Transformación

No sé exactamente como yo siento en este tiempo. Estoy malquistando a unos amigos con mi punto de vista. No pido disculpas porque su cultura me malquista a mi. Estoy creciendo más y más radical. Pero eso me gusta. No quiero ser una persona que queda mirando todo lo mal pasar y sin hacer nada. Estoy cansado de los sistemas de opresión. Estoy cansado que me digan que debo relajarme. Que "solo es helado". Para mi, no los es. Es gentrificación, es capitalismo matando, es homofobia, es racismo, es misoginia. Quiero romper el sistema que nos dejan fríos. 

Te cuento el cuento

Cuantos días hacían? Cuando me dijiste que me amas.

La verdad es que no sé. No quiero contar los días por miedo de perderlos.

Recuerdo que fue un año horrible para nosotros. Tú huiste a Berlín y yo me quedé aquí en Portland. Después de tantos meses sin trabajo yo trataba de alcanzar una nueva vida en Boston pero la universidad no me quería y fue imposible de encontrar una alquiler. Los alquiladores fueron pendejitos.

Cuantos horas pasaron pensando en ti? Cuantos tiros en bares desagradables? Cuantas citas con hombres estúpidos, cuantos besos que no quería darles? Cuantas noches solitas? No lo recuerdo.

Solo sé que volviste en mi vida, y el color de mi vida cambió. Tú regresaste y te convirtió en mi héroe.  Así que no cuento nada, por qué no es necesario más tiempo. 

Musing

I don't know if the universe is trying to tell me something, or trying to prepare me in some way, but in the last week I have run into many people from my past. It's not as if I was trying to escape the past, I chose to leave those people behind for various reasons. Some of those people were from school, some were fair-weather friends, some work colleagues...it doesn't matter. I didn't want them to be in my life anymore. I don't think life is trying to make me confront them or something about them or maybe reconcile myself with them, but I think it's trying to tell me something. That much I am sure of! 


Interestingly enough, in all but one encounter there was no approaching nor recognition They all stayed away. It seems as though I have a reputation for cutting people out of my life and them staying cut off. I can't say whether that is true or not, all I know is that I don't have any contact with those people anymore for a reason. It's not as if I sat them down and told them off, I just let myself disappear from their lives. Each situation is different, of course. I feel however, that I have to hold on to my principles so I don't end up getting hurt or compromising who I am.

Speaking up, speaking out

Lately I am running out of things to say, it seems. I have been harping on the same subjects over and over and to what end? There have been myriad encounters and stories like my previous post here in this city. It's something that doesn't seem like to change. I want to challenge people to think outside their privilege and see the reality of our society but at the same time I am having issues getting past the anger I feel when I am being discriminated against. 


I'm tired of being told that I'm demasiado intenso, that I just need to have a positive outlook, that I shouldn't be so mean. Most of the people telling me this are my White friends. It probably doesn't help that most of my friends here are White...but what do you expect? My cousin Armenia, on the contrary, reinforces me against giving in to complacency. She thinks it is a positive trait that I am so outspoken and that I will confront people who are being racist/homophobic/classist/sexist etc. 


I guess the issue is that I need to find some happy medium without giving up the fight. I think maybe that I don't have to be so combative, but I also don't have to stay silent.

himitsu

"Do you know what people did in the old days when they had secrets they didn't want to share? They'd climb a moutain, find a tree, carve a hole in it, whisper the secret into the hole and cover it up with mud. That way, nobody else would ever learn the secret..." -Tak, 2046

This is my tree with its hole carved sitting on top of a mountain. 

I'm an asshole. That's my secret. I am misanthropic, I hate everyone. The kicker is that secretly I hate myself.

Today was not a good day. Not a shining moment for me. I sped over to my car dealership at the last minute to see if they could figure out what was wrong with my nav system...this place has the most obscene parking lot in the universe. On top of that, I accidentally parked in the handicapped parking spot so I had to move my car twice. The second time I was stuck behind people in a car, while waiting for this woman to get out...I didn't know what they were doing at first, just seemed like they were sitting there in the parking lot...in the way. I honked lightly, not too much. I honked twice though. Then the old lady comes up to me and trys to talk to me threw the window but I'm shaking my head and mouthing at her to leave me alone and go away. I can't deal with it.

Later she comes in to the garage, calling me sir and stuff, telling me about how she's on chemotherapy and she doesn't move very quickly and she was stuck in between two kids trying to get out of the car. It's all I can do not to scream. I just want to die, right there. I'm still not clear on why she was even there in the first place. It's like the universe is teaching me a lesson...this whole month has been full of lessons. Maybe I should just kill myself and get it over with.

M. has been telling me that I need to let go of my anger. I don't even know how. I feel like my anger protects me from harm, until things like this happen. Then I am just humiliated and I want to disappear. I wish the ground would just open up and swallow me forever. 

So there it is, I'm an asshole.

Dead on the Vine

This whole new years shite isn't really working out for me. I thought it would be differently. The second week of unemployment I got two interviews but both of the turned out to be busts. I've applied to over thirty jobs in the past few weeks. 


I feel thinly spread, like I'm a tablespoon of butter over too many pieces of toast. Or maybe I'm the toast? I got sick too, mostly throat crap with some lovely feverish things. I think it's probably because I'm drinking too much. On the day of the interviews I holed up in a bar and got drunk on one-to-many martinis. It probably doesn't help that I started smoking again. I can smell the desperation on myself. It disgusts me. I'm fading away like smoke on a funeral pyre. 


I'm angry too. So angry. My old coworker has been ignoring my text messages and I'm frustrated by her passive jab at my dignity. Bitch. At least tell me you don't want to be friends any more. I yell at the smallest things. I just want to crawl into a hole and die.

Unos días atrás...

No sé que hacer, cuando peleas conmigo así. No sé que decirte cuando pareces hipócrita. ¿Qué va? ¿Todo es mi culpa entonces? No es justo. No lo entiendo. Mejor que decir que, a veces, no te entiendo. Sigo amándote, sí. 

Just a Bad Day

Yesterday feels like a hundred years ago at this point, after all the beers and cigarettes I consumed since I left work. Have you ever had one of those days at work when you just want to gouge your brain out of your skull, or throw a brick at one of your clients? That has been my week, so far.


Estoy pensando en dejar del trabajo porque los clientes alli son demasiado. Completely demasiado. I thought I was dealing with it well, just letting all the drama and bullshit slide off my back but today broke the pinche back of this camello.


I hate those situations (in life, in general) that you have no control of but then some hijo de puta comes along and blames you for the aforementioned extenuating circumstances. It's NOT MY FAULT. Don't kill the fucking messenger.


Perhaps my declaration of pending resignation to my supervisor was a bit premature and histrionic. Now that I'm calm, it seems like something I can get over with by way of more cigarettes and some sandalwood oil. Ojalá.

Love letters

Hoy no voy a contarte aquella historia. Es demasiado temprano para eso y no creo que pueda aguantarlo todavía. Otro día te lo prometo.

Anoche salí buscando algo que, para mi, no tiene nombre. Hubo empezado a nevar y me encontré en el noroeste de la ciudad, tirado en mi bar favorito de aquel barrio. Fingía que no fuera de Portland, preguntando sobre las leyes del estado. Que puta madre es, no poder fumar en un bar.

Fingía porque quería hablar con alguien y olvidarme de las miradas frías de otros sitios.  La mesera era demasiada sencilla y un hombre a mi lado me hablaba también, lo del smoking.

           

Como siempre empecé a sentirme un poco incomodo y fuera de lugar. Quería salir ya y por su puesto salí. Quedé de pie al lado de mi carro, tomando aire limpia y fumando. No había casi nadie en la  calle. La gente nesta  ciudad es loca cuando nieva. Parecía algo apocalíptico con todas las luces apagadas y ninguna persona afuera.

Me metí nel carro y como no tenía adonde ir, yo conduje hacía la casa, escuchando canciones de amor perdido.  Al llegar a casa, tropecé con unos vecinos en el ascensor pero como los demás no fueron tan amables.  Solía decir algunas palabras cordiales pero no gasté mi aliento.

Me bañé para unas horas, hasta que empecé a estar dormido. El agua caliente me hacía más calmado, un poco menos estridente y amargo. Me difuminaba los bordes.

Y de repente, no como todas los otros instantes de esta noche,

había vuelto otro día sin ti. 

The write way

Lately I've been at a loss of words, I am not completely sure why that is. I guess it has been work, that has had my brain swamped and by the time I get home every night all I want to do is veg out and not think for about 12 hours. I've been neglecting the story I was writing too. Maybe I'm just (temporarily) out of stories. I usually have something to say, I guess just not these days.


"I'll keep searching for the right way to show them its the right thing."


I saw past my ex again today on my bike ride home, I guess I could talk about how that made me feel...except it didn't make me feel anything so there is nothing to say about that! That little realization feels pretty awesome in actuality.


I just gotta get my mojo back now.

Putas tristes

Hoy te vi inesperadamente  pasando por la calle. No me veías porque estaba colgado en el tren. Estuviste vestido de azul, mi color favorito. Era en aquel momento que me caí en la cuenta que no te echaba de menos y que soy mejor sin ti. Habrá sido dos años en febrero que separamos.

Hace mucho tiempo en que volvía a pensar en ti. A veces sopesaba si pensabas en mi, pero creía que no.  Así me dejaste solo, sin palabras suficientes ni la voluntad de llorar. No sé exactamente que quedaba en mi corazón después de ti pero que va…Ya no me importa.

A la vez es interesante verte así, caminando solo. ¿Qué haces ahora? ¿Qué piensas? ¿Estás solo o no? Ahora que no te espero algo mal como antes, espero que estés feliz por lo menos. Yo he logrado todo lo que quiero después de ti y por cierto que no hagas nada a mi corazón. No amor, ni vergüenza, ni odia. Es interesante, sí.

Te daba mucho de mi. Me fascinaba tu rostro, tus mejillas, tu sonrisa…Escribí un poema para ti pero nunca te entregué. Que dijeras si lo leíste? No acabaríamos entonces? Pero sé bien que no te amé. 

A story about you and them

And so the boy with the Caribbean-blue pants ran far, far away into a new land, never to return.

He lived happily ever after. 

Or so it was believed. 

...................................

The reality was a bit different, however. The boy, whom we will call George, found himself in a strange world. The City. It was not as vast as some, but the City was a foreign land to George. The language spoken around him was his own yet he did not understand its speakers. There, no one smiled. They made the face motions, to be sure, but they were not smiling.

Not even their eyes smiled.  

It was a cold place, with its grey skies and unfriendly denizens.

George wanted to make the best for himself there in the City. So he attended university, to expand his mind. George began to smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey in secret. These things his parents didn’t read.  Instead, his parents grew so proud as he regaled them of a happier, false life within his myriad letters East.

George also made friends in the City; he tried to surround himself with kind genuine people so as not to be lonely. Yet years would pass and the always drifted apart. It was their way there.

This saddened George.

Lovers were even worse. George felt constantly spurned by their cold manner. He felt alien in his bright clothes, the fabled azure pants he loved so much. George felt used by those who did find him charming and backwards. The sex was never happy.

But George did not complain. He bore the unbearable winters alone in his flat, sipping tea and dreaming of Southern winds. The whiskey had lost its attraction so he lost himself in those blue-tinted dreams of warm sand and spicy food. George had slowly lost his accent and was in danger becoming as cold as the City. It was the end of one such a gloomy wintertime that George met Sam.

Sam. The two met by chance, growing closer and more intimate through weekly letter and phone calls.  Their lovemaking was brief yet cherished. George loved him with all his heart. George had never met a person that treated him the way Sam did. He had never felt such a way before. He was alive for the first time since he had come to the City. Their summer together was beautiful. Sam gave George his love and with it George got his will back.

Sadly their story was not to last, in fact it never really started. Sam journeyed away across an ocean with little promise of return…and just like that George was broken again.

The friends that had remained began to fade away, consumed with their own more interesting lives. George’s only companion was Alba at this time. George felt lost despite this.

Alba was afraid that George was disappearing, and it was true. Yet she did not really know how much. George’s heart had been shattered; it was too severe to be repaired. He was like an empty gourd. No sweet pulp left inside, just a hard dry shell.  He was like the others in the City now. He was just another empty person.

George tried to find solace in Alba’s love and friendship but he constantly pushed her away, fearing that she too would abandon him…though he was the one abandoning her.

They grew apart, until one day…George was gone. He didn’t die.  He didn’t run away, he didn’t disappear…he was just no longer there. No one noticed, not a single soul. That was George’s happily ever after.

Only the City remained.

And so ends the tale of the boy with the blue pants.

Good intentions?

Today I ran into a girl I used to know, used to work with. She alway was dying her hair. Today it was purple, that kind of fake punk rock grrl purple. I stopped only for a moment to say hi and catch up but I realised while chatting with her that she was a coke user. It made me feel odd. Kind of sick inside like when you've eaten too much spicy food.
Yet I am not unhappy for her.
You pave your own road to hell.

Soledad (Not)

Today on my way home I saw a wedding at the art museum and at the same moment, Baby Come Back to Me was playing on my headphones. Everyone looked so happy, the bride in her hanbok looked radiant, like some heavenly angel fallen to heaven for the afternoon.
"I don't want to be alone."
Sometimes those coincidences scare me.
                      I won't be alone.


"Even the stupidest songs could break my heart."

Sometimes I...

Sometimes I
Have so many thought-processes procesando en mi mente que I confused even myself.

"Your thought-processes are beautiful.

They make you único."

A la vez me confunde.  I don't always know how to feel. Maybe we're not supposed to know how to feel/decide how...can't we just feel? Can't I just feel? 
Déjalos pasar, los sentimientos.
Just feel. Stop thinking about feeling.