Check out the curtains, remind you of anything?
I'm a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, you know. When I was a kid, my dad made me go, for years. I always had diarrhea before class. During my final test, I couldn't break the double wood with a flying kick over some bloke kneeling over some other bloke, but I still passed. He knew I didn't like it, but I was always afraid to tell him I hated it. He refused to let me quit. I broke my arm in there when I was eight and I still had to go back. They put steel plates in my arm and I thought I was going to be like Lex Lugar and be able to knock people out with his finishing move. I loved being in the hospital because my parents would bring me Chinese food. Edward James Olmos came to visit me and the kids in the hospital; we took a picture together, and he gave my dad an autograph. I was still wondering, Who the hell is Edward James Almost?
I never practiced. It was boring. I would splash water on my face, neck, and uniform at home when I was supposed to be practicing to fool him. He would pick me up to take me to class during work, and I would sneak back home and climb up into our balcony and hide there. One time, he saw I wasn't in class and he came home and caught me hiding in the balcony. I also broke my foot in there. I've never had time to use any kicks in a real fight.
I moved up different colors; I would always hide my belt when I walked to class past the Mexican kids down the street because they would make fun of me. But I still had to wear my uniform, and I would stuff my purple belt down my trousers. They all lived in the same courtyard in the poorer part of the street. In their group was a tough girl. I had a crush on her. She would make fun of me, too. She was real cute, and tall. She still is, cute I mean, when I think about seeing her. She had that curly hair full of hairspray and the tight jeans chola girls wear when they go to the mall to take those portraits in the blue clouds. I was afraid of her. One time she said she was going to kick my ass.
The best part about karate class was towards the end of class, when I knew there was only a couple, maybe five minutes left, and it wasn't so bad today. If I wasn't so busy dreading class before even going... One time, our teacher told us he was going to be on Jay Leno that night. His name was Ivan, but he was black. So I stayed up watching Leno and he never interviewed my teacher. I didn't realize he meant he was at Citywalk and the camera crew filmed him doing a spinning back kick by the fountains and they decided to include that footage in the opening credits montage. I had two days anxiety-free before—well, before having to take another shit before class.
Some of the kids told me my rival, Zorro—that was his name—had called me soft. He was right. He was husky, but like, built. His dad was old and short and bald and serious. His dad would often watch him in class. My dad was always busy working, thank god. I didn't like seeing Zorro's dad; he was so serious and boring. Maybe calling me soft was his dad's observation. I mean, what hell is tae kwon do? I couldn't even do the splits or somersaults. I saw these Asian kids in a tournament flying around the Civic Center. Now those were black belts.
I went to a tournament with my dad and I couldn't win the last match for a gold medal in my group; this kid kept running at me with nonstop punches the whole time and I couldn't even push him away. During the break, I kept apologizing to my dad because I knew I couldn't win and I know that makes him feel really bad. But then this other time, I went with a group to a tournament and I could only place third for something, but I had fun that day, and when I came home the crazy bastard threw my bronze medal out the balcony.
In one of the tournament matches, in between rounds, I heard the father of my opponent trying to psych his son up by convincing him that I was a girl. I wanted to turn around to him, because I could understand the language, and say, Hey, I'm not a girl! My dad wasn't there for that one, although I wish he was; that would have been quite the scene. After I broke my foot the second time, and we had moved, and I was older and listening to Nirvana, I didn't have to go anymore, and we stopped talking about it.
having to go to karate, boo!
how long will your tallest buildings survive?
We stood atop a building, overlooking a sea of lights. I looked up to a moon that hovered not too far up above. In peculiar motion glimmered - somewhere, somewhere up - two window-shaped xenon lights, then disappeared. I stood motionless, fascinated, awaiting something special to come. The planets aligned themselves: the stars, the lights, not too far from my eyes, and glimmered in unison the same instantaneous bright blue. Something was in the works. Down below, a young girl met an older man. She carried on with butterflies she couldn't wait to keep from the world.
Yea, something special was about to come. There must have been a spaceship. Next I saw laser beams in swift motion tear down all the tall buildings around us. In the flat below, some girl was getting it from a guy who wanted to walk away at the right time. One by one I saw skyscrapers fall. Fire, panic, and mayhem ensued. Something special was in the works against which we had no insurance. Government became an abstraction that quickly dissolved, and the military was no where to be found. These entities could not calm the people, because it was the Earth They were after. All the tall buildings in the world collapsed. That thief, he didn't get very far.
We ran with fear but ignored the feeling. Something told us this was just the first phase. Panic loomed but the prospect of absolute extinction sank deeper, deeper, and deeper. Something we could not percieve, would finally nullify our hopes, dreams, and desires. We were running and -
Tracy
Tracy was my buddy, my short little buddy. For a time, she was my friend. Blonde and blue eyes, her childlike smile - this is where the tears would be if I could cry. But I can't; botched facelift. I loved it when she would giggle. She would make me giggle. She liked my pop culture references and I felt that's all that I had because I had't read a book in years. In school, she probably wasn't a good student but already knew all the vocabulary words.
She wasn't so little. Strong hips, breasts like a cluster of grapes. She was a bit older than me and great artists steal.
I told her about my Kurt Cobain obsession years and how silly I feel now when I wouldn't shower for days and have my mom wash my new clothes multiple times before I would wear them to middle school. She told me she cried the day Bradley Knowles died. I felt so phony. We would share my iPhone iPod earpiece and laugh about the physical awkwardness and whether we should bop our heads in unison our something. I told her I was never good at concerts; I never knew what to do with myself.
We were friends for 30 days, more or less. We would make collages together out of magazine clippings and talk about how we would go shopping together after we got out of here.
We parted ways. I left with the insurance and she was busted for using in her room. We had swapped numbers like sincere friends do, but we were still primal and looked to fulfill our common purpose...so we headed to Santa Ana.
I guess we can drop the childlike smile. Seated next to each other on the couch of an old man and teenage girl, her eyes were gone and words were blurred. She may die but she would probably just sleep, and then I left.
She wasn't so little. Strong hips, breasts like a cluster of grapes. She was a bit older than me and great artists steal.
I told her about my Kurt Cobain obsession years and how silly I feel now when I wouldn't shower for days and have my mom wash my new clothes multiple times before I would wear them to middle school. She told me she cried the day Bradley Knowles died. I felt so phony. We would share my iPhone iPod earpiece and laugh about the physical awkwardness and whether we should bop our heads in unison our something. I told her I was never good at concerts; I never knew what to do with myself.
We were friends for 30 days, more or less. We would make collages together out of magazine clippings and talk about how we would go shopping together after we got out of here.
We parted ways. I left with the insurance and she was busted for using in her room. We had swapped numbers like sincere friends do, but we were still primal and looked to fulfill our common purpose...so we headed to Santa Ana.
I guess we can drop the childlike smile. Seated next to each other on the couch of an old man and teenage girl, her eyes were gone and words were blurred. She may die but she would probably just sleep, and then I left.
the corner
We go to the arcade to get our fill. Random images of simulated passion, brain candy for morbid self-attention. Nothin doin tonight. Everybody's got a price but no supply. He sells dreams for a dollar, he'll let you use his pipe. She sells scenes... you can feel what you can't touch.
At the pawn shop, where everyday we sell our dreams but pledge... We congregate, seeking shelter. We give up food and water and in place trade favors. We're not looking to be saved, but possessed. We hide our souls; we follow our nose to the source of our obsession. We never question anymore, but find the answer in that mushroom cloud of smoke. It's odorless, but we stink.
At the pawn shop, where everyday we sell our dreams but pledge... We congregate, seeking shelter. We give up food and water and in place trade favors. We're not looking to be saved, but possessed. We hide our souls; we follow our nose to the source of our obsession. We never question anymore, but find the answer in that mushroom cloud of smoke. It's odorless, but we stink.
In My Secret Life
-
I thought I would quickly slip out and score, if not come back without the guilt and soldier on to another wholesome day.
Another day. I would drink myself into oblivion to reach it. Fuck that. I was on my way.
We must have drove around for hours, in circles chasing it, him with the freedom and adventure of the uncouth night. And I, fueled by desperate hope, paranoia at the edges. I was more primitive than I knew. I was nervous - fidgety and shady, and I tried to assure him that this was how I dealt with that sweet sweet prospect. Something about Hollywood, the moment I enter it - it makes me sick, it entices me. I can feel the depravity and freedom of the streets, and feel my stomach turn.
Each stop brought frustration amid the gnawing ache of misery. Ten minutes was never ten minutes. Each prospect gave noncommittal assurances for minutes or hours, when what I needed was now. I was running out of cuticles, in spasms sputtering. Each minute couldn't come soon enough. The waiting was the worst. I had invested my faith into those I wouldn't think twice about in a state of normalcy: Family, will, a wholesome burden strongly borne, and a contributing member of society. But I had strayed. I was one of the people on the street, an extra in a scene that someone else wrote. The storytellers create the scenes and paint the streets. I was apart of it inasmuch as to disappear without any relevance to the larger story. No one knows me here.
I was at its mercy. Wherever it would beckon, I would follow the trail and wait. When I couldn't take it any longer, I would wait some more. Patience had nothing to do with it. Virtue was a word that sounded good and worked in pamphlets, or assumed relevance in desperate self-reflection. That could wait till later.
My nerves were shot. My insides were, to say the least, bubbling. Feverish and tearing away at my nails, I would puke after each cigarette. This was - or somehow assumed through physiological rewiring - to be my calling. To others the stage, recognition, and the resulting self-realization was what compelled them to regurgitate.
I'd give up food and water. I'd sell my soul to keep from walking away empty handed. Each passing thought, each delayed moment, would turn my corrupted hunger into a whimper. The childish howl and thin despair - one who doesn't know, but wants. He can't understand but yearns for what he needs.
Walk away.
Run (back)
into your mother's womb.
Shame was muddled along with memories of days when I was decent. As long as I had a choice, the prospect of attaining what I had intended, I would resign myself to powerlessness. Everything else could go to hell.
And then the wait. I called for it in my head, I cried aloud as for a solitary number on roulette. Though I was still in control of my fate. A concentrated wave of energy directed at the target which held my dreams. Ambitions and goals lingering like the memory of a love you once knew... And he walks out the door with it, coolly. I couldn't bring him over to me fast enough. The foul stench of success that I've come to know - ratlike, I couldn't wait to get it home. I practically shit myself the ride back.
I had given away bits and pieces of myself for it...but now I have it in my hand!
The world could explode and I'd still find a little hole.
You easily lose yourself in it, not like a beautiful tragedy, but gradually and without pomp and glory - bits and pieces stripping away at your soul, till there's nothing left to sell.
I thought I would quickly slip out and score, if not come back without the guilt and soldier on to another wholesome day.
Another day. I would drink myself into oblivion to reach it. Fuck that. I was on my way.
We must have drove around for hours, in circles chasing it, him with the freedom and adventure of the uncouth night. And I, fueled by desperate hope, paranoia at the edges. I was more primitive than I knew. I was nervous - fidgety and shady, and I tried to assure him that this was how I dealt with that sweet sweet prospect. Something about Hollywood, the moment I enter it - it makes me sick, it entices me. I can feel the depravity and freedom of the streets, and feel my stomach turn.
Each stop brought frustration amid the gnawing ache of misery. Ten minutes was never ten minutes. Each prospect gave noncommittal assurances for minutes or hours, when what I needed was now. I was running out of cuticles, in spasms sputtering. Each minute couldn't come soon enough. The waiting was the worst. I had invested my faith into those I wouldn't think twice about in a state of normalcy: Family, will, a wholesome burden strongly borne, and a contributing member of society. But I had strayed. I was one of the people on the street, an extra in a scene that someone else wrote. The storytellers create the scenes and paint the streets. I was apart of it inasmuch as to disappear without any relevance to the larger story. No one knows me here.
I was at its mercy. Wherever it would beckon, I would follow the trail and wait. When I couldn't take it any longer, I would wait some more. Patience had nothing to do with it. Virtue was a word that sounded good and worked in pamphlets, or assumed relevance in desperate self-reflection. That could wait till later.
My nerves were shot. My insides were, to say the least, bubbling. Feverish and tearing away at my nails, I would puke after each cigarette. This was - or somehow assumed through physiological rewiring - to be my calling. To others the stage, recognition, and the resulting self-realization was what compelled them to regurgitate.
I'd give up food and water. I'd sell my soul to keep from walking away empty handed. Each passing thought, each delayed moment, would turn my corrupted hunger into a whimper. The childish howl and thin despair - one who doesn't know, but wants. He can't understand but yearns for what he needs.
Walk away.
Run (back)
into your mother's womb.
Shame was muddled along with memories of days when I was decent. As long as I had a choice, the prospect of attaining what I had intended, I would resign myself to powerlessness. Everything else could go to hell.
And then the wait. I called for it in my head, I cried aloud as for a solitary number on roulette. Though I was still in control of my fate. A concentrated wave of energy directed at the target which held my dreams. Ambitions and goals lingering like the memory of a love you once knew... And he walks out the door with it, coolly. I couldn't bring him over to me fast enough. The foul stench of success that I've come to know - ratlike, I couldn't wait to get it home. I practically shit myself the ride back.
I had given away bits and pieces of myself for it...but now I have it in my hand!
The world could explode and I'd still find a little hole.
You easily lose yourself in it, not like a beautiful tragedy, but gradually and without pomp and glory - bits and pieces stripping away at your soul, till there's nothing left to sell.
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