Catharsis

User’s Lament

You were supposed to be my anti-drug, a reason for me to stay sober.

Yet I see you cringe a lot, as if my touch got colder.

When I see me I think of you more than I’d really like. 

When I think of you, I feel subdued under your cataleptic light.

Fiends, goblins, and incubi may serve the purpose to terrify,

none are as scary as you to I,

none scarier than your empty eye.

 

 Your empty heart.

I should have known from the start,

 I could never play the part of all that’s absent in your soul.

An always hungry selfish hole; not filled through any other hole.

 Justification and manipulation.

 Exclusion of details that make the difference. 

In clever ways it’s made to be me,

a pathetic one with delusional dreams.

It was never so, it never happened.

Am I to accept, or shall I challenge?

Either way I’m left alone.

It’s for the better but not at all.

I won’t be pathetic for longer more,

but for now I retreat to what I know.

The grass is green, but the white’s not snow.  

A foreign place you dare not go.

I couldn’t handle your mercurial state,

so now I’m back to what I hate.

What I hate is what I need,

To once again fill the hole you could not.

Beware the demon with angels face.

they’re in every town,

every place.

Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud!

            I remember having an extremely strict and nasty after school bus driver. He was only my bus driver during the fall when I had soccer after school.  Whenever children were loud in the back he would shout and make snide remarks about them. One thing I noticed about the kids whom he was yelling at was they were almost exclusively black.  After noticing that most of his targets were black students, I took extra care as a black boy to act respectful and always be on my best behavior on that bus. I was quiet and never did anything that could result in any type of conflict between me and this white, bald, overwhelmingly large man. 

            One day, while making his routine shouts to the back of the bus, one of the black students decided to challenge the driver just before getting off at his stop. While shouting at the same level as the driver the boy left the bus angrily. While the boy was leaving the bus driver yelled, “I’m glad to see you are taking a foreign language!” in reference to the black boy’s way of speaking.

Under his breath the bus driver proceeded to make racial slurs and say demeaning things. As of that day it occurred to me that I had irrationally feared what this racist bus driver thought of me. By taking extra care to be quiet and be respectful, I was just making sure that I didn’t fall into his stereotype of blacks. “Why should I care what he thinks?” I thought to myself.

“He’s just a bus driver, who is he to judge me?” After thinking about the situation I was in, I realized that I shouldn’t go out of my way to please a man who follows ideals of bigotry and racism.

The thing that kept bothering me was this thought in my head that was asking me what I should do about it. I quickly dismissed the notion of acting the part of the stereotype in order to “stick it to the man.” But in my final decision I agreed with myself that I would act as I do normally and ignore any response from him positive or negative.

I knew I couldn’t erase the stereotypes from the man’s brain, but I did know what I could do. I could continue my academic excellence in school, do well in sports, and strive to be the best in everything that I did. By doing this I would be showing him that he had no superiority over me, and in the future as a successful black man in America I would be disproving every stereotype he or any other person has.

Such an experience taught me that there is no way to destroy stereotypes. As ignorant as it is, it is still a part of humanity that will exist for a very long time to come if not forever. The only way you can overcome this bigotry is to be the best person you can be and prove them all wrong.

 

We Are Beautiful Animals

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger a brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people sharing all the world. You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.

John Lennon,

Imagine

            There was one event in my life that truly made me appreciate nature’s beauty. This was the time I went camping with my cousins in Minnesota. Initially I thought it was just going to be another occasion I got to spend with my extended family; I was wrong, this trip changed my outlook on life and my own lifestyle.

            When my cousins and I arrived in the woods of Minnesota, we were looking for the cabin we arranged to stay at.  We were surrounded by trees, greenery, dirt, and what I hated most of all, bugs.  I don’t hate all bugs, but the concentration of mosquitoes in this area was of a ridiculous and menacing nature. We walked along a solemn dirt path for what seemed like a mile until we reached the ever-longed for cabin. It was made of a magnificent wood and design that forced you to give respect to who ever built it.

            In the cabin I went to the room that I shared with two other family members and started unpacking my suitcase. My suitcase consisted of clothes, insect repellent, my fishing gear, grooming and washing materials, my laptop, and my most importantly my iPod.  At the time I really didn’t know that I would have no use, or even time for the latter two materials.

            The first day we didn’t do much besides eat dinner and talk around the fire. There was no electricity in the cabin so watching TV was definitely not an option. My cousins and I cooked fresh food consisting of garden veggies and a lamb fillets that they bought from a market. This dinner along with talks around a fire contributed for a very enjoyable night. The initial shock of being so disconnected from the hubbub and clockwork chaos of the world around me would take some serious acclimation, but it was humbling and more than anything…splendid.

            I woke up the next morning to the refreshing smell of dew and the beautiful sights and sounds of the woods. I saw a brilliantly colored woodpecker pecking at a tree that stood at least 20 ft tall, and I heard all the different types of birds sharing their secrets to one another. The wildlife intrigued me so much that I opened a book of local wildlife that was sitting in the vast collection in the main room of the cabin. I then made it my duty to catalog all the creatures I saw or heard.

            After cooking a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, we set forth to fulfill our agenda. First on the list was to go fishing and swimming in the nearby stream. On the way there I was attacked by ravenous mosquitoes, but eventually I got used to it. I recorded a toad and chipmunk in my catalog, but no animal of real importance.

            While fly fishing in the stream, I caught a beautiful trout that I could tell was as unhappy to see me as I was to see it. While reeling him in I realized that through his mouth I also hooked his eye and he was in terrible pain. Every time I tried to yank the hook out he twitched in agony, so I lay him in my bucket of water as is and decided that his fate was to be dinner tonight. Ignoring the unpleasant thought of a creature of God in pain because of my doing, I proceeded to go swimming with my cousins to quell my anxiousness. We all took turns swinging on an old rope and splashed into the clear-water stream. The feeling of the cold water, muddy sand beneath my feet, and heat from the summer sun was enough to convince me I was in paradise.

            Later that same day we engaged in a nature walk to see the various flora and fauna the woods intended us to see. Walking beside my family with none of the worries of school or other affairs was extremely therapeutic and made me feel as if I would never have to go back to civilization. At the time I would have wanted to stay in those woods forever, living carefree and enjoying all the beauty Mother Nature provided for me.

            On the walk I spotted various fungi and plants that were extremely pleasing to look at, nothing you would ever see in the suburbs or city. But the thing that made the walk really worth it was the spotting of a Canada Lynx. The animal was either a Canada Lynx or a Bobcat, but to me it didn’t matter, it was magnificent. While this predatory cat could have inflicted some damage on us, something about it said “I am at peace, I have no reason to hurt you and you have no reason to hurt me.” It stared at us intensely for a good minute then slowly and relaxingly walked away into the woods.

            After enjoying a delicious trout dinner that night, I thought to myself in my bed, “how could something so beautiful be right under my nose? Why can’t I live her all the time?” I still sometimes ask myself those questions when reflecting on the trip, and every time my mind wonders and imagines the beauty of the Minnesota woods before I can bring myself to answer them.

            Before I knew it, a week had passed, and it was time to leave this Zion, this heaven on earth.  While packing my suitcase to leave, I realized over the course of one week I never once used my laptop or iPod. Before the trip I would have never contemplated not using technology for more than a few days, but after the trip I wanted nothing more than no technology ever. I’m not really sure if my cousins enjoyed the trip as much as I did, but I know for me it represented a pivotal change in my philosophy towards life as well as an escape from the everyday stresses put on us by society. The connection of the mind, body, spirit, and nature is one that can never be fully broken. Deep down in all of us we share this profound respect for all things living around us no matter how far the manufactured psychosis society has put on us pushes us away. We. Are. Animals.