the softer side of JACK

Winter Lovers

Sent from the sky above
a snowflake drifts along
slowly
seeking a final resting place
and lands on his lash
gently
His lover sees it sitting there
and leans on in to kiss it
softly
I close my eyes as he closes in
and feel his lips
warmly
melting away the frost
that dissolves and tracks down my cheek
sweetly
and there in three-quarter length coats
made of gray cashmere and wool
lovingly
we hold leather gloved hands
and stare into each others' eyes
deeply
until it doesn't feel like it's cold at all

Do You

You’ve always got a reason
There’s always an excuse
Always someone’s fault
Never your own
I can’t remember a time
When you said it was on you
You can’t ever own it
I’ve always got the deed
To whatever you done did wrong

I’m sorry should come easy
When you love like you say you love me
Yet it’s hard for you to do
When you do
What you do
So it’s time for you to do that
And do you

I can’t believe I apologize
To you
And for you
I’ve done it again and again
And from the inside it’s seemed like the right thing to do
But I’ve taken a different perspective
I’ve learned to be objective
It’s not my fault but
This thing comes to a halt

I’m sorry should come easy
When you love like you say you love me
Yet it’s hard for you to do
When you do
What you do
So it’s time for you to do that
And do you

Go on. Do you. Don’t be sorry now – it’s beyond too late
Sorry’s coming now easy I see but

I’m sorry should’ve come easy
If you loved like you say you love me
Yet it’s been hard for you to do
When you did
What you did
I can see it clearly now
do you?

Au Revoir.

Yes, Like That

Hidden beneath the surface
But not too deeply
Is a me that you almost know
And he makes you think of him
On occasion
As if it were a dream you’re having
Where the person is the person
But it’s a totally different person
I don’t look like me
Or sound like me
But it’s me
You know it’s me
But it’s not the me you know
So you shake it off
As it were sleep in the dead of night
While you’re behind the wheel
On a long trip
With nowhere to go

Poetry a la JACK

In the still of the night
as I gaze at the ceiling
shadowed by the moonlight
that peers its way in
though the slats in the blinds,
I toss around in my head
all the figures I see
as if they were clouds
puffed into recognizable shapes
in amazing ways
about a brilliant blue sky.
But the somber shades of grey and black
exude a meloncholic peace
in that they appear harmless
but have been drained of the vibrancy
of the crisp, cool day
my mind wishes it can conjure up.
But alas it cannot
create a happy image
like of smiling, frolicking lovers
wading in cascading fountain waters
with pressed slacks rolled up
to the buldge of the calf
and fancy shoes dangling off of delicate fingers.
The figures that appear
while I lay there in bed
do not smile
they maintain stoic faces
that mock me as I stare;
There is no fountain here,
no brilliant blue sky -
there is no lover here,
just me by myself ...
until the morning dawn overpowers each shadow.
But, oh, if I can't right now
make out a dingy pair of shoes.

JACK

Moving on

I wrote this not long before JADED became JADED, and you can see why JADED became JADED and not JACK. (Aside from the fact that she already claimed the damn name - bitch.) I wrote this about some dude I met via the internet, whose face I have yet to see. Right - we never met in person, although we still talk even now after three years. In fact, we just had a text fight the other day because he pissed me off. I think he was still searching for an apology from that time TWO YEARS AGO when i asked him if he was HIV positive. It seems he didn't like my response - pssshhhh, I told him I wasn't apologizing for something I didn't feel sorry about and that my goddam right to ask. We didn't talk, errrr, text for like a week.

And it seems appropo right now since I got a call from him this morning finally owning up the the fact that he's not ready.

Your indecision

My mind absorbs the reality that
my heart has yet to accept
And here I go
yet again
experiencing the intangible
Feeling let down
And as I seek to splice
the disconnect within me
I accept
that it is me
who let me down
for believing it was you
who could answer my call

But I refuse to be jaded

I refuse to be jaded

I simply refuse
to give you the power
to determine my fate
to even have a say
in my destiny

I’ll rise again
Soon
Very soon
Sooner than ever before

And for the record, dear readers, I rose when I wrote this and I'll rise again.

And, as a side note, I'm watching you too, Mr. You Know Who You Are, still acting like you too good to comment on my blog. I'm not afraid to withdraw my endorsement. Just cuz I co-signed to this point don't mean I can't withdraw that signature.

*puts on shades and engages the side eye*

Keep it in perspective

A friend's blog post got me to thinking about whether or not the things I had to complain about were really complaint-worthy. In the absence of that read, I would've just put a certain car dealership (who shall remain nameless) on blast for treating me like a red-headed step child (and being red-headed in a Latino family is certainly cause for pause)and for employing the stereotypical used car salesmen ...

But instead, I'm thinking about a poem I wrote when I was a freshman in college. It's probably the only one I'll ever post, mainly because it's the only one I've ever published, but also it's one that I think about often, even to this day.

In trying to put into the words how I perceived my life in the closet, I penned these words:

Trapped in a world where I have no choice,
As in a cave of polished brass,
Where all I hear is my echoing voice,
That brings me grief that no one knows,
That pains my ear and shatters my soul;
It makes me tear and drives me mad.

Trapped in a room where I hate to see,
As I gaze at it and wonder why.
A misshapen figure that can't relate,
That can't understand the pain inside;
That won't reach out to hold my hand;
It makes me tear and drives me mad

Trapped inside that mysterious man,
The one I see beyond the glass,
Who's trapped himself and can't reach out,
That needs my help as I need his;
His cries of sorrow pierce my heart;
It makes me tear. It's driven me mad.

I can still remember the hollow in my chest that caused me to feel detached from the world around me and from which stemmed the emotions that poured out through my pen when I wrote that. And, actually, as I sit here and remember it, my eyes well up. And you know, I can even somewhat feel the fringes of that hollow again. That's really why i never bring up the poetry I wrote in those days - while I think they were good literarily, I can't remove myself from the emotion they still evoke in me.

But the reality is that that simply isn't me anymore. I don't walk around with that hollow in my heart, feeling ingenuous to my own self and sacrificing the formal gelling of the real me on the inside with the me I allowed the world to see. At this point in my adult life, those two are fused together like a solid fillet weld and leave no room for hollow between them ... even if the words I penned in those days do help me remember what it felt like to have that empty space.

And so - I can at least find some solace in the fact that even though those nasty ass mother fuckers at the used car dealership pissed me the fuck off ... at least I'm not embodying an echoey, emotional space anymore.

Yeah - that makes me feel better.

But admittedly, it helps that I called them nasty ass mother fuckers at the car dealership.

Is that bad?