MEMORIES FROM LIFE
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I. I WILL DIE
20.
I was blackout drunk. I lost my friends when the football game ended, except X****** who I was with thank God. It was the only football game I've ever been to. We were wandering the streets looking for our friends. Asking people for help, for phone chargers. I asked the wrong people for a charger, they were in their car, and said they would come back and beat the shit out of us. I remember asking them so straight up “Why would you beat us up?” So confused. I asked a police officer to drive us home telling him we were threatened, he said no. They came back popped all four doors and jumped me. X***** was on the other side of the street, but ran over and did a jumping double footed kick into the back of one of the aggressors, but it was not enough.
I was hardly conscious the whole night, but my awareness came to me right before it was taken away. All five shadows loomed above silhouetted shadows foregrounding navy blue dusk sky stomping me into the concrete, my body in a ball. It was a only a second of consciousness, but a knowledge of evil. Life drained out of me, red. I knew I would die. I thought about mom, and how sad she would be. Mahalia held my hand.
Me and X***** were found by a friend of a friend, hours later, our pants at our ankles our clothes torn, phone and money still in our pockets. We sat in shock, far too drunk and soon for pain to set, aghast in the green grass.
She asked if we were okay. Yes. Good, goodbye. A different lady, a schoolteacher, gave us a ride to the party our friends were now at.
We stayed up drinking. What else could we do?
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II. CHILDHOOD SNOWSTORM
Young.
One of my first memories.
I grew up in a small town built along a river, I lived in a nice little neighborhood. All the houses were built in the late 1800s, and the Victorian style most prevalent. Working class people living in elaborate houses believing in hard work, God, and their children. Singing Christmas carols.
Isabel's house. Just a few streets away. My dad hung out with her dad while I hung out with her. A playdate! Whether it was building blocks, or playing Wii, Isabel and I got along well. Isabel was shy, and had long blonde white hair and bright blue eyes. She was one of my only friends. It began snowing that night, gently at first, but it soon became a blizzard. Caught in our fun, not worried about the weather, warm and cozy inside, snow piled and piled.
My dad said it was time to go home. We said goodbye, and stepped out of that warm golden house into a white wash world, the black sky only a rumor behind boundless snow. Down, up, sideways, everything was blizzarding, there was only snow. It was intense. I was scared. We trudged through feet of powder, the street buried below. It was up to my thighs. Blinded by the snow in my eyes, holding my dad's hand as he pulled me home and pleading, "Dada, I don't think we can do it! I don't think we can make it! Where is home? Will we make it home Dada?" My dad knew we were fine, but understood my serious concern, and played into it affectionately, "Oh buddy, I don't know, but I think we can do it, stay strong!" The cold and the blizzard, howling wind and snow beat me, but I resisted, I resisted death and bursted with life, I knew I had to live, for my Mom and Dad, but also myself. The weather and the world ceased to be separate from myself. This is the moment I came alive. I was on the edge of awareness, the frontier of feeling the world to its max. I fought for a life which I didn't know I had before.
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III. GOD
Maturing. 19.
Faith without doctrine.
I hold my hands up to my God, the World, with head down, I focus on the eternity.
I recite the prayer I recited in my youth to the God that was given to me under Christian terms,
it works all the same. I would say it every night, and it used to be longer, I'm forgetting now…
'Dear Lord, thank you for this day, and thank you for my mom and dad who love eachother. I love them more than anything and please make sure nothing bad ever happens to them. They are good people and don't deserve anything but love and eachother for life. Thank you for my life and my friends too and please keep all of them safe and happy and all the people too. Please no bad dreams or nightmares, fires, or food choking for anyone in the world and thank you, Amen.'
I fell out of Christianity. I struggled and I pained to find some home. I found myself and the Light in the eye of my mother, -brother, plant and piece of trash, dirt and airplane, concept and worm.. All in the same Light as my God and me. I've been praying to the same feeling all along despite my different understanding.
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IV. NINTH GRADE GRIEF
14.
I was new to the school, and a group of kids banded together under the name 'The Boys' wanted to recruit me to their gang. I had gone to Christian school from kindergarten through 8th grade, with only one other boy in my class. They had all been in the same public schools since kindergarten. All of them had gone through separate initiations, breaking in cars, stealing alcohol, whatever… I was so innocent I didn't have to do much and was openly unwilling to do anything bad to join. They didn't love that they were going to have to accept me for me. Sitting down waiting for history class to start, Isaiah says to me, "You wanna be a part of The Boys? Start by getting rid of this gay shit." He broke my bracelet off my wrist. Immediately I slapped him hard. He didn't say anything or move at all, and neither did I. He was a tough angry kid and I had hit him. I wouldn't be joining the group, and fuck the group. After that they all made it their duty to make my life shit, and they did good for a while. Every time I saw them, they would chirp me, try to fight me, scare me, and the anxiety was overwhelming. Fear burned so hot inside my stomach it was unbearable, I was so anxious at the idea of humans so mean. I had never been exposed to bad people before. Bad people and bullying were something that happened somewhere else, not in my own world, they became tangible. It was like a life's worth of anxiety I had never felt all came crashing down on me in the span of this one year. I would skip the last period of class to avoid them on my walk home from school. I listened to angry music thinking of them, internally screaming endless massive fuck yous. I would get home and feel so relieved, only to succumb to numbness until slowly slipping more and more into anxiety as the next day of the same fear approached.
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V. UTAH DESERT
19.
The moonlight is strong and I see all of my friends' movements intricate in dancing silhouettes. We watched the stars and clouds, the western wind flowing across the dunes. The powerful, endless dunes. Our feet carry us weightless over hills of sand, and down, up again, and down and this time, in our far away view, we can see the other people, hear the music.
T has found a beetle, and is showing it to everyone, proud and loving, he is the father of this most unwanted creature, it makes me smile to know that that is who he is, that is T Stone. Father of the neglected black beetle, too large and intimidating to appreciate in close tender care, yet too small to be noticed and loved from a distance. T spreads the beauty of the beetle. Everyone is fully high now, I can tell, and I'm glad, I am too. Moving in the sand from one to another dancing and swaying in midnight. Me and a few sit in the sand to watch the dancers do their ritual, and I'm passed a huge shotgun shaped bottle of whiskey. I never usually take shots, but it's incredible figure, weight, and power insist closer examination, and I swing it back, and pass it to my brothers in the dune, and they swig, and pass it back, and I swig, and pass it back, and they swig…. and the night fades, slips into null.
They tell me what I did in the shadows. I guess they saw me in the distance… trying to climb up the sheer orange face of one of the Mars-like rocks which explode from the dune below.. Barefoot and alone, and about 15 feet high in the air. They approached and shouted to me, and I slid, slipping and scraping, falling to sand and rocks below. Face and feet bled, but I was perfectly fine.
The next day we hiked. We found a nice spot and sat, everyone was mellow, I was mellow too, but my social battery needed a break, so I creeped off to climb some rocks, to prove the singularity of last night's folly, and so I disappeared on my own. Climbing safely I climb up higher as close as I can to the beginning of the unclimbable blank bulbous city size rocks. I found a nice perch, and I rested. Sun over my eyes, some sadness crept in, a bit sad indeed, but excited for the evening, and happy about how everything has worked itself out so well so far, from the police run in, to the car crashing, to the coke, to my cognitive death, the fall, and my baptism in the creek. I lay trying to find peace but I'm not finding anything in myself.
I return down to my friends and find them pleasantly the same. S** and D** and K**** and N*** all together, huddled, they are kind of cuddled into one another but in some restful young love. It's almost like they are my parents, clearly enough they are my older siblings, older friends, god, the truth of it goes so beyond that. These two beautiful boys I love have taken into loving these beautiful girls, and these girls beautiful in their own, now exposed to me and my life, find me beautiful alike and are given to caring for me! I lie and listen to their talk, contributing when I feel, and rest my body on the hot rock. I started to feel at peace in their restful loving company. I notice a caterpillar running near, and scoop it close to my eye, and it might be the most beautiful creature I've ever seen, and our similarity and brotherhood is so beyond obvious I can't help but smile in the little guy's face and talk to him. I felt joy in him, pure joy, my smile so wide he was all encompassing. Mind made blank, absorbed in love through the touch of the caterpillar. I feel my friends looking at me, and look up at them, and smile truly to share this, I know they feel it, and S** says I have such a beautiful smile! Thank you!! I practically shout at her, It's the best, easiest, most genuine compliment I've ever been so purely present for. "Thank you, seriously." I look back at my caterpillar, "I love this guy."
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VI. DREAMS OF DEATH
All throughout my youth.
I wished for death to come silently and take me away.
I had no passions, I had nothing to look forward to. Life had only gotten harder as I got older, and I expected it to continue that way. Suicide was never an option because of how much my parents loved me, and of my being an only child, but the dreams of being accidentally killed flooded the days.
Even in my early childhood, a ghost of my non belonging followed me everywhere. Good days and bad, the feeling was there. It was only when I could forget myself, and submit to life, that this shadow would disappear. Moments like the snowstorm, and moments of complete connection.
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VII. HOPE FOR LIFE
20.
On my balcony lying in the sun I felt.
That feeling in your belly, that surging bubble of warm and confident inspiration that fills you with the glow of unquestionable destiny. That which patches immortal confidence over all anxieties, laying into you the deep truth that one is able to achieve perfection through expression, and that every creation made in truth provides this feeling, and this chain forever pushes everyone higher and higher towards the world of God.
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VIII. GIRL
18.
I love her I love her, we look into eachothers eyes under cover pulled tight and I can see her so clearly now! Oh my god oh my god she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen I love her I must I must what is this? How did I think she was a fool to tell me she loved me two weeks ago?
I try to remember her face from just last night and it seems a million miles away without any notion of understanding, where has she gone? Did I lose my mind? Was I really depressed and needing her after all? I crave what I felt with her last night, I haven't felt those feelings in so long. Oh my god I’m just grabbing her face and naked perfect body and she grabs me and I look into her eyes, her bright black spider eyes and I see endless beauty and she touches my hand and hip and tells me I have perfect bones. Where has it gone now when I look at photos of her? Love is a mirror into the soul and we were seeing truly! Has she felt this way about me all along? No wonder she acts in such a way. How am I supposed to go back east for three weeks when I’m wondering if I’ve found love or fallen into a depressive delusion of something not what it is? I need to see her tomorrow. Soup and see her at Little Saigon perhaps. I think either way I’ll be able to tell, but I did love seeing her in the daylight, so rare... I want to go to Texas with her or run away somewhere. See if I like her in the wild of the world, I lost myself in her last night. Who's to say I’m not boundless? She was my mother Mary, eyes of soulmate of my slumber dreams, she was the color of dirt, earth, soil running through my fingertips. I grabbed her tight to my chest and body and she sank into me without thought of any storm. I felt this. I know she was relieved and so was I! Yes, this is a girl, this is a sweet angel girl and I’m a boy I know. Ugh Eve, to maintain this feeling with someone, truly, is it possible?.. I squeezed her! I think to myself as hard as I can about the compassion I have for this beautiful life in my arms! I don’t know if I’ll still love you tomorrow but I love you now and please don’t give up angel you are good! You are good! Don’t fear Eve, you never should! Please be good! Please be happy! Please don’t feel anxious about abuse and hate of the past! I am trying to force my thoughts into her body like this and it feels the same as when I prayed as a child. To Eve I pray! She as God as am I! I hope she felt it. I hope she did. I wonder if I’ll feel it with her again, this feeling of love. I don’t want to forget about your soul, you see me! You release me! Who am I! A child! Who are you? A child! Who are we? Children of this loving Universe please don’t let your abusive father ruin your life sweet Eve! I’m scared to not see it all again. It will be fine regardless and I'm thankful I've seen this much, to at least know it's possible. To have had is better than to have never… We are so cozy tonight. It’s snowing outside my big bedroom balcony's window- it’s really coming down. I can’t see across the street and usually I can see a hundred miles to the mountains and to the Great Salt Lake. The sun is setting behind the storm over the mountains. It seems a million miles behind the weather's impenetrable wall. So lucky to have you here, we open the door to let it all in. We feel it all. Listening to classical music we look outside together. Each of us remains inside each other's mind without speech. I listen to her sweet breath under the gravity of it all.
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IX. DOUBT
17,18,19,2-
Why is it that so many of my heroes kill themselves? It seems all great writers, artists, musicians, and revolutionaries have been killed by their own doing. If not directly with a gun then alcohol, drugs or extreme living. What kind of an example is this? I want to be a liver, an artist, someone who sees the most of what life has to offer. And how can I desire this when it seems everyone in the past who sought this very same destiny only saw pain at the end? Sure there are great men and women through history who have lived and died in honest effort, but why does it seem rare? An impossible thing? The artist often goes through life without committing to community or another person, or a religion, and rather chases life itself for the sake of living. It seems to contribute to a necessary ending. How can I be better than those who have come before me? I don't want to die, I want to live, and I want to see the world grow and do my small part for as long as possible. And just years ago I felt I wanted to die, be gone, and now I cry for life! I cry for a different outcome than it seems those thinkers before me received. And I don't think I'm great or special, but I'm honest! And I don't think just about anybody is really "great" or "special". Honesty is the only thing that matters to me. It hurts, but if it is spread, we will find answers. People have this misconception that you are not as good as the people who inspire you, and this is just false, you have to find your outlet. An outlet is a source for pain to become love. Self expression is the answer in itself, the act of doing. And sometimes, still, even with this knowledge, it all is so heavily pointless. I can't even bring myself to smile at a loving friend the way I should. I brood over coffee and each movement becomes a painful step in the march of time! I believe in the eternal, and yet none of my beliefs can hold me above sorrows. The blues are always the same. How can I truly know another human? Only through love, only through love..
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X. FIRST BIRTHDAY
My first memory, Mahalia bringing me a giant green and white birthday cake, my first birthday. She looks 16 in my mind but I now realize that that is my image because that was the age where my parents got their first photo of her, at least the first one they framed and showed to me. So in my memory she is 16, but really she was only 6 or 7. From most of my lifelong feelings towards beauty and women and life she is the source. I tear up at the thought of this perfect girl bringing me, the baby boy- unconscious experiencer of the world -a gift, a cake. She brings me this beautiful cake in the sunlit dining room of my childhood home with pure love in her eyes, all for me.. My parents are not in the memory, just her. I knew she was not my mother, but family. I knew she loved me and I loved her. Mahalia, Mahalia.
Mahalia held my hand.
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XI. REGRET IN DEATH
I can wish it might've been different. But I don't. Death pains those who live, not those who die. And to die is such a funny thing. When I was dying, I never feared, I only felt sadness. True sadness. Not blues or sorrow, but sadness. Beautiful justified sadness. How could I leave my mother behind? My mother who's only care was me? I am the luckiest to ever live, and pain, and die, in sadness, because I know, she is reminded of me everywhere she goes. She yearns to be with me, and yet she knows I never really left her.
I am the flowers, I am the sun, I have been here before, and I will go there again. We are learning, we are one. Love sooner, love as soon as you can, love is all. It pains me to know my mother's pain, but by love, that pain is made beautiful. If you live, or die, let it be for love.
She knows.
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