Fireworks

I remember the last time I was happy - truly happy.

It was when I took a silly photo of myself with curly wet hair with a green T-shirt on, one hand on my chin and eyes sparkling mischief. That photograph was a flicker. A flicker of happiness. It came too late and it ended too quickly. Just like fireworks. You anticipate them all evening, looking at the sky and when you almost give up hope, they shoot some and the whole sky turns into the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. But just when your eyes get used to the amazement and you begin to believe in magic, it leaves you with a dark night, and stench of smoke. Your head spins with the smell of the smoke and your eyes are still not accustomed to the dark yet so you can't even find your way back home.

It's like that. It's a wonderful idea. Your fantasy is perfect and everyone plays along but when it becomes real, it all goes away - just like the fireworks.

I hate fireworks.

Catch-22

More often than I would like to admit, I have my random moments of sweet cravings. I am notorious for my sweet tooth and extremely stubborn when it comes to wanting the dessert that I want at the moment I want it. Let's just say I am having one of those moments right now. This time I want a snickers bar. No Cadbury or Hershey, or even Godiva would do. I try to not focus on the craving as I realize that I have a lot of work to finish before the end of the day today but soon give up realizing that no amount of work will keep me from not entertaining the idea of munching on yummy snickers. Its only snickers that I crave and I am pretty much willing to do whatever it takes to get it. I run down the hall to look into the vending machine if it contains any. My face lights up when I see that it indeed has has a chocolate bars. I run back to look into my wallet for some cash only realizing that I don't have any. Not even a dollar. Damn,  the cab ride this morning! And damn me for forgetting to stop by the ATM to get some cash. I seldom keep any coins in my pursue as it almost always falls out anywhere it can. Yet, I look for some change. The snickers is for one dollar after all. I find two quarters, and two dimes. If only I had another quarter. Sigh.

Completely devastated, I give up. I turn towards my computer and halfheartedly start working again. But my mind is only focused on the snickers and is continuing to scheme various ways to get my hands on the it, with each scheme getting more desperate: May be I should ask someone if they have a quarter? May be I should walk 3 blocks and go to the ATM that I should have gone to earlier. Maybe, I should shake the vending machine and the snickers might miraculously fall down. Maybe I should break the lock and get into the vending machine and might just end up getting all the snicker bars in there? Oh, yum.

Realizing that the last option might get me into a lot more trouble than needed, I try not to actually entertain the idea but at this point I am ready to do just about anything to satisfy my craving. My love for snickers and the idea of it giving me intense joy is quickly turning into an obsession and I don't realize it even one bit. At this moment, I cannot imagine myself wanting anything any more. No amounts of delicious cakes and chocolates in the world would suffice. I am hungry and I am only hungry for snickers.

Lucky for me, before I go completely crazy, I realize that just the other day some change fell from my wallet into my bag (as usual) and I might be able to find something if I dig into my bag. Lo, and Behold! I actually find a quarter! Overwhelmingly happy, I run towards the vending machine while I am almost salivating for the snickers to touch my tongue. I hurriedly put the quarters in to get the bar out, but just before I press the button, something weird happens. My gaze hits a bag of potato chips in the vending machine. Immediately, the idea of munching on chips seems much more inviting than the idea of the chocolate bar. The deliciousness of the snickers that I could almost feel in my mouth just a few minutes ago begins to fade a bit as I try to ponder if going with the bag of chips would be a better idea. I didn't want the chips before I see them but now I want them. I know that snickers is my favorite but I still want chips because chips might just be better.

It turns out that all this time, I was not searching for something I love, I was searching for something better. I am not loyal to the snickers, I am only loyal to something that would make me feel happy and I am loyal to it only for the time that it makes me happy. I am selfish. I can't settle. There is always something better out there and that's what I want. Because somehow I have convinced myself that new tastes, and new things will make me happy, and who doesn't want to be happy? In the world full of so many options, the biggest challenge for us is to be satisfied with what we have or what we set out to get in the first place. We lose sight of our goal as soon as we see something even slightly more attractive and that is the cause of our demise. I could have easily gotten my snickers, enjoyed it as I intended and had a good time. Instead here I am, standing in front of the vending machine, with a frown on my forehead, trying to decide what would give me greater benefit. Greedy, I am. Tempted. So tempted. This world is so tempting. Sigh.

Halfheartedly, I press the button for not the snickers but the potato chips, because the snickers just won't do anymore. I know too much. I have seen something different and if I go with the snickers, I will always wonder what the chips taste like. If only I could have everything, but I can't because the cash is restricted and the time is limited. But I just can't be satisfied with what I love and because I choose not to be loyal, I never really will be satisfied with anything else either.

As I stoop down to pick up the small bag of potato chips, I see a packet of trail mix (dry-fruits/nuts etc.) in the bottom shelf of the vending machine, and immediately the chips in my hands hold no meaning at all.

Now the trail mix just has to be more delicious.

The Old Life

"Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart. 

'I'm coming back some day,' they all wrote. But never did. 

The old life was too small to fit anymore."

Only the Fools Here

We prefer to be so off balance on the rooftops as we watch the midnight fires burn down low, embers like heart coals that smolder out. I wanted to go to the moon when October ended because earth air was just too thick to be good.

"You were never consistent or aware when you were delirious, though you just assumed you were lucid, logical, precise. You were blind all the time."

I think you told me I wasn't real when I was only fourteen and I believed you. Pretty words, they are, like skylines tinged yellow and coated in silvered mist against red ripped skies and broken cirrus. Orion's belt is vivid tonight, like your breath. So cold on the windshield; we're shuddering in the frozen atmosphere and doing little to get warm. Too reserved, you keep yourself inside. I wanted you to know my hands and my toes, every little bend in my bones within your heart. To hold your sleep in my arms, to let you suffocate me in your smile.

With violent wings you invaded the border lines; we're always on the border lines. A cyclic, perpetual motion. Going through the form of life without actually managing to encompass what it wants to be. I suppose we talked to God that day in the mausoleum and swore our souls to the treetops, where the magic slices out so crisp and dead. It's so easy just to put this on repeat, like the children on my street that sing those jump rope songs, "Take your place, jump or lose, jump or lose, take your place." We used to hum those tunes when we stargazed past two a.m. with a little Sinatra in the background, like that night you stood up and wanted to fling yourself into the infinity of the darkness.

"Jump or lose... jump or lose."

Hello, Paris

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris while you are young, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."

— Ernest Hemingway

[Yes, I have missed you too. Thank you for all the kindness that you have shown. Really.]