along she shivered in the nudity of her childish compositions. For the first time, she wanted cellos and oboes and bells. She wanted symphonies! His silent eyes spoke volumes. And when she dared to gaze back, I saw her for who I had truly been.

Happy Birthday

No doubt we've taken steps forwards and backwards and sideways and in circles. It's all clear where we stand now, though I wish I knew exactly where you are with yourself. I think and dream about you, your parents, the cats, and the dog. I lost one of my best friends but I hope we both gain something out of it: you, the wings you always dreamt of, and me, the roots I longed for. I hope you continue to love more today than you did yesterday, but less than you will tomorrow. Happy 20th

Fear

Never have I in darkness hidden from the solace of the moon's light. Nor have I before, shivering, found lunacy in the sun's warmth. Fear grapples with the aorta. The heart keeps pumping, ever so mightily, but with nameless destination. It convinces me to cut off all extremities from circulation- anything but to let your sweet venom nourish every micrometer of my being. In the shadows, no light can touch me, so as to reveal your name across my chest. If I don't see it, it does not exist. It is cold here, and it is dark. And you alone lure me out slowly. But this light is blinding. And so is that other thing I dare not speak of.

Relish

It's exactly how we met. "Where's the relish?" "That's what I'm sayin." Exactly what I was looking for. "Don't you wanna have fun?" Exactly what I wasn't looking for. "Let's have dinner." And precisely the only way my mind- this labyrinth, this web- could have ever untangled itself. Call it a story web. Of lust or of romance? Of selfish endeavors, or a coming of age? It's debatable. And what about butterflies? No, not those. Never really had those. Hm...Caterpillars. Crawling around and eating whatever they fancy. Yes, I think those. Then somehow you spun and I spun and we can't stop spinning this cocoon. It's becoming something I never expected. It's nurturing my body and my soul. My heart is on the brink of metamorphosis.

We are gods in the chrysalis.

----R E L I S H----

(noun) great enjoyment

(verb) to savor

Chị phải hứa một ngày sẽ trở lại nghe?

Studying for finals is 25% podcasting classes I've missed, 15% reading, and 60% reminding myself about why this all even matters to me. It's been 2 years. On my last day this one could barely open his eyes. He had always been so fiesty and ready to fight. But when his mom told him I was leaving, he looked at me through quarter open slits and tried to reach out his hand to me. It's been about 100 weeks. That's 695 days and 695 chances for him to wake up in the southern sunlight, sip on his strawberry milk. Maybe watch a couple minutes of Doraemon, then get distracted and run around teasing the other kids. But that's also 16,680 hours in which he might have lost the chance to do any of that again.

I'm sorry I'm taking so long. I'm sorry if you've been waiting for my head to poke through the door again and call you over, swoop you up and throw you on my back to make you fly, read to you in English so you could laugh at me. I'm sorry I've been idle. I'm sorry that this all might be completely self-centered or ingenuine. I'm sorry I can't just be happy that you were so full of life on your good days. And I'm sorry that the most I'm doing right now for you is just hoping that you're still physically capable of being disappointed at me for all of this.

Substance

The cream filling. The meat. You know, none of that bullshit carb excess they give you before your meal to mask the reality that 7/8 of the sad excuse of a dinner they call an entree is just garnish and fancy drizzle. I never realized that the people I've just met this year and those I've known for years are actual substance. Real, grade A, handpicked, quality human beings. People who keep dreaming and chasing and falling and getting up and dreaming some more. Substance. I'm not suicidal, but boy how I wish I could OD on each and every one of you. Thanks for reminding me of the big picture.

II. Hear

And when I saw it, I wanted to see none of it.
But when I saw it, I needed to see it.
It was just the shell. It meant nothing.
Stiff but powerless still,
embalmed but feckless.
It's dead. It'll rot.
And it's not you.

My inner eye blinks, mused fingers stroke.
I play you into every frequency and wavelength
so that you remain afloat
Above this streaming body of sound
where you've escaped the fall of once-crowned man,
and rise with the swelling dynamics, heard as only the just can.

Hear, not the melody
but instead the overtones.
Harmony in discord
endless, hear, in my bones.
I know this is you,
see, no drear
even in silence,
listening-
Here.

I. The grasp

The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings.
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still.
Early or late,
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon death's purple altar now,
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust. 
-J. Shirley 

Selfish

There really was only one thing I wanted for my birthday. In my dreams I made a deal with a black magic man to bring you back. You were just how you were before: bright eyes, full cheeks, warming smile. "How are you my friend?" and a fake punch to the shoulder. I hear your voice echoing through the house. The songs you love to sing easing my nerves. The sound of your shoes from the way one foot dragged a tad more than the other. It's not time to play hide and seek- come out, come out, wherever you are.

 Please...?






I miss you.
God I miss you so bad.

Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Hope

Someone told me that people are dirt. That same person told me that if I held an optional fundraiser everyone would just drink and bounce. I anticipated raising about $50. We raised $164.63 that night. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think person are soil. Thank you so much to everyone who came out and donated out of the goodness of your hearts. The phrase is so overdone, but you all really have helped change someone's life. You're cultivating a fruitful future, knowing that you won't personally be able to reap the benefits of it. And I think that's pretty fucking beautiful.

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