perdóname
I’d like to think I oversleep to avoid the morning commute. To avoid looking on fellow people as despicable, self-serving vermin, vying, pushing, scrambling to get ahead of the next caffeine-crazed corpse. No, I choose the path less taken, for which I may appreciate the smile of a stranger whose kind image might linger with me throughout the day.
writing and deliberation
Sitting down to write is a very deliberate act. If only typewriters had been born in the mind,
Then we could dance.
Instead, we sit, think, spend too much money on a Starbuck’s tea—for coffee at this hour would be unwise—gaze out the window at unsuspecting tourists as I grope for inspiration, procrastinating with yet another piece of chocolate—yes I know that has caffeine too—all for the sake of putting pen to paper. If only blinking cursors provided a little more inspiration!
Then we cold move.
Instead they impatiently wait, tapping their would-be foot just as you do for your eccentric and benign roommate as a mindful, yet vain effort to remain amiable, smoldering your impatient and disgruntled feelings in the name of peaceful living. Fights are unfortunately left to fantasy.
Soon we might live.
Yes, writing is too much a deliberation. A deliberation best saved for letters of resignation, breakups, suicide notes, and the embarrassing farewells left for the ones who will be waiting for you when you return as you flee in the middle of the night out the window and into the freeze of your own startling regret. The grass is now frosted and her coffee is cold.
Yes, deliberation is a drink best served cold.
Neuroscientists say we’re beginning to decipher brain scans. We could watch someone’s dreams! They say. So we wont need typewriters. No coffee, no headphones, no comfy green couches. No over-priced cafés and no MUSAC covers. Yes, the writing of the future, we needn’t do more than think. Manifestation! They will herald it. Manifestation: an end to deliberation and the typewriter as we know it.
What might the dances look like then?
¿tienes hambre?
¿Tienes hambre? I would say.
I am Jack’s lingering guilt. There can be only one reason for inspecting a bag such as that. It, piercing the nose when you first pick it up while oily fluid leaks onto your hands, is yet another reminder of my fortune.
¿Tienes hambre?
I would say, not knowing what would follow. He might look up for a moment, his face sad and incredulous. The streetlight casts shadows on his face exaggerating the dirt on his face while illuminating his hair just so. Why does he look so familiar?
I am Jack’s broken record. Let it play.
Striking matches to kill the time:
The Tides Warf, Bodega Bay.
Who knows what he might find. No,
Play that broken record, he’s on the fray.
I think I have some spare cardboard, and
¿tienes hambre? I should say.
los detalles más finos
Si tengo que ir, iré. Si tú tienes que ir, no me importará.
Si me importara, yo iría contigo. Si fuera contigo, no estaría aquí.
Si no hubiera estado allí, no hubiera hecho esto. Y si no hubiera hecho esto,
quizás, te hubiera importado.
jódete vecino
the rap tap tapping in my head
the rap tap tapping right above my bed
slam smack splitting saws through my mind
dirty manga-less men molesting all the time.
to be a writer
I think a lot about what it would be like to be a writer. Sitting at the typewriter, leaning over a coffee-stained table poorly lit by one of those tiny lamps with the green ceramic shades. Smoking cigarettes is always a bad idea. Another hour passes as I peck away on my Underwood Portable, acquired by means not simply of my own doing, no doubt, but mine nonetheless. It was probably a charitable gift from a boyfriend of a friend or of my sister. Of course, I’m glad I could help, he would say. He’s tiring to think about. I secretly route for him to fail.
Clichés are a tired frame around a picture that never gets old.
Distractions are a writer’s worst enemy. Noise, more correctly, is a writer’s worst enemy. The coffee helps. I don’t think it makes things quieter, rather it makes thoughts louder. It’s the little sounds that are the worst. Sharp, loud, abrasive they seem against the placid serenity of a city in silence. Barcelona is a city seldom in silence. Its sea is a poor reflection of its streets, bustling with life, rushing and scrambling. Sometimes it feels like they’re jostling to be heard over the incessant buzz of stress. What do they have to say?
A typewriter is important for a writer because a sudden flash of clarity can only be captured at the speed for which he can write. A stroke of luck in an hour of misery as he patiently waits for its arrival—self-doubt is a weed that cannot be rooted and whose only sun is silence from the splash of keys.
You can’t backspace on a typewriter. That explains the crumpled up pages on the ground and ink stains on my hands. Ink stains. They’re like calluses for writers, or is that arthritis and poor posture? A writer doesn’t backspace, he starts over. If a mistake is made, the words have been betrayed by the audience that has not yet been born. This is why there is no need for a backspace.
Vices are important tools for a writer. What would Hemingway be without cigarettes, brandy, and bullfights? A writer documents the experience of living. Ironically, they recklessly indulge yet carefully ruminate its depiction.
Barcelona can be a city of indulgence. Tonight there is no noise, for it is Sunday: a day of rest, a day of fútbol. Perhaps a day for the writers to write and the livers to rest, but the bleeding won’t stop just because it’s Sunday.
noise
When you’re by yourself for a long time
My thoughts become very loud.
But they never seem to go anywhere.
What’s there to think about when there’s no one to talk to?
If I started to write them down,
Would they go anywhere?
Or would they just keep looping
Incessantly, molestingly, endlessly?
How do singers turn words into melodies?
What comes first? The music or the melodies?
The doubt or the impulse?
People talk to themselves so they stop hearing
The voices in their head.
Art is supposed to be the lie that shows us
The truth. What, then, makes the truth that is
The truth? Science? Boring, sterile,
Lifeless?
What, then, is a lie but life itself?
