What We Take For Granted

          I came home from an arduous session of applied Calculus II and, as usual, my grandmother was boiling something in a pot. The cookbook she kept exclusively in her mind was extensive, and she never failed to execute every recipe with delicious precision. Chicken adobo was my first favorite dish but, like all things, that eventually changed. Kare kare took the place of chicken adobo, and then pork sinigang after that. Favorite dishes aside, as a food lover, every dish she made incited within me the greatest of anticipations. “Foooood” my mind would chant like a mantra of Eastern spirituality as the spices and herbs coaxed my nostrils. Anxious for her to finish the task at hand I stepped into the kitchen hoping my looming presence would somehow help the food more quickly reach fruition. The sooner it was in my mouth the better. The scene was a typical one in our household, but that day I noticed something I never had before: the masked tension in the slight curve of her upper back. It was unmistakably there but she hid it from all of us: my grandfather, my parents, my brothers, myself. I saw all of the gravelly, grassy miles of earth her feet had ever carried her over. I heard all of the aspersions that had been spit into her face, simply for believing what she believed. I saw the squalor and filth she was raised around, but not in. I saw the world she knew best and thought about how far away she was from it.

          She was wearing a faded-lime green ESPRIT crewneck sweater, the one she used to give me sink baths in. It was spotted with lint, sleeves rolled up. Floral tsinelas hugged her feet—slippers that would have been thwacking against the linoleum if she had been walking. She picked the ladle up and began to stir the contents of the pot. I knew it was neither chicken nor pork she was stirring, but something else. It was a something that she had been consistently stirring for decades, unnoticed by me. She was stirring love. I saw that the steam rising from the love was not water violently assimilating into the air, but sacrifice. I recognized the twenty years that were selflessly given for me, but that was only a small portion of what I saw. Decades of different colors swirled together: the blue watchfulness that vigilantly guided, and still guides, her five children, my mother being the youngest; the red hope that they would possess the drive necessary to make the most of themselves; the gold and silver shimmers signifying an undying bond between her and my grandfather that promised they would never part, not in this life or the next; the green nurture and the yellow cackling laughter that stymied the various oppressions that bore down on immigrants, both before and after their relocation. The colors brought me to tears. All of that and what did she want in return? For me to wash a few dishes, for me to help bring groceries in from the Odyssey. Above all, the most sacred hope: for me to live a life of safety and of joy, a life of the purpose we so vehemently believed in. I stood there for a long while, unnoticed by her. When she finally turned around, she knew without words why I wept. She came to me and spoke with the Filipina accent that housed the struggle I would never understand but will always be unceasingly grateful for. “You're welcome,” she breathed. She embraced me, eyes brimming with tears, face covered with wetness.  

Helmholtz: A Poem

The rain and its soul
make me complete, make me whole.
Tautological lines
the contrivance of rhymes
mused along by the thing that I've seen through the blinds.
Like a woman desperately clinging to a man
who trusts her with nothing but fists,
my feeble attempts to resist are half-hearted
my lopsided love only persists.
Even when the damage is deeper;
I'm entranced. No way I could leave her.
She pushed the wheels askew,
stole my mother from my view.
Somehow I already knew it was what she was going to do.


Successive acts of increasing volatility.


More surprising.


Though I've always known her nature
as all men do
I don't know it. Can't hone it.
Sometimes her scent is fresh,
full of life's breath.
Other times old,
like a junior college library;
ever-grateful for her presence,
even when I am not;
consistent in her hypocrisy,
like an interesting character of fiction
diction often precise,
other times a slurry, she is never in a hurry.
There is grace in her destruction
like a spider eating her mate
she cares for her young,
she watches and waits.
I wonder of all who have loved her
many throughout forever
Aztecs removing hearts,
commuters in a daze on BART,
spirits floating through the ether,
before and after history.
Within it as well.
As watches tick, we notice, she doesn't.
As to whether or not she knows a master
we answer “perhaps”;
we write poems about her,

she never reacts.

The Definite Doilies

         I did this for an assignment in class based off of the Storymatic. I'm probably going to chop off the last two paragraphs later on and write a much longer story. For now, this is what is!

           Milliseconds before, the water had only but begun its fiery descent from the china cup. It didn't fall neatly, as one might suspect, but it did fall with grace. There were amorphous clumpings of every blob shape imaginable succumbing to the powers of gravity. James Keil thought he saw them moving in slow motion, but he always felt that way when watching something terrible happen. Almost in the same moment, his upper left thigh was awash in a sharp pain that burned much like an ice cube wouldn't. James was a clumsy fool, and a clumsy fool with a passion for noon tea at that. “BLOODY TOENAIL CLIPPINGS,” he ejaculated as he burst out of his chair and violently shoved the round, plastic table forward with his muscular legs. More water spilled from the teapot as several antiquated cups that looked like Chip from Beauty and the Beast disengaged from their mortal coils against the tile floor. And all this because James had been noticeably (in the crotch of his pants) distracted by a large-breasted (he liked breasts) passerby he had seen straddling a galloping horse through the window nearest him. A cold wind blew into the room from the window, crisp against James' face, reminding him of the scalding pain on his upper left thigh.

          He'd been born into wealth, the child of that guy who invented those cardboard things you put on coffee cups to avoid burning your hands. The less fortunate acquaintances he'd encountered in his twenty three years of life had never hesitated to remind of his privilege, and it made him sick to his stomach. Not their reminders, but the fact that they were right. He'd never accomplished much of anything for himself, other than the ability to squat 380 pounds. He knew deep down that he always wanted to be a dentist. He wasn't a masochist or anything weird like that, he just really liked teeth. Especially when they were brilliantly white, like the shattered china that had just been housing his beloved Earl Grey tea. He'd taken courses geared toward the profession: Gum Health for Beginning Dental Hygiene Practitioners, Dental Formula with an Emphasis in Anthropological Roots. He felt fairly confident that that was all he needed to know. After all, how difficult could being a dentist be?

          He discovered the answer to that question during his first dental lab class. He'd had to work with plaque removing tools on a dummy of a head. The goal was to avoid damaging the dummy's gums. The gum regions of the dummy had special sensors that would trigger loud noises and red lights when agitated, kind of like a dental version of 'Operation.' Every single time James would inflict mortal wounds upon the dummy. It would flash colors the proctors didn't even know it could flash. It was unprecedented behavior. Nobody had ever wounded a patient even moderately with a simple plaque scraper. But James did. Every time. He was just too darn clumsy to be any good.

          He made his way toward the restroom in order to do something about his worsening leg injury. He violently slammed into waiters touting platters covered in open sandwiches and champagne glasses, because, after all, etiquette was everything. He arrived the the restroom door and twisted the s-shaped marbled handle with more force than necessary and shouldered his way in. Immediately upon entry an intense wave of fecal odor assaulted his nares. “Somebody had lasagna,” he thought to himself. He hastily ripped off his pants (literally ripped, he was unable to ever use those pants again) and vaulted his thigh over the sink counter, slamming the golden cold water spigot to full blast above his upper left thigh. The cooling sensation that overtook him was euphoric. The water didn't just assuage his leg, it assuaged his entire being. He felt pleasing cool tingles spread throughout his entire body, first as if only the short body hairs protruding from his pores were being chilled, and then to his very core. He allowed his body to relax when his eyes were pulled to a particular spot on the bathroom mirror. In the lower right corner of his mirror, he saw a peculiarly colored backpack. It was casually sitting on the floor of an unoccupied stall. He knew that whoever had left it there had done so intentionally, as there was no way someone could overlook such a large bag in such a small space. Somebody had wanted him...had wanted somebody to find that bag. He slowly lowered his beautifully-defined thigh from the sink, dripping droplets of wet water onto the flamboyant floor of the businesslike floor. He cautiously pussyfooted toward the bag, stopping after each step to ensure nobody was watching him. He didn't know why he did that, but it felt like a good thing to do. Just before he arrived at the bag, he accidentally peered into the toilet bowl behind it. He learned that somebody had indeed eaten lasagna. He knelt down to better examine the bag. Juicy Couture. He didn't know Juicy Couture made backpacks. The entire exterior of the bag was purple suede, accentuated by green stitching. The logo was embossed on an onyx plaque that appeared to be nailed onto the backpack. He slowly tugged at the bamboo zipper-pulls, overwrought with anticipation as to what he would find inside. When the opening was finally wide enough for him to peer through, his heart stopped. Not literally. The contents of the backpack were phenomenal beyond his most fanciful hallucinations (he often did acid). Sitting at the bottom of the backpack, taking up no more than 2% of its available space, were 6 expertly crafted doilies. They were the most beautiful things he'd ever seen in his life. Each doily was at least ten times as beautiful as the breasts of that woman he had just seen riding a horse. What they lacked in size they surpassed in class and craftsmanship. He fingered one and was blown away by the unreal combination of softness and strength in its texture. He noticed the chrysanthemums stitched into the petal-like flaps along the perimeter of the doily and was absolutely flabbergasted: these were the doilies of Princess QueenKing George Mikaela Esteban Gonzales Nguyen SugarDildo XVIIXIVIXIX! In an instant the purpose of his life became something else entirely. Every ounce of energy he had was thenceforth going to be exerted in protecting those doilies with all of his energy.

           Just then, a man in a red suit with chalky white pinstripes burst through the lavatory door. A pin on his lapel read Neville Caine, D.D.S. In a thick, slurry Cockney he yelled, “GET YO HANDS OFF ME MUM'S CUSTUM PERIOD PADS. BLOKE.” That's what these are? James thought to himself. “That's what these are?” James thought aloud. “Isn't it obvious mate?” James was disjointed by the volley of questions. So he asked another. “Why the purple Juicy backpack? Why the Men's restroom?” “I work as a fairy princess on weekends. Do birthdays n shit. And a few moments ago I was takin' one.” So you just forgot this backpack here? James thought. “What was that you just thought, bloke?” “Oh, sorry. You just forgot his backpack here?” James replied. “Neh. I just wanted to see if some bloke would touch me Mum's period pads.” Neville Caine, D.D.S. sauntered over to James laughing hysterically, like the long lost fourth member of the hyena pack from Lion King. He snatched up the bag, and tossed a period pad on the floor in front of James. “One for the road you sick, freak.” He left.

          James sat there for what felt like minutes, but was in fact hours. Or perhaps it was the other way around. He forgets, as do I. All at once he utterly despised both dentists and doilies, things he had been enamored with mere minutes before. Or was it hours. He forgets, as do I. He tried to sit up on the toilet seat in order to think in a slightly more comfortable position, but missed in a calamitous occasion of clumsiness. He felt back to the tiled floor and heard a crack, sure that something was wrong. He felt no pain, because his mind was too dense with confusion to allow anything else in. He sat on the tiles of the businesslike floor for quite some time, broken bottom and all, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Planet Seven

This is written from the point of view of a child.

          Today is an average day. A regular day. I'm not wearing a jacket because I don't need to. I think Mrs. Likens is really nice. She has a nice smile and nice hair. She is my teacher. We are doing math. Later we will make sentences, but first is math. Also we will do science but only after we make sentences and do math. I write out that three four times is twelve and two three times is six and other things like that. Numbers more than one time making other numbers. It is so easy for me. Adding numbers was easy and subtracting numbers was easy so I am happy that multiplying numbers is easy too. I am a good writer so I make good sentences like, “The car speeds down the street,” and “The best vacations are in Hawaii because Hawaii is very sunny.” The sentences around me are not as long as my sentences are. They are probably not as good.

          I am excited about doing science because there are many interesting things we have learned in science in class. Mrs. Likens talks about planets and the solar system. She says we live on Earth and that Earth rotates around the Sun. The Sun is really big, bigger than Earth, even though it looks smaller than Earth. That sounds silly to me but I believe it because Mrs. Likens says so. Mrs. Likens knows things that are real. Mercury is small and red and is closer to the Sun than we are. Venus between Mercury and Earth. Behind Earth is Mars. Mars is red like Venus and Mars is small too. Not as small as our moon, though. Our moon is very small and it makes circles around it. It is not made out of cheese even though I thought it was made out of cheese. I am sad because the moon is not made out of cheese, but I am happy that Jupiter and Saturn are so big and they are the fifth and sixth planets in our solar system. Saturn is made of gas and I don't understand why it doesn't look like fog. Saturn should not be a circle if it is gas. Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto are the other planets and I ask Mrs. Likens to see Uranus. This makes Mrs. Likens mad.

          I do not know why Mrs. Likens is mad but she makes me come outside with her. “Did you think it was funny to say that?” I have no idea what she is talking about. “What did you say?” “I...asked to see Uranus?” “That's inappropriate,” she says. I don't know why that's inappropriate. She asks me what that means and I say I don't know. She doesn't believe me. She thinks I know. I think it's a planet and that's all I think. She thinks I'm being smart. I know she means smart in the bad way. She keeps not believing me and it makes me cry. She gives me a pink slip which means I have to stand on a circle during recess and I hate pink slips. I hate teachers every time they give me a pink slip. I want to dip the pink slip in acid and throw it at her face. All because of stupid Uranus the planet that she said in class. She says it means butt or something. I didn't ever want to see her butt. It's probably gross and has brown spots on it and sags. I don't like Mrs. Likens. She's stupid and mean.

False Epiphanies I Have Had

One day I came to the unfortunate realization my father was a complete whore.

          I was suddenly awakened by the sounds of shouting. I looked over at the clock. The dim green light enraged me in the form of 12:23. Dammit, I thought. I'd only been asleep for half an hour, and I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep until at least twice that had passed. I had to wake up in about four hours to go to my crappy job that I hated, and now I was going to have to work on basically no sleep. Making Tuscani pasta for the Orca whales that ate their breakfast at Target's “food court.” Pathetic low lives. And was I really any better than them?  Serving out the gruel coated rubber they slid down their throats?

I forcefully tossed my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comforter to the right and slipped into my Deerfoams. I walked down the stairs to see what all the ruckus was about.

“IT WAS YEARS AGO, LIZBETH. OVER TWENTY YEARS.”

“DON'T GIVE ME THAT CRAP, CRAIG. EIGHTEEN GIRLS BEFORE JUNIOR YEAR EVEN BEGAN? DO YOU KNOW HOW DISGUSTING IT IS TO IMAGINE YOUR PENIS BEING INSIDE ME AFTER ENTERING THAT MANY PIMPLY PUBESCENT VAGINAS? REALLY FUCKING DISGUSTING, CRAIG.”

“IT WAS BEFORE WE MET DAMMIT.”

“OH NO, WE HAD MET. WE JUST WEREN'T A THING YET.”

“Oh...ummm-”

“WHOOOOREE. WHORE, WHORE, WHORE, WHORE, WHORE. YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE A VIRRRRGIN.”

“OH AND YOU BELIEVED THAT? I WAS A STUD BACK THEN. YOU KNOW THOSE LITTLE MACHINES THAT  FIND STUDS BEHIND WALLS? I COULD SET ONE OF THOSE FUCKERS OFF FROM A MILE AWAY, LIZBETH. MAYBE EVEN ONE POINT TWO MILES IF MY HAIR WAS PROPERLY GELLED.”

I had told them that the high school reunion was a terrible idea. I decided that I wasn't even going to bother. Before my parents could come in from the garage I headed back to my room, placed my Dr. Dre Beats over my ears, and set myself down in bed. As Kenny G attempted to sax me to sleep, I couldn't help but ponder over what an incredibly ginormous slut my father was.

          Update: My parents are actually just inconsiderate assholes. I got home for the day around 7PM, and they were just lounging on the couch watching the Voice. “Hey, Jamie!” How dare my father speak to me after the egregious offenses of the previous night. I had had so little sleep that I didn't even remember having had an erection. Erections were my favorite parts of my sleep cycle, and he had taken that away from me. I expected a fantastically crafted dialogue of apology to spew forth from their mouths, but instead I got a “How was your day son?” After several minutes of employing subtlety and passivity to express my fury, I discovered that my parents were simply performing an acting exercise from a Meisner book somebody had left on a BART seat. I should have known something was awry because my mother's name is Megan and my father's is Daniel. Upon inquiring why they chose to perform the exercise at such an hour, they informed me that they had been high out of their minds on shrooms my father had purchased in an effort to recapture their youth. I slept especially early that night.

Brown Leaf, A Short Story

It's funny how things that used to matter didn't anymore. Abhas laid back on his bed, gazing through the window blinds at the backyard trees gently swaying in the wind. There were thick branches and spindly branches. There were green leaves next to orange and yellow ones. Red, flowery things that were neither leaves nor flowers clumped toward the right of his view. He sat there and stared and thought about how it didn't matter anymore. It was funny because he had made such a big deal of it at the time. Fussing with the girl on AIM, desperately making his case. His behavior had been lawyerly, if lawyers were young, vain boys building cases to impress girls. He had said the things he was supposed to say, things the other boys had said. It had worked for them but it hadn't worked for him. Maybe they had meant it more. Maybe there was something in the timing he had missed. Maybe when they had done it, it was real, but when he had done it, it was fake. Maybe it was always fake. But she had liked it when it came from them. And now she was gone. She was a flash of images—maybe three. She was a mixture of feelings—mostly embarrassment. And she didn't matter. She used to matter a lot but now she didn't at all. Abhas imagined the dead, brown leaves that were surely resting on the cracked concrete beneath the rich boughs. They had been replaced by newer leaves, leaves with color. Their time had passed. She was a brown leaf now. Not just her, but everything around her that lingered in Abhas' mind. It was all now a huge, brown leaf. It was weird. Different things mattered now. New things. New leaves had taken her place. Maybe these new things would always matter. Evergreens. He didn't think that they would. He thought that most of those things would eventually stop mattering, if not all of them. New things that mattered would take their place, as they had taken the place of the things before them. But for now, they mattered. He was content with that. “There will always be brown leaves,” he thought, “and there will always be leaves with color.”

Thanks for reading!

lol

A crappy, aloof poem I wrote four years ago.

Ubiquitous confusion is filling the air

more naivete and ignorance than i could ever bear

they think they know but they don't

they could try but they won't

content in their bubbles of lies and deceit

the bitter track of history. repeats. repeats.

please stop the record, i want it to end.

can't take the monotony of a nation corroded again.

the grotesque skeleton of the demonic machine

made clear to me, but to the rest - unseen.