Two Years to Life

*I haven't posted in a long time but I found this poem in my draft folder that I wrote as a Goodbye to New York. I felt the need to post it so I could finally have closure.



I wear the dirt of Chinatown on my feet
these flips have flopped for miles
tired, ragged and ravaged
New York has taken it all
every ounce of satisfaction
the very breath from my body stolen
this city screwed me and left me for dead
and I am forever changed.

Bleary eyed I sit on the N train that takes me back to
Brooklyn at night
a borough as unforgiving as Manhattan
the edge of Park Slope is where I rest my weary head
this bleak life is all I can afford
but I barely call these four walls a life.

Over the bridge, the lights of Manhattan light up the train.
All the people that live on an island so small
And island I cannot call home.
My eyes stare blankly ahead for fear I will cry at losing my Manhattan for another night.
A sense of sadness washes over me and I am alone
A lone traveler desperate to love a lover that does not love me back.

My youth that feels so old pacing these concrete streets
back and forth I trudge
from the place I live to the place I desperately need
I do love you New York, I will miss you New York but not for very long.
In many years time I will forgive you.
But forgive you though I may. Forget I will not.

Youth

Written 2/20/08

You know, being young is hard. Youth is full of flaws. Youth is pink rice clogging the drain. Youth is living month by month, day to day and never quite keeping your head above water. It's not being able to pick your battles. It's facing the fact you're not invicible. That you won't always be around. Youth is about loss in the general and specific sense of the word. When you were a child no one ever dies. Then suddenly you're thrust into a world full of pain and loss. You lose your innocence, your vitality, your resolve. You lose your grandparents, your parents, your friends. One day you wake up and realize you have lost yourself. You are a sinking, bloated and abandoned life. Youth is finally realizing with the eventual acceptance you will get older.

Wait Awhile

Written 3/17/08

It's been awhile
I haven't seen you since
we said "hello"
hello, goodbye
What's the difference
When you have nothing left to say

I saw you across the room
we nodded, you started
over to me
I looked away
I just didn't want to see you today

Maybe tomorrow
You'll understand what I said
that night so long
that this is what I meant
What I always meant

But I kept my thoughts to myself
and drank some more
and maybe tomorrow
this will all make sense
but today the drinks are still here
my mind is still cloudy
and I still haven't come home.

Zen Mountain Monastery

Written 1/12/08

Wake up, wake up
raise and rise.
Your day is today
a good today to be alive.
Show up to live your day of days
and don’t forget
you will find your way.
Wake up, wake up
arise and fly,
because if you miss this day, today
the rest will pass you by.

Zen Mountain Monastery

Written 1/12/08

It is morning
the sun has yet to rise
and I am awake
singing, chanting, breathing incense
from ancient beauty
that whispers across the room
into my body
and I am broken
tears run down my cheeks
but I am not to touch them
let them fall
and be present in the knowledge
that you are here
in this moment
awake, alive and open
stay grounded and believe
this minute is yours
on your count
you will notice your body still
and even when you don’t think you can hold on any longer
you will
you will hold on
in order to breathe in and out
you will hold on in the darkness
and break that darkness with your silence
as many others have done before you
and many others will continue
when you are no longer here
accept it and begin
you will transform to end your suffereing
because without it you are free
finally free
from conformity and confinement
from self-destruction and definitions
in the enlightenment of awareness
true and whole
because you are both
beautiful and still
for just this, just this moment.

Untitled #5

I'm world weary and vaguely born
I was brought here to find my reason
my purpose
But as I look around at all the chaos
the heartache and shame
I am continually reminded that I can't undo the past,
foresee the future or live here in the present
without hope and faith in my fellow, common man.

What Was Once A Home

I am home.

Or what was once my home but now just a museum that holds my old memories. The memories of pain, of heartache, betrayal and guilt. But these moments born from agony, blessed by religion are not all bad. They are not all memories of broken devastation and morbid curiosity. Just most of them.

I sift through pictures of myself as a child, the pictures of me with a sheet on my head, of me playing Mary in the Christmas pageant and of me with a smile that says I know things will get better eventually. But pictures fade. The past whispers lies to our future. Lies of a child pretending that things will be all right in the morning, that god really is alive and this is just his way of testing us all.

Unconditional self-sacrifice. This is what I give and give and give. And continue to give.

I'm tired of being prayed for, of being told I'm not good enough. I'm tired of searching for some semblance of a life well lived, of the unending support of parents who don't understand what it means to give. I'm tired of trying to make them love me, of searching for their support and trust. That I'm living my life the best way I know how and it's not personal. I didn't become a disappointment on purpose.

In my heart, I know they love me. I know they want what's best for me. At least this is what I tell myself to stop the tears, to stop the dry heaving and self-hatred. This is what I tell myself when they come in beaming about a young married couple, a wedding of purity that was just performed at their church. Each word spoken is like a punch in the stomach, the wind is knocked out of me and I sit. I am unable to do anything else but sit.

When was I ever pure? When did I ever hold this fictional innocence they once believed I had? When was I ever the child they envisioned me to be?

This is what I am. This is who I am, no more and no less. My anger grows and I desperately want to end this search of peace and gratification. I know it is an endless quest to find the parents I had always hoped they would be. They disappointed me, they were never enough for me. And yet somehow twenty-five years later here I stand with all the hopelessness I felt at five. I will never be understood by these people, I will never be forgiven and most of all I will never be loved for this person I have become.

As I lay down to sleep in my old bed tonight, a little part of me that had held on to this place, this home, so tightly is drifting away. Soon this endless quest will end and another will begin. A new journey with attainable hope and realized dreams. A new journey to a life lived for myself.