Troubles

He realized that it wasn't going to work only after he started having difficulty reading. On the train, convulsing with each push and pull of the conductor's levers and buttons, he was reading the listings for others' lives, stories. Visions and sounds. And the jerky middle-school dance moves of a newly pubescent boy that the train so accurately emulated were not the reasons that he had difficulty reading. Instead, the glaucomic glaze of a once healthy eye now blurred and fogged the letters into heiroglyphics. "Domesticated" became "doomeshishddd" as he came to understand that this would be the next time he's had something wet drip from his eyeballs.
This was not a death, nor was it a conversation with his totalitarian though nonetheless maternal mother, so he didn't bawl or sob. This was an incident, possibly traumatic (he wasn't sure; he hadn't set a criteria for what constitutes trauma yet)that created the bittersweet opportunity for him to weep. He felt like his more androgynous 15 year old self again, a time when it felt good to cry knowing how his body rationed its minimal reserve, as his stoicism diluted with each letter cascading into impressionistic swatches. But he also felt drained. Disoriented. Absolutely rubbed out.
The paradox of his desire to flee and desire to help, desire to ignore and follow her "I wasn't going to tell you in the first place" creed and the desire to stay with his internal "no matter what" I'magoodman speech pushed the water out. He did not want to become like so many others he'd encountered, bearing responsibilities unfit for such an age in such a century. He had aspirations that required independence, a sizable bank account, and an opportunity to further his education.
"Call me if you need to." he texted with resolute frustration. He didn't want to face the realities he was just presented, but turning his back on them now would discredit the life he's tried to conduct with honesty and virtue. It is only when we have the problems we once chastised that we have our "Oh..." moments.
"I won't need to. I'll be fine on my own." Her punctual response wasn't what he wanted to read because he knew that he liked to take care of her, but wasn't willing to take care of her for good. It was the response he wanted to read because he thought he knew her strength and the earnest means by which she chose her words. He wasn't sure if it was the response he wanted to read because he knew that he only thought he knew her strength and the shaky means by which she chose her words.
With the thought that other passengers were growing curious, he wiped his eye, grunted, and carried on his bravado-facade even after the curtain had been drawn. He went back to spiraling over the films he wanted to see, but probably wouldn't.

When he was youngest, tears were common with spritely nights and drowsy days, his parents begging to rest.
Then years passed and tears escaped with the news of 3 of 9 deaths.
He wept for 3 minutes over 6 months of depressive bliss after 4 months.
Then conversations with his mother about her perpetual pessimism, his once passive-aggressive manhood, and how to identify loving each other reincarnated his tear ducts again.
This was the last time he'd weep for another pocket of tumultuous-but not enough-years.

What Happened to My Me?

What happened to my Me?
When was the last time I wrote in a marble notebook with a fraying spine
all the smiles and eyes and flicks and pins I vowed to remember in script?

When was the last time I patched up a pu rse, a skir t, a paira j e-ans
or made 'em from scratch with my knuckles cut and thimblelessness
profound and proud?

When was the last time I woke up early just to ride my bike through 4 cars passing and fog swaying blocks away to spoon until noon?

When was the last time I dealt with the depression of absence because I was so uncontrollably, irreversibly, suffocatingly in love, with a grin that could light the heavens a hundred times over?

___When was the first time I met my friends? My best friends? My never ending never leave me never always alright but just fine enough all the time friends?

___When was the first time I called myself a punk, an emo kid, an outcast, an original, and felt only pride while shopping at garage sales and Fantastic Records, knowing I was incapable of being tripped for the rest of my life, without knowing how to define a "party" because I'd never been invited to one?

___When was the first time I indulged in a girl's willing, pleasing, and unsolicited touch?

When was the last time I saw myself on a playground dangling
________________________________________and JUMping
_________________________and c a r o u s e l i n g

and

__t
___t
____tu
______mbl
_________ing through /b/a/r/s/,/ //r//o//p//e//s//,// and 0t0i0r0e0s0?0
It didn't stop when I turned 12.

When was the last time I snuck out, or needed to, in order to feel the dew, the moon, the pavement; an actual and successful escape? A chance to see the stars, the meteor showers, the suspicious cops stopping, the suspicious trucks stopping, the shopping carts rolling, the bikes piling next to sneakers as friends enjoyed summer and fall alike?

What happened to my Me?
I used to wake up at 6 a.m.
"Mom, can I go watch t.v.?"
"Yes, hun."
*kiss*
with the imploding fists that my mother wouldn't come downstairs
*stip
step
stip
step
stip
step
stop*
to interrupt my cartoons for the rest of the day,
not realizing that other programming s=p=r=a=w=l=e=d across the channels after 10am.

I used to read about how I could explore the Earth through magnifying glasses, magnets, and technicolor pipecleaners.

I used to fantasize about inventing. A slingshot ring. A Swissarmy anklet. An indestructible creek boat with tadpole catcher (made out of foil and duct tape).

I used to invent.
My own "Wild Things." Many appendages. Many eyes-sometimes like a cat's. Many teeth. Always sharp.
Lego trucks and jets. Many wheels. Many wings. Always pointed noses.
Worlds out of the mossy foundations of old trees. Cicada skins serving as barricades. Leaves folded just so as coliseums. Pine needles as road-guides on this yet-unpaved way. I hadn't even read any Tolkien yet.

Flying possibilities:
Shoes to jump high in with safety-lights in the heel. Check.
Wingspan with a length twice my height. Check.
Leaves broad and thick enough to sew or glue together. Check.
Branches, miscellaneous poles malleable yet sturdy? Hm...
A drop-off cliff to test out my wings. The local quarry, but I'm not allowed in there.

Breaking the toys of my baby sitter and my baby sister with my self and John. We destroyed memories and laughter at the expense of tears and shouts.

Kathy stole my Transformers Jet. It was so small yet so perfect. Cunt.
Patty forced me to eat Green Beans and PB&J sandwhiches. Cunt. Never again.

That perfectly honey-sweet Crispix cereal that isn't made anymore with a hole-punched geometric aeroplane back that I can't help but recall fondly, whether it actually flew, or flew well, or not.

What happened to my Me?
Vague recollections of playing doctor, getting naked in a Nordic Track box on a driveway, and seeing neighbors naked because I was trying to be a good boy and return a bike helmet, but forgot to knock.

Discovering porn in a broken VHS, then in a working Penthouse years before puberty. Fascination. No disgust or shame. Sensational.

Hearing women moan and gasp while watching tertiary-colored Pollacks and Mondrians thrust and bounce. I hosted the Best sleepovers with my buddies. Pizza and kindof porn.

The only time I've ever felt butterflies in my stomach after kissing a girl's girl with Capri-Sun down our throats and awkwardness lodged in our groins. I had a boner every time we spoke, which became incredibly difficult to deal with as the summer week passed on. I snuck out for her in a black D.A.R.E. shirt and black Hot Topic pants pinned close to my nervous shins. I fondled her under her sports bra, an incredibly defeating feat.
She broke up with me over the phone through a mutual friend at camp who also had a crush on me.
Cunt.
I got over her through Blue Weezer in Ohio, and Red Linkin Park words in a letter I never sent.

The first time sneaking out held a decision that would affect the rest of my life, at least until I graduated high school. We barely kissed, but at least the rain stopped. And what a birthday gift.

This is by no means an encyclopedic recollection of my youthful experiences, but I've attempted to lyrically summarize what I have a right to be nostalgic about. Experiences here are derived from the ages 5-15, but not in chronological order.

Eulogies

Being the writer of the family, I'm expected to write something "nice" for family occasions such as funerals, birthdays, mitzvahs, and miscellaneity.

This is a Renga I wrote for my Aunt Buzzy's passing. May she rest in peace.

"Ms. Elyse 'Buzzy' Ackerman"

Elyse as "Buzzy"
Reminds me of all New York:
Attitude, humor....

A flowing silk woman of
wit, street, and book smarts, pizzazz!

Nancy, Eddy, Ma
are missing now their sister,
wife, daughter, loved one.

But we are at peace because
she is at peace in quiet.

Bio

A native New Yorker who spends his days teaching how to grow up and write down and his nights adoring New York City and the conglomerate culture inherent therein. He appreciates the arts and humanities, conflict, and women. If you'd like to peruse his prose and verse about these appreciations, adorations, and considerations, visit him @ www.raphelps.blogspot.com.

Teaching

They may be the reason why, 15 years from now, I'll look 60 but act 16; a paradoxical profession of stress and exuberance it is.

I should be grading papers, but I've been all too influenced by one scene from the show "Keenan and Kel":
Keenan's mother: "Baby, what'chu doin' tonight?"
Keenan: "Well, Kel and I were gonna stay in an' study a li'l."
Keenan's mother: "What?! Boy, you crazy? Nobody studies on a Friday night...."
Keenan turns to Kel, both simultaneously shrug their shoulders, and they race upstairs to plot and scheme how they can get themselves into some sort of mischief and shenanigan.