Force from the world a patient smile

The blue side of love.

My eyes are closed, The shades are open. The sun wakes me up. I put on my cleanest dirty jeans with a belt already stuck in the loops and a American Iron T-shirt. I walk down the stairs of my building. New York has been alive for hours now, I hit the streets and start walking. I have never lived somewhere that has so many people yet one can still keep a small circle of people.

I walk the 12 blocks to my favorite coffee truck. I see it is down a few spots from it’s normal location. The unique orangish-red color of the Mud Coffee truck is hard to miss. I ordered what I always do a Mud morning it comes with a cup of coffee and a homemade pastry. The pastry changes everyday; I do not know how they are able to change it everyday.

I walk and find a concert planter to sit down on. I know she will be her shortly she’s always hard to miss. From behind me I hear her distinct voice say “Good Morning Sailor.” I turn and hand her the pastry with my paint stained fingers. She brings her own coffee from home she is a particular eater and even more so particular about her coffee. If she is running late she will get an ice coffee from the mud truck.

She sits next to me and pushes her hair from her face. She thanks me for the pastry.

“This is a weird date, we have been together for sometime but to make our normal routine a proper planned date is a little strange. So what is going on she asks?” 

“I think I should tell you this isn’t working out. I thought you should know” I say

“How could you say that we have been together for 2 years and everything has been great. I have worked my life around your artistic schedule. I have put up with your late nights of painting and your waking late. That aside everything has been great.”  She says

“No, please, I hate to be so cliche and this may sound insensitive but it’s not you it’s me.”

“Oh god that cheese filled line really? I guess I see what I am worth to you.” She says.

She begins to sob. I move the hair out of her face and hand her the extra napkin I took from the mud truck.

“Listen, I’m falling down, I’m losing my way — I’m losing my mind. I fight it and I fight it. It never gets better. You are the best thing that’s ever been in my life. I never wanted to do this. I just keep falling and you are too great to bring down with me.”

“You know we can get you help.” she says.

“No, it won’t help; I keep falling. If Van Gogh himself painted my picture it would be a solid blue painting. I just thought I should tell you that it’s not working out because I will only bring you pain.”

She sits their sobbing, the cold heart of this city passes by her every moment not a person stops to glance over or ask her if she needs help. Breaking up in NYC is probably the worst place to do it. I think that we should have went to the countryside of PA.

“I wrote you a letter, I had your roommate leave it under your pillow. Please read it when you are at your lowest. I just thought you should know what you are. Remember your heart is never broken it is just in repair. My has been in repair for a long long time.” I say to her.

I will always love you I tell her. I kiss her slightly on the cheek and leave. It is the worst thing. I have ever done to anyone.

Three sleepless nights pass by and I have spent them painting, nothing is coming out but blue. No matter what I paint it ends up being covered by blue.

I hear a knock at the door, I look through the peep-hole and see her with a letter in her hand. I look for a way out and I do not see one. I open the door. She walks in 

“Why are…?” I attempt to ask

“Shut up, I don’t care what your faults are I love you, you are the most wonderful person, you are smart, funny, beautifully talented, All the ways you wish you could be, you actually are you just don’t see it.” She says

I laugh, its nervous laughter.

“You have desperation in your laugh. But without pain and without sacrifice no one would have anything. So we are going to work through this and neither one of us is going anywhere. We will get you the help you need and we will make what was wrong, right” She says.

I realize that my heart hasn’t been in repair. It has been fixed for a long time because of her. I wonder how I could have been so wrong for so long. I wasn’t blue, I was in the wrong perspective. My perspective was broken not my heart. She says the words I have been needing to hear for so long.

I grab her and embrace her. I kiss her and tell her thank you for giving me love again.

She whispers; “you are insufferable. I love you.”

Caloric intake becaomes Self-righteousness

The farmers of this world need to produce 12 trillion calories a day; to sustain those who are fortunate enough to eat. See, the year is 2012, yet there’s people who are unable to afford food: people who have no access to food. Yet as you drive in your car, in the comfortable air condition, climate controlled, bio-sphere you call a Prius. The world has people in it who cannot afford a complete meal. There’s people who cannot even afford to bury people that die in their family.

So as you stroll into Starbucks this morning and try to debate between what coffee to buy. So you can have energy to sit at a desk and try to stay awake. As you are forced into the “slave labor” that is your job. Do not forget that at least you were not kidnapped from your family forced to join a guerrilla army and spend your days hunting for diamonds at the ripe age of 9.

We can all makes small changes in our daily lives that will in one way or another affect another person. Every day you drive a new 2013 Lexus you are keeping hungry children from eating. Every day you drive an overpriced car with features you will never use. You could trade your car in and then buy a less but equally nice car and make your way to and from where you needed to go. Every day you are sitting on $50,000 dollars that was wasted and could go to helping those less fortunate then you; Yet every day you don’t.

So while you live in your self-righteousness about your cause and how it is better and how you need the things you really don’t. Remember that everyday, another person dies, and another is born. A child is starving and a family cannot afford to bury their family. Yet you have become so pretentious in your ever so ignorant ways. That you have forgotten everyone else.

So when that “ho” does you wrong or “those Christians” think of something dumb. Ask yourself: “What am I fighting for?” I can tell you that I am fighting for the hope that one day everyone will truly get along and that everyone will love everyone. That people will be respectful of each others belief system. That the world will not become one full of anti-religious zealots.

Until that day comes remember we are one world, full of one type of people — humans, we all matter and God, whoever that may be in your belief system cares. My intentions here are to be judging. My intentions are for you to realize the world is bigger than your social circle or your life. So many things happen beyond what is happening in your life. Think of others, and If I have offended you with this article then you have a a false sense of self. Drop your ego, and remember we all need to do some good in our life and not just give $50 to a charity around Christmas time.

So next time you find yourself in a debate or complain about you nice desk job. Remember to ask yourself what are you fighting for? Because a world without thought and emotions of not only yourself but of others is a plethoric world containing destitution.

I come burning through the sky
Falling from the sun.
I don’t think I could ever be lower than I am right now.

Time will pass
Nothing will heal.
I will try again

I thought I was a step away from a fortune.
But I was wrong it was a time of suffering.
Disillusion is a grand friend at times.
I’ve lost reality, and Everything seems real.

Time will pass
I will start again
I won’t love this time

I have become cold and withdrawn
It is the fuel of my life
I’m tired of being driven by fear
Step after step I move forward

Honesty

More than anything, she craved an intimacy that might transcend the physical. And so she urged him to reveal himself, to step-out from behind the self protecting wall of fear he had carefully constructed over a life-time of loneliness. Secrets, she assured him, we’re the only thing that stood in the way of true happiness. At first he was reluctant. But as the days passed and he came to trust the relationship, he saw the wisdom of her request. One evening after a fine dinner and heated-love making, he decided that he should make that leap. Lying in the darkness, their naked bodies, entwined around each other, he quietly told her all the things of his life that he’d never told another living soul. When he finished, she kissed him and thanked him for being so open and honest. He slept peacefully that night knowing that his days off hiding were over. The revelation left him feeling closer to her then ever before. More then he thought was possible for two humans to do. She couldn’t sleep that night she was pretty sure she was lying next to a psychopath.

You can’t.

For too long I have been told no,

For too long I have been told I can’t.

For far too long I’ve been told to accept my fate

For far too long I have been told that I’m fat and not worth much to anyone.

For far too long I’ve been telling myself the wrong things.

Well old me good-bye this fat worthless kid is going to make some changes. I’m going to show me that I can. That this man can choose his fate and that this fat kid won’t be afraid anymore. This man is making a change.

Something I wrote a few years ago.

This thing Im capable of. This gift given to me. This ability to understand, and make food. Work hard and my body becomes full of pain. The comrade of working with great people. Learning and getting to know as many great people as I do.

I’m not a great cook, I barely make it through each night. Somehow the dinner rush ending right before I feel death about to grasp me. Some nights I look over and my brothers are hurting. We toil, in misery. I make an excuse to myself; “they’re going to do drugs or are doing drugs” I’m standing here feeling everything. I don’t have drugs. I have me, and me alone. But in the end we all feel the same.

There isn’t a her in my life. Just me and my passion. Pride doesn’t exist. I’m just trying to get through the night. Yet another lie I tell myself: is that I will do everything right tomorrow… I won’t. I catch the metro home. Lay in bed in pain. Hoping my phone rings. Hoping the other end of the receiver speaks certain keywords; beer, women, bar, cooks.

So I limp to my car, body tight and sore from my shift. I get in and shut the door. Check myself over. Nice shoes, top hat, black shirt thumb ring, and goatee. Everything is in order.

5 years ago, I didn’t look like this. 5 years ago I was a soft faced fresh out of high school kid. Who didn’t know of what the world was. I knew I was angry, I knew I was bitter. I was tired already and I never worked a real job.

I worked odd jobs didn’t care for any. Then I read a book by this fellow named Orwell. George I think, he wrote a nice book about suffering, and toiling in kitchens for little money, and no reward. I fell in love.

I spent over a year trying to get a job in a kitchen. It finally happened one day. After my 1st shift I thought I was going to die. I called off on my 2nd day of work. I didn’t want to go back.

But as any young man in love will tell you I was a fool. I went back everyday, and even days I was not to work. The pain, sweat, and challenge was entertaining, was fulfilling. The sense of pride was overwhelming.

I sit here with a frosty glass of Guinness in front of me. I look at my hands: small cut on my hand from a knife. The skin bright pink on the top of my right hand and fingers. Its from cleaning a grill the blisters are gone, and I’m now waiting for the skin to cover where it had once been.

Still smelling of food, they are hard; my hands. From the work as a cook over the years. The callous on my knife finger was painful to develop. However, its my greatest source of pride. Not everyone can achieve it.

My arms have pink stripes from random burns, they are my medals of honor. My face has what appears to be a large pimple. It is a  grease burn from a fryer. I gently carcass it to determine if its going away. I order another pint…

Always wanting more I found a better kitchen to work in. These people looked like me. I didn’t have to speak Spanish to them. They were my age. They were good thus making me better. Taught me a lot. Mainly how to cheat the system in a good way. How to make an absurd amount of food in a small window of time.

I better go grab my grill guy. He’s fighting with his girlfriend again. It always happens however this night its looking worse. Where the hell did my broiler cook go? I saw him talking with the waitress. He’s the only one with bail money.

“189 people that hour”, my manager calls back to us. It means nothing to us at that moment. We are dead on our feet its midnight and valentines day. We closed 2 hours ago and we have a 1 hour wait. We all just want it to end.

We are making food in unbelievable amounts. My mouth is so dry. I’ve sweated for the last 9 hours like crazy. My undershirt and chef coat are soaking wet. Black chef hats stained with the white chalkiness of sweat adorn all my fellow cooks. They feel just like I do.

My grill guy keeps saying he’s going to pass out. My broiler cook is huddle in the corner mumbling and shaking. I think he’s saying he can’t do it anymore. My assembler will jump on the first grenade that comes his way not to save his crew but to end his misery.

My broiler cook, and grill guy are now both MIA. I see the grill cooks girlfriend crying in the corner. The broiler cooks girlfriend is chatting it up with servers. I’m on my 5th pint and 2nd pack of smokes for the day.

Finally its coming to an end. We start cleaning a great sign. It means we can head home or out to a bar. This place is too cheap to have a night porter. We must do all the cooking and cleaning. No extra wages paid for the latter.

I found my broiler cook he was getting high and an oral favor from the waitress for a bag of seedless hydro. My grill guy is reported to be walking home. Its only 9 miles home for him.

I will drive his girlfriend home. She will try to have intimate relations with me. I will politely decline. Not that I wouldn’t love to, but it would upset the balance of the kitchen, and tomorrow is Saturday. We can’t be unbalanced on a Saturday. If only it was a Monday.

The last dish is pushed out. We turn off the equipment. And do a final round of cleaning.
Everyone speaks of going to grab a beer. To celebrate our accomplishment of feeding 1400 people in one day. We all will end up drunk, and all are already aware of it.

This thing we do is subservient. We must be willing to give our self. And we do because we are all seeking love. Hoping that what we do will give us love back. It never does. Yet we still try every night stupidly like a child waiting on Santa Claus.

We don’t have any pride because its not our menu or ideas. But we do it well for ourselves. We know that we are a team. We don’t want the team to look bad or fail.

So in the end my crew that made your food. Which was the highlight of your night out. Well we are drunks, thieves, liars, drug abusers. Don’t look down on us. For we are still very productive members of society.

We all woke up about 2 or 3 pm that day. Some woke up drunk or hungover and came to work 20 mins late. But we still made your food and made it very well I might add.

Next time you are eating out think of the angry at life broiler cook. The drug free doing it for passion cook. The guy who started cooking 30 years ago for money in between career changes and never left or moved up to management. The guy who is lost and doesn’t know why he does this. The guy who comes to work just for drug money.

We are the collective souls whose hate, pride, misery, addiction, passion and love for food fed you and your date.

New way to an old path

I will forget you

Past pain I will not mention

Forgetting actions

Forgetting memories

I will take the weight

I can hold the pain for us

Do not cry

For it is me that is needed

In a different light

Black as a demon

Changing to be what you need

In a different world

Everything familiar is new again

No trust, no love

It’s a new start to an old path

Walking together again

I will wait

Hope the pieces fall

Where they belong

After all

School lets out at; six feet under.

I thought I knew myself pretty well. Guess it took almost losing a friend and a hard learned lesson to realize something about myself.

I learned that I can be incredibly selfish about my own emotions in time of a crisis. I know it sounds weird but that’s what I learned. I also learned that I need to think more about my actions and how they can affect others. I normally try to do so, but I realize now that I was only looking down the street and not at the horizon, if you will.

The realization that I could lose something so important to me was horrible. It was like having a family member on life support and I was the one who shot them but the family was hiding the secret for me. The fact that I could cause someone pain because of my actions made me realize that I could be a horrible person. That I didn’t want to cause anyone pain. I never want to be the reason for someone’s tears. I do not ever want to build someone up that much with their thoughts of me and break them down. I don’t want cause someone that pain again, I’ve done that too much in my life. So I am doing what I can to learn from that.

I do feel bad about how I had to learn this experience. But with everything comes the chance to learn and not repeat history. I will not repeat history and from today on, I will Obama my life and make a change for the better. 

To those I hurt, I am sorry, I thought doing such a selfish act would somehow make me feel better. But I need not worry about what I need emotional when it affects others emotions and they are going through a similar battle. I need to worry about the group of people and how I could make or break relationships in my life and how they are feeling.

Learning normally comes easy and with little pain to me. This last week has been one of the hardest learning experiences of my life and it was my fault.

School will remain in session and I will learn to become a better man with each passing day.

Killing Jars

Killing dreams, Killing fears, killing time.

Locked in a killing jar, take a breath before your death.

One is many and many is not enough.

Life is cryptic

A lengthy life you will not have

Hate in your heart is worse then a gun in your hand

Let go

Your wants are not your needs

Your needs are unwarranted

I reach out to you but the glass is too thick

You are locked inside

Fate is your puppet

You are the puppeteer

The end is your choice for the start

You always go backwards

You never think of turning around

I was there you couldn’t see me

It will end soon for you

I am the crow

Soul

You have a rendezvous

Terminal

You have a desire

Demise

You have no time

Death

Life lived in killing jar

I have not been able to sleep well for the past few nights. I read something I don’t think I was supposed to read and it is killing me. I can’t stop thinking about the what if and why? I just lay here thinking all the time and nothing I do will help. I think I might by some sleep aides or something, I just lie here almost all night then I finally go to sleep only for a few hours then I am back awake. I’m living in groundhogs day. Something needs to change.

Living my life that is playing like Jumanji

 So things are rolling by smoothly school work is going alright and I am out of a job. Winter is coming and I am supposed to mow the grass tomorrow. I don’t know why.

I’ve been playing video games a lot and I realize my life is a set of patterns that I cannot change. I have two jobs, I lose one. I am employed then I am not. I was doing the same thing this time last year and I am not happy with it. Video games are bitter-sweet for me. They are one of my social outlets, yet having the time to play them mean’s that I am out of work.

I do not like being out of work. But it’s my own fault.

I’m not depressed or upset, I just wish I could find steady employment. If I could make decent money everything would be alright. In time I suppose one is given what they need when they need it and not want they want when they want it.

I do think that one of the worst feelings in the world is knowing that someone is hurting and that you can’t do anything for them. That you are not the one that make them feel better. You lack that one thing they need to make them feel better. You are almost what they need. That feeling is a pretty bad feeling.

I’m excited for Thanksgiving I think that it is going to be a alright. I’m not trying to be overly negative and I am not depressed. But I have had a lot of time recently to think to myself.

If I’m anti-social, why does my D&D clan have 2 members?

I sit here high on oven cleaner fumes and I wonder what makes a memory? How is a memory stored in the brain? I never inserted an SD card.

I was sitting in my room watching tv and thinking. Thinking of nothing important, but a memory hit me that I have forgotten for some time. I remember sitting on the couch and her plopping down next to me. She could have sit anywhere but she sat next to me. 

I looked over at her and she gave me a smile. We sat there for a moment watching tv. I placed my hand on her leg and she gave me a look that said thank you. I remember how pretty she looked in her simple outfit.

The t.v. blared some forgettable program, she got up and went to get a slice of bologna from the fridge she sat back down next to me legs folded under her. The t.v. blared on and we sat there doing nothing or not even speaking. It was a great time.

I miss those little moments, just little simple slips of time where I was very happy, and she was there. She created all of that happiness.

I awoke and she was getting dressed she told me to get out of bed. I told her I would not. She called me lazy and told me to wake up and get ready. That little moment made me smile. I did not want to get out of the bed. I was hoping that she would lay back down and I would get to lay in bed with her all day. That was my favorite thing to do with her. We would lay bed in and watch movies or just talk all day. I could never tell her how much fun I had in those moments. She wouldn’t understand, that it was the highlight of my day.

I sometimes want with everything that I am, to go back to those moments when she was mine. When she looked at me with love. We shared everything and the simplicity of love we shared was amazing. When she loved me I was the most happy I have ever been. Now she doesn’t love me, and well I’m just chasing forgotten memories and false hopes.