Hope...

...is DEAD.

13 Angels Standing Guard at the Foot of Your Bed

13 Angels Standing Guard at the Foot of Your Bed- A Silver Mt. Zion
I don't know if I believe in Angels, but if they do exist and if there are some good ones around us, spirits who watch over us and send vibrations of peace and calm, I wish they would stand over my bed and bless me with their presence.

In a world full of death, inflicted upon us by humans lost in despair or by Mother Nature herself, we could all use some indication that it is not all for naught.

I lay down in a dark room and close my eyes. I let myself absorb the energy and it restores me.

This is how I would want them to sound.

Weakness Is My Lover Tonight

1999

It is the admission of weakness that has me here tonight. I can taste the night-time air at the back of my throat, forcing me to hurt my brain. I don’t want to breathe in this frigidity but I cannot live without it. So I inhale. And again the taste of failure, cold, biting, cruel enters my body, headed straight for my thought processing system that seems to have taken a day off today. Those many feet of seemingly swollen veins have declared a self-proclaimed holiday. And the rest of me rebels. Arms, stop shivering. They raise up from my sides, undulations emerging from their once steady swing. It is a dance that follows the rhythm of the clarinet and the lonely beat of the conga drum. The sounds of the wailing, thin reed instrument, piercing the air with the precision of a Haitian’s sharp wandering eyes, and the trippy taps of the conga, making me think of the speed of incoming storm clouds, induce my torso to join in the prayer of thanking life for music.

Here I am raising up from the ground, my feet finding steps in the air for which to ascend. Each step beckons to me, inviting me with “mmmm’s”, “rrrr’s”, “yes’s” “no’s”, “yes’s know your woes despite your clothes.” Each step reveals the colors I need to ingest to be whole. And as the music continues its Indian/African vibe, I collect my soul and step onto the first step. Charcoal, onyx, ebony, dark. “Here I am” it whispers. Who are you? “Let’s see….”

Warmth, like the kind felt from a man pressed against your backside after a long bought of heavy breathing, appears, soothing in its delicacy. I am in “a safe place?” Yes. My life comes from the woman I hear making strange noises. I breathe through her, eat through her. The sound that I often hear goes up and down like a see saw, curving and lilting in a singsong manner Often I bump around in here, when the one who wants me is making that noise. My home rumbles at times like those. I kind of like it. It can be really loud and it’s always joyful and I never want it to go away. Laughter.

I move away from that step, my past having taken up a nice chunk of the “on vacation” linguine in my head. Another step looks more recent, it has my symbol on it, painted in blood. I step onto it.

Determination tastes like oxygenated semen sometimes, thick and acidic. Other times it tastes like pineapple, also acidic yet juicy. Thin, I guess you’d say. This time determination is like the pineapple. I’ve found a razor blade from a Bic razor. It looks a little old, like feet that don’t get washed enough and accumulate skin and other natural products between the toes. Part of this razor looks this way, the rust hanging on like the crust between one’s toes, or the crust around sliced bread; sometimes it’s hard to get rid of it. My brother wraps the less appealing side of this otherwise perfectly healthy piece of shiny metal with a gray, iridescent piece of duct tape. Gray like the fake gray people go to the hairdresser’s for to cover up their otherwise dull gray like a ten year old scouring pan hair. He uses the match to sterilize the blade and I always like the split second smell of that head’s red hair catching on fire, giving me a disgustingly pleasant whiff of rotting eggs. It reminds me of the two-hour car ride to the beach when we pass by the sulfur pits: “Source Puante.”

He draws on my back with a pen. He tells me, “I’m gonna start cutting now.” Anticipation. Tastes like… the extra production of saliva right before you eat the piece of strawberry cheesecake you’ve been eyeing for the past minute. Then a stinging sensation, like a papercut, no, less painful because you expect it, like five mosquitoes biting you in the same precise spot at the same precise moment. Yes, that is what is felt. I can taste the iron of my blood spilling into the cotton balls I know he applies to my carved skin. I can imagine the cotton sucking up the bright redness like cattails suck up oil on ocean surfaces. And when it’s over, I run to the bathroom and turn my back to the mirror, craning my neck around, not exactly like a crane, but I try, and I see the circular gouged-out pieces of skin, filling up with rivulets of my personal liquid. I smile. This is my gift to myself.

I step off that step which has helped me somewhat in my quest to eradicate my weakness tonight. But still, there is a lingering wisp of it, twirling about my face, like the skinny piece of silk you run into, where you were not aware a spider lived. And often when there
is one small thread, you can run into many others. A web of weakness. This is the weakness felt when you’ve just had a head on collision with a taxi cab on a dark Haitian road that is framed by a mountain on one side, and a ravine on the other. It is the uncontrollable shaking that persists even two hours after the accident has happened, when you know you’re safe but you can’t believe how close you came to death. It is the weakness felt when a man in his forties, who is merely supposed to help you with your bad back (after all he is a doctor), takes you out for dinner, buying you drinks you didn’t ask for and touching your hand while telling you how pretty an eighteen year old you are. It is the weakness felt when you hear a man you thought you knew, scream profanities to you on the phone and you swear your heart has suddenly decided it’s been on a two-hour marathon and your brain has only just found out. It is the weakness felt when you know you should have listened to your gut feeling and instead you listened to your brain.

I take one last step. This one the many shades of brown that one encounters every day. Burnt ember, sienna, dark chocolate, marabou, cocoa. Here, I am all of you. I become that cinnamon breeze that wafts through your nose. I become the funk in your sweat. I become the nine year old blind dog that you still love so devotingly. I become the alarm clock you wake up to in the morning, and the crisp apple you bite into to soothe your parched throat. I become you and we become one. On this step, I understand you. And so being, I understand myself.

And so the weakness, once before felt, dissipates like mist so often does, with the strength of the heat of the sun. But that is only when the sun has risen. Right now, it is still dark.

Sorrow

I rise in the morning and stumble off to take a shower. The water is scorching hot. I cringe and pull back from the pain.

I chop vegetables and injure myself on the index finger. Blood seeps through. I place my lips on the wound.

I hike up a mountain and two days later I can feel the soreness in my glutes and my shins. It hurts.

I drink water and then continue with my Taekwondo. I get a stitch in my side. I have to stop.

I am alive. I feel, I experience, I continue everyday, moving past those pangs, pricks, stings and aches. They are testaments to the fragility and strength of our bodies. I welcome those sensations.

Everyday, I wake up in the same bed and everything resurfaces. The aches and twinges go away with time as the body heals from the inside out. And you can feel your body healing and it's a daily little miracle.

But memory, memory is not a flesh wound. It jump starts the anguish that grows, not fades away.

They say pain heals with time; all pain. But with me and with time, the hurt, the torment, the torture, the agony, the woe, the grief...they grow. And now I have a full-blown tree inside me, black with misery.

Each day, each branch grows an inch and I can feel myself stretch from exertion. I am becoming misshapen, distorted, a mutated form of what was.

I have tried several doors. They are locked. I have no keys.

I have no tools, I cannot pick them.

I have no strength, I cannot break them down.

I have no love, I cannot sweet-talk them.

I am here, in this windowless room, my body taking root in the ashy ground of despair, staring at impenetrable barriers.

And I know. I know what I must do.


Pneumonia - Bjork

Get over the sorrow, girl

The world is always going
To be made of this

You can trust in it
Unless you breathe in
Bravely

I adore how you

Simply

Surrender to high

High

And your lungs

They're mourning
T-b style

All the still-born love
That could have happened
All the moments
You should have embraced
All the moments
You should have not locked up

Understand so clearly
To shut yourself up
Would be the hugest crime of them all

Hugest crime

Of them all
You're just crying

After all

Do not want them

Humans around

Anymore

Get over that sorrow, girl

Get over it

Real Men?

What does it mean to be a man? Societies in the west, and the east for that matter, have shaped the essence of what a man should be. It used to be that gentleman who opened the door for you, that person who held the small of your back as you walked. Even in present day some people think a man is someone who will stand on the edge of the sidewalk when with a woman, to protect her from any potential accidents off the streets.

A man was a provider, a protector, a person of substance that could be counted on.

A man was not supposed to cry, a man was not supposed to play with dolls. A man was supposed to fight to protect, he was supposed to die for the good of others. He was supposed to bask in the glory of that sacrifice.

He was to take on the burden of feeding his family and yet not get too involved in his childrens' lives. He was to be the discipliner, the strength of the family, the one that all looked up to.

A man was described as the strong, silent type. The tall, dark, handsome type. The Heathcliffs, Edward Rochesters and Darcys of this world... the James Bonds, Supermans and Batmans...

He was impenetrable and it was the woman's job to break through that barrier and find the human beneath the shell. The Catherines, the Janes, the Elizabeths... they were the strengths behind the strengths.

All my life, all I wanted was honesty and respect. I didn't need that uncrying, unfeeling gentleman of a person. I wanted truth, spelled out for me to see.

The honesty to be weak, if that were the case. The respect that meant that if things could not be realized, if my needs could not be met, that I would be told as a person who deserved to be told; without pressure, without cajolery, without anger aimed.

Very few people have done that for me. Those are the real men, in my mind. The Matts, the Wissams... I never expected to go through this world without being hurt. Though I tend to be on the naive side, I never expected to live a life unscathed.

But I did expect honesty, I did expect respect.

There is no greater pain in this world than the actions from others which imply you are not worthy of those things.

So where are those real men? The men who are, first and foremost, human?

I do not deny that pride is a necessity. I have lived much of my little life clinging to that concept. But there are greater things in this life than pride.

As I inch towards death, each day progressing towards that inevitable fate, I realize the futility of pride. It only serves to separate yourself. Pride is what separates those that condemn themselves to a life lived alone, from those who keep trying to live a life. Not free of pain, that seems more impossible as time edges on, but a life that includes possibilities.

I am stripped of pride. I stripped myself. I have done things that I can never take back, perhaps out of desperation (yes, most definitely), but also out of hope that some good can come out of mistakes.

We will never be free of mistakes; the key is to acknowledge them and try to move forward. I used to be incapable of forgiveness and I have to work, daily to forgive others for the pain they cause. But of all the forgiveness I must learn, it is forgiveness for my mistakes and my weaknesses that I must try to achieve.

So, are the real men out there? Who are you? Where do you hide? Can you survive in the world of superheros and expectations? Can you survive in the face of disappointment? Can you survive?

There are some women out there, some women who are looking for those pure things: honesty, respect.

Simple words...but so difficult to live up to.


Real Men - Tori Amos (cover)


Take your mind back
I don’t know when
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them

Girls that wore pink
Boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Than me and you

What’s a man now, what’s a man mean
Is he rough or is he rugged
Cultural and clean

Now it’s all changed, it’s got to change more
We think it’s getting better
But nobody’s really sure

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

See the nice boys, dancing in pairs
Golden earring, golden tan
Blow-waving the hair

Sure they’re all straight, straight as a line
All the guys are macho
See the leather shine

You don’t want to sound dumb, don’t want to offend
So don’t call me a faggot
Not unless you are a friend

Then if you’re tall, handsome, and strong
You can wear the uniform and I could play along

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

Time to get scared, time to change plan
Don’t know how to treat a lady
Don’t know how to be a man

Time to admit what you call defeat
Cause there’s women running past you now
And you just drag your feet

Man makes a gun, man goes to war
Man can kill and man can drink
And man can take a whore

Kill all the blacks, kill all the reds
If there’s war between the sexes
Then there’ll be no people left

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are