His Girl (5/13/00)
Pictures are being taken
Again of couples --
My brother with his.
Jen laughs at them,
Calls them sick
Then accuses my cousin
of never touching her
Like that anymore --
like my brother touches
His girl.
Dreams (10/12/00)
"Hell yeah." Cam said. "We'll do it for sure."
It was March, the snow was melting, girls were wearing less clothes -- it was as good a time as any for dreaming.
"We can take off in the late fall." I said. "And spend the winter along the Mediterranean somewhere."
Cam was single again, I had not yet met my now-ex-girlfriend and we were both dropping out of our classes.
"Then we can travel up north when it gets warmer." I said.
"Just you and me." Cam said.
"We have to do it." I said.
"For sure." Cam said.
It is late fall now. I am in Spokane, living with my mom. This week I found a job. Next I look for a car. Cam is here too, for now. He will soon go back to Walla Walla and I will stay here to dream alone.
Untitled (10/26/00)
It is just after ten AM, Thursday. Warm sunlight flashes across white Ford trucks. Air is frosty, snow is on it's way. Irish Cream and mocha, the usual, a used art textbook, notes, my journal. Mornings like this one -- coffee tastes better, soft background jazz sounds live. Blankets of leaves -- even death is warm and comforting in the fall. Was Seattle ever so colorful? All I can remember now is the rain.
What do I Want from Life at Age 20? (10/26/00)
I want to know God. Not my parent's God, not my church's God, not my ex-girlfriend's God. I want to know my God. I want to know people. I want to know friends. Not fuck-buddies, not party favors, not single servings, not lab partners, not weekend getaways. I want the boys. But I want my best friend to someday be a girl. I want reality, not Dazed & Confused. I'm tired of parties that won't end, one-night-stands, pretty-boys and daddy's-girls. I want life. I want to see the Mediterranean and the Irish coast. I want to live out of a backpack and not shave for six months. I want to live in a four bedroom house on South Hill, or in an apartment in West Seattle, with a view of the city skyline in my living room window. I want to drive a silver, or maybe a black, Audi S-4. I want a soul mate, not a wife. I want kids, but not until I am ready to leave the city lights and the rush hour traffic, or the Thursday night live jazz, or the weekends at Schweitzer, Mt Hood or Whistler-Blackcomb. Then I will be ready to "grow up." Then I will be ready to have a family, to teach freshman writing classes. Then I will be ready for the Volvo wagon, and a chocolate Lab, or a Golden Retriever. But not yet.
Untitled (11/07/00)
Sky is gray today, and cold, settling down like a crisp, newly-washed sheet. There was snow painted in patches of white on the hills above your house this morning. A bird flies overhead, chirps to stay warm I think, to remind itself that it must hurry now, that winter is coming.
You sip your mocha between drags off a clove cigarette. You smoke much like that bird's sharp chirp and think about your brother's offer. You wonder if it would be any different -- life? You?
You forget to sip your mocha, light another smoke instead. No wind this morning. Just the chill of an oncoming Eastern Washington winter. You'll be wearing your coat to town soon. When you can't take it anymore -- the frost on your face, your cigarette, the hippie couple wandering by... you go back inside.
Church (11/12/00)
As I drove home from work tonight I began to think about what happened in church earlier today, and about how that blubbering old fool -- with his gray beard and thick glasses, had sobbed his way through the alter of prayer, and about how we had all knelt there -- eyes closed and heads bowed, and how I had, between his sobs -- in those brief seconds of sniffled intermission, been oddly reminded of a time when I was ten and slept on my parents floor -- only to awaken in the cold, moon-lit bedroom to the sounds of their love making.
I don't know why exactly my thoughts went back to that night when I was ten and was too afraid to sleep in my own bed... Only that this sobbing wreck of a man was kneeling up at the front and that I wished he would just stop, even prayed that he would stop. Please. God. Stop.
Untitled (1/24/01)
Wednesday morning... well, almost afternoon now. Sun came out this morning - made the snow seem brighter, more pure, almost hopeful. You sit, alone at the Mercury Cafe, the usual in front of you -- Irish Cream mocha, journal, cigarettes. How have you been, asks the guy who made your coffee. The owner? You suddenly find it odd you have never learned his name. You really ought to pay more attention to these sort of things. Watching cars, dusty cars -- a Jeep, Subaru, Honda, a city bus -- reminds you again of the drive home from Seattle last night. Listening to Counting Crows as you climbed the mountain pass and headed East. Leads you to think of the movie, Snatch -- with Brad Pitt, for some reason. And of gypsies, rogues without a home. You are sympathetic. Not a bad road to travel... a security of it's own. Still, five hours on Interstate 90 in a civic... that drive never felt so long with Andy and Jason. Or with Shane. Or Brandon. The good thing about gypsies is that they travel in numbers, with Winnebago's, and dogs.
You watched 60 Minutes last night, killing time before you called your cousin, Matt... the story of the Dave Matthews Band. You laid on the couch, about to fall asleep. But a producer for the band said something that made you sit up, made you forget about how early you had to get up tomorrow morning. Most people wait for inspiration to strike them, he said. He grinned then, under his thin white beard, and said, you end up spending a whole lot of time waiting... You have to go in search of inspiration, he said. You nodded to yourself and then laid back down on the couch. That makes sense, you thought to yourself. And then you went to call Matt, and found out that Fawnia was is jail. A DWI, he said. Her second offense, you said. Damn, that sucks.
The sky is clouding over now. Even so, the businessman who strolls by your window smiles at you, or perhaps just to his own reflection. He smiles in spite of the clouds. Perhaps the sun is fading into a gray light that blankets this snow covered city, but he doesn't seem to notice. The glory of the morning sun is still fresh in our memories. For today it is enough -- the memory of a brilliant morning.
The College Church (2/26/01)
I have this recurring feeling, like a dream but less tangible. It is like I am at the College Church, after vespers. Everyone is there -- Zach, Brandon, Holley, Jeremy, Stefan, Cam and Marshal, Swisher is there, Giovanni, Mascarenas, Anni, her fiance. There are more too, like there always is after vespers at the College Church. I roam from circle to circle. There are hugs, handshakes, even kisses. They are all making plans, for tonight, for tomorrow, for next year. I am invited. But I can't go, I say. I have plans. Plans of my own. They can understand. I mean, after all, we all have to do what we have to do, right? There are more hugs now, more handshakes. Take it easy, I say. We'll miss you, they say. And I turn to leave. But once I leave the room I realize that I've used the wrong door. I'm in the bathroom now, or the sanctuary -- it doesn't matter. So now I have to go back inside. That's what matters. And here is the thing. This doesn't happen just once, or twice. After enough times nobody takes me seriously anymore. I am stuck in this room and I can't seem to find the door that leads away from here. And my biggest fear is that by the time I find the door I want it will be too late, that I will have given up on leaving all together, that I will have gone to Holley's or to Fackenthalls, with them, and their plans, not mine.
An Old Movie (3/09/01)
Sherry's restaurant. Sometime after 2 AM. You sit in a corner booth with your cousin and a girl you don't know. Drinking coffee and smoking. Reminds me of the good 'ole times, high school. When this was enough. Coffee. Black. Two ashtrays, three packs of Camels. Cell phones lying silent, a fact you are strangely OK with tonight. Chapstick. Lighters. Empty packets of sugar. Dust size pieces of ash that dance across the table when you laugh or when this strange girl sweeps her hand out and flicks habitually at the full ashtray. She tells you this -- that she is strange. Some story about her best friend calling her such. You make a smart ass comment about it and then she starts to tell another story. The seconds seem to slip into slow motion every time she smiles. It's an infectious smile and for the better part of the night the three of you are all just smiling stupidly at each other because of it. At some point you think this girl reminds you a lot of Rebekah.
Anyway. Hours pass and still the three of you just sit there. Talking. Smoking. And drinking coffee. You watch your cousin as she talks. There is a sparkle deep in his left eye. It carries over -- brightening his right one also. His face glows too. And he keeps grinning at her. Like he's drunk or something. Only he's not. Later he tells you that as he sat there and watched this girl he couldn't help but wonder if this is how Ryan and Audra felt when they met. But anyway, like I said -- you sit there now. There is a cigarette in your right hand. And you watch your cousin as this strange girl talks. When she is done your cousin talks for a while. And then she starts again. At some point the scene before you begins to fade. Until it seems they are only whispering to each other. Until everything becomes black and white. Like a memory. Or an old movie. You see them now -- in black and white, whispering to each other. They are alone there, on the other side of the bench. You can't help but think of Jason Lee, and two chicks tonguing each other. "Now that, my friend, was a shared moment." And yet that simple explanation seems cheap at this point. Finally the moment is broken. This strange girl turns to you and asks, "so what about you? Ever fallen in love?" You give her a smart ass reply and she smiles. You can tell she wants to press it, but she doesn't. She instead turns back to your cousin and once more the scene fades into black and white.
Hoping it is Enough (1/08/02)
Lying on Shane's bed, reading the last twenty pages of a book. Brandon sits nearby at the computer. I try to ignore the intermittent curses mixed with sighs of relief. At times he even cries out in glee. I've just turned over a new page when Shane walks through the door. I glance up at him as he steps past me. He holds his cordless phone in his right hand, like it's a bad report card. His face is expressionless, the color of ash collecting on a snowy grave. Moisture clouds his blue eyes. "Where's my cigarettes?" He asks. Brandon hits the escape key on his keyboard and pauses his video game. "Hey buddy," he starts to say. The smile disappears from his face as he turns to Shane. "Bad talk with Sam?" He asks. Shane closes his eyes, running his hands through the dirty-blond shag that covers his head. "Fuck." He exhales. "What the hell happened?" I ask. I start to say something more but he cuts me off. "Please," he says. "Just... don't." I close my book. Shane grabs a pack of Camel lights off of his computer. He takes one out and sticks it in his mouth. Brandon and I glance at each other. I shrug. For a moment no one says anything. No one moves. The three of us just wait. Brandon and I wait for Shane. Shane I think seems to look much like someone waiting to wake up from a dream. "Sam's pregnant." He says. With that my little brother turns and heads for the front door. After what he's just said finally sinks in I abandon my book all together and follow after him. Brandon tries to comfort the boy as the three of us stand out on the porch to our college housing apartment. I light up a cigarette and smoke in silence. No words seem adequate, so I just smoke, and listen -- hoping it is enough.
Jazz (10/25/02)
Need to say something
About this very moment. But
To do it justice
Would take more, I fear,
Than this tired poet
Can conjure at such an hour.
Just something
In the Jazz - a Coltrane like feel,
Southern Comfort
In piano keys, a bit
Of dance in the way the saxophone
Plays, with a snare
That makes your eyebrows raise...
Tap-ta-tap-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta
Tap.
Leaves (11/14/02)
Leaves dance playfully, intertwined
In a soft wind-blown
Free fall. For a moment
There are hundreds of them, floating
In orchestrated patterns --
Giant, golden snowflakes that come to rest
Lightly on one another,
Creating a warm blanket
In the brisk, waxing sunlight of fall.
Rain has passed on
To fields not so green
And yet the taste remains.
A squirrel leaps from leaf
To leaf -- an acorn the size of his head
Held somehow in his mouth -- looking
Much like a small kitten
Experiencing snow
For the very first time.
Untitled (11/14/02)
Long before his tongue pushes past her soft, playful lips their eyes meet in an embrace not so unlike their first kiss. They have tried to hide it, to deny that there is an it, but they know it -- have always known it -- and not that it can never be, but that they can never control it. But it is the earlier of the two notions, that it can never be, which prompts him to pull away. Only for a moment though, because her hands pull him back down on top of her. The taste of her mouth is much like the empty eight dollar bottle of Merlot on the desk next to her bed. His head is swimming now and he blames the wine. It is easier that way -- more convenient than the alternative. The world outside the locked bedroom door grows awkwardly quiet until all he can hear is the quick beat of this girl's heart. When they are both tired, when the alcohol has worn off, when it goes as far as it will -- on this night at least, he climbs off of her. She lays there and watches his shadow as he gets dressed without a word. When he is clothed he goes to the door, then pauses there. "Don't tell anyone. Please." He says. And then he turns and walks out through her bedroom door.
A Random Starbucks Quote (Unknown, self-professed 84 year old man)
"I'm open to girls from the age of 16 to 83 and their is a standing offer for a free orgasm lesson in the backseat of my Ford Focus. If they orgasm, it's free. But if I orgasm, they charge me $7.50. It's like a French whore. Business is business and love is bullshit."
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