Thursday, December 17, 2015

December Muses

I.

On the seventh night of Hanukkah, we sat around the table and lit candles to prayers, ate sugar cookies and latkes, and talked about the Maccabees. Flames from the menorahs buckled and swished around the particles of our breaths, bursting yellow; peals of ocher acrylic hissed in tongues without songs, melting and evaporating along with the pirouettes of the dreidel. 

II.

The rain came down like a flora of blunted needles; prickly on the skin, but without pain. And the sound of water splashing against sidewalks, a monotonic sizzle in D flat minor, surrounded me like a curtain.  It seemed, as if, every drop had a bulbous eye shuttered behind lashes, and could follow its trajectory from a market of clouds to the ground of a city where tendrils made of glass embraced the skyline and the distant horizon, where the sun folds into darkness, is a labyrinth of steel.

III.

We spent Saturday evenings in the middle of autumn toasting pistachios and coconut, drinking champagne from crystal flutes, watching bubbles aggregate and disappear on the equators of the bowls, while discussing potpourri, the Allamanda vines and bougainvillea. Silver clouds, the shape of cherries, would wreath the sky and dollops of sunshine would drip down its edges. And the winds would come in irregular gusts, whipping into vortices the dry leaves around trees, yellow, and brown, and charcoal gray, like an avalanche of sparrows, like a dance of dandelions, and fall to the ground in measures of a silence; a rustle, murmur, in those December evenings.  

But those days have passed and people have left, homeless with adventure, mindless with profits, vaccinating, heavily, against an impending orphanage. I miss those moments, of childhood, of togetherness, when we would sit side-by-side, like flowers in a vase, and hold hands, and smile, and listen to the poetry of Wordsworth. And reminisce limericks from the radio show, the tenderness of ink-pots, the excitement of Airmails, and the honeysuckle shrubs on Cypress Hills.

IV.

May be one day, many autumns from now, we will go home again, and sit under clouds, and stare at the moon, sickle in shape against a purple gray sky, and whisper to one another about life, full-circle.

 

Saturday, December 12, 2015

A snippet of Ricky's

My mind often floats back to our conversation at Ricky's but is speaking to me this morning in a voice louder than a whisper.
 
You asked, What do you consider your greatest achievement?
 
I paused for moment, took a few sips of my Gin cocktail, rearranged myself on the red cushioned bar stool, and said, The Ivy League, medical school, several publications, getting a job that I'm starting to like, having a decent Savings balance, and a few other things... My voice trailed off to the blare of a Middle Eastern man singing Cry Me A River at the bar's karaoke contest. Somehow saying those things out loud made me suddenly uncomfortable. A flush smudged my temples. I was, as if, reading a checklist, being pompous and self-conceited at the pride in which I considered my past a brocade of achievements. Unease sprouted on the tip of my tongue; I felt motionless, ashamed, show-offy in a way I detested when other people spoke. Humility is a virtue most people have lost, in today's age of showiness, constant prompting of your voice being heard, through easily-accessible media across the entertainment industry.
 
But you smiled, and rubbed your palms and a gentle scent of lavender curled out of your finger tips. You readjusted your cotton scarf, patterned like the wings of a scarlet ladybug, dotted with black and orange highlights, and took another gulp of your Stella Artois. You closed your eyes for a moment, hummed a melody with the new karaoke singer at the podium, and broke into a handsome smirk.
 
And, what about you? What is your biggest achievement? You've probably done a lot to become a manager here, I said, after examining the drawings of cigarette cartons and Patti Smith hanging on the walls.
 
At first you didn't say anything. Smiled, looked at me with an expression of unfamiliarity, pressed the Home button on your phone, the screen lit up telling you what time it was, 10:13 pm, October 10. And then, finally, you said in a low voice, I came out of the Redneck. That has been and always will be my greatest achievement.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Grand Central Terminal

On the Wednesday of the Thanksgiving Weekend, I was waiting in line for a fresh brew of coffee at Tatro's, located on the lower level of Grand Central Terminal, fidgeting with my phone, checking text messages, when the blind man in a plaid shirt nudged my elbow and asked, Where did she go?

I had had a long night with Harry Berman discussing Israeli politics, data meshes, and romance, drinking Petit Chablis, listening to Harry Belafonte and Sam Cooke, and had taken a yellow taxi directly to Grand Central at eight in the morning- which is to say I was exhausted, and groggy, and slightly incoherent from my hangover. We never quite acknowledged the moments when our eyes roved along each others shirts and faces and veins along our forearms, formulating clouds of mild flirtation; the ways our fingers brushed in handshakes, but there are certain emotions we acknowledge through unspoken means. And that night proved to be a multiplicity of those.

Who? I asked.

My wife. She was here a minute ago. Do you see her?

What does she look like?

Brown hair, White, hazel eyes, a long dress, with a cane. Boots, and a purple muffler.

A lady walked up to us. She told me Thanks. Marshal, I'm back -had gone to the restroom. Black hair, green eyes, glossy black skin. With a cane, boots, and a purple muffler.

Let it go, she whispered to me. It's been fourteen years.

 

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

November

One of my fondest memories from a bus trip across town on a November afternoon on East Sixty Sixth Street is that of a Black man reading poetry to a Black child; his daughter, perhaps, in a pink Taffeta dress, impeccable braids, and long white socks sitting around her knee. The rarity of this occurrence is what, I believe, makes this particular encounter so memorable to me; the digitization of the modern daily has made reading poetry, or reading anything for that matter, in a public receptacle like the toe of a bus, a matter of total antiquity.

Repeat after me, he said to her:

And her hair was a
     folded flower
And the quiet of
    love in her feet.

I recognized this as Yeats, the same poem my grandfather would read to me when cancer was consuming his lungs.
 

Saturday, November 7, 2015

What is your name?

A memory of the two of us kissing by the bar stools, our fingers touching, our knees half-bent, lingers in my mind. That Wednesday night, you in gray, myself in purple, liquor on our breaths, we chatted about the New York Stock Exchange. You touched my leg but I didn't move away, I didn't flinch -I normally do because I dislike being touched -and pulled me closer, my heart against your scruff, my words against your ears, and said Can I kiss you, please?

I said, Yes, you may, you may kiss me hard.

And we did. A geometric reciprocity in which our lips turned angles, our tongues arched within the hollow of our mouths, and my body shuddered with a rush of excitement. My fingers traced the shape of your ears, your moles, the bumps from your bicycle crash on Bliss Street-Rivington Avenue, and slumped over your bony shoulders. You took my hands, cupped them against your left palm and stared into my eyes, dilated from gin, as the disco lights changed colors: red and green, to harvest yellow, to aquamarine.

I am not rich, you said, but I can keep you happy.

And I cried. So much, that it stained my shirt, I noticed the next morning. The kind of tears that falls when liquor gives release to a depressed brain; a brain seethed in ambiguity and self constructed insecurities. A brain that wants to speak but has no audience sans judgment. And it felt good. Frankie Valli played on the speakers above our heads. The couple to our right fought about a ball game. You held me closer and uttered words that I cannot even remember, but all I craved was a moment of silence. A quiet, a pause. The traffic lights turned red. Bar-goers stepped out for a whiff of smoke. I placed my ears along the ridge of your chest, your sky blue shirt slightly unbuttoned, and closed my eyes. It felt amazing. Wonderful, the comfort you can feel within the depths of a stranger.
 
Sometimes I try to erase this memory, flick away this image the way I would a sea shell into sand dissipating from its shoreline, but the textures and smells, the granularity of emotions stays cocooned within the mirage of my happiness, that condenses and vaporizes along life. And then I pause, appreciating circumstance, and move on with the circus.  

Friday, September 25, 2015

A Fall Evening

Three blocks away, from my home on Lexington, is the Olmsted and Vaux way. On 72nd Street, where Bethesda Fountain and Darwin's Bust meet along a curvaceous jugular. The water spins on stone, gurgling and splashing along boats that drift along a display of round lotus pads.

A colonnade with pollarded trees, birches and magnolia blooms, sunlight streaming through a mesh of Eucalyptus branches, sits like a phonograph at the toe of the Meadow, bearing troubles and tragedies of 9/11, John F. Kennedy, and Lebanese tourists. 

And I sit to watch the sunset. The summer night has passed. The indigo has melted into a can of early darkness. 

The sun floats from the very top of me to the right, where I sit, facing a businessman arguing on his telephone, unveiling with its very movement a diaphanous veil. 

The clouds, like orange rinds, slosh across an Autumn sky, as the sun, the color of cantaloupe, drifts behind. The air whistles. The birds chirp. Lights from sky scrapers glitter at a distance. And the sky, ink-blue, with clouds around the edges, bundle above a pale horizon where Summer is asleep.

The orange turns pink, then an eggplant purple. Fireflies dance along low lying shrubs, like a gymnasium of pearls. Like flames of lanterns, translucent like lozenge, and refractive like crystal. Ululating in a buzz, as grasshoppers chyme and katydids lisp ballads to the moon.

The indigo percolates through the clouds, until it is black all around. And still. And people walk using flashlights. Police cars make rounds. The viola player stays. The soprano sings to a lithograph of Bela Fleck and Washburn. And I read dedication plaques, the metal cool from the sunset. I reminisce your smile, a crochet design over the cushion cover, and a snippet from your letter that read 'I know that you are a kind, giving man...' Tears burst through the traffic of blood around my eyes. And I am at once bawling. Howling across the fountain, where the saxophonist has paused for a sip of cold soda. I have only taken. Given nothing since I have moved. For which I am immediately ashamed. 

The orange and purple and blue and indigo have slipped away to a different country, where orphans, maybe, are flying kites. Where fishermen are sowing nets or are mired in prayers. Where a museum  is dark. Or a daughter knits garlands of camellias and tube roses. The blue nights are gone and the days are shorter. The rustling of red leaves have gotten louder and louder. The cycle of seasons is now at the cusp of temperatures, casting whispers to trees and hands of clocks. 

An Autumn Night - the sounds within, fold and refold into threads of a Taffeta ribbon, spindling along the circles of a sensible tongue. So plush and cosy, the skies seem soft, and fragrant from spices in nearby households. The orange clouds raw, diffuse into the geometry of constellations, into a night sky of jewels, where stars twinkle, and lights from air planes sprint across. And I walk back home. Filled with a sense of wonderment. Content and peaceful. And at ease. 

Sunday, July 26, 2015

The Unspeakable: Part I

Given the nature of this piece, I find it imperative to inform my readers that only some parts of this post are personal and reflect my very own thoughts, while others are snippets from encounters that I have stitched together --borrowed from interactions I have either been involved with or overheard on the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn. I have changed the names and genders of all people involved in order to protect their identities, and have tried my best to stay away from mentioning any unique particulars.

The unspeakable is deeply personal, trimmed by conventions, hidden behind curtains of unclassified social mores. I am mired in hesitation, often, when I wish to say things out loud. Speak your mind, I am told. But you cannot speak your mind, for fear of offending people, in a culture entrenched in the confusing philosophy of 'If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all.' If you are to be frank, you are expected to bake your words in sugar, drizzle honey over your tongue so that a sweetness may encrust everything you utter. You are to be roundabout in your accusation, gentle in the handling of your frustration, and polite at the abyss of a serious break-up. You are to smile, always, at your distraught customer, for, wouldn't you expect the same if you were at the receiving end? 

The multimodal facades of culture and character seem to create within me a bottleneck of sentimentality. My mind is clogged, often, with remnants of thoughts, tail-ends and excised materials, and I seem to feel the weights of these remnants more and more everyday, as they accumulate and create pressure within the narrow diameters of my brain cells. If I could find a scraper someday and brush it gently against them, and examine the shavings and the contents of the pellets under an illuminated microscope, I would find a topography of ridges, coves and fjords, grooves and capes, covered with anger and compressed with angst, pummeled with shame and made hollow from the strains of unbearable sadness. This topography changes with seasons, with age, even between the hours of day and night, but I have little to no control over the insular nature of its morphology, or even the shapes of its transient finality. But I feel heavy from restraint, leaden even, from years and years of psychological imprisonment. Heavy and obstructed to a point that even blood cannot flow through the veins and capillaries braided within my brain. The unspeakable needs an avenue for release, the unspeakable needs a voice, definitions and accents, inflections and tenderness. And the very acts of formulating sounds for the mute, picking colors for the invisible, putting to the forefront the clamor of the ignored, have inadvertently and out of desperation, become the basis of this piece. 

--

Yolanda Marie Klein


The increasing frequency with which you have started to tell me 'I love you' is a little bit puzzling. Even more so is the spectrum of labels you append to it: 'like a family member', 'like a concerned mother', 'like a lover'. We never established rules -- were we supposed to? -- and let things build; from a professional exchange to extemporizing about sex. And emotions have rapidly escalated from there. The balances have tipped unidirectionally; your side has grown heavier and heavier, more tangled with your body, more forked with your mind, but mine has stayed the same, or maybe become slightly lighter. This happens when you are in a relationship. Energy drains, and priorities differ in the strangest of ways. Don't take this personally. It is what it is.


I cannot love you as a lover; and you know the reason why. I did not choose my orientation, but am content with how things have shaped out. Do you think God made me this way? Who knows. Religion and figureheads are mysterious to me. I try not to delve into them too much. But I wonder sometimes --would I love you if I were straight? Would you be my type? Would I be into you, emotionally and/or physically?
I don't know.

It is difficult to hypothesize emotional outcomes about a conceivable straight life using the logic of a homosexual brain. Questions like the ones above get biased by the influences of ongoing rapport, by a sense of sympathy, by a compulsion stemming from familiarity. I am tempted to say, Of course I would, but I cannot be certain. Would I really?
Does that make you sad?
Does that make you angry? After all that you've done for me?

I imagine there was hesitation before you finally opened up, especially given the complicated nature of our relationship. Maybe you said a prayer before; I know prayers help you cope with things. Or maybe you didn't give it any more thought than you needed to --sporadic in a way. But I wonder if there was a particular instance, or a tunnel of dialogues, that made you say, I am ready. I am finally ready. Do you remember when you wrote to me saying 'I don't care if they fire me'? I was alarmed. I was concerned for you. But I stayed calm and didn't say anything. We have come a long way since then; folded upon each other at times of failure, cradled each other at times of despair, and depended on each other for words of encouragement.

I have assumed, for you, an emotional responsibility. I look out for you in my own unique ways; sometimes that is silence, and sometimes a virtual reassurance. Did I have to take on the additional emotional responsibility? No. But I chose to. Because I care about you. Because I think about you. Because I wonder about you, and the machinery of your inner workings -- tapping on the cogs and gears of your logic, synthesizing the trajectories of your moves and actions, predicting for you a virtual reality in my very own city or by the seaside shores. I digest the aromas of your manifold promises. I observe keenly your professional development. I acknowledge blandly your sudden impulses; appreciating your talents, the selflessness of your giving, and the music in your words. I was trained to be a concert pianist, to speak in sharps, and whisper in flats, tremble in scales, and dream in octaves. I find patterns of sound in everything I do, everything I see, everything I hear and am made to read. There is Liszt to your lilt, Gershwin to your voice, an alternans of saxophone and light harmonics of flutes. Has anyone every talked to you about the beauty of your words? The richness of your tone? The melodies underlying the intervals of your thick, varnished sentences? They bring swellings to my throat, shuttering my tongue, while activating in my mind a concert of sounds. So beautiful, I want to fall to the floor, and cry and let the energy of my emotions dribble out of my eyes.

But what of you next? I wonder in earnest.

We have, together, woven many plans for you involving careers, partners, and relationships. Some of them have gained momentum, while others have flagged, as with any set of endeavors in life's complicated paths. You will be alright professionally, I am certain of that. You will build widgets, continue to recruit the finest of talents from applicant pools, put to use the convoluted mechanics of communications and technology. Or maybe you will nurse, teach little children, or run your own business; some kind of home-service or a tutoring center. 

But what of you romantically? 
Who will you love? Who will you build the next stage of your life with? I remain curious.

The unspeakable is this: I worry that your feelings for me are holding you back from truly making yourself available --more so emotionally, than physically. If you explain to yourself that you are content with the way things are, that your mind is preoccupied with narratives of us and geysers of thoughts spritzing out of our day to day encounters, I understand. But is that helping you with your goals of finding a man? 
Is that even a goal? A priority? 

In my life so far I have realized that love follows no logic. The philosophers and advocates who insist upon investigating the rational nature of man, are incorrect; their explanations falsified, and their theories, only fit for textbooks, preserved in ethanol and bell jars. You can comb through your heart, sift through your memories, give every node of history a second look under telescopes, but the organic nature of attraction knows better than mathematics, evasive of algorithms, discrete from time trends. I have had the thought, several times, of severing connections with you; to help us dissolve, to help you forget, but that didn't seem fair. It would be devastating. It wouldn't be right after all of this --whatever 'this' is. What is this? Do you have a more complete definition of us? 

We could be bodies of continents drifting along, interlocking and letting go beyond the meshes of geological timeline. Or islands on a river bed, observing from a distance, ever present and calm behind lavender skies. We could be minerals like magnesium, essential for stasis. Or wedges of peninsula, along which time travels in capsules. We could be flowers on the lily beds, swaying to the winds. Or aluminum marionettes, wired by the essentials of camaraderie. Whatever we are, and may continue to be, I want you to be happy, both mentally and physically. Stop for a minute and look at your reflection dazzling on strings of knobbed diamond bracelets; you are tantalizing, mischievous, and absolutely beautiful.

--

to be continued.   

Friday, July 17, 2015

Short memory

As I waited for the elevator doors to open, on the third floor of the Steinberg building, I thought of you. 

This sudden bifurcation of thoughts felt particularly strange, because I was in the middle of doing an experiment at that time, and nothing that I was working on had anything to do with you. But my mind kept drifting.

I remembered your building; walking along the street, in khakis and a cotton shirt, observing the trees, and its branches curling upon themselves like wrought-iron paisleys. The sun, the color of cantaloupe, floating on the clouds. And the traffic lights on Eighty-Sixth Street, periodically changing. 

We met in the North room of your refurbished apartment; red velvet carpet clawed to your floor --brocade curtains swaying by the windows. And we made love, violently, passionately, our hearts collapsing onto each others; our breaths synchronized like cello duets. Sweat trickled down your forehead, in little globules, smudging against my neck. And the bed rattled, and the lamps flickered, choking the filaments within. 

When you were done, you bathed in lavender and stood on your balcony while I was still in bed. And I remember looking up at you and being in awe. The sky was a riot of yellow and purple, and clouds, the size of quarters, melted on your hair. The city twinkled across the stretch of your penthouse balcony. And shadows of stars settled on your neck, speckled, like sand grains. Choruses of winds spun around you, and the magnolia petals, and the cotton seeds on your desk. 

You gave me a glass of water -I was thirsty and exhausted from the overuse of poppers - and spoke to me about your time at Yale, acting school at Juilliard, and your current pitches for Broadway. There was a weightiness to your voice, the kind of inflection that develops with success; or maybe it was another practice of your trade. I never quite figured it out, but I have remembered it through the years. Your phone rang three times and went directly to the answering machine. They all started with Hey It's John...and the voice trailed off. 

We shook hands and embraced each other. Your stiffened nipples sensitive against the brushing of my coat lapel. And then I was gone, walking on the street, down to the subway and up to my home. I finally sat down at my desk, at 10 pm, August 2012, and wrote, Broadway Star -Check. 

Monday, June 1, 2015

Gymnopedie

A girl is standing in the corner of the playground on 67th Street and First Avenue; an old institution, concrete and gray and checkered with hives. She is gazing at her nails; her ocean blue eyes angulated around them as her ginger colored skirt pleats around her pale, bony thighs. She looks morose, ostensibly frightened, and unwelcome. To her left, peers engage in an assortment of games. Basketballs and tennis balls dribble and flounce, lurk up to the musk of a summer afternoon, while hula hoops, like wax bangles, pivot around waists. The children wear fabric from a panoply of textures. Patterns of chrysanthemums and blood-orange marigolds are dyed on to their wisp-cotton shirts. Beads of sunlight spill down the ribbings of beige corduroys. It is lunch time at Middle School 64. The children are at play within their nests of familiar faces. But she is not welcome.

The expression on her face, her low hanging brows, the weight of a grimace bearing down on her lips, brings back memories of my own experience in middle school. Memories that had turned to vapor, precipitate back into my mind. Accusations and expletives pour into my arteries, the way water dribbles out from wringing washcloths and slithers into a funnel. Images of violence canoe into my eyes, accents of bullies lean against my ears. The bruises feel alive again, twitching under my dark mustard skin. And I flinch in fear, in broad daylight, mulling over days that Time had licked away.

Do you remember that August of 2003? Mrs. Jackson's English class had just ended and the lunch bell was ringing in the hallway. I had walked up to Simon Pashua and asked, Can I play ball with you'll today? He scanned my body, his triangular chin following his eyes, and said, No. No fags or fatties allowed, get it? His eyes dilated in disbelief, in a sense of ridicule that I, of all people, could have had the audacity to ask him, a local hero, for a spot in his team of gold medalists. Just one time, please, Pashua? I pleaded, by the statuette of Mary, freshly painted red and green. He never replied, and walked away, the melody of his footsteps fading amidst the shuffle of stationery.

I walked back to 7B, the classroom by the east stairwell, where you were reading a story from Reader's Digest, and sat on the bench closest to the window. I could see the field, its patchy green grass and pollarded trees, and scores of classmates playing in teams of their own. The rejection had hit me hard, and my eyes were heavy. But my gaze was still on the boys below, light brown like Band-Aids and nimble like stars, as sunlight, the color of butter, washed over their skin. You doing okay? You asked me carefully, closing the magazine and putting it back in your backpack. I'm fine, I said, unflinchingly. You sure? You don't look okay. Tears had dripped out of my eyes, without my knowledge, making webs across my cheeks. I cleaned them hurriedly, with medals of saliva, and shouted, I'm fine. Get it? I'm fine. I felt a flush sprint through my face, and arterioles, pregnant with blood, erupt on my forehead. Pashua rejected me, I finally relented. To which you walked over to my bench, hugged me, and said, I'm sorry mate. That sucks. You know he can be a dick sometimes. I maintained silence. And then you asked, Want to go to the Green Room instead?

I said yes. Immediately. And we walked over.


There were drapes along its perimeters with splashes of dandelions, and the seat covers by the podium had hyacinth and lily prints. Aromas of acrylic were curling across the room, bunching along the frame of an upright piano, chocolate brown and polished, along the south end of the wall. Chandeliers, shaped like lotus buds, hung from the ceiling. It was a miniature auditorium, barely used, nestled by the stairwell leading to the Chapel. I walked toward the piano, sat on the stool, opened the lid, and struck a chord. The sounds of A minor ribboned towards the ceiling, and my fingers felt alive; liquid like mercury. I looked over at you while examining the sounds, and you nodded at me, and smiled in reassurance. 

I played for an hour that Tuesday afternoon. My fingers sang and my veins trembled at Satie's composition of Gymnopedie. The trills were crisp, and the scales flowed like water. The arpeggios galloped, like Derby gems, through pillows of air along the bricks. Beethoven swung along the ladders of notes, shimmering and swaying in thunderous harmonies. And the voices of melodies, duplicating, triplicating, in doles of three, and choruses of six, grew louder and louder, shriller and shriller, maniacal and frenzied, as my fingers thumped and leaped and roared and rumbled over ivory keys and ebony sharps, before finally collapsing to a pause. Bubbles of sweat had sprouted through my shirt, but I felt calm and relieved. Music does to me what Spring does to the cherry trees, I said to you, with a smile on my face. Like Neruda, my friend, you whispered.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Euripides and Coffee

You introduced yourself to me at Daniel's photo shop, standing by a long, rectangular bookshelf, facing the south corner of Bleecker Street. There were dandelions everywhere, yellow and pulpy, like vinegar bees, and silk curtains of a light blue, curving in the breeze. You were reading Milton, and me Anton Chekhov, quite possibly The Cherry Orchard, and I, by mistake, dropped the book mark Leonard brought back home from Prague. You picked it up, and walked toward me, and smiled a deep, impressionable smile before handing it over. Peter Morrison from Hicksville, pleasure meeting you. Nice meeting you too. Trevor. I said, staring at your eyes; ocean green and bulbous, round like plums. Welcome to the neighborhood, you said politely, your bushy blonde brows twitching periodically. Meet me at the pier on Saturday. Christopher Street. 4 pm. And we left the shop, with unfinished words and a flurry of emotions. Confused, surprised, and oddly satisfied.

When Saturday came, I walked over to the pier in a white poplin shirt, dozens of quarters jangling in the seams of my corduroy pant pockets. It was 4 pm, and you were sitting by the stauette at the Western end of the park, reading Euripides and drinking coffee from a Burmese urn. The air was wet, and dark gray clouds, the color of ash, were squeezing along the diameter of the sky. The warm smell of dewberries was all around, and the chattering of ferry sounds and mewling of a mild drizzle replaced the silence of the afternoon.

I walked up to you, shook your hands, and sat on your left side on the damp, wooden park bench, which had the words 'In Memory of Roslyn, Love, Mom and Dad' embossed on a tin plaque. Your eyes looked narrow, and swollen; the color of beets. And an expression of concern shadowed your face --a certain nervousness, I couldn't quite figure out. Is everything okay, Peter? I asked. No. You said. What's wrong? I paused for a moment, rationalizing possibilities of events, like flipping through pages of an encyclopedia. You heaved a deep, full-bodied sigh. Your finger-tips, once slender and pink, were now dry and purple. And you said to me, in a whisper, The test results came back yesterday. HIV positive.

As you uttered the letters, H, I and V, you collapsed into hysteria. Traces of shame, embarrassment, and fatalism, splotched against the perimeter of your face. Disbelief and fear made your bones hollow. Your tongue became pale, and dry, and formed white hexagons of parched cells, like drought had hit your country. You cleared your throat, twice, peered into my eyes, and said, I don't know how to tell him, Trevor. I'm sure he'll understand, I said. No, he won't. You screamed, three times, your voice getting louder with each successive mention. And then your pitch dropped, and you surrendered to silence, the kind of silence that puts pressure on the ear drums and creates illusions of sounds. And a minute later, you said, We promised to be exclusive.

We chatted some more, and at the end of the hour, as the rain came to the city in roars and rumbles, we kissed in front of bundles of tourists, scrambling for a roof to keep themselves dry. It wasn't love. It wasn't infatuation. But a symbol of consolation, at a time when your world was spinning faster than you could handle. We left, shortly after, bidding goodbye, giving hugs, and retreating with the words, See you around, soon.

But years went by. And I never saw you around. And I imagined you were seeking treatment somewhere, and were doing alright. Until I opened the newspaper today, and saw a picture of you on the last page of the City section. 

Peter Morrison. May 1982 - April 2015. 
Died of AIDS in Greenwich Village.
You will be loved and missed, always. 
Love, Mom and Dad.



Friday, March 27, 2015

Dear Home


The Admissions envelope came in the mail towards the later half of February, informing me that I had received a full-tuition scholarship to attend college in Indiana. I had wanted to move to America ever since freshman year of high school, for many personal reasons, and now the opportunity was right in front of me. I was thrilled. I was overjoyed, and completely overwhelmed. Once I made up my mind that I was going to accept the offer, the countdown began. John Denver's Leaving On A Jet Plane played on Repeat-mode in my mind, and I, for one, was beyond excited.

My mother, on the other hand, had an initial bout of happiness that hastily transitioned into bitterness and anger. She was convinced that the reason I wanted to leave her and move away from home, was that I disliked her. She also took it upon herself to believe that my decision to move was an outcome of a faulty upbringing, for which she was apparently responsible. And if I loved her, and cared about her, then I would choose to stay at home and tread the path she had cut out for me. We went back and forth many times, playing tug-of-war with words and emotions. But my mind was made and so was hers. On the night before I left, she said to me, “From now on, please consider your mother dead.”

Rural Indiana was nothing like the sets on Hollywood, but I managed to make it through four years of college. I learned about Euchre and 4-H fairs and juggled with racial tensions that exist in predominantly white rural towns; my light brown skin noticeable in community gatherings, inviting stares, murmurs and endless gossip. A man in a pick-up truck, wearing a red bandana and metal bracelets, threw a water balloon at me once and yelled across Seminary Street, "Go back to your third world country, you son-of-a-bitch. You're polluting my town." He drove away shortly after, down Locust Street onto Sycamore Street, and disappeared into the shadows of nightfall on orchids. My eyes welled up with tears, and my body shook in spasms. I wanted to call my mother, and tell her that she was perhaps right that I didn't belong here, but I hadn't heard from her in over two years, and the awkwardness of rupturing a constructed silence prevented me from doing so. I even dialed the number on my broken keypad, hoping to let go of the past and explain the situation at hand, but I disconnected before the first ring. I couldn't make myself do it. And because of my hesitations and unfounded stubbornness, two more years of silence went by.

Moving to New York, the summer after graduation, brought with it a sense of freedom and perspective. I finally came to terms with myself, piecing together parts of an identity which often confused me, disappointed me, and made me angry. The constant self-denial of an immutable truth was a vector critically underlying my move to America; a truth that required nurturing, experimenting, and eventually consolidating. And the consolidation finally happened after moving to the city; a liberating milieu that unhinged my hesitations, my inhibitions, and my homosexual desires.

As the self-acceptance phase came and settled, I coveted communication with my mother. I wanted to hear her voice and see her face; the face that grew old over photographs from visitors. But memories of the boundaries we drew and the subsequent years of painful silence stirred within me a sense of mind-numbing awkwardness. If I called, and if she answered, would I start with an apology? Or would I pretend that everything was fine, and pick up the threads from where we had left? Unsure about what to do, I avoided the call, and instead, wrote her a letter.

"I am supposed to consider you dead, but I know that you are alive. And I am at a point in my life where my thoughts are maturing, and my identity is taking shape. My leaving home had nothing to do with you. Rather, I seized the opportunity to move to a place where I could be myself, where I could think independently, where I could nurse my questions about race and sexuality. I am gay, and that is a big part of my identity; something I have come to terms with after many years of playing hide-and-seek. And this is the identity I built walls around when I was home, to save myself from handcuffs and you from embarrassment. None of this is your fault, and I hope you understand. I was stubborn, and inconsiderate, and vehemently impulsive, for which I sincerely apologize. If you have anything to say, or want to talk about it, please call me whenever you want to. I would love to hear from you. I miss you very much."

Days went by. Weeks, even months. Finally, almost six months later, I received an envelope with my name and address written in my mother's unique cursive. "Got your letter. Things are mostly the same here. I've learned to adapt to the emptiness at home, and am trying to be stronger and more independent. I don't have much to say to you other than you should do whatever makes you happy."

We move away from home seeking asylum from threats, or chasing dreams, seizing opportunities, and hoping to craft better lives. But transitions come with trade-offs, and migration is no exception. There are emotional tolls that we pay, hefty and unprecedented, at the intersection of new beginnings and shared histories. We lose friends, make new ones, and bear the stamps of time and struggle on every inch of our bodies. There are little things about social mores that no one ever tells you, and you learn from a fair share of mistakes and retrials. You hear pulses of home whooshing through your neck, clogging your mind from time to time, and you fixate yourself on the edge of a pivot, juggling the weights of your private past. You are shackled to nostalgia, and the unease of radical change; yet, you seek comfort in the decision that you made, in the path that you chose, in the rudimentary steps you set out to follow.

I left home at a pretty young age, against the wishes of my mother, and an avenue of neighbors, who said I was selfish, cold-hearted, and incapable of respect. What could America give me that India could not? How could I be so motivated by money, that I did not think twice before forsaking poor people from home? And most importantly, how heartless could I be to abandon my parents, not take care of them in their own home, after all the sacrifices they made for me? I maintained my calm in the last few months. Silence was the best reply. As a result, the locus of blame then shifted to the parenting pattern of my mother. The neighbors warned her to set an ultimatum against my departure, or else she would lose her child. America will change him, the phone calls would clamor, you'll never get him back. It'll be too late. But my mother never set an ultimatum, and I followed the trajectory I had selected for myself.

With the loss of proximity, both emotional and geographical, there are rifts that form, tensions that arise, and misunderstandings that erupt. These are outcomes of migration, anticipated by some and unexpected by others, but something we immigrants accept and weave our lives around. My mother and I exchange letters now, sometimes emails, sometimes texts; but it still feels strange --like something strained, like something we undertake only as mutual responsibilities. My partner remains unacknowledged, pointedly ignored, and tactically avoided in any situation I mention. I am implicitly communicated a certain discomfort. And I try my best to understand difference, to understand the stance of a traditionalist parent, but not being a traditionalist myself makes it hard to see things from that point of view, to maintain neutrality, and to remain calm.

Many bridges have broken over the span of years, because of secrets and lies and matters of the mind. It is now my time to rebuild the bonds that I wish will last forever.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

My Imagination at Night

Sometimes when we lay in bed, listening to the darkness and the murmurs of candles, watching the moon chuckling like a hyena behind my gray, rusty window grilles, holding hands, kissing, or even twining legs before sex, I think about poetry. I think about words and a bucket of sounds where consonants and rhythms splash around; like naked boys with green eyes in a pond by the cabin. I imagine words raining on your face, washing away worries that have come with your profession. Creating trees, and sprigs, and little sprouts of rosemary smells dancing mazurka through the cones of your ears. And yellow leaves, like oreoles, growing from your tongue. Forming shapes and leaving roots, burrowing stalks of secrets through the trails of your veins. You remind me of olive. Or Neptune or a panther. You remind me of ribbons. And ruby stones at the palm readers. You remind me of the barber shop on the Latin edge of Mulberry Street, where dandelions on the window ledges mate with the bees. You are Neruda and Plath. Saenz and Woolf. Morphed into a yarn of my covetous imagination. And the only time I am back to reality, at 1 am on Second Avenue, is when you whisper and say, baby it's time to sleep.


Friday, February 27, 2015

Toy Fairies

My letter to you today about Nolan's cross-dressing grandfather reminded me of a time about myself that I have never shared with anyone. Not mother. Not father. Not sister nor the maid; who made money selling bangles under the coconut tree by Russell Avenue, when she was not in our house. But being twenty five and open about literacy and sexuality, empowers me to write to you about my life as Lola. 

Imagine me, thirteen, in an orange frill dress, swirling and twirling to songs of the land, with palm leaves swaying, power lines spinning, and the sun and moon violently rioting against a blue, cloudless sky. I am smiling at myself, and clinking scores and scores of bangles buttoning my hands, in a secluded corner of our gray, cemented roof. And I feel like Lola. A strong, powerful, independent girl, in the shape of a man. The frills give me power. The bangles make me stern. The powder on my cheeks makes me stiff, and upper-lipped like the Victorian girl from television. My hands are in a V sprouting from my chest, and I am spinning like a top. My feet are buried in sandals, and the frills form cones from my waist to my legs, churning air, fanning bees, and giving out an aroma of mandarin sugar. I am lip sticked in pink, caked in foundation, and pieces of handkerchief are pinned to my hair. And I am giggling at myself; my smiles vanishing in the tips of my fingers. The heaviness of the evening air feels like clusters of cherries slipping down the plateau of my light brown cheeks. And in a shrill resonant screech, I yelp out loud Lola, it's time. 

My neighbor from West Street sees me like that. And freezes. And tip toes away to her ground floor bed. Through her windows I see thongs and rosaries splayed across a tray of tiles. 

For five years after, the Rosenthals and Silvermans, know me as Lola. Little brown Lola, in orange frills and make up. In cloth hair and rhinestones. In white nails and necklace. In pearls and turquoise and violent diamonds. Spinning on a roof. Gaping at the sky. Twirling and spinning and whirling and coiling. Wriggling and swooshing and purling and roiling. Flapping my soul till I fall to the ground. 

This is me, Lola. Welcome to the other side of me. 




Saturday, February 7, 2015

In the snow

It is snowing in the quad today. And at least a dozen high schoolers are here on tours talking about scholarships, PhDs, and raising families. I was in a hurry, earlier, to get coffee and caramel; it has been a long day already, and the sky is gray. 

A girl on the stairwell, with a neat braid and lipstick, reminded me of you. Reminded me of the April you came to New York, with your luxury bags and sunken eyes. We chatted on Facebook for three days, reliving a past we didn't remember, and decided to meet up at the patio by Butler Library. And when we did meet, it felt like nothing had changed. We picked up the threads, where we had left, and laughed and hallucinated and drank Vermouth till wee hours of daybreak. 

We would walk to Alma's statue, sticking out like a toe nail at the steps of Low. And you would look at her crown and giggle and shout out loud 'She's worn it for ninety fucking years. She's possibly even seen Eisenhower. What a champ!'. And then we would walk to the statue of the Thinker and sit on the grass by Philosophy. You would laugh, suddenly. Saying that the blades tickled your thighs, and you could feel mist on your underwear. And we would chat about life, and catch up on stories, of careers, communions, and the blue-green of the Pacific. You would talk about Connecticut, being a city girl, and the heinous politics behind the Pulitzer. We would strap our arms around each other's and listen to the wind percussing on our ears. We knew we were gay. You with a lady, me with a man. Yet, enwrapped, we found solace and happiness --the way two strangers become friends. 

People say that there is no undoing when you become friends. But life is more complicated than that. There are entanglements. There are boundaries that you maintain, because friendships are fragile and have sensitive ends. You and I have toured together every corner of our home, with the glitter and aromas of New York City sprinkled along our eyes. We hesitated at parties, smirked at children, talked about literature by fireplaces in Brooklyn, where creativity and the cool are known to erupt. We talked about marriage, and raising kids, the looks of your sperm donor and his wardrobe. We went to the piers along the colors of the Hudson, and stared at athletes oiling there abs, wrapping bandanas around their dark blond hair, and playing with the tips of their light brown nipples. There were moments of solitary understanding. Even if we didn't say anything, we understood each other and what they call body's hidden languages. Finally, the time came, and we moved on with our lives, as you entered into your Chelsea home with the dying landlady, bubbling to her death with systemic metastasis. 

What I would think about, while laying on my bed, is our parents. You told them of a boy. Mine didn't talk. We lived in a shroud of lies. And no one barring you and me knew about her, the one you married after Amelia died on Passover. We talked about secrecy a long time back, by the Thinker, on a muggy September evening, and you said you were tired of lying to them about being with a Wall Street shmuck. But courage takes time. And there is no undoing. And when the time is ready, you will set yourself free. 

I go back to thinking about the girl on the stairwell. And why she reminds me so much of you. Maybe it is the eyes --dark, sunken, tired. Or maybe it is Alma. Who knows? The curiosity will slide, and I will be back to my business. But know that you are thought of. And loved. 

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

so gray

I felt a thunderous jolt of displeasure after I asked you to figure out your plan today. It felt like a shell was lifted. That a point was reinforced. But I know you. And I know it must have pricked. And it must have felt like my words pierced through every opening of your skin. It may be a reminder of an impossibility over which I have little to no control. And I sympathize with you. Sincerely.

It is January 7th. Early for a year that ended in mistletoes crystallizing over doorsteps in the Upper West Side. And homeless people shattering in shards as they freeze in the extreme of a cold millenial winter. And the sky looked like a canopy of bleached pigeon feathers. Gray. Lonely. And desolate.

I thought of you.