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2345

Musing, not publishing.

Project Nemesis:  “Anima”

In the cold, gentle blue light, her dark eyes stare into the absence between life and death. The bodies hover around her, and she senses the stress but can no longer discern the who or why behind them. So much stress. So much cold. So much numbed to slow. Slow to stop.

            She is Malaika. She is six years old. Her skin is dark as charred wood; her eyes are jet stones in a lake of white; her black, nappy hair tied in small braids, coalescing into a ponytail. She is the daughter of an influential politician, and a daughter of Mombasa, though here she is in Nairobi. She doesn’t like this city, mostly because her mother doesn’t like this city. Mother is one of the bodies hovering, like a blob of stress. Father … may be one of the bodies. She can definitely feel his stress; it has a unique misplacement to it.
            The girl’s breaths are shallower. She wants to feel something else. There is a sense like she should be panicking, but she’s too weak to do it. There is something … special happening, for lack of a better word. A one-time unique experience… Shallower.
            Breath to slow…. Slow to stop.
            Her last exhale escapes her chest like feathers into the sky… before she can even be cognizant of what’s happening, and her eyes pause. The gaze is still, and her body freezes as the spark of life leaves her to Forever.
            Life leaves her, and her stopped gaze, Forever…
            …A noise… A whisper. Whispers… She winces.
            Malaika blinked and looked to her right, and suddenly on her shoulder a man’s hand clasped her. Startled, she pushed herself back against the bed, but the man only laughed. “Hello,” he chuckled.
            “Who are you?” Malaika asked. The man began speaking to her, but the words escaped her for a moment. He was speaking in one of the Mijikenda languages- like what her mother would mutter to herself time to time when she was angry. If she put a little effort into it, she probably could’ve still understood it, but she shook her head, too exasperated to handle it. “Please speak Swahili.”
            “You’re an outgoing little girl, aren’t you?” he smiled gently down to her. “I am Tendaji. And we need to go.”
            He held out his hand in offering to Malaika, but she looked at him in disbelief. “I … I don’t think I should go.”
            Tendaji leaned forward and asked her rather pointedly, “Oh, I see you know what's supposed to happen from here then?” and nodded towards the fading room. The blue light was dimming, and the shadows of the people who had been tending her were one with the absorbing darkness. It was over… She was over.
            Malaika felt the rush of fast moving air on her skin- Something just flung itself by her, and she gasped. “What-”
            “No time,” and Tendaji lifted her by the waist with his moon sized hands. He was an enormously tall man, skinny as a strand of light. His ebony skin radiated a subtle purple highlight, and his eyes glowed the same lavender hue. “We must go.” He set her down, and although she knew the linoleum floor was cold, she knew it without feeling it. A strange sensation that was only… sensation. She didn’t feel- it just was.
            Tendaji bolted and the dim blue light followed him, leaving Malaika in the dark. She felt another rush of air, and she shrieked into a dash after him. She ran as fast as she could- surprisingly faster than she thought she could go. She heaved, but the air didn’t actually reach her. She felt nothing in her lungs, but she kept pushing. She didn’t need to breathe, she found.
            The shadows whipped out and grabbed her by the ankle. She crashed to the darkened floor, feeling pain and knowing the impact, but not knowing the pain or feeling the impact. Terror gripped her heart, though it didn’t beat, and physiologically, she felt no difference. She turned to fight it, but Tendaji’s hands gripped her again, yanking her from the shadow's grasp, and holding one of Malaika's hands, he led her in the run. “What is happening?!” she screamed at him.
            “Death!” Tendaji laughed back in Swahili. The empty darkness swirled around them threatening to swallow the dim blue light. Tendaji stopped abruptly, and using Malaika’s momentum, he swung his arm up, holding her hand tightly. “Follow the sun!” he screamed in maniacal laughter, and flung Malaika through the light. The blue expanded as she was hurled higher, forming a vast sky. She flew through a barrier of white tufts before gravity caught up with her, and plopped her back down into an island of white in a sea of black and blue. A golden sun arose and blinded her for a moment. Without blinking, her eyes adjusted, and she saw…
            Hills of alabaster clouds- They were clouds! She was on a cloud! She looked down and lifted the ends of her pink patient gown to see her feet grounded in the insubstantial mass of glistening condensation at the top of a cumulous hillock.
            It was at this moment that self-awareness finally hit her. She was familiar with the surrealty of waking from a dream, and thus far her mind was willing to accept that she was caught in that place between sleep and awake. Only now, she realized that she was not at all in a dream state. She was totally coherent… She blinked trying to resolve that with the reality that she was literally standing on a cloud. The sun was warm- She looked up into it. The warmth she knew, but did not feel. The piercing light did not hurt her, though factually it took a few moments for her eyes to constrict enough to see functionally through it. “Follow the sun?” Malaika asked. She felt Tendaji’s eyes on her- and maybe several, several more…
            Across the great expanse, she saw others… Others of all different colors. They were walking towards the sun. She shrugged it off and started walking down the cloudcrest in the same direction, the cloud lengthening into a path carved over the heavens, and the deep darkness far beneath.
            As she continued, some of the others stopped, while others faded over the horizon. As she got closer to one, she snuck a look at him. He was a brown colored man, eyes deep black, skin tanned by heat, but not sun- a child of an island jungle. He was emaciated, weighed down with worry, staring… And as Malaika watching him, passing him by slowly, she could feel a memory that held him in a trance. A memory of loneliness.
            She passed others as she dutifully crept after the sun. Each was in a place beyond obliviousness. They became virtually inanimate, and in a strange sense of distilment, Malaika found herself constantly examining each. Some of them had smiles on their faces, and she felt a shrill of laughter; some had contentedness, and she felt peace.
            But most had looks of regret, and she found their feelings much more specific, and memories always accompanied them. A man in a busy intersection, embittered not by poverty, but by the selfishness of those who had a right to be selfish. A girl holding an ailing kitten in her palms, discovering helplessness for the first time. A woman watching her parents admonish her adulthood, holding her heart in comfort against the rejection of conditional love. A father bowing his head, broken under the weight of a judge’s gavel.
              The others surrounding her became exclusively negative incarnations, but though she tried to ignore them, their memories became more and more intense, and was unable to ignore them. She burst into a run to avoid them, but they reached out to her, and assaulted her with their pasts.  She was abruptly confronted with a wall of catastrophe, and the horror of the emotion ruptured her soul. There was no escape; a kaleidoscope of Loss enveloped her, the sun darkening and fleeing into dusk.
            A child, held back by steeled hands, wailing as her parents were taken away from her to a doom she couldn’t fathom- her eyes flooded in tears. A boy collapsing to his knees, screaming, finding his friend hanging from a rope he fastened himself. A man in digital uniform howling out in damning rage as the bloodened, fiery dust of an explosion settles where his friend was once racing against carnage. A plump flight attendant freaking at the television, as another man tries in vain to calm him, the second plane full of his friends striking the other tower. A woman falling to the ground, head to the sky in condemnation, a city ruptured by the storm of an insane child-god, shattering around her. A man breaking under the push of police, while the murdered body of his lover is carried away unceremoniously without him. Loss. All of them jagged, falling pieces, toppled and succumbing to the mercilessness of total Loss.
            And Malaika couldn’t run anymore. Her own eyes were dripping in tears, shrouded in the sky’s night. The absurdity of her body’s reactions to emotion and physical stimulation were beyond her, but if there was anything she knew had not changed, it was her empathy, and the perdition of personal calamity when someone is irrevocably taken from you was something she would not run from. She stopped crying, and was determined to turn back.
            Her last tear slipped off her cheek, splashed on her wrist, and shimmered a beam of light. Malaika looked down in shock as the light weighed her arm down, sliding into her palm, clinging to her and tugging her to drop. Instinctively, she gripped it to counterbalance herself- As her hand squeezed ahold of the light, it flashed into a hilt, wreathing into the symbol of a sun; from it, the light lanced out into a broadsword’s blade. She felt the weight in her other hand, squeezed, and a sword with the hilt of an eclipsed moon manifested. Around her chest, back, and abdomen, gilt platemail glittered into being, and slowly her dried tears dressed her in the cataphract of light. She gaped in awe, until she again felt Tendaji’s stare. Slowly, she turned around to peek over her shoulder.
            In the distance, the nebulosity of thunderhead mountains and puffed fog opened under the striking spark of dawn. The sun reappeared, lancing its golden light down the valley of clouds, and everywhere it touched, a wave of persons stood, and wings spread behind them, loosing a tsunami of stray feathers. Captivated, Malaika stared as the fringe plumage rained around her like angelic sakura. Then anxiety began to catch her- There were hundreds… maybe thousands… of people… Winged people. Staring back at her.
            “Hello.” Malaika heard a familiar chuckle, and neglected to spasm as its accompanying hand touched her now metal clad shoulder. She turned and found herself flanked by four adults and their folded wings, each gazing down on her with a strange kind of adoration. “And welcome.”
            “… Hi,” Malaika squeaked. "What are you?”
            Tendaji laughed aloud and motioned to the others over his black tipped, white wings, “We are Angels. We are Seraphim, to be exact. This is Enoch,” he motioned to a young, beige skinned man with dark hair, eyes, and beard. His wings were caramel brown, like an eagle. “This is Itzpapalotl,” he motioned to a light brown, younger woman with brunette hair, wearing a strong smirk, and rainbow wings like a bird of paradise.
            The last of them was a tall woman, with wavy, blonde hair and watery, blue eyes. Her wings were longer than the others, the massive feathers silky and opalline like her skin. “I am Radiance,” she whispered, and the sky shuddered at her voice. She knelt down to Malaika’s level. “Welcome to the Angelic Realm.”
            “… What’s going on?” Malaika asked. “There was… There was … This thing grabbed me, and then… Then he,” she pointed at Tendaji, “he threw me up here. There was these people… They were all- crying- And these- These?” she lifted the swords still held strong in her hands. “I don’t-”
            Radiance reached a hand to Malaika and pinched the little girl’s chin with a thumb and finger, guiding Malaika’s eyes back into Radiance’s. “And you won’t. No one does for the first transcendence. It’s normal,” and Radiance grinned a motherly acknowledgement that made Malaika relax, despite having no idea what the woman meant by that. “The basic things you need to understand are these:
            “You are dead.
            “You, unlike most souls, did not ascend or descend. You transcended.
            “You are now an Angel, like us,” and Radiance motioned to the multitude of the host. “This happens very rarely, and every time an Angel finds her way here, we have a bit of a … ceremony, so to speak. Candice actually just transcended yesterday, so you’re the second after almost a century.
            “Your discomfort during this transition was a test. Due to your reactions, we found it fitting for you to be chosen into our caste. You will be trained as a Seraph in the arts of war to be a Guardian.” And after this, Radiance leaned forward to kiss Malaika’s forehead. “And I’ll explain what that means later.
            “Right now,” Radiance stood back up, “It’s time for you to return.”
            “I… thought I was dead?” Malaika blinked.
            “You are, but death is a little … complicated for us,” Radiance winked, and reached into Malaika’s hands with her own. The swords glowed into vibrant light, and Malaika’s armor shimmered in kind. “Feel that?” Radiance asked.
            Malaika thought to herself. It was that feeling like she had to do something. Had to help someone… Those people triggered it. Those memories. It was intense, and it was real. Perhaps the only thing she truly knew she was feeling, in the same sense of what ‘feeling’ meant when she was alive. And so she nodded.
            “I call that ‘Righteousness,” Radiance whispered. “It is the key to your power.” The sword and armor flashed and vanished to Malaika’s surprise. “… We will summon you here again when you… ‘sleep’,” Radiance shrugged at the term. “But you will always have access to Righteousness. It’s endemic to who you are. And who you will become. Now,” Radiance’s wings spread mighty and wide, shed feathers slinking around her into the clouds at their feet, “you’re reborn.”
            The cloud lost its tangibility and vertigo shot up Malaika’s gut and stomach into her heart and throat and pierced her mind in a scream. She fell into the black, claustrophobia swallowing her whole. She screamed endlessly in the plummet and began thrashing her body wildly. She began hyperventilating, unsure what she was feeling- if she was feeling- and screamed again. It felt like she was in a box- a relatively strong box.
            She heard the crunch and jarring squeal of gears as a shard of light flooded her. A rumble under her carried her into that light, until she was grabbed by the terrified mortician who was as scared to death by her as she was of him. He screamed at her in an unrecognizable Bantu language, then apologized profusely.
            She was taken out of the morgue, then held in a safe room while voices rushed around her. She picked up bits and pieces. The man who found her was initially being blamed for her inappropriate, early box storage. She died from some kind of pronounced Yellow Fever- she had total organ failure after a heart attack- she didn’t remember any of that. Her father was missing. She had been dead for two hours and seventeen minutes- barely missing the world record by four minutes. There was a doctor really upset about that, apparently. Her mother was being fetched right now, with her father in tow maybe?
            But the most important thing she heard was her breath. At will, it numbed to slow. And slowed to stop. And she felt nothing but knew. And did not know other things, yet felt.
            She felt it… A power… Not just a will, but a power to answer that will.
            And if she clutched that power, light-
            Her parents broke into the room and suddenly the girl was surrounded by the loving arms of her mother and father.

 0210

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2117


Aurorae


His words shrill with an immodest glee and feigns disbelief, acting for our mutual enjoyment. His voice crackles on the other side of the phone. There is a darkness that surrounds us, that he may not recognize... Things may not go the way he wants. Or the way I want. And the pretense of my altruism in our conversation surrounds my heart, a serrated fanged maw of integrity effortlessly threatening my deepest insecurities: that I may be found by both him and myself that I'm a fraud. But for this moment, there is an excitement that hasn't penetrated the bleak of existence since ... I don't know when. Maybe a few days. Maybe a few years. But for him, he's feeling it again now.
      I am calling a Marine with an opportunity. For the rest of the world, there are several facets we can interpret this through, most cynical. That I'm culpriting his aspirations to fulfill the goals of an insatiable, mechanical gorge that is our government. That I'm a peon trying to make a mission. That I am a guy, selling a product, to a guy willing to buy.
      But for this moment, I am entering a bliss with him. Because all I believe I want to do is help people. And I'm helping.
      There is an opportunity he never thought was possible. He was generally interested in joining the reserves before, maybe later if he can work it into his schedule. And we both know that means he's not committed enough for this to work out the way it'd need to work out. But now he can retrain into what he's always wanted to do. Get paid doing it. Get paid well. Catapult him into a career in the civilian world he is excited about. And the fear that maybe it won't work out and he'll be disappointed- that's what is scaring me into thinking that I may be some kind of horrible person.
      I explain to him again- and I know that my own fears are irrelevant, that the hoopla of what could be said about this transaction is all nonsensical bullshit for a day when I'm wanting to beat myself up. He knows that it may not work out... But he's still so excited, and won't stop asking questions to which I give honest and accurate answers. He hangs on the words...
      And for this moment, the guy is hearing something that makes him whisper back genuine felicity. And what could be a greater gift, short of love?

Sometimes, I see a scene at Walmart, when I am frustrated in the ways appropriate to that business. I am surrounded by fools, ingrates, and aloofs who are so absentminded they become mischievous obstacles to my very simple intentions to buy innocuous products at reasonable prices and get on with my damn life. I am third in line, behind some other disaffected entities- college students, elitests, or maybe ailing grandmothers- who will be just as enveloped in their acrimony of duress, that they are being subjected to this nonsense, they become foreboding impassible shadows themselves. And I grit my teeth, watching her: the girl at the front of the line, dealing with the antisocial cashier, who is either incompetent, misanthropic, or both.
      This girl at the front is fumbling about... I have no idea with what. It's Walmart for @%#$'s sake. You pick it up, you pay for it, you step out. What's the problem? But her distress hits me... She is being choked by the animus that surrounds her, just for existing in this place. Checking over her shoulders, she sees we're pissed at her. Just for being here, there is so much more gravity to every miniscule decision she could make. And what's going on in her head? From what is this glare I'm unduly giving her distracting, that could- should- be the greater import in her life?
      Rat stew. (Inside joke: A thing where I see someone who is upsetting me, and I realize I don't know what their life story is. What if this girl has to go home to a horrible situation, that I won't exaggerate too much on, other than that it culminates to the poor thing having to make a thankless meal of boot and rat stew to get by with her miserable life?)
      She is a lonely victim of circumstance. And I feel that bliss... And I smile that genuine smile. It's Walmart, for God's sake. Midday, and we're all trying to get somewhere with our lives. Nothing else matters in this world except this girl and I. Who may be a bumbling dolt, a shivering child, a distracted woman, any many of combinations that just further define another breathing, feeling, bleeding human being that is a carapace of emotions. Real emotions. She doesn't deserve any of this negativity over something as simple as having a little trouble with her groceries at the waning of her day.
      She looks over at me, and I tilt my head and widen my smile as to say, 'What can ya do? Another crazy day.' And I chuckle it off.
      "I'm so sorry," she mouths to me.
      "You're fine, hon. Take your time."
      She blushes a thankful smile of her own, and gets on with her day.
      And for the rest of my time at Walmart, I smile and make a joke of the situation we're in. Because for that moment, I saw the relief of a suffering, no matter how trivial it may've been in the end. But what could be a greater gift, short of love?

The day was hot and humid, and its after effects into the night are blistering warm, incubating our little city of a thousand cities in a greenhouse between pavement and clouds. But I'm actually pretty okay. I've never been one to freak out about weather, and, while it may be a little inane to chalk it up to my heritage, I'd like to believe the blood of my ancestors and their lands makes me a little immune to each of their own unique climates. The snow on the plains, the sweltering simoons of the deserts, the torrential battering of wind, rain, thunder, and earth- the chieftains, queens, and nomads of the past navigated them with an acceptance that I feel in the back of my mind that welcomes the impunity of the world with amicability.
      The sky overhead is dark, and it's very late. I shouldn't be coming home this late. But I am a workaholic and I do enjoy it with a bushido martyrdom that I don't deny gives me some masochistic (and altruistic) thrill. And as the tiny drips slip down the back of my shirt, I am reminded of a lonely child, walking dark streets, alone, and knowing he should be afraid as the rain comes. Or upset. Abandoned, neglected, so on. But whatever to all that. There was an electricity in the air. There is an electricity in the air.
      Lightning crackles and the thunder reaches me, it's bass riveting through my arteries and veins, stroking my heart. And the heavens break under the weight of the waters it carries, and the storm pours on me as I'm walking to my car parked too far from the office. I'm soaked in moments, and I burst into a run. There is no fear in me, though. No upset. No detriment.
      No, this is a blessing. Something I've missed for so long. When the tornadoes came that leveled parts of Ohio when I was twelve, I stepped out into the black and grey backyard, looking up as the wind threatened to carry me away, and I cracked an idiot's grin. When flashes of light lanced the earth around the peaks of my California valleys, when the monsoon flooded my Jakarta gardens, when the hail fell in Texas for the first time in a long time in my San Angelo tin car-roofs, I was witness with a close hand view of the beauty that our world can produce.
      I have been blessed with holding a close, ailing friend's hand while driving by and stopping next to an idyllic field of tall green grass. I have been graced with a picture I took with my camera as the sun set between branches of a tree arching my sidewalk, painting the world in gold, crimson, and azure. I have felt the peace Terra can bring, in all its shades of vermilion, emerald, violet, cyan, and rose.
      And I have felt her black and white, glee and passion, like in this storm. And sloshing through puddles and crashing through the curtain of water that blanketed me in shimmers of glittering discharge- I feel home in the inclement. I feel lost in the inclement. I feel alive in the inclement, breaching the car door, exhaling, suffocating in my laughter as my night climaxes into a short lived tempest that brings me back to my most base, shamanistic instincts. The animal that was my people of the past...
      And for a few moments, I'm reveling in the power of God in nature- the blood of the spirits of old- and I become one with absolute glory. And what could be a greater gift, short of love?

When I see people lately, I felt threatened and intimidated. I keep thinking I should be more. Or less. Like I'm doing it all wrong. Like I'm missing out. I am far too preoccupied with the fact that I don't know what 'right' is as a definition, in this sentence that "I don't know if I'm doing it right", that I don't even realize how opaquely STUPID this whole thing is. I'm alive, right? Why can't I just live...
      I know I've written a poem about that a little bit ago, haven't I?
      Sometimes, though, all this subsides, and it's most obvious to me when I'm completely taken from myself into someone else. On my way home, a car pulls up next to me at a long red light, beckons me to pull down my window. She needs to know where a place is, and although I've only been here a little bit, I actually know what she's talking about. I tell her that when the light changes green, I'll let her pass me into my lane so she can make a quick U-turn; follow down a few lights, to pass under a bridge and go to a big intersection. "Take a left and you'll see it on your right."
      "You think it'll be alright?" she looks at the long line of cars behind me.
      "If they honk at me, they honk at me. You'll be fine." And I smile.
      There is so much in this world that is just... beautiful. Kindness. Forgiveness. The world itself. There is an unlimited amount of beauty, and it all lies in the perception of our hearts.
      I think the point is ultimately, as has been noted before, "Greatest of these is Love." To love is the apex of beauty, bliss, and Good. When we are rejected, when we hurt each other out of honesty, when we help those in need, when we share, when we stop to take in the bellisimic panorama, when we hold each other dear in traumatic tears, when we choose not to express anything other than kindness...
      I can't help but smile at the these thoughts, just like when in practice. It's love.
      What could be a greater gift than love?

2221

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18:28


The Ruthless Unapologetics After Silence

 

What it feels like to be gay:  I was sitting in an ugly but comfortable, green chair, next to the trivial small talk of a black, Jamaican staff sergeant, chatting over speaker phone with a fellow Marine recruiter- a sergeant- waiting on our boss to come in an’ finish our training about rape ethics, and I felt it’s just not the time, place, or people to jump up on the table and say “DOMA IS DEAD!!!!”

            Indeed, I am hiding under the torture of wanting to know more about - I can't access the internet on my phone as well to read the news- as much as to tell these people the outstanding revelation, allowing the weight to crush the air out of my lungs, and keep my mouth shut. It it’s not out of fear of reprisal. Just no one cares. And no one would care about the breathlessness I feel now. I’m fainting, the oxygen leaving my blood, and my thoughts white out, too. And I am again caught in the upset of not knowing how I should be allowed to feel (and then, what do I feel?).
            This weekend, it’s time to celebrate. And I deserve to celebrate.
            But this silence that I’m suspending myself in as I wait for this weekend… The silence. I have been appropriately silent for a long time. A very long time. It’s a time for celebration, but a time for reflection as well. And I deserve to deluge the suffering- minuscule in comparison maybe. I have kept in silent burden incredible injustice imposed on me by animus, for animus’ sake.
            And I’m ready to speak.

Background:  I figured out I was gay when I was twelve. The same time I realized my identity as Mormon. I was blissfuly lonely and neglected as a child; I had a very transparent and empty support and social sphere. I was alone, but observing, almost all of my developmental years, all the way up to… That's not the point here.

            Truth.
            The point is Truth.
            How do you “normal” people interpret Truth? Obviously, you mix some strange subsets of reconciliation between beliefs and actual experiences through varying amounts of emotional response or logical deduction (the two are almost always mutually exclusive).
            For me, Truth is. And when I was twelve, I was met with Truth yet again.
            The visits before? I didn’t know my father personally- he was a presence in my life that had to be dealt with; Truth was that he was a hazard. Mother was not present, even when she was, for many reasons, none of which I blame her for; Truth was she was unreliable. People are whimsical and detached unless circumstance endears them toward you and they decide to spend time with you; Truth was that you had only yourself as a friend.
            I read the Bible’s passages condemning homosexuality. They confused me. They didn’t make sense. They applied to me, in essence, despite being factually inaccurate. I didn’t have anyone to help me. But God. So I submitted, as Mormon children are taught to do, and offered my ignorance and good intentions to God:
            Make me straight, or tell me I’m okay. Because I feel that I have done nothing wrong, and yet am so corely shaken and hurt. I am hated for something that I don’t even understand myself. I don’t understand. I don’t. But I don’t want to be a bad person; more to the point, I don’t feel like one. So if these two things- Good, Gay- cannot exist together, then fix it. Fix me. Or tell me that I’m okay.
            It felt something so incredibly powerful at the time… I didn’t cry very often. I really don’t cry. I don’t like it. It feels lost when you cry by yourself. It feels fake when you do it around others. It’s a sleight of hand trick, and you’re either weak or a charlatan when you do it. But when these thoughts were running through my head, I found myself absentmindedly in tears. Not silent tears as I was accustomed, too. Not controlled. I was bawling for a moment, uncontrollably- a body reacting to some kind of pain, but completely entrapped in the dilemma in my heart and mind and soul.
            But after I offered myself to God, I felt better. I didn’t feel better- I felt Good. I felt Good as a state, and I felt as a feeling, the essence of Good wash over me. It was seriously like being in a wooded grove, overcast and cold, lonely and afraid. And light breaking through the clouds and leaves, and touching me. I felt the warmth in my tears, and I smiled a genuine smile. I felt Truth. The Truth was in the honesty of the smile. God heard me, and God would take care of me. I interpreted that as God had accepted my willingness to do the right thing, and would make me straight.
            The next day at school, I ran into some of the other students and the first thing that came to mind was that a guy was cute. He said something to me, and I had the butterfly effect in my lungs, and after he left, it hit me. Nothing changed. I was disappointed for a second, then I remembered the sun breaking through the dark sky. Nothing changed because I was okay. God was telling me I was okay.
            The Truth:  No matter what other people believe or think or say or justify or permeate or legislate or proselytize or attack or theorize or contemplate or instigate or are- ‘I’- me- who I am… I am okay. There is nothing wrong with me. … I may be a little unique and that poses its unique challenges with it. But I’m okay. “Even God says so.”

In the spring of 2010, DADT became a thing. A big thing. A very big thing. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, a mantra that I had long ago accepted as a personal code of ethics in the first place. I generally didn’t tell people I was gay unless they asked, and even then, not unless I knew you and trusted you. It was a bit of bushido- you don’t tell people things unless you want them to know, both tactically and intimately. But I had joined the Marine Corps in 2004. And I was a sergeant now, in the Missouri heat, and I was constantly being bombarded with things I had to swallow quietly.

            It was about this time that the full effect of the injustice of our world was hitting me. Prop 8 was going to the courts, yet again. DADT was in argument as well as the beginnings of what would crush DOMA (and yes, DOMA, the unabashed catalyst gets its foreboding and foreshadowing mention- the eldritch abomination that is the origin to this blog entry).
            You see… I was always okay. Even when I was twelve and alone, I had managed to marry without any real difficulty the hypothetically unrelateable concepts of Good and Gay. These people in the Corps, on TV, on Fox News Forums- They weren’t inherently bad people. They just needed someone to show them the way things were. They also had to be willing, though, and the fact that they weren’t really enraged me. But nevertheless, the courts and logic would prevail. Because logic is the common denominator in a country that is ultimately ruled by the people. Because if it don’t make sense, sooner or later it dies. In the end, you cannot divide by zero.
            Only it didn’t die.
            It didn’t die fast enough.
            My fiancé was a Corporal down the street with the 9th District. We had been together for two years, and it was time for us to re-station. Coincidentally, we were hitting our tenure on this installation at the same time. There were spots open for both his and my MOS's (jobs) in Seattle and Ft. Lewis respectively. They were an hour apart from each other. We could live inbetween and drive thirty minutes to work. We could make that our life, and so easily. My officer-in-charge, CWO Lopez was friends with my monitor, MGySgt Hicks. And that friendship was already preestablished to get me any seat I wanted, as long as it was open. Because I was a good Marine. I had played by the rules not just with DADT. I worked hard, fought hard, and meant for the best, and the CWO loved me for that. Bryan got orders to Seattle. I was going to ask for Ft. Lewis.
            I loved Bryan so much. He was the absolute center of my world. He was the Truth of Love for me. A very special, unique feeling I had never felt before. Like all relationships, it had its moments, but ours never lasted more than a moment, except the rare special fights you're supposed to have as your relationship matures. And we never once went to sleep angry at each other. And this was Providence. It was perfect. We’d get to go to the same place, and continue our lives together. And DADT might get repealed and … It was so idyllic.
            Until at the last second they fucked Bryan, cancelled his orders for no apparent reason, and refused to tell him where they were sending him for months. The time came where I had to pick a place to go- the MGySgt was coming to MOBCOM for our BRAC’ing down to NOLA (shutting the command down) and everyone needed orders at once. Last rumor was that Bry may get Salt Lake City. I asked the MGySgt, who was very irritated that suddenly Ft. Lewis was not my destination, if there was anything near SLC. He sent me to Portland, OR. Later, Bryan got his orders to Albuquerque, NM.
            And the seeds of bitterness were sewn.

Over the course of the following two years, DADT was put up for a social experiment. Surveys were taken and psychoanalyzed. I had to take it myself. I know what was on it- and I thought it was hilarious how people were lying on Fox News about it. That the questions were skewed to favor certain wording; that some questions were asked that weren’t; that some questions weren't, that were. Etc. It was funny, and infuriating.

            And for the entire time, people kept talking. And I had to keep my mouth shut. I couldn’t say anything about how it was affecting me, and that was indeed the point of DADT. How the only reason I was in 6th Engineer Support Battalion was because I wasn’t allowed to- in a pivotal moment- say something as simple as, “Look… I want to marry this guy. I love him. The only reason I can’t is because it’s illegal in the military. Even if we couldn’t get benefits, I want to marry him, but any attempt to do so, in a legal sense or not, breaks DADT, and we’re trying to play by the rules. But this is so easy… Can you just talk to the MPAR monitor and explain the situation? I’m sure they’ll fix our orders- there’s no conceivable reason they wouldn’t…” Other than bigotry, which is of course a potential considering how high rank (old) the monitors were. But … my experience since DADT repeal is that they would’ve considered it. And no one is that malicious in the military against your fellow Marines. … Well, some, but it’s rare.
            Nevertheless, I couldn’t say anything. I had to sit in silence as people talked about things they didn’t understand. Made comments that were offensive as hell. Made jokes that were hilarious because they were true. I had a Sergeant Major come up behind me, talking to the Corporal across from me, asking how they would deal with the fact that most gays are pedophiles. The poor corporal couldn’t say anything. He figured out I was gay on his own, and the helplessness I felt was reflected in his eyes. Even though he had perfectly valid things to say, could support his own opinions and facts without me, and indeed wanted to, the fact that I was there, and unable to speak. He couldn’t speak. The major stepped in and tried to deescalate the situation before the Smaj said something worse (and he did- bestiality, the usual).
            And, y’know the thing was… He was serious. He was genuinely confused. The Sergeant Major was seriously just that ignorant, and it was all he ever knew. If it weren’t for DADT, I could’ve just swiveled and explained, “That factoid is based on several studies that came decades ago, and generated with very loose definitions of terms that were not actually looking to identify the sexuality of perpetrators for sexual crimes against minors. If you’d like, I can pull them up and explain how the studies came about, and the more modern ones that very clearly show that statistically speaking, pedophiles are consistent in percentage of gay and straight as the general population is; and that generally speaking, pedophiles don’t rape along sexual orientation lines anyways.” (They abuse children, based on attraction to children; not men towards boys or girls depending on an orientation.)
            These kinds of things bore down on me literally every single day for two years. And when it was all said and done, Bryan and I broke up. I broke up with him. For many different reasons, but the origin of the issues I’m confident is because we were separated. We were perfect together. Even when we had problems and they became worse and worse, when we were actually physically together, until the very end… we were perfect together.
            When gay civilians talked about gay rights, all they cared about was marriage. DADT was a casualty they cared little about. Cared little about me. And when I was growing up, ironically, the Mormon church was more accepting of me and my gayness, than the gay community to which I would've hypothetically belonged accepted my Faith. I didn't proselytize- hell, I stopped bringing it up after the first two climactic freak outs by homo youth peers at the vague mentioning of it. When I had a cultural reservation against sex and viewed relationships with seriousness, that cemented it. I developed a phobia against gays because they treated me badly. And I eventually overcame that, but it swelled up again during the death of DADT. Because they never cared. Civies never care.
            And when DADT was repealed, not by logic, but by subterfuge by well meaning Democratic assassins, I couldn’t help but scoff. And when they said it’d be six months before the changes took effect- a hail Mary for someone to stop it from happening and for people to learn to suck it up in advance… I just kept my silence.
            It worked, obviously. No serious incidents of trouble since Repeal. But those six months I brooded. And as my relationship got worse, I brooded. And when it was done… I entered a darkness that has made me the most cynical and malignant person when it comes to gay rights.

You see, when people bashed me on the internet, my anger was silent. I tried to correct them. When people insulted me and insinuated things between me and my chosen-blood brother in highschool, my anger was silent. I ignored them and tried to protect him. When I joined the Marine Corps and I had to play by rules that I never believed in- when I read the three rules on homosexuality at the MEPS inprocessing station, my anger was silent. I knew what I was doing and I chose to serve for all the right reasons- and I don’t believe it belies humility to say it was selfless of me. When I heard the Church actively- and illegally- making political demands of its host, my anger was silent. With couthie grace I stopped coming back. When Bryan was taken from me and sent to Albuquerque- despite every indication to me that it was wrong- so incredibly fucking wrong- my anger was silent. Because it was what I signed up for, and true love can withstand these things, and there was no use in being upset about things you can’t control; you just endure.

            Only it didn’t.
            And when DADT was almost not repealed. Silence:  Logic and Truth will one day prevail.
            When it miraculously WAS repealed. Silence:  This is a good thing, and we should be happy, regardless of the shady circumstances.
            Years of politics, intrigue, insults, and evolution, and here we are at the Supreme Court decision, and what do we have?
            … Surprisingly… people… uh, sorta’ doing the right thing. The logical thing. The logical right thing.
            Truth.
            They sided with Truth. And uncomplicated, simple Truth at that.

I’m a little lost for words. I was almost certain, if they deemed it unconstitutional at all, that they’d do so through Section II, arguing about the entirely distilled notions of states having to recognize each other’s marriages. Unconstitutionallizing (neologism) Section III left the issue up to the states ultimately. But this could be argued to mean many things. It forces nothing on no one, but it … well, I’m not sure. It kinda’ does.

            You see, the right thing to do this whole time was to accept that sexual orientation- a term I will use as a bludgeoning tool that will cover the conglomerate complicated multitudes of trying to define sex- is not something you can attack, nor codify attacks againstit into law. That it is functionally the same as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, creed, etc. Religion probably the best parallel. Anyone can be anything, and you generally can’t tell, unlike race with skin tones (note that many mulattos can pass for whatever they’d like, too, though); sure, you can tell a Jew by the Kippah (unless he’s Samaritan) but just like you can tell a Gay by the earrings (unless he’s a metrosexual)- [and for both parentheses, “same thing?” applies].
            This court ruling does still manage to leave a bitter taste in my mouth:  It does not establish that sexual orientation deserves ‘heightened scrutiny’. The cynic in me believes that’s intentional; I could be persuaded to believe it was a colossal but unintentional error. The effect is that any court in the states can be challenged by this ruling for the effect of marriage equality, and there is a beyond reasonable chance that marriage equality will win. Rather, it would be conflicting for equality not to win with this Supreme Court decision in your pocket.
            I have been dreading this moment for a long time. I was afraid of a several decade regression when the Court decided against us. That it'd be time to finish my tour, and move to a place that would accept me and my future husband. That I may never be in a safe happy place. And I am so overwhelmed. I will be even more. I want to be happy.
            And I will allow myself to be happy… After this final section of the post:

For years I kept my mouth shut while people around me- everyone around me- got to say their piece. Okay, that’s not that true. Some people had to keep their mouths shut like me, and on all angles. Not everyone got to have their voices heard. So be it. But in this space, for me to ever find the day I may bury this hatchet, I am going to speak:

            I am incredibly and unapologetically disappointed with humanity that this evil was ever allowed against me and people like me in the first place. I am determined to never forgive the generalized populations that put me in the circumstances I was put into- and God may shake His head in dismay at that. For Bryan. For all the people who murdered by their own hands over the years. For the lost souls who died from AIDS and were told it was their punishment from God. For their friends, lovers, and spouses who were denied the right to see them as they passed in the hospital; who took them away from those places when the hospitals refused to give good care and take care of them. For the children stolen; the families decimated by legal technicalities and judges 'helpless' to keep kids with the parents they belonged to. For the lives destroyed by the rules and articles governing the Armed Forces of the United States. For us all.
            For me.
            I will never forgive you for what you did to me.
            I played by your sick, disgusting games and for what? For your personal satisfaction in knowing that your ways are the old ways and visa versa; they are the laws of the land. For your personal comfort zone, because you couldn’t fathom- let alone stand- the notion of me having the same rights as you (and I appreciate attempts to digress that I always had the same rights, but I am disinclined to argue simple concepts with people who feign idiocy to maintain purity in their broken ideologies).
            You caused the most absolute form of suffering on your own fellow human beings for no logical reason. You watched them die. You had them die- suffering, and alone, believing they were bad people. And you did it out of fear. Out of arrogance. Out of spite. And many of you did it gladly. In the name of God, in the name of Country, in the name of Good. And some of you knew you liked it.
            Maybe it’s a bit existentialist, but I know Truth. I know it when I stop and I just listen to my heart. When I feel warmth. When I feel that warmth and light breaking the darkness around me. I know not everyone believes, and I’m okay with that, but I have a true faith and testimony in God. I felt Someone lift me out of that darkness. What I feel is what I feel. And disgust is not an indicator of right and wrong. Hatred is not an indicator of right and wrong. Fear is not an indicator of right and wrong. But Love- Love absolutely is an indicator of right and wrong. And for you to see Love and not see Truth is an impossibility to me. You knew what you were doing as you did it, and regardless of the reasons that made you do what you should’ve known was wrong- whether you knew it was wrong-
             I don’t forgive you. As long as you hide in your ignorance- and often even when you come out of it- I will not forgive you.

 … And now, with perfect timing, I’m going to hop on a train and go into the City.

            Truth is:  It’s time to celebrate. And feel the Love of people who are just a little bit more free.

           

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10:01

Fetishes

I am Jordan of House Robledal, whose words are “Ne dismetiĝos plu, ne disligiĝos plu”.

            Unbound, unbroken.
            I am the first oak of the grove, and like all things in nature, I arrived here at the mercy of random butterfly effects. And I will grow with many branches, complexities, and idiosyncrasies.
            One day, I’ll hew this down into something more concise. But here I try to define what I am, and what I will make my House to be:

 

I am the Oak:

            Its leaves crown the covers of generals and admirals. It has been a symbol of strength and solidarity since antiquity. It represents the best of nations, peoples, gods, and my ancestors. Its roots run deep; its branches reach tall. Its leaves shelter all; its bark shields all. It breathes calm and silence, made of Terra’s blood and trapped lightning. It heralds the elements, and worships them as much as it represents them as fuel for fire, drinker of water, an exhale of air, and life of earth.

I am a shaman. I am nature. I am strength. I am eternal.

            I am the essence of being, when all other things continue to change around me.

 

I am the Tiger:

            She is the queen of the jungle. Her coat is the most prized. Her camouflage the most distinguishable and yet successful. Her mythos the most riveting. Her bulk monstrous and glorious. Her gaze is primal and commanding. And despite favoritism for other cats, in reality she is the undisputed conqueror of all her peers and prey alike. She is the mount of gods, symbol of warriors and nobility, an icon of sweet images, and yet paragon of predators.

I am adorable. I am affectionate. I am agility. I am the hunt.

            I am the fanged smile, the thrill of the chase and kill.

 

I am the Twin Bears:

            They are divine intervention. Where one is insurmountable strength, courage, and vitality, what is two if not heaven sent? They are the spirits of the passed braves. They are the keepers of great powers, shared with man only in dance and great strife. They are brought together to fight the enemies of the clans. They are plush, fuzzy, and cuddly. They are man eaters. They are gods in their own right. When they sleep, their souls are freed. They represent my other ancestors. They do not acquiesce; they do not understand fear. They fight to the death, not knowing they can die. When they stand together, they are unconquerable.

I am bushido. I am intimidation. I am mother. I am unavoidable.

            I am manifest strength in purpose; a force of nature.

I am the Lone Wolf:

            He is the content wanderer. His blood knows the meaning of the pack, and he integrates well in groups, where he knows his place and serves his purpose. But his personality goes against this, either due to nurture or nature. He can follow, but he is his own Alpha. He can lead, but he is his own pack. He can sleep anywhere, but he does not settle. He yields when appropriate, but he does not retreat. He enjoys the pack, but he does not depend. He accepts and submits to love, but he is not bound. He is the keeper of the trails, and the tip of exploration. He is satisfied with wanderlust.

I am of the pack. I am of the path. I am of the wilderness. I am alone.

            I am the feral boy at the gates, one paw out toward the journey.


I am the Tortoise:

            She is the fortress of wisdom, longevity, and tranquility. She moves steadily, an anecdote to the fast paced creatures and world around her. Revisited unchanged, unaffected, and ever weighed by her rumination with the universe. She is shrouded in the mists of the undergrowth, and both beneath and within her is the black water of the void from which all things came. Upon her back she carries the world. Within her eyes, the clarity of timeless age. Across her shell are the oracles’ words, written in a language of painted color.

I am patience. I am sovereign. I am subtlety. I am abyssal.

            I am a cache of treasure, encased in an impenetrable shell.

 

I am the Dragon:

            It is the epitome of mythical. It is the force of great evil and great virtue. It is the sea. It is the sky. It is the earth. It is the fire. It is the quintessence of power. It takes without shame. It dreams with impunity. It speaks with absolution. It burns without mercy. It is the unrealness of imagination and pure emotion. It is the most glorious of all beasts; it does not exist and thus it is the most of what any one person desires it to be. That is the reality of honesty in its primal, visceral desire. And it will not be ruled.

I am gluttony. I am lust. I am greed. I am pride
            I am the raging omnipotence of emotion, trapped in the frailness of mortality.

 

I am the Scorpion:

            He is the darkest shadow of the soul. He is the still water that runs deepest. He is the abyss that stares back into you. He is hidden lethality. He is exciting threat. He is more scared of you than you are of him; his remorse is as great as his poison is unforgiving. He respects the death he carries in his blood. He sheds death and is reborn anew, and his molt he devours in merciless introspection. He does not abandon his sin; he envelopes it in repeated cycles. He is gravity; seriousness; extremity.

I am sex. I am hatred. I am fear. I am revolution.
            I am the moment of tantricity, between life and death.

I am predator, I am ethereal, I am hope, I am tantamount, I am alive.

My sigil is the sephiroth of Entropy; my standard a Manticore against it, not opposing- the chimera of six fetishes. I don’t know what these words mean in tradition; I know what they mean to me.

            We will never again be brought asunder; we will never again be bound.

            I am Unbound. I am Unbroken.

12:23

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11:57

Everyone Dies Alone

Seven days ago,

I left the umptieth home

I’ve ever known

Four or five real good frien’s
And close family
All feel like illusions

Being sent away
Scattered to the winds
By an invisible hand
Something you wouldn’t understand
Entropy
Cause and effect
A maskless, but faceless entity
That always wins

And there is a closure in the helplessness

This is the pattern of my life

Short tour and leave
A comforting fresh start
A restart on the heart
A chance to make friends and family anew
New plans
New betrayals
A pattern that ebbs from new to great strife
All somehow colored in a rainbow hue

But I’m not a kid anymore

The hand isn’t the broken
Tragically innocent, misspoken
Horrific shamble of my father
He was told where to go, too
What to say
What to do
Maybe who to kill-
Maybe he'd've killed me, too
But this is my choice now
And I chose to follow
The puppetmaster’s strings where it will

I had a good life, y’know
A great life, I promise-
Met the man of my dreams
Treated me like a prince
A man I truly loved to kiss
 
I threw it all away
And felt closure in the helplessness
 
It had become something sad
In my defense
There’s some recompense
In the tries that I had
Made- devoted and forthright
I fought with all my might
Some demons I never knew I had
And even then some kept dormant
Some I turned back into that deep sleep
And never once did I weep
For him

And then, full of confidence

I began a journey to providence
Before my journey East, I was
Beginning to know me
Learn things about me
Things I never knew could be

I was so damn charming

Everyone thinks I’m handsome
Witty, affectionate,
I’ll hold your heart ransom
But I’ll give it back
All I want is a kiss
Suddenly a kiss is bliss
Not just for your future husband
Not just for only the One
But a gift, wanton kindness

I could turn guys down

I did turn guys down
I had been turned down
I took it with no skin off my back
All the more pride got me wound-

-up facing a borderline personality

Turned my stomach and heart
Wringed them out,
Out came butterflies
A powerful hit of enamored love
I hadn’t felt since high school
He made me feel so high and cool
Until the mind games start

I survived that experience

By the skin of my teeth
But was it all lies?
Was I all lies?
Am I not a series of frauds in a wreath
Of terrorizing, selfish gloat and self
Congratulating clout
So far I fell
Look how I turned out 

A whore and a spinster

Something again neurotic
But more sinister
All I did was hurt ‘him’, right?
Yelled, screamed, desecrated his safe space
And tried to deny him my Mr. Right

By what right

Did I think I could turn love
Into something so trite
And flightless
Horseshit and catpiss
Breaking down into Tourett's and neurosis
Psychosis, narcissism, and sociopathy
He awoke a passion and love
Deep down inside me
And all the demon’s down below awoke, too

And it’s strange, but there’s no closure in this helplessness

All that bright sunny outlook

The dreams, reignited, that took
Eight years, three LTRs
Maybe 15 or so hookups
Lathered in sin and confusion
Three or so rejections
And the three breakups
I initiated
All this culminated into
A beautiful prism of possibility
Shattered

And I’m cutting my fingers trying to pick up the pieces

Feeling eyes watching
Noticing, judging
As I drove East, and after I’ve arrived
I’m so caught up in woe- I just try to pick up more pieces

Cradling them close

They cut me deeper
And I close
My eyes
And remember God in a whimper
Long ago, He and I were close

I’m doing it now- thoughts up to heaven

I used to do it all the time and this
Is just another one
One of a million
But please God
Make this prayer come to fruition
I thought I was a good kid
Seriously, God
Pick one, just one,
Any one of those millions
Tell me I did the right thing
One right thing
That I was a good kid

All I wanted to do

All I want to do
Is do the right thing
Something honest and unselfish
Something good and pure
I promise
But I can’t see anything

The road is dark in its

Sunpathed path
I feel cold and stark with this
Fever in my heart
My muscles and thoughts are numb
But the tears start collecting anyways

Welcoming in kind, regrets

A family reunion
Of coalescing memories and dreams
Drowned in communion
A coagulation of total and epic loss
Time- What you can never get back
You’re a fuck up
They all turn to say
Simultaneously
Do you even know how to spell that word?
Or is it just that spell check is so easy
Microsoft Word
Easy to write when a computer will polish your turd
For you

So crass

Really mature
Excuse me alter ego
Id, super ego, whatever, but
The superhero
In me
Would like to believe

I’m stronger, smarter, and

Cooler than to resort to that nonsense

So much responsibility

To do the right thing…
No wonder you’re crying
Pitiless, empty, weeping
Alone, in my car,
And God says nothing

I just want to be free

I just want to be me
But who the hell am I?
And seriously
What’s the point- if I don’t know that
How the fuck am I supposed to try?
 
And all of this convoluted mess
Most of it I made- is made of myself
I confess it- I’m not good at this shit
Why can’t there just be an
Invisible hand
That will guide me back
 
To when I was happy
Was that an illusion, too?

Fuck this shit

This day’s about me
About the foolish
Selfishness
That I call tenacity
I’m crazed and neurotic
A survivor and a child
Spastic, scarred, and scared
Hungry, lonely, but prepared
And feral; with integrity but wild

One day I’ll rise above this

With holler, whimper, or a kiss
Some deep, dark, and weak wish
That one day I’ll be happy
By hook or crook
My future blinded by the pasts that you all shook
But mine

And happy

I accept no responsibility

And I pray I’ll find closure in that helplessness

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2008

Dawn

A new life begins for me, and I've decided to catalogue it with pictures. And to symbolize it, I've decided to have my picture be taken by a stranger, of me. I had a lot of preconceived notions I wanted out of a first picture for a camera.

Like birth, it should be grotesquely intimate, socially awkward at its core, and unflattering in its expression.

Like hope, it should be pure when borne in another's hands altruistically for someone else.

Like memory, it should be fleeting, absurdly off topic even, to be recalled at the most abstract and skewed moments, for purposes only the subconscious can truly understand and thus doesn't.

Like life, it is an honest start, finite with factual reality, and yet so prone to the limitlessness of our unreal imagination to shape it into what we dream it to be.

So I grabbed the girl at the counter, who seemed to be more familiar with cameras than I am, and with a test shot, like a slap to the baby's ass, she got it screaming, closed in on my face, and introduced me to Calypso.

 

 

Last night, I arrived in my new city, with a new set of dreams and aspirations I haven't even sorted out yet. That blank canvas, where you don't even know what you want to do with it. A kind of pressure to start painting and making. To do something beautiful. To make the most out of life.
     But life is long, and the canvas is as long as your life, and it's constantly reeling with time. You just have to start painting. And sooner or later that sheet of white moves on and you have more white coming up to keep the painting going. And when it's done, high above you is that mural of you.
     I've spent too much of my life afraid to paint anything. And I look up at my collage of empty white spaces and frantic markings and gestures and see so much I which I had done before. And in a way, it's avant garde and unique to me. It's me. Who I was. Who I am. And a preface to who I will be.
      I don't really intend to write all this to be all about me, but I know that there is a lot of humanity that we all share in this... And I'm hoping this moment is something that others can relate to.

I love my family. I revere my past. I look to my future. Let's see what dreams may come.
     And I'll take some pictures, so the people I love can enjoy the ride.