Eternal Sunshine

The D Train

I saw you tonight waiting for the D train. I was going uptown to Harlem and you were headed to downtown Manhattan, or Brooklyn, I don’t know, you were on the other side of the tracks so I couldn’t ask you.

You looked dead at me though, like you had something you had been waiting to tell me and you finally got the chance, but I was just out of whispering distance. So, you walked to the edge of the platform

like you wanted to jump. Not into my arms or anything, but like you realized you were about to get on the wrong train and you needed to hurry and get to the right side of the tracks. There was something you needed to tell me.

It’s an impossible leap, you would never make it. Plus, now the train is coming. I guess you didn’t care because you did it. HOLY SHIT, YOU DID IT! You actually ran to the edge and jumped

like you had been practicing your whole life for this. Like a gymnast who had never won a gold medal in anything in her life and now this were your Olympics. Just as you jumped, you opened your mouth to say something

and the train came and cut you in half. It was intense. There was confetti everywhere. I couldn’t wait to see if you were ok or anything because I had a train to catch. It was late and the D train runs funny at this hour.

I mourned you all the way to 145th Street until I remembered that you don’t even live in New York. Neither do I. I came to this island just to get away from you. I guess I should have chosen somewhere slightly more deserted.

8 million people in this city, I was bound to see you somewhere, in someone. Now I’m bound for the Bronx because I missed my stop and I have no idea how I’m going to make it home, or if I want to.  

If 2015 taught me anything, it is that everything is fleeting. Even the recurring moments that we come to expect are a bunch of temporary events strung together over the course of a lifetime - If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change. #newyearsameme

The Forest x The City I ran into the forest because I thought I heard my name, but it may have just been the voices in my head, both them and you all sound the same. They said you never realize you’re lost until you try to go back the way you came, but there is no turning back now, I’ll build my fire here when it gets dark, come find me if you see the flames. I’ll stay here through the night until there is a little light to find my way, but when you see the smoke, the fire’s died, I’ve broken camp and it’s too late. I can navigate by the moon, wandering around until I’m found, but if your trees obstruct it’s view I’ll burn this forest to the ground. And build a city where you stood with buildings that reach higher than your trees ever could, and neon lights, we won’t need fire. And I’ll light you up at night, to where you’ll never see the stars, but you’ll look beautiful from a distance tourist will come by plane, train or barge just to get a picture of you. Or I could build you like they used to, with castles and with walls and erect statues of myself in the center of it all. Until the hurricane comes and earthquake shakes and the city crumbles to the ground and a forest grows in its place.

Happy Birthday 2Pac

I remember riding the subway in New York around this time last year and overhearing a kid, no older than 15, say "I really look up to Chris Brown. He can dance, he can sing, he paints, he does it all. He's my hero," and my first thought was - poor kid, he is about to have a rough life. Then my second thought was - this is probably how I sounded some 15 years ago when I told my parents and teachers how much I idolized 2Pac, that he was my hero. And he was. I had every album, every documentary, every book, and almost every movie he was in. And luckily for me, I had a mother who didn't condemn my idolization of 2Pac, but would take me to Blockbuster Music on Carrollton to get his newest albums the day they came out. Yes, 2Pac was my hero, and he was an important one because he was the first hero I chose, the first hero that was not assigned to me by my elders. Sure he was flawed, contradictory, extreme, and sometimes vulgar - but he was also unapologetic, genuine, caring, and determined to uplift those in his community. He made songs like "Keep Ya Head Up," and "Smile," and "Dear Momma," and "I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto" that can still put goosebumps on your neck when you hear them today. Sitting here at 29 and looking back on a life that was cut short at 25 almost two decades ago, I still consider 2pac a hero for the impact he was able to make on an entire generation at such a young age. Sure he made some mistakes along the way, but those mistakes I can learn from without exemplifying them. Pac, the world is a dimmer place without you in it, but a much better one for having you here. Happy Birthday. (Takes sip of Hennessey)

Soul Mates

You remind me of my ex-wife from a past life who I committed suicide to escape from when I made myself wings of feathers and wax, and fell to my death when I flew them into the sun. You just laughed and floated over me as I drowned.

They say birthmarks are entry wounds that show where we died before, and dreams are just memories we carried with us from the other side, which is why you looked so familiar the first time I saw you. Your feet never touched the ground.

My opening line was “you look like my daughter,” you smiled and asked “how old is she?” I said, “well if it all works out, five years from now she’ll be three, but I’m in no rush.” It felt like a third person existed between us.

And I wasn’t sure who we were before, or who are supposed to be, but I knew that on the other side of the world planted deep inside a forest there is a tree with our names carved into its side, and written in a language neither of us speak is inscribed

“forever is a pretty short time looking back on it,” and even though we may not be able to read it, we would instantly recognize our handwriting as evidence that we were part of the same tribe that died out a thousand years ago, and we would brace ourselves for

the earthquake as our souls shake and vibrate higher. We were sent here to repopulate so there was no time to apologize for everything we were about to put each other through. You just grabbed my hand and said “I look forward to getting tired of you.”

God don’t make mistakes, but people do. Souls only know wavelengths, and communicate through music and colors and sound; they don’t always remember to leave the key under the mat, or come home before 3 a.m., or put the toilet seat down, or

make sure to hold your hand whenever we’re out in public, because the flesh doesn’t understand it’s just a vessel full of flaws. Soulmates exist to serve as a reflection of how truly damaged we really are, how hurt, desperate and unexamined we are.

I never asked for a soulmate, just someone who hates all the same things I do, and in you I confronted all of the things I hated in myself, like a mirror that reveals the first time you realize you are no longer beautiful. My ugly is going take some getting used to.

I used to fear going to sleep next to you because I would get tangled in your hair and you would roll over, strangling me, leaving gasping for air in one of those dreams where you can’t quite wake yourself up, until I realized that you only hogged the sheets so you could

expose me to the cold and wake up the other side of me whenever my dreams got off track. My arms would always go numb so I could never fight back. So instead of starting a war with you I would just kiss you on your cheek.

Maybe we’re just meant to walk through life trying to fill each-other-sized holes in ourselves. Feeling like we swapped souls at a crowded train stop like two strangers who picked up the wrong bag and were forced to wear the clothes they found inside.

I have that sweater you’ve been looking for, it’s a little stretched out but it still smells just fine. Find me again so we can make amends, or at least swap bags one last time. Everyone deserves a seventh chance.

I guess I’ll see you next lifetime when you and I are butterflies and during our migration we can gently clip wings and create a vibration that causes the tides to rise off the shores of Hawaii and forms a tsunami that crashes into the coast of Japan

and floods some kind of nuclear reactor that causes the world to spin backwards and we can finally rest our wings on the sand and look back on all we destroyed with a smile, and I’ll know that it was all worth it just to be with you when the world ends.

Are You Happy?

I never fully understood this question. Happy with what? Happiness sounds like an ending to me, "and they lived happily ever after." How can somebody who has more life to look forward to than to look back on honestly comprehend that question? Ask me in 50 years and maybe I'll have an answer for you. 

When you die do you get to take your memories with you?

There are no pieces of you missing. The same way a tree doesn't miss its fruit when the farmers come for the harvest, neither should you worry about what parts of you are not there.

Muse

I've never felt so used. All I do is write and paint  and say beautiful things about you

and what do you do besides break my heart? Sure you inspire me but at what cost?

I’ll never own you but I feel like you belong to me.

I’ve called you home for far too long

far longer than these transplanted seeds.

They don't have any roots here they haven't grown any trees.

Yea, they sing you songs but they do you wrong, too.

It’s hard having to share you with those who have yet to shed their leaves.

When they come for a visit and they don't stay I'm the one that sweeps your streets the next day

and how do you repay me?

With hurricanes, and apathy and summers that last too long and disregard but I still hang you on my living room walls  

and invite everyone I know over to see that you're the one who inspires me even if you don't care at all.

This may be a bit intense...

Every day without you is like a week without rain, to survive, I’m forced to drink the blood of the other loves I’ve slain.

Look how you’ve changed me. I’m a vampire, I’ve died but still remain here in a castle that’s haunted by the absence of you. You’re the real monster though you have no claws, no fangs.

Every night I stare into the waters of Lake Pontchartrain as the sun sets, then I dive in and swim to the other side without taking a breath as I search through swamp and suburb counting each and every one of my steps, holding out hope that I will find your footprints left behind, and I’d follow them blindly off the edge of this earth while I fight off beast and thief as I search for a sign that you may not be as far as I think you are.

Though I am the hunter and you’re on the run I have armed myself with flowers and gave you the gun so when I find you my fate is yours to choose, and if you reject my apologies I’ll drag my bloodied and lifeless body back across those slain beasts’ and thieves’ bones making sure I leave a trail of these flowers and bleed all the way home just in case you change your mind and want to love me back to life again you'll know where to find me.

If not, I’ll gladly die knowing that the night is not as frightening as what I see every morning when I wake and face the dawn.