wordless

We speak, therefore, we are -
all space and body is lost to us,
and we, the word-wielders, the wordsmiths,
shouting "love" across great distances,
wrapped each night in proverbial arms --
we, built on words.
How odd, for us, to desire that moment
when words disappear.
When the touch of your hand
and the warmth of your flesh
becomes the wordless opening chapter
to the book of my happiness,
and we become the text, realized,
and relish the moment when we
don't have to say anything, at all.

inner rooms

There's something quietly romantic about the thought of you.
The halls of my mind, my inner rooms, become porticos, breezeways.
I become large, doors to you opening, I realize my space and my
potential and connect with you in the very stillness of our words -
and real distance, and real time, and all the corporeal distractions
that people think should matter more, tend to melt away - our bodies
melt away as we become just voices, spirits, ideas, imaginings,
perfect golden beings walking hand in hand along the sunlit
porticos and breezeways that link my inner rooms to yours.

love can build a bridge.

I remember middle school, singing songs
our parents taught us,
no longer swinging on swings but holding on
to everything the older kids taught us was cool.
The wiggers, the skaters, the preps, the freaks.
The misfits. The marginals. The empty spaces.
The empty chairs. The kids that wanted,
but couldn't. The glass window separating us
from the haves. The have class. Have style. Have
friends.
I suppose, looking back, that I can be greatful
for fortitude.
I can appreciate me now, for the me I was so long ago.
Then why do so many people assume the position
of complete regret, for the years
they spent in solitude?
Those of us who couldn't laugh our way
through puberty
look back and attempt to erase it, and make those empty
spaces
and empty chairs
an empty memory.
Perhaps it's true that I can learn and grow.
I know I did.
Regardless of seeing how far I've come...
Does anybody like to look back at where they started?

Spatial dimensions and overheard conversations

"the words of built space, or at least it substantives, would seem to be rooms, categories which are syntactically or syncategorematically related and articulated by the various spatial verbs and adverbs - corridors, doorways, and staircases, for example - modified in turn by adjectives in the form of paint and furnishings, decoration, and ornament .... Meanwhile, these 'sentences' - if that indeed is what a building can be said to 'be' - are read by readers whose bodies fill the various shifter-slots and subject-positions; while the larger text into which such units are inserted can be assigned to the text-grammar of the urban as such" (Jameson 105).

If you know me, you'd know that such examinations of the textuality of space really enthrall me, and caused me to pause my rigorous reading of Jamesons' mammoth text, to sit back and examine the text of my own surroundings. If we're to render the space a text, however, we would have to examine the actual text that exists in these surroundings - namely, overheard conversations of my particular location.

Sitting in Panera, Jameson's lecture on the capitalist notion of post-modernism as it relates to space and architecture is remarkably telling. Panera's text is an incredibly sumptuous and inviting one - yet one that speaks to that certain economic bracket that is a step above fast-food, and, perhaps, a step below the average sit-down gourmet restaurant (after all, Panera is anything but dimly lit). The menu speaks to those who wish to eat healthily, which unfortunately, in our consumption-driven society, speaks once again to a higher financial bracket. Strange, how health becomes a commodity. If the text of the place, and its advertising, invites a certain financial bracket of capital wealth, this might be reified in the conversations I've overheard while sitting silently in the corner, munching on my four-cheese egg souffle and whole-grain bagel, sipping on my coffee.

At one table, a family of four (man and woman, of course, with two children), were visiting with who appeared to me extended family. All well-dressed (must have just come straight from church - amazing how church-dress exhibits its own examples of capitalist commodification...). A few things overheard, regarding Christmas:
Wife: "I need to get some new shoes" (shoes current state of shoes)
Extended relative: "Oh! Yes, you do!"
Wife: "I've had them fixed once before, but I don't think they'll last much longer"
Husband: "And we just went to Harold's to find some - can you imagine some of the prices on those shoes? And I consider myself having a decent job!"

At another table, I noticed two women discussing church matters, and they even prayed over their food. Their conversation seemed to center on helping some person with one thing or another. Now, I'm not against religion. I'm not against church. I'm a spiritual person, and try to go to church when I'm able. So allow me to attempt this into an objective critique, relating to the spatial implications of the clientele. They are extremely well dressed, and the tone of the conversation allowed me to speculate that they occupied a privileged place in society. The religious connotation of Jameson's concept of po-mo and capitalism sends my mind spinning at this point. I just overheard "The church told him 'we're not getting enough new people, so you're out of here'," regarding someone apparently responsible for a budget, or "revenue." How telling is this regarding the importance of commodification and capitalism within our very religion?? Commodification of religion within commodification of image, within commodification of place/people/wealth/space. The language of Panera does, in fact, reify the notion of commodification - proven by the clientele that surrounds me.

As a disclaimer, I know it's rather odd for me to be eavesdropping in conversations. But, reading Marxist theory, the mind is prone to search for any and every distraction possible :-). And, of course, this doesn't ring true for everyone that comes in here (I'd love to consider myself exempt, but I'm not sure if I can). Just some interesting thoughts I thought I'd write down, so I wouldn't forget I had them ;).

My grief observed:

He was right; you went away,
slowly at first, but faster and faster
with time, with memory, with grief,
I exhale your absence more and more
until there is nothing left
to breathe but air, and
My writing becomes a flashlight shining
back into your empty spaces,
now my empty spaces,
the voids you will no longer fill,
the maps you wrote into existence
that still hang on the walls of my
history, still asking me to follow them
after all these years, even when
you are no longer there to point your
finger in the way you felt I ought to go.
You’re gone still, and even the writing
seems unreal, and even the thinking
and pondering and dreaming you back
when you cry in my sleep that you
didn’t want to let go,
you’re still gone, and it’s not you here
it’s nothing but me
and my empty pages, shining lights
into empty spaces.

"Being Gay": A Response to Conservative, Religious Ideology

The following is a series of responses I gave in a debate with a conservative Christian on my feelings towards the right-wing view of the "homosexual agenda," and how conservatives view homosexuality. I strung them together to form a coherent narrative for the sake of my blog...

'Tis a sad state to be in if you realize that the life you were born into (read: I did not choose this), is a life that God is keeping you from. I don't buy it. I think it's easy for people to say "well, I can choose to act or not to act on my own temptations, and so can you" but then when they agree that being attracted to the same sex isn't a choice, they're essentially stating that they have an "easy way out," as in, God legitimizes heterosexual relations, but regardless of the fact that I may have been born with this, I either have to conform to heterosexual norm (which God knows I've tried), or remain celibate for the rest of my life, even though (let's be honest), I've been created as a sexual being, the same as every one of us. It's a precarious oxymoron that I intend to study and pick to pieces as much as I can (I'm the analytical type), because nothing, in my opinion, is as black and white as it may at first seem.

The fact that so many right-wingers are coming to the realization that people don't CHOOSE to be gay, they only choose to be honest about it, reveals an oxymoron, or conundrum in our society. What corner, what niche, has been carved in the norm of heterosexual society for the likes of myself, and people like me? Where do I fit in, except to be told that, though many agree I was born this way, I don't get to enjoy the fulness of life planned for those who were privileged to be born heterosexual?

Furthermore, if it's not a sin that I'm a homosexual (i.e., agreeing I was born this way, and that my existence as a gay individual isn't a "sin"), but God's made a way out of my being a homosexual, through those "pray-the-gay-away" support groups, because it's sinful (let's face it, why else would there be those support groups?), then isn't that obviously contradictory? Either being a homosexual in and of itself is a sin, and there's a "way out," or being a homosexual is not a sin, and I'm caught in just a really sad life-long predicament, according to conservative ideology. That doesn't quite make sense. Also, going back to my last statement, many people are claiming that God trapped me in this -- if I was indeed born with it -- with no hope of experiencing the same fulfillment of life as the heterosexual crowd, because I wasn't lucky like they were, to be born heterosexual. So we should either agree that I'm just out of luck, so to speak, as I was born this way, or believe I wasn't born this way, and that being attracted to men at all (aka, being gay) is intrinsically sinful. Unless there's something in the conservative point of view I'm not seeing.

I'm not as confused nor as frustrated as many religiously conservative people might think I am. I'm very solid in my beliefs in God and what he has planned for my life, even though it's been turned upside down so recently. I certainly don't consider myself a "lost" sinner. I know a lot about where I come from, what I believe, who I am, and the basics of what God expects from me. Any doubt or confusion I feel is part of a growing experience to bring myself closer to who I need to be. Furthermore, to refute the conservative argument, I don't regret what I've been purportedly "dealt." My only problem would be for those arguments which I don't quite think are as founded as they need to be. I don't feel bad, knowing that I've been created as a gay human being. I feel bad for those that hypocritically reject us and treat us as sub-human. There are obvious detriments to acting on alcoholism, which is a common argument to explain the sinful nature of homosexual actions - but what are the detriments to being actively gay? Most argue it is "unnatural," but then, if the natural relations of man and woman occur because of procreation, then anyone who uses birth control is sinning - and using the argument, "well, because God says so," is blind faith, which I don't condone in any one's spiritual walk, and I may disagree on that point with others. Some might argue that gay sex is sex outside of marriage, and that's one reason it's wrong - but gay people aren't allowed to get married, so we don't even have a fighting chance to begin with.

The scripture in Romans, regarding the "unnatural lusts" associated with homosexuality, infers that I'm gay because I turned my back on God. If others agree I was born this way, then again, are they saying I'm "out of luck" based on the sins of my fathers and forefathers? Didn't Jesus negate that argument when the disciples asked him, regarding the blind man, "Who sinned? He or his parents?" I don't know if I can accept that those scriptures are telling me that I'm gay because I turned my back on God. I'm very much still a moral, upstanding person of faith. What, then? Others bring up 1 Corinthians 6, and we can argue the semantics of Paul's passage, and the greek word he uses that we translate as "homosexual," and what that word referred to in the original greek. There is much debate over the 1, 2, 3 verses (?) that target homosexuality in the Bible. And please, let's not point out Leviticus, either. If we no longer stone our children for disagreeing with their parents, we can't really use it as a valid argument against present-day social practices.

Abstract food for thought, of course. I enjoy being theoretical.

le destitute

I could never clean my plate of
all the poetry you dropped onto it.
I could never take the words you
gave me and mold them into something
that could feed as many as you always
did. I could never take what
I was given and make it beautiful
enough for me to care as much
as you could. I could never finish
my portion of words, put them
together fashionably enough
to sell at gourmet restaurants
like stringed beans: metaphors,
similes, hyperboles, comitatus.
Do with them what you will, I'll
remain the child outside in the
sandbox, making mudpies with
my words that will always fall apart
as soon as my fingers are lifted.
Because I never saw myself as good
as the master creator you showed
yourself to be, when you gave me
the first words I ever spoke.