Grad

Black thin meshed robes cover me from head to toe, leaving me basking in the hot sunlight that burns me slowly and invisibly.

I’m flying down the flagged rainbow that sneaks past the stage, along the brown and blue banners that I called home for the past 4 years.

Matching my glasses, I slowly ease my way into the seats that will be the last time I stand as an undergraduate, a man without a purpose, without poise, without profession.

It’s been an amazing sun filled hill, sliding up and down its slope with the grace that my own two feet can bring. Up and down with my spirit, rising and falling day in and day out.

I enjoyed the smell of the grass in the spring, when I climbed up to enjoy the cloudless views of the Boston skyline up above a building where I took to be my third home.

Tufts has always been my home away from home, where I have lived to my potential and exercised what the future held for me.

Through it all, the hill stood there to support me, to see me roll down like a bullet-ridden log, and to climb its steps like a ladder to nowhere in particular.

The hat that covers my forehead, and runs small around my pinnacle slides into place and slowly the past 4 years have seized to be a blur, a shadow of my past.

They have morphed into my present, into something that is a part of the new me, the new man who stands here listening to the Stars Spangled Banner wave high and bright among the crowd.

Joining in the chorus is the occasional reminder in my head that this was all worth it, all a part of the learning experience that I will begin to recognize as I mature.

It was my turn now, and hearing my name read gave me the butterflies; all the hard work, cancelled trips and parties, all to walk this stage with honors.

For the first time in a long time, I was proud of myself for getting here. This was my moment, it was meant for me to cherish and remember. The weight was lifted.

I felt liberated of expectations, most of them ones I created myself, as though all I had to do now was own up to my success, grab it by the neck, and put it in my heart.

It felt weird to be done. To be let go into the real world when it felt like I had just started feeling independent.

And I’m glad it is all over. And it is a giant step forward for everyone involved.

The Night Before Graduation

9 brightly colored poorly taped letters “Thanks Mom” adorned my graduation cap as I stood in my room late this night, trying to come up with the words to say about what is going on around me.

There are so many emotions rolling through my head as I forget that it is 1 AM the day before I walk across the stage with my tassels and black sheer robes pretending I am “Harry Potter” roaming the long hallways of Hogwarts.

My hallways, for the past 4 years revolved around the building computers outnumber people, hours run by like lines of code across the screen, and free food is found aplenty.

Halligan Hall is the common symbol of suffering at Tufts, but for me it has been the beacon of learning, the intellectual stage upon which I take my first steps into adulthood, the foundation of the paved roads that I will be able to travel now that I have a very expensive piece of paper in my hand.

But it is more than just that. I’ve gotten used to working tirelessly even though people told me not to, that it didn’t matter, that my GPA is only numbers that will never be seen again.

It is the pride and the signs of self satisfaction, of unequivocal happiness to know that things always work in your favor if you show enough grit to push through. I have cleared enough trees to see how far I’ve made it down this road, and have planted the seeds for new ones to grow.

I’ve spent 4 years understanding why college is so expensive and so unique that even people who can’t afford it spend their lives reliving these moments, these lectures and moments. And I think I’ve found my purpose on this very last day before stepping foot into the real world.

Honors and all that mean little when you cannot forge your own staircase to reaching your goals. Every brick has to count, every bit of cement a pouring of your heart into achieving something taller than you. And it only gets more sturdy the more time you spend building.

It’s been 16 years since I started school, and tomorrow I will be finally ascend to a higher rung. But I am forever grateful for all the mortar and every prism I stand on. It’s emotional enough to be able to persevere and make it this far when all the connections you make are self-driven, and no one handed you a hand from the higher echelons. But I tried my best to teeter and to jump as high as I could.

Now let’s hope the steps are built well enough to hold me here.

Pages

16 years ago, a short, stout bowl cut boy walked through his first set of swinging doors, passed tiled hallways and screeching bathroom stalls, blackboards and brown molds. A little boy not destined for first-class seats, or mansion streets. He held his mother’s right 3 fingers like any other boy, and proudly showed off his age on the remainder hand, the one he flopped to his side, and tossed back and forth hoping it would be trusted at his side forever.

And trusted it was, enraging loose leaf papers with the pressure of ballpoints and graphites, Crayolas and markers. 16 years probably burned a few trees, in the process, but the grief over the ink etched into white moot pages can now be written in the memory of that little boy who craved for lunch time more than his math homework every night. The math homework that eventually pushed him to keep writing.

His right hands curled around whatever tool he could find, to try and etch a path around the obstacles in his classrooms, the tire marks on the ground of his first bike, the silent drips of gasoline from his first car ride, and the sweet smell of the cherry blossoms on the lawns that he crossed to finally end up on a stage with more ink and paper in his palms, a trigger to the memories of the past 16 years, and the past pages of his life, no longer smelling like Crayola.

All Nighters

There’s something magical about staying up all night alone,

watching the sun rise through the cracks in the blinds,

feeling the dormant molecules in the air start off their routines,

clinging to my dirty skin, my eye lids, my blue pants .

 

There’s something magical about feeling the weight on my lashes,

slowly slipping my horizon lower further and further,

until the ground is the last thing my feet feel as my hands give out,

my fingers stop typing, my shoulder slump down to my sides.

 

There’s something magical about reaching the last few words

of an unpublished paper, the floods of keystrokes and blank pages

no longer there to chase me into the night, drearily facing them

and hoping I was anywhere, everywhere else, except my room.

 

Here I am, alone with the English alphabet that I have stared at for weeks,

watching my own face reflect in the darkened screen,

wishing I was back with the sand that dried out my streaks of blonde hair,

softened my eye lids in any way possible, and kept me company as I fell asleep.

 

Nemo

I’ve felt your hot tears on your face when the roots are pulled, pulled harder, and the soothing blast of the brush that comes every morning before your excursion to school.

I’ve felt your hot hands reach for my shoulders when you jump up in an arrogant display of elementary school rhetoric to be higher, and brighter than anyone else.

I’ve felt your hot burn on my stomach when you playfully pinch me and tell me to lose weight, the jiggle on my back always letting your smile out, and I try to run away.

I’ve felt your hot smile on stage, when you spot me in the audience at your plays, and concerts, as your cheeks flash the acceptance that I so often wish others bring upon me.

I’ve felt your hot taste for revenge when before university you’d eat my breakfasts and hide my luggage under your bed so I would not leave. I still remember the look you gave.

I’ve felt your hot judgement when I dyed my hair blonde and your facetious display of puzzlement and bewilderment when I remind you of the worst joker ever, as I should.

You’ll always be the fly, the girl who goes around everywhere, inquiring, looking, feeling for herself silently, and then I wonder how you’re so smart, so incredibly fly, so you.

You are my friend, the Nemo to my Dory, my blood and my glory, an age to our story, and the ocean is avast with opportunities for you to explore what you truly wish for.

Your rapunzel hair tangles in my hands and my face as you twirl around my fingers held high above your head, the diamond crystals shifting ever so slightly in the brilliantly shiny branches that grow from the roots, like our roots that intertwine for the past 12 years.

I’m so proud to be your brother, and no matter what you’ll encounter along the way, just keep swimming girl. I will always be around.

Rotations

Four corners of my chariot accelerate along the char colored concrete,

streaming along, sun crowing to the left, blinding my unprotected eyes.

Rolling around the center, they move in unison to carry the load off my shoulders,

uncompromising under all the weight and pressure that I put it through, day by day,

shifting my thoughts from the frosty tips of the forest up north,

to the sandy strips of shore in the south.

 

Now that it’s over, rolling in the deep dreamy drift of the sand that collected

on the soles of my feet over the course of a week, I shower the next morning

thinking about all the rides you took me on, hot and cold fronts shifting

around each other like the wheels around an axle that keeps its course,

a train that only travels back and forth, a body not meant to move like the ocean.

No longer in control of turning the wheel of the chariot, I descend into the

shadow of the back, and fall asleep in an imaginary forest of cozy leather seats,

windy whiplash, and silly banter of country music.

Beach Burns

The sinking, soft cold flush of the wind drives waves of sand around my flopping feet, squishing between my webbed fingers and crusting around my fingernails as they bury themselves in the ground, looking for something to grab onto. 

The hole grows deeper, and the five grooves on each side of me slowly meet in a well of black, crystal and beige, eating away the dead skin that sticks to me like sweat on a sunny day, the days that I spent sulking over where I could be, aside from beside you, holding your hand in the sand dunes, sharing the sunlight and blocking you from the burns that now cover my exposed edited and endured body parts.

There are waves that soon swallow the holes that you’ve created in between my fingers, and the slight beams of the sun bake it all into a smooth sand walk that leaves my footprints behind, awash with what I left behind while laying there, waiting for you to be the shade that would save me from the sun. But you never flew over, never walked past, and the water is now passed my waist, whistling around my ears, and sinking into my salty beach blonde hair, promising to take away all that lay underneath me, one grain and groove at a time. 

Tango Pose

The sharp smell of your perfume linger in my sequin-knit vest,

my v-neck collar rung from all the effort I’ve put,

sharing the attention with the golden hair that leaves me from seeing any further,

behind you, into the eyes of the PDA-avoiding lady whose eyes run away from

me, twisted at your side, attached at the hip and middle, a tango frozen in contact

on a shiny wooden parquet floor when the music slows cuts out, and a final pose

yet to be reached.

The number on my back burns me, and I quickly untangle my body

and let the space between my fingers be occupied by yours. I hold you

as if I have never danced with you before, as if the bewildered look in your eyes

never hid itself from me before, and the legs that carried you to me today

did not know where they were going next. I led you on this journey, and finally

I find myself losing sight of what to do; in a haze of twirls, twists, triples, my hands

give out from underneath the weight of your shoulders, those golden gliders

that covered my eyes and made me blind are there no more, and in a fluid motion,

I push you away in a final pirouette towards those that judge us every time,

and face the fake applause.

 

 

Broken Shingles

The broken shingles slam like a hammer against my window,

begging me to take a look outside, and meet your starry gaze.

Somewhere out there, you might be wondering if I am doing it too, though,

a crystal clear waterfall of foolish lies between us,  this maze

intersecting me everywhere I move, away from you my mind escapes

through the dirty panels on my withered wooden skin, the ones

you have never even touched, smoothed over with the grace of a thousand pleas

that I have said out loud in your direction, in your face and in your name.

The sand that clogs my eyes and seals my nostrils affords me no opportunity

to be alive when I turn and face the broken panes of glass that separate

me from the air that I one day hoped to share with you.

The sand that piles high across my trembling fingers constant only in their

hope and smile that this fruitless, dry period is over, and they can go back

to holding, and touching again.

No matter how much I want to run outside, and greet whatever sandstorm

lays waiting for me, waiting for you,

my feet stand still, my handles that ground me to where I lie today,

still staring at my reflection in a stream of blue,

the falling mist sticking to my eyelashes, and lulling me to sleep.

438,000*

 

You said you wanted to get away, so now you’re leaving all your fears behind,

yesterday became tomorrow, and tomorrow took its time.

why did you leave

only to come back, nickel and dime

me with harm. The hold that I had on the floor,

just the little grasp of dirt,

slipped over the edge. Kept away

from me by the tremble that you caused.

How could you ask for more,

what were you dreaming for?

Must be one of those bitter things,

killing time for my sake, with thorns and stings.

oh no mate, you’ve asked me this before,

and there’s nothing left in store, but storied

books beneath the feet of the nils, 4,3, and 8*.

 

 

(438,000, 10 months’ time).