vapor trails

the distant

2008-05-19T21:43:00.001-04:00

a white airplane pulls me through
a black midnight heading north
and this is my first time.
I see the silent cities’ lights
floating past my watch
and I know that I am alone.

frozen city is winter gray
with empty streets and quiet fog
and I should not be here.
buildings sleeping smoking steaming
slowly blend and fade away
and then I think of you.

yellow hallways echo footsteps
as I walk and look and find your room
and I realize that I’m scared.
plastic metal paper rubber
surround you in your sterile bed
and I cannot see your eyes.

a blue machine is breathing for you
as I softly grip your fragile hand
and I notice that it’s smaller than mine.
I think to when you would carry me
as I would pretend to fly
and I struggle to remember you now.

another airplane screams in flight
silent windows atmosphere
and I am not the same.
the years the times the could have beens
we should have been together
and I would have been your son.

saturday hurts

2008-05-17T13:55:00.004-04:00

omg do i have a headache right now... i stayed in bed too long, and whenever i do that, my head hurts for hours when i get up. i dont know why that happens, and i dont like it.

anyway, the hospital just called and scheduled 'pre-op testing'. i'm having knee surgery next month, which should make for a fun summer of crutches and rehab. i'm not looking forward to that, but i didn't enjoy limping around Busch Gardens all day yesterday either. my knee is so screwed up right now that even walking hurts. forget running. forget jumping jacks or working out.

two days in a row... wow.

2008-05-14T17:57:00.004-04:00

"you're not your job. you're not how much money you have in the bank. you're not the car you drive. you're not the contents of your wallet. you're not your fucking khakis." -fight club

right now, i don't care that i'm poor and will probably always be poor. yeah, yeah, i know it's relative anyway.. i'm not poor in a global sense, but here in the good old USA, i am. i can barely pay my bills, my savings account is always empty; i truely live paycheck-to-paycheck.

so today i feel ok about how much money i have or don't have. i'm not jealous of my co-workers' shiny new laptops, or my friend's high-end digital video cameras, or high-schoolers with iphones. i'm content being a dad to some boys and a spouse to my girl.

i promise that by tomorrow i'll be back to myself. but i hope not.

"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you." - chuck palahniuk

optimism

2008-05-13T16:08:00.003-04:00

today i feel optimistic. i dont really know why, but a thought has been running through my head all day so far. a lyric, actually: "all you need is love"... simple yet profound.

i guess i'm trying to come grips with the fact that i'll never be rich, but as long as there's love, it doesnt matter how much my car costs, or how big and awesome my house is. these things are nice, yeah, but will they make me love my kids more? will they make my family closer? no they wont.

i can guarantee you that tomorrow i'll feel depressed about being broke, but for today, all i need is love...

my novel - (part of) chapter one.. because i hate first posts

2008-05-13T15:31:00.003-04:00

In the cool blue still of pre-dawn morning I am frozen, lying awake in bed. I stare at the ceiling, an endless sea of foamy texture, liquid and rippling. Fan blades slowly turn, casting no real shadows; just hints of themselves fade in and out, in and out, across the ceiling. Bed sheets stiff and cold, I am barely touching linen. Almost floating, but still frozen solid. My eyes follow a fan blade pulled in a lazy circle, around, and around, and around.

I have just put down the phone, five minutes ago. Ten maybe. It’s hard to know, exactly. The phone is cradled on the windowsill; with my hand at my side I can touch the receiver with the tips of my fingers. Cold white smooth plastic. The window is only a faint blue square outline with fuzzy stripes of soft white light glowing in through the blinds.

Somewhere north, far away, my mother is in the hospital. Lung cancer. Probably won’t live too long. My hand was over the phone; I listened to a woman talking with my dad. A relative, maybe.
There is a knock on my bedroom door. I melt, reach down to my feet and pull the sheet up over my body. It slowly lands on my skin and I shiver. Goosebumps.
“Come in.” The door opens; orange light like glowing fire stings my eyes. My dad is a burning shadow in the doorframe.
“You won’t be going to school today. Your mom’s real sick and, um, I guess you should go see her. I got you a plane ticket to Ohio.”
“When?” I sit up in bed. I’ve never been on a plane.
“This afternoon. I couldn’t get you a flight until three. We should be at the airport by one.”
He hesitates, his hand still on the doorknob. “It’s gonna be a long day for you. Try to go back to sleep.”
He pauses, says, “I’m sorry Mikel,” and then shuts the door.
I try to remember just exactly what does my mother look like. She can’t look the same as when I was a kid; that was a long time ago. People change a lot in fifteen years. People grow up, people grow old. People die, and I haven’t seen her since I was three. Maybe four. It’s hard to know, exactly.
My eyes find the fan blades again. I reach up, stretch my arm way up, and twice pull the fan’s chain. The fan groans and the blades have momentum and I pull the sheet up to my neck. The blades are now a motion-blurred circle, sending wind and noise down on me in steady waves. I shut my eyes, let my body freeze still and I wonder again what does she look like now.

Bright yellow light sticks to the walls like wet paint and I can almost smell the sun. I smash a full laundry basket-load of clean, wrinkled clothes into a brown, cracking leather suitcase. Fist-fulls of white underwear, white socks, two pairs of jeans, nine or ten t-shirts, I force them all in. From the closet, I pack a black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of scruffy leather boots. I grab my book-bag and turn it upside down, dumping into a pile all my school stuff. Random papers, textbooks, notebooks, I dump it all. With the bag empty, I walk out of my bedroom, down the hall and into the bathroom. Toothbrush, toothpaste, cologne, deodorant. I sweep it all into the bag. Under the sink, I find bar soap and toilette paper. I grab one bar and it’s in the bag.