untitled

I want to write you something. Something that will take your breath away. I want to string together the perfect amount of the perfect words so perfectly that when you read them if you didn't feel about me the same way I felt about you, you would then.

I want to sing for you. A song unlike any other. A song whose words only you could appreciate, sung in a language only we can understand. Our own Love song, unmatched. So beautiful that it resonates within your spirit and keeps you.

I want to dance with you. From the moment I return home until you beg me to leave you alone which you won't cus you want to dance with me too. Endlessly. Exotically. Excitedly. Earnestly.

I want to build with you. Home. Love. Our own traditions and additions to the blindly accepted regimens of life. I want to build something so grand, so marvelous, that to cross our path alone would endow passers-by with a bit of excellence of their own.

I want joy with you. I want to plot and ploy with you. I want to want you even when I'm annoyed with you and have 3 or 4 boys with you.

And I don't want to ask myself any more questions about it.

I want you. And I want you to have me. Come. Take what's yours.

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gone

she's leaving today. and she wonders what she means as she writes those words.
how much of her is going? how much of her will be here when she gets back.
only time will tell.

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On the humanities

An excerpt from an essay entitled: Learning How to Learn. (Honors Law Substantive Quarter Paper: The essence, relevance, and importance of the humanities) 14 April 2008.

It was Plato who asserted that, "if [one] cannot retain what he learns, his forgetfulness will leave no room in his head for knowledge" (Rosen). And that is the most prominent result of the Humanities method of teaching: knowledge- knowledge true and unforgotten, knowledge of how to think and not just what to think. It has become the heartfelt conviction of the Humanities to equip its students with the tools necessary to succeed professionally, and, considering that we never stop learning, knowledge of how to be an effective learner is essential in any professional's life.

It was an academic environment such as this that increased my passion for learning when I thought it was impossible. I discontinued reading words and began to understand thoughts. I discontinued memorizing facts and began to form opinions. I discontinued doing the work and began doing what I needed to fully understand the material. No longer did I allow questions to go unanswered. No more was I satisfied with only receiving the grade.

[...]

With classes such as these- classes that promote academic excellence over easy-to-come-by passing grades- learning is no longer a process; it becomes an experience. In an Humanities classroom no answers are easy to come by, yet none are "right". Humanities eliminates indifference from the learners vocabulary and replaces it with scholarship: scholarship in antecedence of knowledge, scholarship in antecedence of understanding, and scholarship in antecedence of success.

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alone downtown

me, as zach <3
crowded
noisy
chaotic
beautiful
downtown

single
silent
serene
simple
me

no camera
so I take pictures with my words instead
it's ok
they hold the memory longest

wondering and wandering
unlost
but unready to meet the found

meanwhile
a biker
I wonder where he's going
I wonder where he's been

a bird in the distance
finds second home in a building's broken barricade

the simple things
nourish me
as I (choose not to) await the complexities of tomorrow
I will be here when they are ready for me

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monster in the mirror

this plague, my spiritual leprosy
eating at the very essence of me
causing me to ignore the other facets of me
as this disease starts to define the very presence of me
so I stay up at night trying to fight off this devilish need
to be wanted and comply, pre-hear wishes and take heed
I no longer can allow this desire to consume me
but somehow am still attracted to the beauty of he
I question how, knowing, I still revisit that place
in the comfort of my room I seek understanding
the answer arrives and I see her face
betrayed by the monster in the mirror

so here's my dilemma:
I need to be single. It's good for me right now. It's best for me right now. BUT I also need to be needed. Nonono wanted. I need someone to cater to and care for and console and caress and all that. I don't really. But I want it. I don't even want it. But I crave it. I thrive in that role. I'm quite good at it, actually. And when I'm not in a committed relationship, I still somehow manage to find someone to give to in an eerily similar fashion while trying to convince myself that I'm living the single life and it's grand.
"The best of both worlds," I say. When in reality it's the worst of them. The stress of doing the right thing (or more than enough) for someone without the commitment. The inevitable overflow of emotions without the commitment. The deliciousness of physical connection without the commitment.. hmm.. don't quote me on that last one.
Anyhoo. No matter what I did (committed relationship or otherwise), I always ended up there. And stayed. Almost always wayyy past due. I now know my problem at least: I am drawn to the role of significant other. This is not all bad, of course, for those skills will come in handy when my time as wife and mother arrives. But, in the mean time and in between time I'm exerting a lot of energy in the wronnnnng direction.
So, problem noted, what is my solution? Having avoided answering this question since the discovery of my problem over a week ago, I have decided to seek help.
That sounded (un)necessarily desperate. But notice I didn't hit backspace.

-chai

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