Holiday

An old man is going through a box of chocolates on the dining room counter. All his favorites are taken. He tries to decide between coconut or cluster. He can't. He mutters something about how this always happens. He wishes he had his own box with only ones he likes in it.

His wife is baking sugar cookies in the kitchen. The smell wafts through the house. She has cookie cutters set out for when they are done baking. She loves making shapes out of cookies. She has a christmas tree and a santa and a star. Her favorite is santa. She has small colored candies to put on them. She likes how pretty they look when she is done.

Her grandsons are in the living room. They are watching Roadrunner on television. They are laughing at Wile E. Coyote as she brings in the fresh baked cookies. They quickly snatch them up. Her husband comes in from the dining room. He complains that all his favorite chocolates are gone. She offers him a cookie. They both sit down with their grandsons to eat cookies and laugh at Wile E Coyote.

Ted

My brother Ted and I stood watching the streams of silver moonlight bob amongst the dark waves. The sudden crashes as the waves reached shore gave way to a soothing retraction. I had always liked to think of this as nature's way of apologizing for Ted's mute existence, for words were lost in the rhythmic roar.

We often visited this beach late at night, when the gulls were sleeping and would not interrupt our thoughts.

"Wanna go skinny-dipping?" I asked him. I didn't wait for him to nod his head; I was already stripping off my shirt. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him doing the same. This was a nightly ritual of ours. No one was ever around this time of night.

We approached the water, let it lap at our feet for a few seconds before wading in. The water was warm and I could see the silhouettes of fish scatter as we walked. As the waves reached my waist, I dove in and swam out a few yards. I surfaced, watching as Ted lazily floated towards me on his back.

"Let's race to the buoy," I yelled. I turned around and quickly swam out, envisioning a drowning child in dire need of help, a helpless, crying child whose lungs were quickly filling with water whose hands and feet were tangled in seaweed who was pale and decrepit and silent before I could reach him. I treaded water as I waited for Ted to catch up, his stroke smooth and exact.

"We were going for speed, not form," I say with a smile. He gives me the finger and we both start to laugh. "So how are things with Mary or Maria or whatever the hell her name is? Have you guys kissed yet?"

He smiles at me. "For real?" I ask. He nods and we start laughing again. "I told you it would happen, but damn, took you long enough."

As we treaded water, I remembered back to my first kiss. I was in the fifth grade and her name was Grace. We were sitting cross-legged at the top of the slide during recess. It was one of the most awkward moments of my life, but I had felt like I had climbed Mt. Fuji and single-handedly wiped out the Nazi army all at once. I remember boasting to my friends back in the classroom, how they wanted to know what it was like and if I was a good kisser, as if I would know such things. I was made king of the class that day as word got around, but a week later, things returned to normal, I returned to normal, and Grace was found kissing another boy at the top of the slide.

My arms started to burn. We had been treading water for a while. "Let's go back to shore," I said in Ted's general direction. He had drifted a bit and his head looked like a piece of driftwood floating in an endless sea of black water. We swam on our backs towards shore.
We put our pants back on, but remained shirtless. I pulled out a pack of American Spirits and took out two cigarettes, giving Ted one and putting the other between my lips. "You got a light?" I asked Ted. He presented a matchbox and cleanly lit one, offering me the small flame before lighting his, cupping his hand around the match. There was a slight breeze coming from over the lake that hindered our efforts of blowing smoke rings.

I had smoked my first cigarette at the age of thirteen. I snagged a pack from my mother one day. She bought boxes of Malboro Reds that were always around the house. I knew she wouldn't notice, and she didn't. Ted and I would skip sermons at church and smoke them behind the big white building with a big white cross that towered over us. Mother forced us to go to church every Sunday, though she avoided it herself like the black plague. She said it was a good influence on us, and God knows those are hard to come by these days.

We finished our cigarettes, putting them out in the sand, burying them like Ted buried his past. I remembered the day when my mother sat me down for a talk.

"You're going to be a big brother in a few days," she had said. I didn't understand. She didn't look like my friend Ben's mother did, who had the same talk with Ben, which he told me about later that day as we fried ants with my magnifying glass. She was big and round in the belly. Mother looked the same; her stomach was as flat as it always was.

She could see the puzzlement in my eyes. "We are adopting a boy. His parents are not very nice and he needs a new home. His name is Ted, and he is seven, like you. I'm sure you guys will get along. He is coming over later for a few hours to get used to things," she explained. I was about to run off when she added, "There is something else you should know about Ted; he can't talk. When he gets here, be a good boy and don't make fun of him. Take him outside and play with him."

At school, kids would make fun of Ted, call him dumb, taunt him. My friends would join in, asking me why my mother adopted him. I avoided him at recess, sat as far away as I could in class. I resented him, taking sides with the other kids.

One day after school we were waiting for the bus and the name calling began. Before I knew it, kids were picking up small stones and throwing them at him, trying to get him to yelp, to acknowledge them and their superiority. I watched for a moment before picking up a stone, throwing it as hard as I could. It hit his face, the side of his forehead. Blood started to trickle down his cheek, his eyes locked into mine. My heart rose to my throat, cutting off my voice. He turned around, running as fast as he could away from us, away from home. I sprinted after him, finally catching up after a few blocks. I grabbed his shoulder, spun him around. The blood had started to cake onto his skin. I started sobbing and, not knowing what else to do, put my arms around him.

I did not speak at all the rest of the day. We walked for hours, ending up at the beach. We sat down and watched the waves crash against the shore.

The next day at school, I avoided everyone, taking my seat next to Ted. At recess, two boys, Billy and Ben, approached us, starting their daily name-calling. I stared at them, my small fists clenching. A few more kids walked up to watch. Billy leaned over, picking up a handful of pebbles. I glanced at Ted before rushing Billy. Ted followed, tackling Ben. They cowered underneath us as we pinned them. Our fists were blurs as we hit the boys over and over, bloodying their lips.

We were suspended for three days, but when we came back, no one messed with us. Ted was my brother now. We looked after each other. I came to understand him, knew what he wanted or what was bothering him. We would have conversations that lasted for hours without him ever saying a word. We became inseparable. Ten years later and no amount of disagreement could sway us, his past irrelevant.

We sat on the beach for another hour, smoking cigarettes and watching the waves. We laid on our backs and looked for shooting stars amongst the static of the sky, pointing every time one would rocket across our vision.

I glanced at my cell-phone for the time. It read 2:56. I was starting to get sleepy, and my stomach growled loudly every so often. "Ready to get outta here?" I asked Ted. He nodded and we put on our shirts.

The walk back to our house was close to two miles. The crickets and occasional katydid kept us company. Halfway home, I stopped in the middle of the trail, Ted looking back at me inquisitively. The crickets were corresponding chorus lines on either side of us. I closed my eyes for a minute, feeling my way through the sea of chirps. The crickets were deafening now, leaving no room for silence, and I found myself unable to discern up from down, left from right, myself from them. I felt free. Ted tapped me on the shoulder, jolting me back to reality. We started walking back again as I attempted to describe what had happened.
When we got back to the house, the lights were off and the door was locked. I felt underneath the mat by the front door till my fingers grazed the spare key mother always hid there. I unlocked the door and I made my way to the upstairs bathroom to take a shower. Ted did the same, except downstairs.

With the smell of dead fish gone, we lay in our bunk-beds, Ted taking the top bunk tonight. I got up and opened the window, letting the warm, clean air circulate. I took out two more cigarettes and Ted and I lay in our beds smoking. I took out the ashtray I hid underneath my bed, holding it up when Ted kicked the bed, signaling that he needed to ash. I finished my Spirit before him, grinding it out in the ash and cigarette butts. I handed him the tray and he did the same.

I stashed the ashtray back in its place under the bed and rested my head against my pillow.

"Goodnight Ted. Love ya." He kicked the mattress in reply. I nodded off to sleep, dreaming of buoys and waves and the small child who always seemed to drown before I could reach him.

Thunderstorm

We limboed underneath the limb of a broken broom
in a broken room where sky and earth and
fire fell from heaven. We intertwined our fingers and lips
and hips and sang the song from the dawn
of time. We spirited away on drumbeats and skipping
stones and silk sheets, crying to lost children
and lost time. We harbored ships and skiffs and sailboats
as we skimmed across choppy waters. We
dove off cliffs, flew with gulls, stampeded with antelopes.
We lit firecrackers that danced at our feet, shot
bottle-rockets that tore through our hair. We were wing-
beats and wildfires and panting dogs and
elevator shafts and thunder-claps. We spewed fireflies,
destroyed virgin pines, laid amongst lions.
We receded back into the dirt, the sky, and the smoldering ashes
as we floated away with sun-soaked driftwood.

Cleopatra

Cleopatra called me the other day, said
she ran into Captain Ahab, who finally
got Moby's Dick, and that everyone
in the afterlife was having a ball.
Said that Poe sobered up and
Camus found God. Told me
that Socrates became a
communist, but Marx
was still preaching
the same damn
thing. I called
her a liar,
hit the snooze button, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

You and I

I wrote this for my creative writing class. It is my attempt at a love sonnet. Enjoy.

You and I

You feed my grumbling tummy bagels and
know I do not take my coffee with cream.
You let me smoke my Camel Turkish Golds
as we look for colored shells in the sand.
You make me trail-mix with pretzels, raisins,
and peanuts. You like my favorite movies
and get me clothes from second-hand stores.
You love flowers, music, art, and gardens

Like me. I feed your grumbling tummy grilled
cheese and tomato soup. I let you smoke
your Djarum Blacks while we search for stones
amongst the waves. I make you P. B. filled
P. B. and J.s. I like your favorite show
and get you butterfly charms from Micheals.

Existensialism

I started writing a poem for my philosophy class on existentialism. I based it loosely on a book I had to read in high school. I can't remember exactly what book, but I think it may have been "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. Anyway, I wrote more than a page, depicting the character as the stereotypical existentialist, living in a shitty apartment by himself, his life consisting of working, eating, smoking cigarettes, sleeping, etc. A day later I went to work on it again and realized how cliche it was.

In literature, existentialists are often portrayed as lonely men who don't exert themselves, who don't do much except live. They are portrayed as helpless and hopeless. I don't think this is what existentialism is meant to be.

In high school, I took a College English course with this hard-ass teacher. We spent a month reading and discussing existential literature. The teacher constantly would talk about life as being this hopeless ordeal. She would say that we only live and die, that there was no purpose to living, so we might as well do what we want and accept the world around us as is. I went into this class believing that I was an existentialist, doing what I wanted to do, because, what the hell, it doesn't matter anyway. After hearing this teacher that I respected immensely tell us day after day that nothing matters, something inside me clicked. I realized that I didn't want to go through life without purpose or hope. Towards the end of the month, fed up with having a teacher tell a classroom full of impressionable teenagers that life has no purpose, no hope, I raised my hand and asked her why she was doing it. We got into an argument about it. She claimed that if I was getting the sense that I existentialism was hopeless, than I was completely missing the point. This may have been true, but the way she was teaching it to us sure as hell felt like it was. At the end of the argument, she assigned the class a paper on why there was hope in existentialism, saying "You can thank Jesse for this one." I wrote "There is no fucking hope. Its fucking existentialism." and turned it in. Needless to say, I failed the paper.

Looking back on it all, I realize that she is right. There is hope in existentialism. Though I don't necessarily agree with the philosophy, I see the validity of her argument. If their is no outstanding purpose in life, then we are free to make our own, free to think for ourselves. We are free to do what we please while simultaneously accepting the consequences, whatever they may be. This makes existentialism an entirely freeing way of thinking.

Tying everything together, existentialism in literature should not convey a feeling of hopelessness. It should convey the opposite. I plan to re-write my poem based upon this realization, full of hope and the freedom that existentialism creates.

Onions

Mother stands at the sink,
the sleeves of her faded
blue dress rolled up
to her elbows. Her hand nestles
a paring knife, a warm fetus
incubating in her palm. A pair
of onions lay half-diced
on the cutting board beside her.

I tug at the back of her dress,
just above the pit of her knee.
She turns slowly, her eyes
moist and red, her tears tiny
glass infants sliding down
her freckled face.

She bends over, pulling me in.
She clears her throat, a knife
scraping the sides of an empty
embryo. She tells me she loves
me. I wrap my arms around her neck,
burying myself in the folds
of her blue dress.

Now I start to cry, mother and I,
crying in unison, me crying
because mother is crying,
and now the paring knife is crying,
the fetus, the embryo, the glass
infants cut out of the womb,
all of us crying together,
while the pair of onions
that started it all
lay spread out
on their cutting board couch,
their eyes blinking periodically
and their limbs relaxed, as if they
are watching the evening news,
a dozen more men
dying over seas, an angry kid
shooting his teacher
at the local high school,
as if to say that white-masked men
ending thousands of lives
before they begin
is alright.

Wade Rouse

My girlfriend, Ashlee, is currently taking a creative nonfiction class at Kalamazoo Valley Community College (KVCC). One of the books she has been reading for the class is "At Least In the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream" by Wade Rouse. She cracked the book open for the first time the other day while we were having coffee at Fourth Coast, proceeding to read aloud to me the first chapter. I could not stop laughing. The humor was spot on, down to earth, and most importantly, honest. I am waiting for her to finish before I start reading it myself, but she has nothing but good things to say so far.

Today I had the treat of seeing Wade as he read excerpts from his book and shared some personal experiences and influences with the audience. He was invited to come speak at KVCC by Ashlee's teacher, who attends the same gym as him. He was very insightful and inspiring. He talked about moving to the woods of Michigan from New York City to get away from his material life and pursue his dream of writing, much like a modern day Thoreau.

One thing he said that struck a chord with me was to pursue your dreams, no matter what anyone else tells you. I know this is one of the most cliche sayings out there, but what he said next made more sense to me than any stupid bumper sticker or inspirational speaker ever has. He talked about having a successful career in public relations for twenty years, hating it, then throwing everything away to do what he was passionate about. He talked about not knowing anyone in the business of publishing, but through constant work, he was picked up by a major publisher (Random-House Publishing House). He talked about the act of writing, the dedication and hard work. Everything he said made sense to me. It was all stuff that I want to pursue in my life time.

I have wanted to start a blog for a few weeks now, and through both the encouragement of Ashlee and the inspiration of Wade, here it is. I will be updated a few times a week, posting random thoughts, poetry, writing prompts, and other interesting things I come across. Thanks for reading.