Behind the smile

In the middle of the night I’m certain that a smile is present.  I can’t guarantee it.  In the middle of my dreams I can see you.  I can sense a crack in the corner of that smile.  In the dark of this night I wish upon the night to see those eyes.  To see that smile.  I wish upon a corner of this room.  

When the eyelids close the day seems brighter.  The little magic pill does no good when the memory finds its own reason.  The first hour, dream a little tv.  A comedy of errors with laughter upon the changing channels.  The second hour the bright stars keep the brown eyes open.  The world spins, the clock ticks, the hotel room is starting to become home again.

Hour three the magic pill is trying to break the cycle.  Nothing makes sense yet the deep end looks shallow.  All the fears and headaches are making the eyes burn.  The mirror in the bathroom has a stranger starring at it.  Hour four I can see the purple.  I can see the angels.  I can drift away.

Hour five the blood boils and the smile is replaced with frustration.  Don’t have to tell you where the second hand is.  Yet the tears are real, they run down the side of the smile and fill the glass of wine.  I can see an angel smile.  

If I live for tomorrow and my sleep wakes you.  Please let me know about the smile.  It should say what is inside this soul.  It has a definition.  If you sleep and and you should smile then its impossible to refuse.  Dream as if you have arrived but find a reason to stay.  

Hour six nothing stays inside.  There is no cure for insomnia.  Walk around this room studying the walls.  I’m only human and a harvest does not exist for if I shall then vinegar will soak my dreams.  In time age will grant me the peace of another night to dream.  And just maybe, a smile with my eyes closed.  

Dream as if the world knows why you smile.  Live as if only you know whats behind the smile.  Elegantly find the truth.  Sophisticatedly give reason directions.  Scream  softly to those nightmares.  Soak up the beautiful dreams.  Don’t ask me.  Just live.

Hour seven the sun light shines through the hotel curtains.  Another restless night, who needs sleep anyway.   Me!

The right vintage of Bacardi

August 22, 2014, 12:18pm

Important.  Driving faster than this heart beats.  Chasing the sun.  Making sure that the day doesn’t lose the magic of this life.  Motionless.  Without.  

“You can drink your wine.  I will drink this incredible vintage of Bacardi”

In a white room.  In a corner he lay.  Breathless.  Cold.  Lifeless.  All I could think, “Dear God help him.  Help me help him.  Please.”  The energy of his soul floating away.  Finding a better reason.  Dear God had called his angel home.

Such a gentle soul, this man who put a smile in every ones face.  He was the reason I exercised the muscles of this frown yesterday.  He was the reason I believed.  He was “my friend.”  

One hand on top of the other.  The pressure.  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30...breath.  Please God don’t.  

“Feliz Cumple Anos!”  This world can not wash your pain away.  The skin will crawl and it will shed, life will regenerate again.  It will find a way.  

An ordinary bond.  A friendship built over the decades.  Not just an acquaintance.  A friendship that could reach the sky.  You couldn’t reach any higher to the heavens.  A friend for life.  A friend for eternity.  My friend Miguel Pavon.  

A man who lived in the heavens and maneuvered around the highway of the sky.  Humble.  Brilliant.  Generous.  Distinctly a mortal man amongst us to show us mortality.  You could scream at the clouds but he would give you directions.  You could cry with the rain clouds and he would find your puddle of tears.  This was no ordinary man.

12: 40pm  

The flashing lights driving away.  You could see the angels protecting the chariot.  Within the walls was a father, husband, brother, son, and my friend.  I close my eyes and feel your presence.  I feel your soul.  I understand your reason.  

Tonight Rest in Peace my Friend.  See you soon.

Dedicated to my dear friend Miguel Pavon who decided to go have some Bacardi and smoke a cigarette with our creator.

Abandoned

The road rumbled.  The tires wore tread on the asphalt of my childhood memories and my tears cooled the scars.  Looking over at the passenger seat, a man, a father, a husband, a friend, a brother, wore a face of time.  His thoughts lost in time while the quiet calm of a song on the radio slowly spoke to us in volumes.  Looking at the rear view mirror, a lady, a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, covered her sorrow with a blanket.  Her thoughts oblivious to all just to my prying eyes.  Next to her a woman much like my father caught in turmoil to an emotion that both screamed for forgiveness and asked for comfort.

“Dad has anyone called Bobby?”

Somewhere at the end of the horizon is a boy, a man, a father, a son, whose heart is caught between anger, hurt, pain, and more than anything lost in the turmoil of a slowly dissipating heart.  The thought of his abandoned blistering heart aching all of these years of loneliness destroyed every ounce of who I am.  

“Put your big girl panties on!”  

In retrospect there is no difference in the loaf of bread.  Where one is the center and the other is the crust.  One to be devoured and another to be discarded, to be left alone to find a life in this big ole lonely place.  A closed fist with an R on the thumb, an A on the index finger, an M on the middle finger, an O on the ring finger, and an S on the pinky finger.  Marked by a desire to believe in the blood that runs through his soul, the one that helps his heart continue to pulse and give him reason.  The one that gives his children life, the one he inherited from a stranger.

“Dad the two things I remember distinctly about Grandpa, always happened on Sunday mornings.  Going to Kroger’s and listening to his life.  Then driving by this house in a quiet neighborhood and trying so hard to instill in me to protect family.  Introducing me to this little boy, to Bobby.”  I’m so sorry Grandpa...

Never have the words come out of me so shaky.  My hands trembling.  Having to stop.  To control my emotions, to put one letter in front of another.  Yet to hide in a room and walk out as that person.  The one in control of his breathing.  The one who has to face this kid, this man, this father, this son, this lost soul, and explain to him forgiveness as if the last 20 years didn’t exist.  

“I’m sorry Bobby.”

Family.  A thousand miles from where his heart is.  Seeing his eyes and realizing that every line, every scab, every hurt, every time he fell only the strength of his beating heart helped him survive.  To live an existence from the outside looking in.  Where in a room of the same blood, all he sees are bleeding hearts, cold faces, and strangers.  Those incredibly beautiful eyes staring right through me.  Asking me silently, “Why am I here?”  

“I don’t know anyone here!”

Walking around the corner of the hall and turning into room 316 there ironically lay loneliness.  A machine breathing life.  Another one making sure life didn’t fade away.  A battle of emotions brewing inside of me, hurt, loss, pain, and anger.  Reminiscent of a time where the man laying in the same bed breathed so much of the same emotion.  How did I learn to forgive?

“Have a little faith in yourself.”

You don’t have to apologize for him.  You don’t have to apologize to anyone.  You don’t owe anyone...no you don’t owe any of us anything.  We are all from the same man.  A simple yet strong man who a long time ago gave us the responsibility of keeping this together.  I know this and you know this.  He quietly sat with us and introduced us...we were kids, we didn’t know what he was doing.  Its just the way he was.  I’m not asking you to forgive.  You don’t have to.  He knew what kind of children he raised.  He knew what kind of soul you are.  

“Believe.”

I won’t apologize for him.  Leave him alone...right about now, he is alone.  And that is okay with him.  He has been like that all of his life.  He was abandoned by us so FUCKING long ago!  That every FUCKING ounce of who I am realized what type of superficial fucks we are.  My anger is not to this little boy because at the end of the day, he is still that little boy playing outside by himself.  Now he is just this man who has now lost a father he never knew.  

For Bobby Ramos.

Realizing Anniversaries

In life there is always that day.  That day, which is set aside every year to celebrate, ‘the anniversary.’  It is usually a celebration of magnitude, it’s a grandiose event that pulls on the strings of emotion.  ‘Every year on November 5th, bring out the candles, blow up the balloons, get the confetti ready, and pop out the champagne, because its time to celebrate the birth of my soul.’  Okay maybe not but at least its a start to this truth of overindulgence and complicated misguided love for living. 

Each day is made special by your love.  You are truly God’s sweetest blessing endowed upon me.  A classic hallmark moment to celebrate the union of two people.  What is interesting is the stress that is associated with this celebration.   Some put so much emphasis on this annual ritual that lost in translation is the meaning. 

Who can forget the day when those eyes walked into the room.  Confidently arrogant and disgracefully self absorbed the conversation was both over the top, funny, deliciously flirtatious.  What transpired was a lifetime of friendship, a copious amount of freedom in the warmth of two souls.  Well at least that is what the alcohol told me.  

Years later we bump into each other of all things a Hospital waiting room.  The scars of time, the erosion of heart, yet the quiet comfort of those eyes.  The only celebration that day was of life.  No candles, balloons, confetti, champagne, just the celebration of words.  The type of words that provide comfort to the soul.  

Its with in me to describe the anniversary of my soul this way.  This morning I woke up to a stranger in the mirror,  he was not the good looking kid I grew up with.  Life had given this reflection scars, eyes were ironic, smile was jaded.  Who are you?  What has time done with my life?  How can I celebrate the anniversary of my life, yet all I want is to be 21 again.  To be that care free kid who saw the world so differently.  

Recently my parents got married for the second time.  The smile on their faces.  The tears in each others eyes realizing that their hearts were battle worn.  The scars of time had healed all wounds inside of them.  Yet when my nephew serenaded them a simple song that screamed for them, “hey look at us, were still here, were still together.”  This anniversary was special indeed.  My parents survived.

I blinked and life has sped by me without thinking.  Every year I count the blessings of life and am grateful for having the ability to still pee standing up.  I see the receding hairline and see the moments that have taken away my youth.  People always tell you that your only as young as you feel.  Well guess what, FUCK you! 

When I turn 50 and this is a little premature, if I am lucky enough to get to that number.  I know the speech that I would give to myself.  “Today the clock ticked to midnight and this sap found 50.  Wow 50.  I remember when I couldn't wait to turn 21, then that came and went.  Then without realizing I was 30.  At this point I started to scream slow down sunshine, don’t be in a hurry to get to 40.  Then 40 hit and all I could think was what the fuck? And now i’m this sap who is 50.” 

Sure the anniversary of this soul has mileage.  Hell will always remember a comment my mother said about me to one of her friends.  She didn’t know I was in the next room but will always remember.  “He is a very good person just doesn't have it in him.”  Have always called that comment my deepest darkest secret.  Sure I have gone by the road less traveled and at times found reason and at times much like today it aches.  Sure the melancholy of what I feel is what it is. 

During the ceremony walking mom down the aisle I told her, “Mom the car is running if you don’t want to do this.”  Her response filled my heart with hope.  “Well we tried it for 50 years whats a couple more years.”  I realized so much then and today with that comment.  The reality of life slapped me silly when I truly put that comment in perspective.

Then there is the end of life.  At the tale end of celebrating your annual pilgrimage to birth is the complicated thought that somehow every year finds a corner in your brain that screams not many of these suckers left in me.  My grandmother, depending on who you ask is about to celebrate either 92 years of age or 102 years of age.  If your courageous enough to ask her, not only will you meet vanity, but you will meet it with the spice of a woman who still claims to be 35.

When the day comes that my grandmother decides on her terms that its time for her to go tame her soul she will have lived a rich life.  The wealth in her is apparent in her eyes.  Life has stitched itself to her heart, she has gestated living and through the years has given me an annual reason to celebrate her.

Then there is the glory of the living, March 2.  I find a reason to argue with myself that this day should not exist.  Moons ago my nephew passed on, gone to young, yet not a day goes by that he is not missed.  Yet every year on the anniversary of his passing, there is a sense of loss for me.  I don’t see the need to celebrate his passing.  This morbid desire to relive this painful wound by acknowledging his anniversary makes no sense to me.

Anniversaries are interesting indeed.  Read somewhere of a guy that on the anniversary of his divorce he opens a bottle of scotch to celebrate.  Wonder if he were to get married and divorce again if he would open two bottles.  The simplicity and stupidity is amusing.  At my rate I’m gonna need a case of booze.  Move on my friend.  Trust me my friend, I looked for that book, it doesn’t exist, put your big girl panties on and call me.  Will be more than happy to partake my single barrel Jack with you.

Finally my assumption on anniversaries is that we got to keep on living.  We got to keep on fighting and try to cherish every moment that we feel is truly breathtaking.  If it means that we aren’t meant for love then find reason to love more.  If the ONE who owns your heart says NO to you then love them more.  Because in the end its whats inside your heart that matters.  So today all I can say is that I still love YOU!

Dedicated for that person who reminds you to use listerine.  Who constantly tells you that the sleeves on your jacket are too long.  For that person who loves like no other.  

Reason…

I reach with my finger tips and feel like the sky is near.  The wind swirls through the fingers much like a merry go round goes round and round.  Reach for the ground and the finger tips hold on to the toes.  The sudden warmth on this old man’s 47 year old body doesn’t come fast enough.  What happen to the years?  When did my youth take a vacation?  Who approved it?

There was a time where all I had to do was slip on the sneakers and take off.  Not anymore!  There is the stretching of the back.  Laugh it up guys.  Seriously, if the back is not warm, then the pain won’t allow me to run from one end of the room to the next much less a marathon.  The body doesn’t lie anymore, it doesn't hold secrets.  Its a car that needs oil on the joints, or maybe just a change of oil.  Whatever it needs trust that I won’t give in to easy.

The run these days has been nothing short of magical.  5 glorious miles along the banks of the Gironde in Bordeaux.  I slip on the earphones and plug in the iPhone and listen to a new playlist that I created with the simplest of titles, Metro.  The songs range The Black Crowes, ‘Go Faster,’ to the quirky belching of words from Jason Mraz.  Ironically its not the music that makes the run for me rather the thought and emotions that I iron out while the sidewalk paces by. 

And today it was the people along this path that encompassed my thoughts.  My pace well set by the kids in their roller blades showing mom and dad what they could do.  The smile of two friends laughing at some inconsequential thought.  The old man staring at the Gironde with a river of emotion left peacefully by time in the scars of his eyes.  The man holding hands with his lover, not caring that anyone would dare judge them.  The woman holding her daughter tightly as if years had run past her, with eyes lit like stars to shine a light to love.  

Indeed the run gave me perspective on much, a man holding a woman’s hand.  With no prying eyes, skin color didn’t matter, it was a man in love with a woman.  A woman beset by the beauty of the day sitting with her thoughts and music.  A run surreal with life.  

Yet here was this man, quietly being a voyeur in their lives for that split second.  Wondering where in this puzzle of life his thoughts would find eternal rest.  Its amazing that if your lost its certain that you will be found by a heart that gives reason.  

Often accused of being ‘pinche’ for the simple reason that I prefer to do mundane things.  Cutting the grass.  Fixing a small plumbing issue.  Heck, washing my own car.  Or wanting to fix your fan, or even laying down the wood floor in my office.  Not practical, just a moment where those seconds, minutes, hours will cure the bigger issue of my thoughts.  Sometimes its during those moments that I can decipher the bigger question.  

Today running was about looking for my sunset.  A dear friend once explained in words of my fear of this inevitable sunset.  From the forest that hides my burrow, to the stones that shatter my windows, and this thought of giving and never taking, I know what that shadow that follows me wants to say.  So instead I stay a step ahead.  “I can’t write my song, when my strings won’t tune.”

After the run, walking to catch my breath, the thoughts they had a conversation while I sat idol and listened.  This boy of mine, how could I ever re-pay him for the pain I inflicted on him.  Would he ever forgive me?  Yesterday we walked side by side along this path of history, staring at the statues, talking.  Him asking me about life?  Him asking me why?  Him telling me his dreams.  His words, his voice, it broke my soul and today my run gave me reason.  

For Andrew Alexander Ramos…you give me reason.    I love you…Dad

A message in a bottle.

Was reading recently about a man who found a message in a bottle that swept up on the shores while he was walking the beach.  At first glance he thought to himself at the odds.  After inspecting the bottle and having “experts” verify the bottle it seemed that the journey of those words was near its end.  

What the experts realized was that around the late 1800’s or early 1900’s someone at sea decided to write a message and placed it inside the bottle and sent it on its way.  Upon learning that the words bottled up inside this bottle had been lost at sea he decided not to open the bottle and read the message.  

All my instincts would have agreed with this man.  Without the voice behind the words, did they still have a meaning?  Matter of fact this man either died lost at sea or through the grace of God, in time.  I find the notion of inking my soul in words, sometimes so personal that they only find the repetitive voice of a conversation for two by one.  My message in a bottle is when I reach inside to lock it away.

Such a romantic expression of faith in life.  To believe in someone, somebody, so much, that which one uses to protect our inner being is exposed to letters placed in front of one another to form words that cohesively enunciate the raw emotion inside.  

Most treasured stories about finding a message in a bottle are about a lost man at sea sending his one love reason to smile.  Reason to understand the bloated heart within him, letting her realize that in his final moments it was she that filled his soul.  A fairy tale.  Well let me tell you, fairy tales are bullshit!

Sure there is drive to find perfection in our lives.  Some go to great length to find love, to scale the alters of life and find the end of the road.  This past weekend I spent some time, actually fuck it, some painful time realizing the weakness that is within all men.  There was a time when boys idolized their fathers and would sneak in to the closet and put on their boots and walk around the house trying to be them.  Then we turned 13 and the eyes within witnessed the scar that will never heal.

We make a conscious effort to be different.  To not be the wrong that we experienced.  King Lear was not a fool because he wore his heart on his sleeve.  He delved into his inner being and within his own insecurities craved to quash them.  This my friends drove him to madness as it will anyone who fears loneliness.

After reading a little bit about the man who found the bottle it was apparent that he was walking with a memory full of gardens bursting with thought.  His demons, not his instincts prevented him from opening and reading the message.  In retrospect, the reason I agree with him keeping that souls words a secret are very apparent to me.  Its so much easier to bottle up your emotions and not let the world see what is insanely apparent in your heart.  

Instead of finishing this off with what my interpretation of those words bottled up would be, I give you my message in a bottle.

“Don’t think me unkind words are hard to find.  They’re only cheques I’ve left unsigned, from the banks of chaos in my mind.”  If Sting could pen such eloquence with the blood of his heart then far be it for me to sign my name on the dotted line.  Somehow in the silence of time the pieces that I found on the floor were stitched together again to find a semblance.  Now that the waves of emotion crash on the sides of my life its simple for me to say that when the day becomes night, never in the wildest of thoughts did I ever believe that the words of love would ever escape me again.  Its good to feel.  Its incredible to hurt.  Its incredible to love.  My madness is the absence.  May these words find you while my heart still beats.

Me.

And when that man who is walking the sands to find his own reason finds my bottle of Jack Daniels with this message, feel free to throw it back in the water.  Because much like the man who’s boots I walked around the house believing I was him would say, “Pa que quieres una botella seca!”  I am not my father.  I understand that now.  I’m not even sure who I am sometimes, no mystery.  While the sea might have carved out the crevices of my being, its the soul who wants to protect me that should open my message in a bottle.

what if?

what if?

what if life found us on the opposite side?

would you run and hide?

would you see it inside of you to scream?

what if?

what if I told you?

would you stop?

would you listen to my soul?

what if?

what if life never had a sunrise?

would you kiss the sky?

would you sit and wait for it?

what if?

what if the rain drops created a puddle?

would you dip your thoughts in them?

would you realize the shadows of the day?

if forever was bloated with splinters.

bursting, living, bleeding, would you scream?

what if?

what if my hands were sweaty?

would you?

would you sit and hold my hand?

would you?

would you hold on till the sun set?

what if?