[perfectlytriumphant]

Dialogue to Me

Every night, we end up at Snappy's. It's a funny name, one that used to draw giggles from us when we heard our brothers mention their hanging out there. "What a joke," we thought, "Who hangs out at Snappy's?" But there we were, wearing faded Nike sneakers and beads of sweat on our foreheads, pacing silently on the asphalt next to a giant green statue of Snappy the Turtle. Nick stared into it's hollow green eyes. He taps his elbow with mine as we sit down on the edge of my trucks bed. "What do you think he's staring at?" Nick asks, still glaring. "I don't know, man. Maybe some dude just painted his eyes like that because he was ordered to." I wasn't really in the mood. "He's gotta be staring at something. He just stands there, smiling and waving all day long. Poor dude never gets the favor returned." Nick was almost depressed about it. He smiled and waved at him, then glanced at the cup in his hand and took a drink. "I feel bad for a turtle statue. I could be a case study." I'd stopped listening. A loud couple was arguing a few cars down, and seeing as we were sitting in the trunk, their argument was heard easily. Even Nick stopped talking. "But why are you even following her? Am I not enough for you, Sam?" The women was talking in between sharp hics and bouts of crying. "I didn't know this would upset you so much, Stace. I can unfollow her right now..." "You don't understand. You...you don't care. Ever." "Stace," He quietly put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't touch me." She said, shrugging his hand off. I suddenly recognized the voices. It was Sam Hunter and Stacie Parks, the Prom King and Queen. Nick and I looked at each other with wide eyes. He laughed, showed me his empty water bottle, and jumped out of the truck to get water from the gas station water fountain next to Snappy's. He would have to cross the street, and I just didn't have the energy to follow him. Nick was one of those kids that never got into drama like the rest of the school seemed too. It was all beneath him, and he knew it. I laid down in the bed of the truck after watching him wait at the intersection for 2 minutes. My backpack would serve as a good pillow for now. Laying my head down with a quiet sigh, I found the sky perpendicular to me, a canvas of bleach white clouds accented in pure blue. I never would have thought the postcard high school relationship would have turbulence because of Twitter. It's not even 2 P.M and I have a story to tell. Not a bad start to a Wednesday.

[perfectlytriumphant]

Trashed

“Yes ma’am,” I rattled off half-heartedly as I trudged up the stairs, “I’ll take out the trash.” My footsteps were light and sarcastic, each creak of the floorboards seemed full of false enthusiasm for this meaningless task that my mother was having me do. Taking out the trash has always been the atypical teenage chore, right along side doing the dishes and mowing the lawn. It’s busy work. We must be drilled in the art of pointless labor, the kind we get no reward from. No reward, no special treatment, no practical skills learned. The only real lesson I picked up from the countless hours spent drudging around my room cleaning is that an apple will keep in a teenage boys messy room somewhere between one and two days, and nobody’s gonna eat it at that point anyway. A person’s trash can says a lot about them. These are the small things that paint a big picture. The water bottles he is drinking in order to be hydrated for football or the ink pens that stopped working while writing late into the night. I am not keen on trash, just as I am not keen on taking it out. I suppose those seemingly pointless hours spent cleaning and vacuuming and dusting really just taught me how life would be. Whole days spent drilling for what happens when we’re no longer asked to take out the trash. It’s pointless work that gets us nowhere. We learn to spot it early.

[perfectlytriumphant]

There is an old man sitting at a dinner table, alone. His house is furnished with worn wooden shelves and various cabinets with glass windows. There is a picture of a smiling family on the dinner table facing the man. In the kitchen, a gallon of milk sits on linoleum countertop, quietly yellowing. It is night time, and outside there is no noise but an occasional car engine down the dusty dirt road adjacent to his house. The old man is sitting in front of a cake and a telephone. "Happy Birthday!" the cake reads excitedly. He lifts a lighter to the lone candle on top and attempts to light it. He is having trouble. His fingers do not work like they used to. He'd driven to the store to pick up the cake himself, a long running tradition in the family. The old man is dressed up. He is even wearing his favorite pair of black dress shoes that his wife had bought him back in 1995 at a Macy's department store. "You always looked so good dressed up," She used to say to him sometimes with a sly smile,"I think it's part of the reason I married you." The old man sets down the candle and glances at a picture of his wife on the wall. In the photo, the old man is sitting next to her, and they are both smiling brightly at each other. He is staring at her bright brown eyes and her short pointy nose. She should have been sitting next to him, holding his hand and smiling that same smile he had loved for 50 years. The front door is unlocked. He has been watching the telephone all day, waiting for anyone to call him. Nobody has. He woke up hoping that today his family would stop by and wish him a happy birthday tell him they love him. He would hug his grandchildren and they would hug him back. But instead, he woke up to a cold bed and an empty answering machine. The clocks ticking loudly in the living room, and the old man is still fumbling with the lighter. Finally, the bright orange and blue flame explodes out, and he brings it to the waxy wick. It dances above the white frosting and red letters. He weeps silently, singing the birthday song to himself above a cake that cannot be shared. The old man blows out the candle quickly, without a wish. He is alone at the dinner table, but still he cuts one piece for each member of his family and slides it slowly across the table to where he imagined they'd be sitting. He slides one to his wife's empty seat and one to his sons. He slides one to his daughter in-law and two to his grandchildren. The clock in the living room reads 9:58 P.M. He cuts a piece for himself, and promptly lays his head down on his crossed arms. The old man is silent, and so is the old rotary house phone that sits next to him. Crying won't make his family care. Happy birthday, Grandpa. Happy birthday, Dad.

[observando]

[perfectlytriumphant]

Woodchips In My Shoes, Remember?

Do you remember being in elementary school? Do you remember being told to line up and do you remember running to the bathroom? Do you remember how heavy your backpack felt when it was stuffed with books from the book fair? Do you remember that pottery you'd proudly show your parents because the teacher had complimented it? Do you remember throwing it away? Do you remember your first crush and how awful it was having a seat all the way across the room? Do you remember chewing gum and getting chewed out? Do you remember when the crush ended? Do you remember the times when Nick had thrown a rock at you and how perfectly awful you'd felt sitting alone on the swing set? Do you remember how the wood chips would always stick to your socks and do you remember how you'd spend all of Math class diligently picking them clean? Do you remember spitting contests and kickball? Do you remember your teachers, the good and the bad? Do you remember how their husbands sometimes dropped off food for them? Do you remember fevers and soup? Do you remember drawing stick figures on your spiral notebook? Do you remember sex ed? Do you remember listening? Do you? Do you remember your parents pestering you about homework? Do you remember doing your homework? Do you remember graduating elementary school? Do you remember not being cast for the school play? Do you remember watching in the very back of the auditorium? Do you remember how you'd cried? Do you remember your friends and how perfectly free we'd been? Do you remember riding your bike to their houses on sticky summer days and cold winter mornings? Do you remember how your breath hung in the air the first time you kissed a girl? Do you remember how you'd thought that maybe she could hear your heart beating through your chest as you reached for her hand at the movie theater with your mom three rows back, asleep? Do you remember how much her smile seemed to change you? Do you remember how perfect it seemed, like the teeth were never made to be hidden in a frown? Do you remember how the sun had caught her golden hair and how you'd known right then that you'd never be the same? Do you remember when she stopped asking to hang out? Do you remember wanting to confront her? Do you remember when she'd stopped responding? Do you? Do you remember how you would see her wherever you went? Do you remember how you began to like the classes whose classrooms were close to her's? Do you remember staring at your ceiling? Do you remember feeling empty? Do you remember asking to get a drink of water and hoping she would also? Do you remember watching her smile fade whenever she saw you? Do you remember how she dropped her eyes to avoid yours? Do you remember what her friendship had felt like? Do you? Remember how bitter that first beer had tasted? Remember how drunk you were? Remember throwing up on the sidewalk under a full moon? Remember how your friends had carried you home? Remember how love seemed so trivial? Do you remember when you wrote an essay and the teacher had used it as an example of bad writing? Remember how you couldn't love? Remember your first car? Remember the red and blue lights in your rear view? Remember your first time having sex? Remember how you wished you'd waited? Remember that night you spent at the park watching the quiet blue infinity move under black water? Remember the orange glow of a joint silently moving through white smoke? Remember visiting the nursing home for the last time? Do you remember failing a class? Remember how that teacher had called you a moron? Do you remember getting an A? Remember calls going straight to voicemail? Remember how the bass from the speakers at Kid Cudi seemed to move your heart, literally? Do you remember your first college letter? Do you remember your last? Remember losing friends? Do you remember glowing computer screens and red eyes at 1:00 A.M? Do you remember wrist cramps and college applications? Do you remember what is required? Do you remember driving to the hospital because your friend was dying? Remember how dramatic Nick was? Do you remember your first day of high school? Do you remember how fast high school went by? I don't remember any of this. Do you?