Author: admin

A thousand years

A thousand years as measured by human beings is so miniscule as to be insignificant. The grand spiral of existence begins at a point neither of us could have imagined. We listened, but we didn’t care. Life was simple, a slice of time, little meaning, if any, behind it. It meant nothing.

There were leaves on the ground. Do you remember? The old eucalyptus, the years of confusion. The ice cream fell to the ground because you allowed it to. I bought you another, we walked the path to the space between the tennis court and the pink stucco walls. Years of rigid pine needles poked at you. Your brother was getting in trouble all the time. We talked about that for a while. I kissed you, we opened our mouths. You kept your hair back with a blue barrette, I touched it. We weren’t in love. I forget if I cared.

1997. Your eyes fell to his hand. We were walking home, past La Brea by that point, back before the crab shack was there. He never let it go. He should have tossed it in the bushes. A bloody shank. He’s still in prison. I never bothered to keep in touch because I learned to stop caring. I’m trying to forget the lesson.

On the Baldwin Hills, in the middle of Los Angeles, we saw the entire world in all directions. To the west: the derricks, the dry and dusty hills, the slow descent into the ocean, visible as a glare in the wind on a clear day in the winter, after the rains. At the very edge, in Venice, Mar Vista, Marina Del Rey, we found anyone we ever hoped to be, the one love, the boys and girls we wished we could fuck. It was drunken magic, high off the fumes. South was the lower half of the sprawl, some rough neighborhoods by some accounts, never by ours. Our homes were there in the suburban mass, like a beast we could never name, holding us chained to the broken asphalt, liquor stores, and small inner city dreams that we dared to strive for. Beyond them, beyond our imagination, the likes of Palos Verdes, the mall at Del Amo, so far away it seemed. The parking lot was the oasis, the mall a grand sad kingdom. Smoke stacks spewing their filth along the shore where our walks showed us places we would would fall into in a haze. North was Los Angeles in its entirety, the industries of fame and fortune, decaying mansions and the faint outline of a hope for a metropolis gone horribly wrong. There was land to be had and unlike the cities to the east they held nothing back. Cover it all, pave it over, give us sidewalks to stumble across and neon to admire. The red brick tiles of every other home gave it all the air of the fatherland that raped the motherland. Beyond that, beyond the glow of the girls and the droop of the homeless, the Hollywood statement of ownership, the mountains, and the sweltering sex valley, all places we visited but never found much use for. And the east, the land of the palms. We found the broken bottle there on Normandy that still had a third left, I gave it all to you. We walked by the hallowed halls of the home for spoiled children and wondered what it would be like to be there, so foreign a concept. An education, books, reading, mathematics… was that what they did? We never found out. Our life ended before any of that, before scores placed us and the world came to an end.

Your child now sits beside you somewhere, your husband working hard, earning enough. You don’t wonder about me, but I sit and think back on everything, the history of what the world was, and I consider that perhaps I never left.

the engineering student

Fraternities, sororities, young people everywhere. I am young, but not there anymore. The wonder of college is lost when the world expands. I want certain things that I did not want then. The engineering student, my guide, her friend. We walked along the dark path down the mountain toward the campus. Talked about the school, engineering, literature nerds. I described Oates’ themes and they cringed. She writes it beautifully, I said. She writes what it is to be human. That is the gift of a good writer. Show how ugly people can be, but show that they are people. Show who we are. Dark campus, lights on, people sitting by windows. The first person I asked was lost, headed to the same place I was. She seemed shy. I asked three people we met along the way and she followed. We found the hall. They made room for us on the floor, and I happily sat. I do well on the ground, open all around, no walls. It is flat, even keel for all. Gave me room to stretch my legs when I would have had to bring them in close in a seat. I like having space. I have large shoulders and long legs and a spare tire and am not subtle nor spry. When she speaks, she smiles, composed and yet not perfect, just there. She spoke with affection of having met Samuel Beckett. Not a laugh from me, but some smiles, and mostly I don’t remember, I was too into the listening. It ended too quickly, she’s human. On the drive home there was a guy named Zack on the radio speaking about his gay parents and the pointlessness of legislation that tries to keep them apart. He spoke of love, family, and made good points. Tears welled in my eyes. Emotions get to me, loneliness, the potential in people to love one another. Pride and ego hold it all in check. I learned it from my father. I will be his biographer, I will pray to the sky. It is not in me to do otherwise.

TMI

“You’ve been really TMI lately. What’s the matter?”

A beat. “I’ve just been horny, I guess. This is my kind of weather.”

“It’s gloomy as fuck.”

A beat. “I’m gloomy as fuck.”

The Zine is a Spaceship 001 – Homeworld

The Zine is a Spaceship 001 – Homeworld

The Zine is a Spaceship 001 – Homeworld

The first issue of poetry zine “This Zine is a Spaceship” explores the meaning of home amongst a myriad of possible explanations. Contains writing from members of the Tumblr community featuring Victor Romero, Harley Foxwall, and Sebastian Lubbers.

Chopped

“We have so many,” they said. “We have so many trees!”

John told them he would chop the trees with his ax. He chopped trees in the morning when some of the people went to work or school. He chopped trees in the afternoon when the people returned to their homes to read and sit and eat. He chopped trees in the evening when he used his large oil lamp to light the trees so he could chop them while people ate and slept. He chopped starting from the bottom. He chopped from the sides. Sometimes he chopped for many hours just to chop one tree. Most of the time, chopping did not take very long.

John never did anything with the chopped trees. He left them where they laid and collected his money from the people, which he needed in order to pay for his room with the cot, the stove, and the toilet. He liked to cook oatmeal on the stove, and he liked to sleep on the cot. He found it comforting to sit on the toilet and look at the chopped trees that his walls were made of. He could see when they used an ax to chop them.

He lived in the room with the cot, the stove, and the toilet for many years, and he never stopped chopping. He chopped every tree as quickly as he could and the people were happy to see the land. The trees were no longer in the way.

John liked to chop trees and it made him happy.

“We love you, John.”

One day, when John was older than he was in the beginning, there were no more trees. John walked everywhere and no one had trees. The lands were empty and he could see every building, every mountain, every car, in every corner, of everywhere. He looked for a long time and John found no trees.

They told him, “You have chopped all the trees. There is nothing left.”

He went home and sat on the toilet. He wondered what he would do now that there were no more trees to chop.

“I could chop people,” he said out loud.  “There are many people.”

He walked outside with his ax in hand and found an elderly man in a brown overcoat walking a half-bald dog. John lifted his ax and chopped them where they fell. He found that chopping a man and a dog was not the same as chopping the trees. He returned to his room and sat in the bathtub full of hot water until his skin was clean, then he washed his clothes until they were clean, and finally he scrubbed his ax until it was clean. He placed his ax beneath his bed and slept on the cot until the next afternoon when he heard the knocking on his door.

John looked through the window and saw the police men, standing in front of his doorway. He stepped outside and felt the warmth of his bare feet burn.

“I chopped that man and his dog.”

“Why did you do it?” they asked.

John looked at them and said, “I want to put my shoes on.”

They let him go inside to put his shoes on. When he reached for his shoes under the cot he found his ax. John knew they did not like that he chopped people, and he was in trouble. He put his shoes on and walked outside to chop the police men so they could not take him away.

It was cold but John’s feet felt good. He held his ax and walked away from his room, the cot, the stove, and the toilet, and the chopped police men. John walked away beyond the corner of the land until he was not on the land anymore.

trust me

You’ve got to know a one for trust to flourish. And I know some folks are good on feeling like they trust someone, but feelings waver and wander too much, to and fro, like air and water, the natural state of chaos. I’m a knower. A flaw, an asset, both. My feeling is underneath an ocean of certainty. I do not feel trust. I know it, or I don’t. If I know it then we are on a personal level. If I know it then I will be with you ‘til death, whether I am present, whether I am right, whether I am good, because I will trust you to let me know when I am failing. If I know it.

Trust me, or don’t. Allow me my certainty.

Meet me at the ocean.

Meet me at the ocean. Don’t bother with footwear, there are no rocks. The water is freezing. Drowning is supposed to be agony. There are boulders there that have been there for thousands of years. They are black like my eyes from a distance. The waves will roll in. There might be rocks, but it’s fun to walk across them along the cliffs. We can sit there in the middle of the night and pretend we’re teenagers again. I’ll forget my jacket, I hope you don’t mind. You can have my t-shirt. I’m plenty warm, is what I will say. My stomach will stick out over my jeans. You’ll call it a furry footrest. The moon there is always out because we don’t get clouds any more. We’re going to fall and fuck up our knees, stupid teenagers. When you want to talk about mermaids I’ll be silent. You’ll suck in your breath. Sssssss. Your bared teeth will shine. Meet me at the ocean. When the lightning starts and the clouds appear we’ll go back. I won’t tell you about mermaids because it hurts to do so. I’ll be hungry, you won’t mind if we stop at the Taco Bell. I’ll buy two gross burritos. We’ll sit in your car and eat them. I’ll love you for doing that, eating a burrito with me. We’ll sit in silence for a while and then I’ll kiss the side of your face. I won’t show you Orion. We’ll stop being teenagers in the dark.