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.
