SL

With dreams like tone poems, I find myself left guessing as to why you told me you’d see me in March.

The ghost of a kiss lingers along with confusion. You haven’t stepped through one of my dreams in ages.

I walked past a battered yellow truck with spilled fried rice near the front left wheel.

You can’t go back in time and space.

Not outside of dreams. Even then, the strum of starlight is parted by weighted hearts. We carry bunched knuckles like fighters clenching coin rolls.

Sleepy eyes and familiar songs.

Kazoo

The vacuumed kazoo call of a peahen wandering the cobblestone street for her iridescent mate

Lost as an echo to the climbing walls of a canyon

A slanted house where the door frames hover over the floors

The sunken smell of cinnamon sprigs

The morning bleeds into a shining autumn day

Milk Carton Kids

The “whole milk” boys proved a problem for peace. They weren’t the usual young ruffians that spray painted the streets and let air out of tires.

No, these pernicious SOBs were drawn into Neo-pagan rituals and karmic retribution.

They’d eat raw eggs and perform the worm to induce an altered state. They spun through sacred Dervish texts to find the story of the whirlwind.

The older folks called them punks. But the dirty bass, underpass concert going, lager drinking crowd knew these boys to not be part of the punk nation.

No, they weren’t a force unto themselves.

The city had sent a man after them called the “Thumbcutter.” Rumor had it that he came from an old English family that had been stationed in India during the East India Trading days. Casual displays of shocking violence were commonplace to a man borne to a commercial giant.

Even the dogged pursuit of a genteel sadist couldn’t dissuade the young men from their days of havoc.

Little did they know the price that would come due.

Chimera

Love there’s nothing much stretching my eyes beyond the horizon these days.

I find the days passing beneath me like drifting leaves.

I’ve caught a different realm from which I don’t I’ll return.

Maybe I should be better at being someone’s something.

Cutting Teeth

Thumbs in my belt loops and I’m cutting my teeth

Do my arms signal like the flashing lights of plane wings as I cascade through decisions?

I’m one plum bite away from finding a strong northern wind to sail away on.

A violet cascade in the hallway

Paprika stained vignettes soaking up stories with sea salt and cursive lined notebooks

I had once asked in conference with witching hour companions of stride-breaking dreams.

Trouble is a town without exit signs.

Youth

I’ve fallen into a bad habit of writing all my stories in my head.

I lay down at night and let my mind conjure long paragraphs that don’t find the page. As I hover between sleep and reality, there’s a peace to the piece of me that can’t help but continue down twisting narratives.

I recently turned thirty-one years old.

I’m at a moment where I get to decide what that means to me.

I’ve been so focused on pursuing one specific goal, that I’ve found myself startled at the possibility of others.

Or maybe it’s understand the cost of time and losing the fearlessness of youth.

Decay

“Long toothed mother fuckers filled with decay,” Logan snarled as he threw his camera bag on to the floor. “I’m sick of it!”

Jared put up his hands in to calm him. “It’s a tough day, I get it.”

“It’s not just today though. It’s every fucking day with these guys. I’m so sick of getting the run around from people who don’t even understand what I do.”

Jared nodded softly as he grabbed the mixing bowl his cookie dough sat in. “Listen, it’s just this shoot and then you’re off to Iceland for two weeks. Just get through it and go forget they ever existed.”

“Easy for you to say,” Logan said snagging a piece of cookie dough out of the bowl.

Turf

I spent an extra twenty minutes sitting in the turf with my fellow coaches as we sat and discussed the development of our players.

A stark difference from yesterday as I sat in the milieu of my mind.

Funny how it always comes back to the work.

I was asked by two of my high school players why I wasn’t at the morning trainings this week. I’ve got a camp I’m working at instead. I’ll be back next week. But it’s funny how quickly things become worth it.

I’ve worried about what to do with the upcoming high school season AND having two age groups for club.

I’ve had some sleepless moments as I navigate what to do for work before the afternoon starts (on minimal pay for excessive work).

But it’s the moments in the turf. Where the black rubber turf beads stick in my socks and I find myself in a heated discussion about who’s going to start at the eight for our team. It’s not a wonder I do any of this.

Not when my free moments are spent perusing spreadsheets for tournament signups or fee payments.

Nor is it when I arrive early for trainings or games. Sitting in my car as I imagine how the scene will play out with players on the field.

July

An ominous front like a yawning mouth. Green artificial turf that covered the front hard like a golf green. Desiccated orange flowers on the side that withered into stalks.

Shift stepping through a gentle July. I’m not in touch with past ambitions, but rally hopes of a new dawn.

My knees have been aching. I’ve been walking over packed dirt hardened by the sun. The light dusting of grass gets pulled away with each pass of my feet.

There is a suffocating stillness to the time in between. When I first landed in Japan I was overwhelmed by the reality that if I chose to, I never had to return.

But I did. And now, like a ship unmoored, I find myself floating on a turbulent sea.

My mother is dying by inches. Each day a little more of the fire inside her seems to dim. People are caricatures of what they’ve been. I don’t exist much outside of her view of me as a soccer coach. There’s an easy cycle for her to ask me about my teams. How many I have and how they’re doing.

I’ve replayed it a thousand times already.

I want to throw up, but this grief isn’t something that you can expel. It clings to you like tar.

I have no god to pray to, nor lover to hold on tight. I find myself existing in a special realm of cowardice as I fear an impending death, but cannot stomach the reality.

It is the worst charade— as my family tacitly agrees to keep quiet. To play along.

Or maybe it’s a different kind of love. Because this has been an impending fate my grandmother and aunts have already succumbed to.

So we pretend— we pretend that each day isn’t another petal plucked from an increasingly sparse flower.

We pretend that maybe it will be alright.

That we are not already heartbroken before the worst break of them all.

The Man at the Top of the Stairs

It was never the story you’d tell your parents when you were scared.

Never the thing to share at campfires or late nights at sleepovers.

It was never anything you’d share at all.

Because you knew if you did.

You knew if you described the tall figure that loomed at the top of the stairs in his dark, calf length jacket and length of twisted rope. You knew he’d find out.

That scared you more than anything else.

Not that he was there. That he was aware. That he knew every feint, every eye duck, every shuffled step and skipping jump.

He lived inside your heart so long that his fear made boots pressed paths between ventricles.

You never told because you never could.

Staring up with terror like a waveless sea, they found you stood upright held in a cast of fear.

Technicolor

I think I lived in one of the last childhoods in Portland where vacant lots, brambles, long adolescent bike rides, and phone-free shenanigans existed.

Up until a couple years ago, I still remembered several childhood friend’s home phone numbers. They might be the first things to return if I suffered that Casino Royale torture scene. Although I don’t think I’d tell Le Chiffre that it “tickled.” You could set me down blindfolded in southeast between Foster and Burnside—- 82nd to 12th and I’d be able to stumble my way just about anywhere.

I used to keep packs of gum in that underseat bag that old Schwinn's had. I owned a banana yellow Schwinn varsity that weighed more than I did until puberty hit. With a solid steel frame and brakes that screeched like hellcats, I wasn’t wanting for a more noticeable bike.

It’s funny for all the soccer balls and bikes at the house, my family never had a reliable air pump. On occasion that there was a handpump, the needle for a ball would be m.i.a. and if the hand pump itself was missing, I’d have to get keys to a car, find the air pump, and suffer the ear splitting ordeal of hissed air.

In later years, I’d ride that bike late into the night with teenage friends as we drank and smoked in local parks. There were never cars out at two in the morning as we meandered through the Irvington neighborhood. If I was ever over in SE, I’d be riding in a Scion TC that blared hip hop luminaries like Too Short, Biggie, E-40, and others. I can close my eyes when I smell fresh weed and step back into a memory laced with adolescent hope and nerves. The hovering thumb over the send button of a text to a crush (the first navigation of texts being introduced into my world).

There was an undercurrent of the fear of being seen. I wonder if that’s why I majored in Anthropology— an academic study in observation. It dovetailed with writing. The juxtaposition to my current jobs of teaching and coaching. All those adolescent years were centered around believing myself to being something that couldn’t be articulated in my everyday. I think that was a defense mechanism towards being held accountable for tangible dreams.

It was easier to flit between dreams and aspirations than to hold dear to anything. That way I wouldn’t be crushed when it didn’t work out. It was never a problem of not caring— it was the fear of caring too much that led to apathetic performances in an ultimately self-destructive way.

As it goes, it’s not an unfamiliar story. I think there’s a deep set fear in many of us of being truly known.

But without the courage that vulnerability requires, you’ll never connect to the world or yourself in the ways that count.

And as I walk through this neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon with a gentle breeze shifting the branches overhead. I wonder if this feeling of muteness was always going to give way to incandescence.

If somewhere out of sight— out of the mind. My soul had a finger on that magnesium capped matchstick— just waiting for me to summon the courage to once again strike it.

Doll

A tagged pink carpet draped over the cracked, blistered paint of the front steps.

Moss clung so tight to the roof that you’d need a push broom to remove it.

I’ve run so few steps since returning that my calves feel strung tight as harp strings.

The music blasts in my ears as I let the swell of emotions carry me forward. In two months I’ll have been stateside for a year.

There’s something about that that doesn’t sound right. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe time has swirled in a way where I’m lost in the aspirated bubbles that float on the surface.

I stepped into the night and looked down a dark sidewalk. A coyote stood like smoke just out of reach from the street lights.

When I relax into being— I can hear the notes of some celestial song playing. A primordial ballad that crosses the space between fear and hope. There’s a jello-like ripple to actions you barely remember. The sepia-toned memories of a bygone version of yourself. One that’s been consumed by the larger matryoshka doll that your present self is.

Warp Speed

It feels like time has hit warp drive ever since tryouts. Every day has been packed to the brim like the first fountain soda after a baseball game. We used to call it a “graveyard” as we layered sodas over each other in the cup, creating diabolical mixes of sugar and advertising.

I’m back in the gym locker room in-between class periods as I listen to Andy Shauf on my phone. Half a thousand emails have been sent and received as I prep for the week, weekend, and the inevitable march towards athletic glory (we’ll see).

Tonight is the first night in ages where I’m not rocking a practice. It’s been since December since I’ve had more than just Friday off coaching. Instead I’ll be walking the pony boy, Huckleberry, around Irvington as I noodle on the next steps (that aren’t soccer related).

Islington Street Bridge

Tsar spent three hours counting motorbikes from the Islington Street bridge. A cool October wind made him shiver as the last rays of sunshine turned his shadow from that of a man to a nightmarish stretch.

The dreams hadn’t stopped for the past two weeks. His heavy lidded eyes betrayed a lack of sleep that PhD grads would be impressed by. A litter of coffee cups sat at his feet like eager puppies. The perch he nestled in was one of the last secrets his brother, Griffin, told him about before last years equinox.

The people below on the street moved like they were swimming through chowder. A fog had taken hold of the night and showed little signs of letting go. Tsar’ shiver had little to do with the wind as the fog continued to roll in. He’d need more than coffee to get through this night. He pulled out a bundle of scented sticks wrapped together in glyph-inscribed cloth. Power trickled off of it. His palms buzzed as he centered himself.

A whispered prayer hardly broke sound as his mind cleared. He could feel the approaching shapes swim through the clouds. So, that’s how it was going to be, he thought. High disguise and shitty weather tricks.

Go Eagles!

There’s a dank, musty smell emanating from the depths of the boys locker room at Eagle Crest High School. It’s the sort of puckered nose twinge of horror that basements with rotting vermin and half-chewed armchairs evoke. It was also the place I had to spend my weekdays.

I thought becoming a gym teacher was going to be an easy gig. None of the parent teacher meetings— I mean, what are you going to ask about if you’re a parent? “Why doesn’t my kid have an A?” It’s because they won’t dress down and refused to run the mile. No hard science there. No effort, no pass. Say your sorrys and give yourself over to the demonic creature that is the summer school P.E. instructor.

Late twenties and spiraling towards mediocrity, I thought a semi-permanent job that held the guise of a career would have been the ticket for me to rocket back up into relevancy amongst the go-getters. Spoiler—- it has not. That is unless you believe driving a 1994 Ford Escort wagon that’s the color of neon blue alien blood strikes desire. For heavens sake, the driver side door doesn’t even unlock from the inside. You have to roll the window down and open it from the outside. Nothing says “I’m really loving my life” like rolling that window down during a torrential rain storm and getting soaked before you step outside.

So now I’m debating the merits of signing up to become a home inspector. If' fate has already decided I’ll be sequestered to the shitholes of fading Americana towns, I might as well get paid a little extra for it. My daily Spaghet fund could use some cushioning after a blowout weekend in Reno left me heartbroken and itchy in places you don’t mention in polite company. Maybe I should inspect my own life before making a go at the homes. I’m sure I’d find I’m due for renovations.

Late Mornings Brightened by Sun Stars

I’m sitting at my new desk overlooking a former trap house/ chop shop. To my right is a dirty mirror left by the previous tenant and an orange sun star I bought at the store the other day. The info ticket said the flower can grow up to a foot long. The tiny little fronds frosted with bright yellow pollen might be making me sneeze a little extra, but the color is worth it.

I’ve had two mornings in a row where I’ve slept in. Curled up under the twenty pound weight of the gray weighted blanket that doubles as a dream innoculater. It’s been ages since I’ve had two days in a row where I didn’t have to immediately be somewhere in the morning.

I’ve tossed on my green leather banded pearl bracelet I received from the Kuta JHS staff. I remember standing before the assembled members like some departing son. It’ll serve as the high watermark for my Japanese ability as I described the past two years and how they’d come to shape me. I don’t know that I’ve ever given a speech with that much emotion in my life, let alone in a different language than English.

Yesterday I assembled my rotating bookshelf— I’m slowly putting together a white, wood, paired design eclectic sort of room that I’ve always wanted but have never had before. I feel like if you stepped inside this room you’d have a good handle of what sort of person I am. I don’t know if I can say I’ve had that before. Staggering it’s taken until thirty years old to get that sorted, but each at their own pace.

Sitting with my books to my back and an open window before me— I look forward to this coming summer. One in which distant stars seem quickly approaching.

Ramble

It’s been a sprint since the end of January towards May. The slog of practices, games, moving, returning to the classroom.

I find myself constantly in motion— the last time I cooked an actual meal was well over three weeks ago. The days take on a technicolor sheen as the slipstream casts me forward.

Small idle moments find me rediscovering memories like an old dog stumbling over a half-buried bone in the yard. When I step back from the immediate, I can see this vast arc I’ve been riding.

Even though I intellectually knew I couldn’t shield myself from the pain on the horizon, I still tried to hide from it. Instead of passing through it and out to the other side, I lingered in this foul malaise— like the Blob had undulated over my heart and kept me in a chrysalis of unfulfilled emotion.

I woke early today— laying on my brand new light blue rose bedsheets. The hard-fought futon I wrangled after four hardware store trips (WHERE WERE THE CORRECT BOLTS?!) stood steady (enough). It felt surreal how quickly a new change had happened— A quick scene change from the top floor of my parent’s house to a NE craftsman. The light shone through the windows (drapes still not purchased, but curtain rod holder purchased— baby steps). I felt exhausted— but in a good way as the regular week pulled to a close. I work today at a high school out in Gresham— it’s a half-day and the sun is shining.

This weekend the second team has a final for President’s Cup and the top team has a quarterfinal. The top girls team has a final for the President’s Cup as well. I’ll be stood out at Tualatin for a good four hours as I coach/ cheer the kids on. It’s funny how all the drills, team talks, and personal prep goes into making moments that will flicker like halcyon lights in your memory.

Next week is try outs for the younger kiddos— I’ll be coaching the 2018 boys group. I expect dinosaur noises, tears, tackles, and big hearts from the little lads. The following week I’ll be taking over the 2011 girls group. That group I have less expectations about what I’ll experience— but I look forward to the challenge of being an age group coordinator.

I’ll never escape the Shark Boy (Taylor Lautner) comparisons. Never Jacob from Twilight— always Shark Boy. I had a set of students whisper “Doesn’t he look like…?” “Isn’t that?…” It’s not the same energy as the Val Kilmer comments, but at least I’m saved from other critiques.

“I was never that far away.” A line stolen from a Mundial magazine about Nina Hagen and her lasting impact on the Union Berlin club that her status as a legendary punk rocker helped raise support for. The quote referred to her growing up right by the Alten Försterei stadium. It made me think of my own boomerangs back into Portland— specifically southeast. Even halfway across the world, I was never that far away.

I think in many ways we’re never that far from our roots. Not if we’re able to lean into the love. They can be a wellspring in darker moments. In the times where the path forward isn’t visible. That’s when you know you’re in new terrain. Where the brambles stretch across your way forward and you have to take the scratches with the progress. Or maybe it’s not progress— but simply an aspect of the journey. The pain can serve as a wake up call to return to the present— to exist beyond our mind that crafts oh so delicate realities— ones that are blown away like gossamer thin spider webs. The ones that have disappeared from the dewey mornings where you walked on rain-soaked concrete towards a towering brick school building that basked in the orange morning light like a awning lizard.

Maybe the purpose isn’t the point. Maybe it’s living in the moments.

Ebb ‘n Flow

Got the wrong bolts twice today

Moved in without throwing my back out

Caught a ball to the face that cut my nose and damaged my glasses

Got a locals tour of Broadway that ended with a killer Italian at Lottie & Zula’s

Light blue roses are the design of my new sheets of the new (old) bed in my new (old) house

I’m eating Al pastor enchiladas that cost way too much

But I learned there’s a tango class at the restaurant that served them

I live close enough to my sister to walk to her house now

Everything is flowing~~

Everything is changing~~

Everything is

The Velnic Sage

A gravestone stared back at me on the longest night of the year. 

A watermark etched the wall that stood on the edge of the cemetery as a forgotten sentry to the Samhain flood that covered the once prosperous village of Yestlin.

I rummaged through the pouch Safira gave me at the last town. Two silver coins, a red silk thread, a tigers eye stone, and a couple grains of salt. I dumped the contents onto the ground before the name “Haljmund” and carved a circle into the dirt with a sturdy stick. I’d waited long enough for answers. 

The dead know a peace the living can’t hope for. Tales of the restless dead don’t belong to truth. That doesn’t mean nothing moves in the night. 

The son of a cobbler and wandering performer, I wasn’t raised on stories of dragons and bouts of heroism. I didn’t come to this crossroads with fire in my heart or glory to be chased. 

I stood before the last Velnic Sage because I’d been raised honor honest men. Life taught me the fate a ruthless world had for them.

I’d read the accounts from the Wandering Sage as he strode past the wreckage in the Malton Court and through the Temari Plains. Learning about the exploits of Arkes and the due given to his threat had changed my life. It had been fifteen years since I’d held a proper set of pincers or leather cured for shoes.