an entry for the archive

Today, I am grateful for

the sun that reproaches—Only when I was gone, she says, that you begged for me.

The cup of water guides me softly from spillage. It rests on my crown like a kite, afloat. In the living room, the phone rings and I answer, voices spilling in. The guard tells me the sun has wandered yet arrived, the sun that goads me from recline when I have worked through the night.

My finger traces the markings on the wall, the ones that I made when I was only five. I trace the rim of the cup on the crown of my head. The smell of dust overwhelms.

The feet I walk in take me to the lobby. I greet the sun. She carries with her dead leaves in her palm.

 

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The heart stirs at the sound of a motorcycle—speeding—broken noise coming through glass. I tell myself that, maybe, after enough practice, the stirring will understand the breath, or that the breath will instruct the stirring to understand that the motor of the engine eventually rises like a flag, eventually reaches the summit like a hiker. The breath rocks the chair. I remember my mother when I was a newborn.

The body becomes a buzz of a bee, and the heart a dying motor.

Coming to terms

A girl lost her ticket to a concert. She desperately looks for it in a pile of clothes she has hoarded over the years. Her mother, a hoarder, enters her room, asks her daughter if she happens to have seen her mother’s 89th pair of shoes. Her father, downstairs, finds the pair of shoes in the family car. He proceeds to clean the garage.

a woman and a tree meet on the street

Here’s a story about silence. See, there is a woman, and she’s leaning against a tree, and this tree is in the middle of the street, where cars are passing and where roadkill is born. She isn’t moving, and neither is the tree, for trees do not have feet.

But cars continue to pass by them, honking horns and aggressively speeding. They hit neither. The girl and the tree are communicating. The tree through the rustle of its leaves, and the girl through the stillness of her lips.

Contemplating Sunrise

The rocking chair swings back and forth and to and fro as the old woman hums a tune popular in her youth. The table in front of the rocking chair was placed there to keep her from falling face first, so it would be table first and tables are not usually the first things we consider when we’re falling unless it is at least from the second floor our bodies are falling from. The old woman rubs her knees and she remembers the tune was from her high school dance, or a dance she wasn’t able to recall what the occasion was but she was sure it was special. The sun rises.

Sleep

When people sleep, they undergo stages without their knowledge. People slip into a state where the abyss exists and anything can fill it: a painting, a landscape, skylines. The void consumes without permission, without warning, and people fall into its trap because they need it. Their system shuts down, like a device, except devices don’t have the will to plug themselves back on when they’re ready. But who is to say people can? A body at rest can sense light with an awareness of the world that surrounds them.

People can also be shut down, and shut down for eternity, even when they’re ready to plug themselves back on.

I try to draw the boys…

I try to draw the boys

I love

so I can see them

any time

I want.

I draw these boys

looking at me

as though they could feel

when they were made to feel nothing

but love

for no one

but the one looking.

I fall asleep

sometimes drawing them

and get back to work

in the morning.

I draw these boys so

slowly I think

they get tired of waiting

for me to finish.

But when I do they’d complain

about them having

to stay forever

that way.

Alms

Earlier that morning, as Wren sat on the bench by the bus stop, an old man approached her, asking for coins. It was all he wanted, he said. So Wren gave him, and he thanked her, and he walked away. Wren looked at the old man with a heavy heart, and a heavy wallet. The moment the old man stopped (he sat by the bushes), she stood up and gave him a few bucks more. 

“That’s really nice of you, young lady. Thank you.”

Wren only smiled. 

Just then, a bus came. It was too crowded, even though others have already alighted. Wren decided to remain, under the heat and in the company of the deceiving asphalt. The old man got up, gave Wren a nod, then went his way. Wren waited.

Soleness

Just a moment ago, a dove flew by. The strange thing about it is it’s nighttime. Why a dove would appear at night baffles me. I’ve never seen one when the moon hovered, nor when the stars punctured the widespread darkness. It was an oddity, an oddity that only I witnessed. Or not, because doves do fly across and beyond. So, perhaps, I am not the sole witness, but it is really late at night; I take comfort in the thought that everybody’s on their beds or wherever it is that they’d fallen asleep on. But tonight, my head will comfortably be on my pillow — not because of the pillow, but because of what I saw.

Fly

I’m a few storeys high, and yes, I’m going to do it.

March 5, 2013

Mom: Francine, get your brother’s jacket. You’re going to be late.

Me: Mom, he’s old enough to get it himself.

Mom: He’s busy right now, reading today’s paper.

Me: Why does he have to be so pampered? He just reads the paper…

Mom: Dear, if only you read the paper, then we’ll treat you and your brother equally.

March 10, 2013

Brother: Hey! Don’t use your laptop. I’m downloading movies.

Me: But I have to finish–

Mom (comes in my room unexpectedly): Francine, it’s important. Your brother has to watch these movies so he can get influenced and do really well on his project.

Me: We have a stack of DVDs downstairs.

Brother: It’s more comfortable inside my room. I’d rather watch in there.

March 15, 2013

Me: Mom, can you please pick me up already? I have a ton of workload to–

Mom: Can’t! Busy watching your brother’s recital. He’s really good with the guitar.

Me: But mom…

Mom: Walk home! It’s good for you.

March 15, 2013

I’m going to do it. Good-bye.