Heat Death

There. Upon the judgement day or the end of all time. Upon the heat death of the universe or the return of Christ, we stand in front of ourselves.

Your religion?

I answer.

No matter.

You still sided with greed and hate.

You used something constructed for some purpose to hate or reduce others.

You focused on skin or intelligence or background.

You focused on things that were like money to a drowning man. And you all drowned.

You found saviors in people more flawed than you, made God into an idea you could consume.

If there is a gate here, why is this allowing you but dismissing a million others that don’t speak your language?

If there is love here, why should you receive it if you hated your fellow people?

You forgot to hate only the sin and hated the people themselves, but they are just like you, finding a way in a dark vastness.

We loved you and you chose hate. And thus that is the way the universe ends, with a mirror that refuses to show itself.

Squint

I’m there.

If you really focus and disconnect.

If you sigh with a gasp.

If the past is visible and wanted,

while being lost and discarded.

I am there.

I am in between the words you can’t quite remember, and the memories you didn’t make.

People, in their endless sunset, discard and hold me at a distance.

But I am there, saying divine revelation in encrypted and deadened mumbling.

A Metallic Ting

Memories are distant and impulsive things. Tom, I remember your basement. I remember spending the night there and working on a fort in the woods. I remember riding bikes and attempting to ride down a plank from the barn, where I fell and my feelings of nervousness were valid.

I remember the musty smell of the basement but also the feeling of slight comfort knowing your family was wealthy by comparison. I know others badmouthed you sometimes but I was fine.

I remember the pool, which I found lavish and completely out of reach for me, and how sliding down the slide was exhilarating, at least until I hit the dry patch and felt the burn of the summer heat.

Memory will eat all of us. We live in that space, with what ifs and possibilities control our minds. There’s a billion of them, full of regret and joy that we with to return to.

Salisbury Steak, Myst, and Loss.

The mind is a beautiful, awful thing. While I recently was watching a play through of a Myst game, I had a realization that was more distinct than most.

Growing up, I had a close friend. Someone I trusted and felt fine with sharing the awkward and equally uncomfortable aspects of growing up. I still carry memories of their house, the forts we made and the names we gave them. One spot, in a piney tree in and adjacent woods, was the leisure spot.

I remember how sad he was when in grade school, a girl didn’t show up to dance with him. I remember a spelling bee when I was in the lead and he alluded to how God had helped me find the answers. I remember a time when (upon eating a candy that was shaped like glue) and we got reported for snorting it (again, which we didn’t do), we had to write an apology message during recess.

I remember the hunger craving the cheap Salisbury steak and how I always wanted another can of Josta soda. I still do. And how going to a convention with his family, I tried bear jerky, alligator jerky, and several others. I remember the cold pizza for breakfast before a day at a theme park where I didn’t want to ride the tall rides.

Playing Myst with him and seeing the early internet. Listening to a recording of George Carlin and finding the offensive language fun and shocking. His family having a hot tub, and his moving away as we talked of Nintendo 64.

I remember these things clearly but I also remember drifting apart. How when going swimming at a riverbank with my cousins, he tried beer, and seemed focused on just having access to such things. Most of all I remember the moment of realization that a friend didn’t want to be with me so much as the things around me. I remember that loss.

It’s a terrible feeling to feel like an extra piece in someone else’s chase for satisfaction, and I stopped calling them. The friendship eventually dissolved over time. I don’t know what happened to them or if we would have stayed close had I followed the same vices and thoughts. But I still remember that distinct pain of not being wanted, and it’s stuck with me, though I’ve grown to understand personal wants and needs

Ripples in the Ocean

They will see the hurricanes.
And they will notice the waves

But we, the few, see the drops on the waters
Among the tideless days.

They will hear of the storms that ravage the coasts.
But those closeby will watch the ripples on once still waters.

They will say the ocean is endless and vast.
We witnessed the splash of water into our boat,
and the warmth of the water as it touched our feet.

This moment is not as the books say nor as the news reports to the masses. This moment, and it’s importance is the fading breeze that briefly cooled my exhausted skin.

Only the few can see the rain in its close, relaxed hydrology. Only a few can see the many ripples that echo outward to the countless shores of the oceans.

Simulacrum

I stand here

myself and another

distantly trying to whisper words into your ear,

trying to dry the tears from my eyes

I try to cement the feeling of loss

into some monument of memory

so that whoever stumbles upon it,

with their idle tasks buzzing in their head,

will know that there was a heart there,

a feeling and a life that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Capgras syndrome replaced us all,

bit by bit and day by day.

A lack of action erasing the actions we took,

and a single action immobilizing us.

We struggle to know,

when we lift a finger to point at the sunrise

or a bird landing in a tree beautifully silent,

that our choices have meaning and weight.

That ache

when the wind stops and the world is muted,

is reason for us knowing the worth of it all.

Where we see the light through branches,

and know the peace

of silently touching someone’s head

to comfort them,

we find our honest reply.

Slow Walk into Spring

I love seeing the small signs of seasonal changes. Perhaps the most refreshing of these is when trees begin to sprout again.

Every season has its own unique feel to it. While not here yet, the smell and feeling of cooler morning air on my skin before a hot summer’s day is the one I find most nostalgic.

Ghost of Autumn

The air keeps holding on to the faint edges of summer. The spider lilies, their vibrant shade of lipstick color that signaled the rains and change of season have withered. Fragrant olive blossoms, with their pungent aroma have begun to sneak their way out. Fall is both coming and here.

It slowly begins pulling over us like a blanket being pulled up upon us, until it finally, coolly covers our entire body.
The daytime hasn’t yet realized the season, but the nights, with their crispness and aroma carries with it the scents of a home cooked meal after a long day and the leaves that have forgotten their home upon the trees.

Even on foreign soil, fall brings to mind the nostalgia of holidays with family that aren’t here. It reminds me of hot apple cider with pungent cinnamon. Faintly, I can smell the first snow somewhere that was erased by the cold fall rain that came before anyone even woke in the morning.

All these moments of nostalgia are coated with gratitude. As much as I miss the smell of decaying leaves and wood from where I was born, I have become to be more comfortable and loving of the signs of fall locally. Both are a part of me now, neither more worth than the next.

Progress is exhausting

I am on my 8th year in Japan. To give a bit of backstory, I always show up early, put in extra effort and haven’t even taken a single sick day in the entire time I’ve been here. I go out of my way to help my students and the staff that work in the offices with the teachers. I even try to minimize the amount of work other teachers have to deal with since I normally know how things work so I can get things prepped pretty easily.

With COVID 19 being a major concern this year, I’ve cleaned tables, checked student’s temperature as they show up and done as much as I could to make them more comfortable regardless of how stressful everything has been for 2020.

Recently, I’ve been looking at labor law and rules concerning employment. In the 8 years, cost of living has gone up considerably, sales tax itself has doubled, work requirements have expanded and there is an endless amount of other details that have just naturally popped up.

What concerns me is that in this time, prices for students have jumped as well, but salary remains flat. Despite more work and growing skills, the treatment from an employment perspective are the most disheartening.

As a foreign resident living in Japan, it’s easy to see the imbalances. Japanese employees get regular bonuses or raises to allow them to have families, buy houses, get cars and otherwise just live more easily. As a foreigner, I have seemingly no access to those benefits. Hence, that’s why I’ve been looking at requirements but there is little protection for the occupation I have and little for the industry in a part of.

This entire ordeal has grown my sense of empathy toward foreign workers. While people in my position know that advancement would allow me to enjoy life more and improve my quality of life (in addition to helping me feel my job is worthwhile). But it always seems that the least hungry will always have the easiest access to food. The starving will almost always have to bare hunger pangs.

It’s difficult to have faith in systems when those systems forget you or walk all over you. Thus I can comprehend the difficulty of foreign workers in the USA. It’s not so much about a lack of a fair system, it’s that we are told the system is fair while knowing full well that system is consuming all of us.

I hope it gets better, and I can actually stay above water.