Monday, May 16, 2011

I’d purchase a trailer – one of those with beige exteriors, yellowed by too much exposure to the sun. I’d want it used, I’d want that dried paint under its windows to look rusted and pale - too decayed to move, too absolute in its immobiliness to resemble a car.
I’d come across it, and know, that it’s here- the place I’d be able to empty those bruised leftovers that once were potential expressions perishing at the tip of my tongue, unspoken, and behind my palms, unwritten.
I imagine I’d stand there, looking at it until the shades of trees become duller and fuller, because I wouldn’t be able to decide if I’d choose to paint it royal blue or that Indigo of a night spent on the beach.
I’d decide then to smear “Cap ou pas Cap” on one back, with the grimmest of blacks, that of dice dots and “i “ ‘s in contract signatures. I’d dare it then, to show me the life that sneaked out underneath my doors one Monday afternoon while I was too busy sharpening my pencils to look for suitcases.
I’d vacuum its floor right about then, just to hear that sound of it turning into a living accommodation. I’d buy shades not curtains, and an out-of-place looking fridge I’ve spotted once and wondered what worldly sensible house would place an England-flagged item in its kitchen. But there, I’d contain them all- the odd, the misfit, and reject, animate or not. And on its contrived interior, I’d frame,
No,
I’d plaster two photographs; one of a black and white Road billboard of 1930 branch of Dunkin Doughnuts, and the other of a crowded airport gate.
Nothing more to it,
to that trailer I’d drag to the end of the world by its rusty handle. All those acres of forests I’d dreamed of touching upon lightly, and thrift stores in the middle of nowheres, that sell crisps in orange packets and sodas in retro cans.
Nothing more to it than a child, who poured milk in see-through glasses and stepped on charcoal just to glimpse an adventure, an escape, a gateway where stories were told, somewhere out there.

Saturday, May 07, 2011

To: World,
on a disposed paper plane



Look at him, sleeping with a hand over his ear, fending away the thousand-legged spider, and another under the pillow clutching a toothbrush, a keychain, and his Mama’s wristwatch. Behind his closed eyelids, he’s counting, not sheep, but miracles. One, he says – the way my father laughs. Two, he says- the way my bed hovers like a spacecraft in the dark. Three, he smiles – the way my sister pronounces my name.
Look at him, World,
but don’t you dare touch him.
Look at him, placing his dinosaurs all around the house – under the armchair, to shield his Mama’s friends, behind the photo frame, to look out for memory thieves. He sifts them by color, for the orange, long-necked one is the closest to his heart, and the blue winged one, can barely fly after his injury. He cries sometimes, for him, “ But why can’t you move?”, He cries sometimes, for his Mama, “ But why can’t you see?”, and he cries sometimes, for you too, world “ But why can’t I be an object?”
His Mama once told him the story of Pinocchio, the wooden toy, who strived to be a boy. “ But why, can’t I be a toy?”,
And he asks me for a story, about a toy, named Ali. And I tell him, about a universe called Ali. He laughs, and I see my reflection in his glazed eyes.
“ Tell it again,” He says,
Once upon a time, I start
But where is Ali, he interrupts
He’s in the story,
But why isn’t he THE story?
Alright,
Once upon an Ali,
I start again
And he laughs, and the laughter never dies down in his throat, and he laughs some more.
In Ali, there lived the most absurd of creatures,
And he sits properly again, and his hands are in his lap, and his smile grows some more.
There was the three-eyed monster,
There was the ball of fur,
There was the crocodile who speak songs.

Because in Ali, there lived the most absurd of creatures!
He shrieks out loud,
And the blue winged dinosaur can fly again!
In Ali, everything flies. I tell him, and he gasps.

Look at him, world, but don’t you dare touch him. Those tiny hands that know not how to build or maim, but how to extract life for life, would one day, be the ultimate change you’d been doomed to neglect.
So, world, take me,
Take all my dreams, memories, and well-built notions,
But world,
Don’t you ever dare, touch him


Sincerely yours,

Sunday, May 01, 2011



“20 Authors under 40” – profile photos depicting the illustrations of those who inked it down, somewhere between their medical school training and insurance jobs. My mind scans in detail - that high collared shirt, that African American afro, that copper necklace.
Writers, I know them – there’s depth in every facet, there’s meaning in purchase choices, there’s a stretch of possibility, there’s a story, there’s a plot right there. There are words in a salesman’s vest, there are words in Fire alarms and cinema tickets, there are words in the mundane; carpools, laundry rooms, and clinics .I turn the page to the snippets of their interviews.

Where were you born? Washinton D.C
Where do you live now? San Francisco
Where were you born? Lima, Peru
Where do you live now? Oakland, California
Where were you born? Nigeria
Where do you live now? Columbia


In precision, I see them. Moving large pieces of furniture in their new apartments, washing dishes after their dozen takeout orders ran out, and stacking plastic bags into corners.
I see them, walking unto life as if on a straight line, a foreign beginning to an unprecedented end. And I see their words- definite, and new; emerging from inexplicable depths shadowing that straight line they walked on.
One life- and they’ve lived.
One life, and they’ve seen its heights when they waited alone in airports, and skimmed through newspapers with enlarged-metaphors for a name, only writers would scoff at; “ The sun” ,“ The spotlight”, and “ The Voice”.
One life, and they’ve had sharpened pencils everywhere, and they wrote as the neighbor told them about somebody else’s tragedy; and they wrote as they’ve heard ambulances on distant nights, and they wrote as they dropped orange peels from the window, and they wrote as they stepped on sewage systems, and they wrote while it rained, and they wrote some more.

And I envy them some more.
One life, and I walk upon circles.
One life, and I stretch experiences until they break on the rims.
One life, and the potential of words die down inside of me.
One life, and the only certainty I know, is how much I don’t.

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