Author: cernotax

An Adult Stuck In High School

We keep repeating our mistakes like genetic code

We are trapped in a system whereby we are grown men and women but the system wants to treat us as overgrown children

We shout and we get angry to have our voices heard, an entangled ball of emotions we let out as they choke us to death but nothing is getting through

We throw rocks at the full length mirror reflecting our distorted reality but those rocks bounce back

We are in a system meant to break us I feel like an adult stuck in High School

When do we graduate I’m just trying to make it up out of here

George Floyd gave up his life for something worth more than a counterfeit twenty dollar bill he gave us an image of the disproportionality of the justice system

They say a picture is worth a thousand words then how much is a video worth?

Are we even listening?

Ocean at Night

I’m standing here at the edge of the sea. Its past sunset and the stars are out. Mars is visible above the horizon bright red like a flame miles away. Jupiter or Saturn I don’t know which it is is to the east. The waves are calling to me. I play chicken with the waves at the shores end. I stand near the edge and watch the water lap up. I keep my feet planted waiting, watching. It seems like the biggest waves are the most likely to send water rushing my way but they break into small puddles and run right out with the tide. The ones that I’m at risk of are the ones you barely notice. The water comes rushing up at you so fast you barely have time to move your feet. You get that instant fear of drowning like if it catches you it will swallow you up and take you out with the tide. Dark figures cut into my field of vision blocking out the little light my eyes can precieve. There are people walking along the shoreline enjoying the sea as I am. The air is warmer here than it is on the boardwalk. All of a sudden the shock of cold water catches my feet and I’m standing in a puddle smiling in the complete dark where no one can see.

Existentialist 

What is it like to be me?

What is it like to know me?

What is it like to hear me, to touch me, to hold me, to kiss me?

What is it like to love me?

What is it like to watch me grow? What is it like to watch me mature? What is it like to watch me fade?

What is it like to remember me?

What is it like to see me happy? 

What is it like to see me down?

What is it like to fight me? 

What is it like to fear me?

What is it like to look up to me?

What is it like to dream my dreams? 

What is it like to experience my nightmares?

To know me truly will take me several lifetimes and I only can live through one of them to answer some of these questions.

Cliff’s Edge

We’ve been here before. Arguing going in circles about how our relationship is caught in a cycle spinning and spinning counter clockwise; then stops only to spin in the other direction. We say things to each other, sharp piercing words. Some we thrust with enough force to puncture two people standing one behind the other, some we barely touch the oily surface of our epidermis with. She cries then I begin to feel bad. I’m always the villain. If she only knew I wish happiness for the both of us however that may be delivered. Together or apart all I want is that we  both are happy. But it’s not possible; what I want will definitely leave one of us unsatisfied and what she wants will leave me unsatisfied. I wish that I never met her. Better yet I don’t mind the part about meeting her. I just wished we never hit it off as well as we did. It was at a party and she asked me to dance. The only girl ever to ask me to dance. I can’t imagine what was going through her head when she came up to me and said “Hey slim wanna dance.” Maybe nothing, maybe it was as spur of the moment as most of her actions are. It wouldn’t make sense if she had saw me from across the room, found me intriguing and began studying me. Not that people don’t find me intriguing, but if she had time to study me before she acted I’m sure she would of moved on and picked some other dude that probably had a visible scar and messy hair. She laughed and said I love Ja Rule. I smirked and did my best impression: “what would I do without my baby” in a raspy voice. She started cracking up. I don’t know who said if you love something let it go and if it comes back then it’s there to stay. I believe like a hungry little bird if you let love go it will go away, it may come back but it will make a habit of leaving and coming back. Love is fickle that way. We went outside to smoke a cigarette after the song finished. I didn’t smoke, but I figured the cold December air would help sober me up.  Before we went outside the apartment I grabbed a cold Corona. She offered me a cigarette,  as I inhaled I could feel the nicotine infused smoke seeping in every empty space of my head.  My scalp tingled and I became light headed.  It felt good,  Like the feeling you get when you brush your bare arm against someone else’s bare arm on a crowded train, you could almost feel the atoms that collide as your skin touches theirs. Something about that makes you feel human.  It’s a unique interaction. I wonder if dogs feel that way when they first encounter another dog, when they thrust their muzzle into the air sniffing first getting the sent of another dog. Then as the other dog approaches it goes right to its asshole proding it’s nose into it. I wonder if at that point the dog on the receiving end feels that tingle; does the dog doing the sniffing feel that tingle? Liz smelled like menthol cigarettes, tequila, and powder deodorant. She never wore perfume, She said it triggered her allergies. I wanted to put my muzzle in her bare neck and inhale her in to my lungs like she was her cigarette. She asked me where I was from. I told her America. She laughed and said no one is from America we’re just citizens of one big Ellis Island. I told her to tell that to someone in Texas. 

“What’s your heritage, your nationality?”

“I’m a mutt, but I’m mostly Puerto Rican.”

“You’re Pooor-duh Rican, more like Neuyorican. Listen to your accent. Do you even speak Spanish?”

“Na never spoke a word of it in my life, I don’t get what’s the big deal I was born and raised in Brooklyn, U-S-A! Why do Spanish people gotta act like you’re not one of them if you don’t speak the language.”

“Calm down no one was judging you. I barely speak Spanish myself. The little I learned was from my abuela when I was a little girl. She died when I was 10.”

“Yeah well that’s good you had an abuela.”

“There it is so you do know some Spanish. You said that like a true borriqua.”

“I know some words, my mom never spoke it  in the house. Both of my parents were born in Brooklyn and my dad was half black. The few words I picked up was when my mom would speak it to my aunts. Where you from anyway.”

Zen-Out

He just got off work. He was on edge all day and he was relieved to be going home for the day. He wanted to hear something different than the Kendrick Lamar album he recently downloaded. He decides to look up John Coltrane on his phone’s internet radio app. A station comes up: Zen-Out. He hits play. Some piano notes began to play, he imagined the musical notes falling from the sky and hitting his ears like rain droplets. The cello strums out a slow patient sound. The horn comes in – anxious, loud,obnoxious, melodic. 

He is rushing to meet his therapist. There are tourist all around him like a field of martial arts practice dummies waiting to be pushed and fallen on. He maneuvers between them and into the subway. In order to get to his platform he has to descend into another tunnel below the two platforms to cross over to the Brooklyn bound R train platform. As he is coming up from the tunnel he sees that his train had just pulled out. “Damn it! Just my luck.” 

He needs to get to Avenue U near Brighton Beach in forty minutes. The train ride can take over forty five minutes if it’s not running late. The train is almost always running late. The music in his ear becomes softer. Another train quickly pulls into the station. “Perfect there are plenty of seats.” He sits down. As the door closes he realizes he just got on the W train. “Shit!” No worries he thinks, “I’ll just get off at the next stop and wait for the R train on Rector street.”

 A cello solo is playing- strum, strum, strum. He imagines felling the vibration of the string as easily as he can hear it. It vibrates in his stomach as if he was the instrument. The R train pulls into the station. He boards the train.

The piano’s turn. It plays a light melody in contrast to the bass of the cello. “No Seats” he thinks to himself. He goes to stand in front of the door that connects his car to the rest of the train. He sees a pretty brunette. She’s wearing black frame glasses, her hair is short straight and layered. She doesn’t notice him. She has earbuds on as well. 

The trumpet comes in. Its stealing the show. Its playing like a person fighting for his life. It Crescendos, it blairs, its reving like the engine on a bike. He takes the train four stops and gets off at DeKalb Avenue. The station is semi crowded. 

A few minutes later the Q train pulls up. Its already packed before the doors open up and now everyone will play how many marshmallows we can stuff into the mouth of the train. Our guy waits until everyone makes their attempt to push there way onto the train. At the moment when the doors are about to close he pushes up against the mass of torsos and limbs barely making it past the closing doors. A few angry commuters turn to look back at him, grimacing. 

The saxophone follows the trumpet. Its somehow unpredictable as it plays it’s different ranges of notes; high pitched, but as if it has phlem in the back of it’s throat, the same thing when it hits the low notes like there’s water in the reed and the notes are playing past it, through it. 

The train rides a couple of stops then stops at Church Avenue, and most of the commuters disembark. He gets a seat near the door. Relieved to be sitting down he closes his eyes. He can visualize the instruments that are now playing in unison. 

He pictures a band in ragged shirts and dungarees in a hot  basement bar off Bleeker street playing to a mostly packed room. Its the twenties at the height of prohibition, after the war. The lights are so dim you could hardly notice the place is lit. Moonshine is being served but only at the tables. A waiter brings it to you and serves it from glass jugs. “Next stop Avenue U” crackles from the P.A. speaker. He woke up looked at his phone and realized the radio station had stopped playing. 

He got off at Avenue U  and walked to his therapy session. He passed a psychic reader that had a sign on the face of a five story building.”To be present we must have a clear view of our future” it read with the words “Fortune Teller” in big  bold red letters. The fortune Teller was outside the store front sitting on a foldable chair. She was thin, young – in her thirties- and she was atttactive. She was mediteranian or Eastern European, he could tell because she was white but not pail white. Her complexion was the kind that comes from generations of cross breeding between different conquering cultures, or many generations spent in the desert. 

She was staring at him from a distance; he was across the street. As he passed her she offered to read his fortune. He usually avoided eye contact with people but his eyes were fixated on her eyes without it being awkward for him. He nodded his head no and barely got out the words “No thank you” before she added “c’mon whad’ya got ta loose.” 

He thought, he has time to lose, he was running late for his appointment already. But something about her made it hard for him to refuse. They walked into the narrow stairwell, She had a dim lit studio apartment on the second floor of the building. As they walked through the apartment door they entered what looked like a livingroom. After looking around he realized it was her bedroom. There was a couch which looked like she slept on, it had a comforter that was hanging off it. 

She motioned him toward the kitchen. He was surprised not to see a small round table set up with a crystal ball in the center. Instead it was a small round dinning table in a small kitchen with two chairs. On the countertop were what looked like large novelty playing cards and a small fish bowl that barely was large enough for the small blue fish inside of it. She set down a cup of ice coffee and sat down at the table. The psychic gave him a list of her services and the price. All he heard was the first service, basic reading for five dollars. “What’s included in the basic reading?” 

    ” I tell you one thing about yourself.” 

    “Just one thing?” 

    “Lets see what they have to say about you.”

    “Who’s they?”

    “They are the ones who see.”

    “Ok” he says optimistically.

    She begins by asking him his name. He replies “Reed.”

    “What is your date of birth?” 

    He tells her December 31, 1985. As he tells her he’s thinking “What a scam she’s going to give me basic information based on my zodiac sign.”

    “What do you want to know?”

    “My future.”

    “What they are telling me is that you are a kind person, hard working. Some people may take advantage of this. Family and friends are very important, but they will noy always be there for you.”

    He looks at her expectantly.

    “They are telling me you have been hurt by love in the past.”

    He nods. “You havent gotten over it yet.” He shrugs his shoulders. 

    “They tell me you will be making a very important decision soon and they tell me only one path will give you peace.” She pauses. “I’m sorry that is all they have to say.”

    “Continue I’ll pay more.”

    “I m sorry they are silent now.”

    He stands up and pulls a five dollar bill out of his pocket says thank you and walks out. He walks back to the train station. He gets on the platform walks to the edge and peers over it, the train is coming. He remembers the blue fish in the small fish bowl. 

    Humanity Animus

    It will be a sad day when humanity ceases to surprise us and behaves in the nefarious manner we suspect it to behave. For now humanity is a creature that will only reveal limbs and small surface areas of it’s body making it difficult for the artist to capture a true picture of the animal in full form.