Month: November 2020

November 17, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i had a dream last night
that i was at a theme park
all roller coasters and arcade games
and fried food and good friends
and yet, in the air, there was the stench of stress
of disease
and i realized
that i shouldn’t be there.

i was there with a friend
i haven’t seen in ages
and we were enjoying our time
(it seemed the park had just opened up
and we were some of the first to ride its rides
again
after shut-down)
but the shut-down wasn’t done yet,
they just decided to open
they said they had precautions in place
but all i saw was slightly less people
and no way of stemming that flow
once the gates were truly open
(indeed, it wasn’t really much less than on a rainy summer day.)

and though my friend and i enjoyed our time
and i said hi to her family
and we replayed our crazy youth
(of rehearsals and post-show chi-chi’s gatherings
getting ‘drunk’ on sprite
and ‘high’ on pixy stix)
there was still a reminder
in the back of my head
“we are in a pandemic
we should still be in lock-down
what are you doing?
what are you doing?

what are you doing???”

but i couldn’t seem to leave.

maybe it was the social obligation;
i had arrived here with my friend
(i think we’d driven together)
i couldn’t just abandon her.
or maybe it was a selfish decision;
i hadn’t had this much fun
in over 8 months,
i hadn’t even been to a theme park
in years
i’d get cravings
(though i’ve never craved the crowds)
and there was still one more ride i wanted to ride
one more game i wanted to try
one more food i wanted to partake in
(plust the park wasn’t closing for hours and hours)

so my insides struggled
with the guilt of knowing i shouldn’t be there
and the knowledge that i could just leave
but the compulsivity to stay.

would i have not entered the park, had my dream started earlier?
given me an out of not feeling like i’d ‘already gotten this far’?
or would i have convinced myself there was some reason
saying ‘we’d already driven this far’
or ‘well they invited me’
or ‘i mean, the pandemic is lessening, right?’

but it’s not, it’s getting worse and worse, but half of the united states decided they were
‘bored of the pandemic’
‘bored of the lockdown’
‘bored of taking precautions for themselves and[especially] for others’

and i want to be bored of it all
but frankly, i enjoy the solitude

however

i miss my friends and my family
i miss having a place to go to every day
i miss exploring
i miss feeling like i could spend hours in one public place
i miss classes and hugs and working towards feeling strong
i miss feeling like i could one day make this city my own.

but mostly, i miss the souls i never met.
what if that first statistic was meant to be my new best friend
what if that person who had an ongoing condition
won’t be able to dance again
because their breath was taken away
by a disease traveling the globe
and they won’t go back to a class ever again
because they feel too embarrassed by their loss.
what if there was a chance encounter
a silly thing
mixed-up drinks at a coffee shop
or a jovial ‘yes and’ at a subway platform
just the little things that you hold in your heart
and maybe tell your spouse at the end of the day
that make the city feel like the most welcoming place
in the world
and now we can’t
because people think that roller coasters
and their own enjoyment
are more important
than other people’s
lives.

please stay inside.

November 7, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

7pm
every weekday
New Yorkers
cheer
through open windows
banging pots and pans
screaming our thanks
outwards
upwards
towards the front line workers
[trying to] control this pandemic
helping people
keeping folks
alive

[it felt like our only way to actively
give thanks
and feel relatively
in control]

November 7, 2020
11:27am
cheers echo in our neighborhood
as my spouse refreshes their page
“yep, the New York Times just called it”

and here we are again
regaining some control
screaming our relief
through open windows
outwards
upwards
towards whatever higher deities
[or Pennsylvanians]
we believe in
giving thanks for knowing
we should have a leader
who can be held accountable.

[now let’s hold him
accountable.]

November 2, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

at four,
at five, at seven, at eleven,
i could always see myself
a few years into the future.
i don’t remember how many years, exactly,
nor do i remember if i was ever exactly right,
but i could always feel
my future
was solid
and that gave me
solace.

at 16, the images started to fade
my future seemed to stop after 18
everything felt unknown;
i had no visual to work toward,
no solid internal knowledge
that i’d even be present.
i spent the years leading up to 18 in an
anxiety-ridden daze
and my 18th, 19th, 20th years
in a kind of confused fog
another kind of daze
things were happening
but i hadn’t predicted them
i hadn’t had the insight
i was no longer one with myself

and unknowns are scary

(but somehow, i made it here)

i had a similar feeling about the direction of our country.
i wouldn’t say i predicted the presidential elections
(i still watched the results with baited breath,
and cheered as if i couldn’t believe it
when this white supremacist nation
somehow decided, in a landslide, that this half-black man from Hawaii
was “eloquent” enough to merit their time
and votes)
but i always had those “feelings.”
and even in 2016,
though i didn’t want it to be true,
i felt that we were getting complacent,
i felt that we were setting ourselves up for failure,
i felt that, somehow, this country thought it had done its “good deed” for the century
and now would show its true, horrid orange colors.

and i fell asleep that night knowing what other people didn’t want to admit
and i stopped reading the news
and i stopped listening to NPR
and i re-read Harry Potter throughout that first year,
imagining that we’d defeat the toupee’d Voldemort
through the sheer power of love.

but as this election approaches
i’m back to being 16, 17, 18
the future seemingly unwritten
and that unknown blankness
isn’t just scary because it’s unknown,

it’s scary because it’s either a future of
a political wave we may be able to hold accountable,
or a continuation of this fascist roller coaster
that half the country seems to be enjoying.

and i am struck to near inactivity
(that has nothing to do with my recent sprained ankle)
cuddled under blankets
my heart pounding louder and louder in my ears
as each hour ticks by
closer to the election
closer to the answer
that i still can’t foresee.

so, for the love of everything, vote.
vote like the color of your skin
increases the likelihood of traffic stops
and therein those traffic stops
increase in likelihood of fatality.
vote like your body is rejecting the fetus
you wanted so badly
and somehow your miscarriage
is now legally an illegal abortion.
vote like you’re me, ten years ago
health-insurance-less
because your depression isn’t quantifiable enough
to warrant a medical leave of absence from college.
vote as if you are looking directly into the eyes
of a child
inside a locked cage.

vote as if facts mattered.
vote as if you know the definition of
Separation of Church and State.

vote as if you still had some love in your heart.

[my heart is pounding
so hard
it’s loud
so loud
please let this be the pounding
of some remaining
love]