Back from Hiatus- Take 2 (?)

Hi Everyone,
You may have noticed I have been a little (ahem) a lot emo as of late. I stopped writing, and instead entered the:

rambling, I will now write emotional love poems in the hopes that someone hears my pain, or that he does, and takes me back realm.

phew

For many reasons, I have been down in the dumps. It has not been pleasant. Everyone got fed up, I got fed up. I have not mentioned it before but I am about 9 months into

"program"

(that's whats the regulars call it). In other words, I have for nine months been willingly going to something called an al-anon meeting every Monday night with a room full of strangers, talking about our feelings and such. Al-anon is a program designed for loved one's/ family members of alcoholics or those that have been affected by alcohol. I fall into that category for many reasons. Despite the fact that we are not alcoholics, we go through the twelve steps ourselves. The premise is that we are also alcoholics, it just doesn't manifest itself with alcohol. In short, we are addicted with the alcoholic, whatever form that may take.

Sounds crazy, right? so after nine months I almost feel like I've given birth to this thing. I don't know if it's beautiful or this mutant unrecognizable creature...maybe a little bit of both. After nine months, I'm not even in step one (my sponsor says I'll be ready when I'm ready- I think she's just being nice). But I keep sticking to it, and for some reason getting deeper into this, for lack of a better word, cult. I find myself going to more and more meetings because, quite frankly, it's the only thing that makes me feel sane.

Meanwhile, I continue working at a locked psych facility with individuals with both mental illness and substance abuse problems. One of the things we stress constantly is the importance of scheduling your day. Then it hit me. Because truly we are all addicts in one way or another, why not do this for myself? Why not apply the therapy I give to myself? Hey, I'm not the first to think of this or try this (thank you Freud and Jung for preoccupying yourselves with yourselves and coming up with some hooky theories). So, I'm creating a schedule, and because I know I stick to things better when I have the possibility of being watched, I'm posting it here, for you lovely people to see. And, also, you get the added bonus of seeing how not all 24 year old lives mirror jersey shore or...heck, I don't even know any other references, that's how lame I am.


Wednesday 4/24/12 Schedule


7:00am: wake up
7:30am: read news/jezebel
8:00am- 4:30 pm: work! (leave phone in desk)
5:00pm- dinner (yum)
6:00-9:00pm- get ready for al-anon meeting, go, come back
9:00pm: shower
9:30pm: mad men,call syl, look up good books to read for future
10:30pm: bedtime

That wasn't too bad- let's see if I stick to it.

For my patient

I read your poetry last night and found myself, a voyeur
Speaking of your loved ones, your dreams, and imagination

Last night I dreamt that you grew wings
And found a home, in a place where you could always sing

In a place that you did not need a key to get out of
And a team of “experts” staring at you
Proclaiming your diagnosis
And destroying your spirit

You cry yourself at night, sometimes, in that room
And wake up with a smile, and feed me your lines

It’s the closest thing to normal that you know.
You are grandiose.
The world is against you.
I wonder how your emotions feel, stuck in that body when they are so big

Your son peers at your picture, somewhere far away.
While someone explains to him that you’re very sick.

And your father yells at me, believing I can cure you.
You are beautiful, as you are.

I wish you could see what you look like with those wings.

We raised your medication and your eyes glazed over.
You stopped creating your own concertos and tragic heroes in your mind.
But it was your home.

I wish you knew what you looked like with those wings.
Even as your body flails against you.
As we inject your muscles with a calming syrup
Even as our keys rattle on our wrists.
Even as the thoughts destroy your mind.

When Love Dies

When love dies, there is no parade.
No one holds your hand and tells you it’s going to be alright, and if they did you didn’t hear it.
Like a bad guest, it doesn’t even announce its departure.
Rather you come across it one day, as you are picking up some socks.

When love dies, it does not wait its turn.
It does not wait for both parties to stop loving.
Nor does it tell you how to prepare for the passing.

Rather, you stumble through the planet with the same confusion of a baby learning to walk.
There are no maps or directions.
It doesn’t even leave you change for the bus.

When love dies, it does not care how good you were,
or how many times you dived in, not even knowing how to swim, in order to save it.

When love dies, it only cares about freeing itself.
It tiptoes out and leaves no note.

So you make do.
You act like there is not a piece of yourself missing
And you accept the clichéd advice
Because you have no better rules to follow.

When love dies, it takes piece of you with it.
But soon in that hollow space new things emerge.
At first it’s just weeds.
You hack away.

When love dies, you learn to accept your place in the order of things.
When love dies, you learn to save the only person you could save.

Thank you, too

I had no words to say last night when you thanked me. Now I can't say them, except for here.

Thank you for...

making me feel giddy and showing me that I could be that person that sings in public

for introducing me to enrique bunbury and shock top and all of those incredible movies

for holding me that night you saw one of my first panic attacks

for holding my mother's hand as she went into surgery

for staying up with me to talk about nonsense and the world and us

for falling asleep in my bed and kissing the back of my neck when you thought I was asleep

for that amazing sex

for telling me I'm amazing

for allowing yourself to be vulnerable and allowing me to do the same

for challenging me when I was wrong and communicating with me

for loving me when you could

for teaching me to cry, really cry

for teaching me trust, and teaching me to know when to stop

for teaching me to let go

and again for loving me

thank you for loving me

Guess I like letters

Dear Flaco,

People say when you want to believe a lie, you will. You fed them to me with a spoon and I willingly eat it up, looking the other way when something was too obvious, drinking it away when it was unbearable, clinging to you when I couldn’t breathe. I knew better and I fought everyday to not know better. Now I am willing to open my eyes and the pain washes over me. When did it start? That New Year’s, when you were fighting? My missed doctor’s appointment, your phone off? Disappearing for two days, stating you were helping you’re uncle move. When you hear enough lies, even the truth sounds like a lie, so I don’t know anymore. Shall I go on? One night when I was at your place in Compton I saw the old valentines, behind your mattress, from her. Why save it, and why save it there? That night I knew. That night, I should have run with every muscle in my body away from you. Instead I stayed and I found myself looking for you at 5am in the streets of Compton. It dawned on me then. You’ve always had her haven’t you? When I was in New York and she checked you in to cirque de solei, that wasn’t a coincidence was it? The engagement on facebook. I believed all the lies. You ran into her, she was worried about you, so now you’re having dinner with her and her mom and yours. My head is spinning. Suddenly I don’t hear from you for a week. I find calm. Then you call again. Suddenly your at a bar, upset, calling me because she called and “stirred up old things.” Instead of running I consoled you. Another ditched doctor’s appointment. That MRI was fun on my own, by the way. Your brother came, you didn’t introduce me to him. That broke my heart, again. There I am, at my house, dressed up, waiting for you. Your bike broke. You told me that, so it must be true. I think there was a period in which you loved me. I think there was a moment I felt safe with you….

Then you let go. Days with no phone call. Need money to fix your motorcycle? Need to pay your rent? Can’t make the phone bill? Need a laptop charger?

I did it all and I clung, afraid of what might happen if I lost you.

So I clung more tightly. The day we got our phones I had a panic attack because I knew it was the wrong choice. Then I saw the truth. Placing me on the blocked call list whenever you felt like it, taking her call when you were on the line with me, stating you were taking a shit, you had to go eat, you don’t know who just called, you’ll call right back. The list goes on. Calling her everyday, texting her everyday, receiving texts as you were fucking me. I let it all happen, even when I saw the texts. I let you lie to my mother. I listened as you said you were just friends and you still loved me.

I have been nothing but giving and that has been my mistake. You continue to feed me the lies. Why? Were not together.

I think it’s because it feels good to feel loved. It’s convenient to have someone there no matter how much you screw them over. No matter how blatant the lies are.

Do you lie to her, too? If she’s reading this now, hello. Did you know all of this? Did you know he hasn’t stopped talking to me? Has he broken you in the same way? Are we eating out of the same spoon?

because i can't breathe

education- old

I never recognized the sense of being an alien until I went home. Thanksgiving, turkey in the oven, ponche on the stove. I inhaled smells that I knew growing up. As I set the table, I rehearsed.
"The diathesis-stress model tells us that a stressful situation, in light of a preexisting risk factor, ignites the disease. Stress-reactive rumination may exacerbate these effects and last night I was reading Shakespeare and finally saw how his sonnets are probably all addressed to this one person, and don’t you wonder about the state of our economy in light of recent events?"

Diathesis-stress model? Really? How would you even say that in Spanish? Rumination must therefore be scratched. And as for Shakespeare? That puts it too over the top.

“Escuela va bien, como han estado ustedes?”

Silence. The absence of sound has never been part of our household. Neither has that look on my mother’s face, forcing a smile. I look down at the floor and think of someway to occupy my time. I go back.

My house was a house of running. My older brother would come chase me around the living room to capture me, at which point my mom would come in for the tickle fight to end all tickle fights until I finally yelled “Me doy por vencida!” (Mercy!) Tears of laughter would roll down my face and too riled up at night to go sleep, my mom would transform into a train. Mimicking the sound of the engine and the honk of the horn, she would give me a piggy-back ride as we boarded the dream train. Destination-my room. The favorite part of the night- mom would read to me in our language. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Federico Garcia Lorca,
her own poetry.
I realize I haven’t heard these stories in years.
In elementary school I grew passionate with my studies and wanting to play teacher, and as I now realize to fill an egotistical need, I would come home with presents- lists of spelling words in my hands, history textbooks, and later essays, novels, and grand ideas. Armed with this, I would proudly assign my mother homework. At first she played along, excited to learn along with me and proudly keeping pace. My lessons continued. Edgar Allen Poe, then Wordsworth. Eventually some philosophy. Then the lessons stopped. Novels were left unopened on her bedside table and silence became a new family member. It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried. It was that my Spanish was too broken to express complex ideas and her English too primitive. That moment was the first time I could accurately define the word “shame”.

Since then the silence has become part of our life.

“You graduate in a couple of months. You know we’re proud of you.”
Proud
The word stings with a force I’m sure they don’t intend. I try again. In English.

“We’ll, you see, I’ve been reading a lot and I just finished a paper on societal discourses of gender identity disorder and…”
Silence
It is then that I realize that what I thought had become emptiness, really wasn’t. The air was heavy, not with words but with the absence of them. All possibilities, of things unsaid, lingered like fog on a cold winter night.
I look to the oven. The turkey is ready and doing the only thing fitting I place it on the table and begin again. “Te bendiga padre por los dones que hemos recibido en este ano…”
I wipe away a tear.