Normalcy Reinvented

In sixteen years I feel as though I have the mind of a

sixty year old although I know

at sixty I’ll look back on this day and laugh out

loud at my absurdity.

In sixteen years I feel as though I’ve learned real well,

real quick that

if we let our experiences define us we fail to be human.

We fail to be human, instead becoming place cards at a poorly set table

with grapes and cheese fit for

a king.

We fail to be human the second we let go, the second we let

experiences define instead of defining experiences that cause our

faces to weather and shine,

our bodies to build and break,

our spirits to hide and be found.

My youngest memory is moving from Rochester to New York to

escape the knife of uncertainty and the

sting of a place where unbridled genius was

locked in steel mills to create statues for the Gods.

I remember leaving that place with a sour taste in my mouth

because in that place my parents claimed

I was special but they claimed I was,

and I quote, “Fit for state aid.”

Here’s something for them to quote.

I’m not who you think I am and although you think you broke me

at ten years old with the stereotype that

all who are different are all who are bad, I’m rising fast now with

the brain that you said would never operate,

the mind that you said would never think.

So take that state aid and put it somewhere where it needs to be,

don’t waste your time trying to teach a dog not to bark when

he has great things to say. You taught me well.

I’ll speak.

We fail to be human the second we let go, the second we let

experience define instead of defining experience.

Too many times in sixteen years has the cloaked man who extinguishes

candles happily and masks lilies with joy

entered a room kept alive not by the beeping of machines

without feeling or regard,

but by a smaller hand holding a larger and homemade posters

of the sun and basil gardens and flower patches

that the body can’t live off of but the soul certainly can.

Each breath life torn shamelessly away but with each blink

love growing stronger and it was

times like these that I questioned experience because

when you keep your mom alive off of half-burnt toast at seven

and your friend with drawings and paintings at thirteen and

your idol with pins and letters at sixteen,

but somehow two out of three, it all ends too soon,

When you dial a phone number and another person picks up

or when you call on Skype and it rings and rings,

it can get hard fast to see the fine line between positive and negative,

to be defined and to define.

It’s hard to believe

in the power of defining experience when to

lay down your arms and take refuge in

forgetting would be easier, would be painless, would be

blissful.

Instead I learn:

alone is relative because you’re a late night conversation away,

to see the hope and possibility hidden inside a single seed translates to life

and

to feel the love poured into a sauce with oregano and time is applicable to people.

We stay human by hanging on,

defining experience instead of letting experience define.

I like birds and roses and bumblebees but sometimes they sting.

I take long walks but sometimes get lost.

I write often but rarely find what I’m looking for.

I like life and love but sometimes they end.

I take things in stride but sometimes forget.

I cook good food but always end up eating too much.

I’d consider myself a bedroom poet because

to be honest I like reading to my cat.

I don’t get out often because fun doesn’t come in a bottle,

and yes, I cry every time I read Les Mis.

I believe love is the root of everything, good, evil, in-between.

I only sing in the shower or when nobody is home and usually,

it’s not pretty.

I have a knack for only seeing the best in people but

subsequently crying two weeks later,

and saying “Oh well.”

My mom tells me my room is too messy.

I’d rather just play the guitar.

I keep experience in the back of my mind for the later-ons.

And

hopefully, I’ll make me proud.

My today is my today not because of experience but

because of reaction,

I am who I am because of my own doing,

just as what is most memorable is not the famine of a country but

how the country responds.

Experience is inherent, the good and the bad,

but letting it define is a crucial mistake, becoming an

object of one’s own life, becoming wallpaper in the scheme of the universe.

Believe me, I’ve tried.

To define the parameters of experience defines the parameters of

existence

and that, that alone,

gives us all different reasons for forgetting to breathe.