Against Death

Every video I create
every photo I shoot
every poem I write
is a bullet fired
in a war against death
that I will inevitably lose.

But just because you’re on the losing side
doesn’t mean it’s the wrong side.

What is a video
but a fever dream?

What is a camera
if not a time machine?

What is a photo
if not your beloved
frozen in amber?

What is a poem
if not a perpetual motion machine,
a story told and told
and told again?

This is how people defy physics
and transform into pure light.

The Irish say
the final death you die
is the last time someone
speaks your name.

If that’s true, I hope my voice
echoes your syllables
off the azure arched ceiling of sky
for eternity.

This is stupid and it’ll never work.
I can only scream for so long,
and this clock someday winds down
and ends up in the landfill of time.

But the way my wife’s cheek feels
beneath my palm,
I want to believe
that softness
will never vanish from the earth.

I want to believe that “alone”
is just a temporary condition.

I can’t believe in god
so this is where
I pour all my faith.

This is a foolish dream
as all dreams are foolish.

And beautiful.

Kevin Reitz, 1998.

Maybe you only live
as long as your heart
remains a child.

Jung Chin, 2003.

I hope my cynicism
does not kill me
long before it decides
to cease its beating.

Lily Chin-Woo, 2013.

Maybe this
is the only death
I can refuse
and if so, I will find a way
to make it sufficient.

Hung Yoo Chin, 2015.

I don’t want the earth to forget us.

You, someday.

I don’t want the earth to forget us.

Me, someday soon.

So let’s remember together.

Death has made us all
into hand grenades,
and to love anyone
is to pull the pin
and hug your own murder
tight to your chest.

How noble
to fight the war
you know you cannot win
but refuse to ignore.

How noble
to not go gently

to rage
and in doing so,
become the light.

Disco Demolition

For Jason Tseng, Micah Bucey, and Gloria Gaynor.

In the 1970s, disco,
the child of soul, funk, and salsa,
was the most popular music in America.
Every nightclub pulsed with that four to the floor beat
from New York to Los Angeles,

And it was gay and brown and beautiful,
not in spite of
but because of these things.

When the White Sox blew up a crate
of disco records at Comiskey Park,
they weren’t trying to destroy a few pieces of vinyl,
they were trying to comfort regressive troglodytes.

The backlash against disco
wasn’t just the usual exhaustion
with a dead genre,
but fear of a black planet,
of a gay revolution,
of a Latin uprising.

The National Pastime
has always been slamming
a boot down on the neck
of somebody different.
But our lives were never a game
and rhythm has always been
in a league of its own.

So when fascists arrive
armed with bluster and bravado,
erect cocks barely disguised,
show them how bone dry palms
wrung out by self-hatred can’t hold
this sweat slick skin.

When they try to apprehend your beauty
show them what all this cardio was good for
and make your fabulous escape.

Show them why
we measure records
in revolutions per minute,
and their only choices
are thirty three
or forty five
not zero.

When the idiot astronomers of
social conservatism
try to convince you that
the universe revolves around them,
tell them that retrograde motion
is nothing but the illusion of a false perspective.

Our Earth always spun around this exquisite sun,
unafraid to be sequin and glitter.
This world only spins forward,
and our dream of
beatmatched brothers and sisters
moving from song to song
seamless
is the Truth.

So when fascists call your heart a crime scene,

dance.

When they bring cinderblocks
to build your body into a prison,

dance.

When they try to bludgeon you with their God,
tell them love
has always been the moral majority

and fucking dance.

And when this is all over,
and we’ve won
smile
and ask them:

Did you think we would crumble?
Did you think we would lay down and die?

No.

We survived.

For Those Considering Suicide

For Those Considering Suicide

After “All The Way Through” by Bane

Scientists call the seabed a wasteland
lifeless for a thousand miles,
but there is a miracle in its persistence,
how it endures under all that depth,
how it resists all that pressure.

If you decide to stop your walking,
but the rope snaps like your last nerve
or the belt buckle unpins itself
or your blood clots,
your hemoglobin rebels
against razor blade
like a corporal disobeying
his lieutenant’s order to kill
if your kidneys and liver tear
the poison out of your veins in gross defiance,

if your brain is nothing but a wailing chorus
of broken glass throats
and your only audience is a mute God,
trust in your flesh,
this machine designed so well for survival
that it completely regenerates every seven years.

Trust a heart wise enough to ignore your calls
not to beat, not to break.
Trust muscles that bruise when struck,
trust eyes that thirst for sunlight
and scowl against the wind.
Trust the rhythm of your breath;
it will not betray you.

I won’t lie to you.
The point is not that life is good
the point is that it’s worth
ten thousand kicks in the ribs
to snatch out one motherfucker’s eye
and force him
to remember your name.
This is the only hope I know.

I’m not stupid enough
to tell you to
feel thankful for the ghost
of your breath
in the pitiless moonlight.

But I am desperate enough to tell you that
I am thankful
for the beautiful ghost
still aching inside your frame.

I pray it stays there.

In a world where death always wins,
I’m begging you not to hand it
any more premature victories.

In a world that has committed
so many crimes against you,
commit one against the world
and survive.
Today, two wrongs keep you alive.

I know you can’t wait on a miracle.
But the truth is
miracles are just what happens
when your mind gives meaning
to unfathomable joy.

Joy is not the cessation of pain.
It’s just your breath
finding the blessing of air
as your arms and legs
thrash against a raging ocean.
It’s the laugh you manage
at your mother’s funeral.

Joy is every morning I wake up
with you still in this world.

This world is still for you.

Come unto me,
amidst all this witnessless sacrifice.
If you look up into the night sky
and all you see
is just the moon
and the stars
and all the metaphors are stillborn inside of you,
come unto me,
this motherless firstborn son
made of nothing
but frayed cotton and moth wings,
and throw your weight onto me,
collapse like a monument to
every deaf, dead god;
I will carry you on bent back
without a prayer, without a whisper.
When the banshees of your brain chemistry
refuse to cease their howling
come unto me
and I will show you
how I can scream louder,
how we can scream together
into all this pitiless darkness.

Abide with me.

And we will call this
a miracle.

Writing the Grief, Summer.

So it’s been about a month and a half since my mother died. I want to say “it’s been tough” and on some level it has, but it’s also been easier than I imagined it would be. I feel guilty even typing that. But the truth is that because I wasn’t a caretaker for my mother, my life hasn’t drastically changed. I wake up, I get ready for work, I kiss my wife, I go to work, I come home, I take care of one of a dozen projects I’m working on or I see friends, and I go to sleep to do it all over again.

That being said, when I spend time with my family, it’s hard. The things that trigger me are often unpredictable. Last weekend, my aunt threw me a wedding shower in the Boston area. It was my dad’s side of the family, so reminders of my mom were more minimal. My wife, Carolyn, who plays the banjo and sings, was asked to play a few songs. One of them she did was a cover of the Book of Love. And we got to the last verse, which is about marriage and the line came up – “And things we’re all too young to know” – and the tears suddenly came flooding up. I was singing along and I had to fight to finish the song.

I can’t even properly explain why. I just hit 30 this year, and it became very clear to me how far I’ve come and how far I still have to go. The idea that my mother was only about twice my age when she died was hard too. I wonder what she knew that I don’t. What she had learned but wasn’t able to pass on to me. And I’m going to miss her on my wedding day. We didn’t have the best relationship. We barely had much of a relationship at all. But I think the idea that I’m never going to get to fix that, that we’re never going to be close, and that I’m going to get married without her near, really hurts.

During the shower, I suggested to my dad that he and I wear calla lilies in our lapels for the wedding (because my mother’s name was Lily) and he got very quiet and said, “Whatever you want.” And he’s usually a guy who has something to say about everything. Getting quiet isn’t really something my dad does. A few days later, when we were talking about it, Carolyn said she believed that my dad is still really struggling with it. She’s a lot more empathetic than I am, so it worries me. I’m like my dad – we squelch down the pain we’re feeling and we get on with business. We don’t deal well with it. And I want him to be okay, but I have no idea how to help with that process. It probably just comes down to time, which is probably the last thing anyone wants to hear.

I finally was able to cry about it again when I looked at the lilies and carnations from her funeral, pressed in a sketchbook for six weeks. I took the floral arrangements home after the funeral, treated them very delicately, and pressed them in a sketchbook I bought at the local art supply store. It was an attempt to hold onto her, to hold onto that moment of family togetherness, to ease that pain through preservation, through memory.

It utterly failed. The flowers had lost their color entirely, and one lily had even gone moldy. One or two of the flowers were preserved, but as an artistic exercise, it was an abject failure. And that hurt. It felt like she was dead and gone and even the tiniest artifacts lovingly preserved, were going to rot and disintegrate as well. That really hurt, and I just lost it. My wife was there for me, thank god. I don’t know where I’d be without her. She keeps me going, and on the days when I can’t get out of the past, her mere presence reminds me that I have a future, and a beautiful one.

I’m still struggling, even when, on most days, I’m fine. It goes back and forth.

I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.

Writing the Grief: it’s the little stuff

It’s waking up every morning and remembering that my mother’s dead. It’s remember to phrase it as “my father’s house” and stumbling over the phrase “my parents want…” when talking about my wedding. It’s wondering, when you meet new people and you both start talking about your families, how much you should say and how much you should leave out. It’s about being angry about the fact that my mom basically abandoned me, and so sad that she’s gone forever.

Writing the Grief, “I’m so sorry…”

Okay, so I really hesitated to write this post, because it feels a bit like spitting in the face of everyone who supported me, who went out of their way to express their condolences and care for me. But I want to write it because I think it’s true, and because it’s these kinds of contradictory and difficult feelings that I imagine may be pretty common amongst those dealing with grief. And it’s those kinds of problematic emotions that I want to get out in the open because they’re easier to deal with if you can talk about them.

All right. Here goes.

I’m getting really tired of people telling me how sorry they are.

Okay. Explanation time. During this time of grief, I’ve been vacillating between feeling like there’s nothing wrong and being sneak attacked by immense grief at the worst times. While I realize, intellectually, that the grief is necessary and important, it’s certainly not a pleasant feeling, and it’s something that I instinctually avoid (whether or not that’s healthy is another thing).

When people tell me that they’re so sorry about my mother’s death, it brings me screeching back to feelings of grief. Worse, if I’m not grieving at the time, it often makes me feel if I don’t show proper amounts of sadness, then I’m going to be seen as insensitive, monstrous, a bad son, whatever. (I realize, as I write this, that this is pressure I put on myself – which is something I’m best at, better than blog posting, DJing, or writing poems – and it’s probably some shit I should stop.)

But when someone says they’re sorry, it drags it all up again. It’s been over a week since my mother died. It seems so recent and it also seems a million miles away. Sometimes I need to gather this hurt and hold it close to me, feel it again and survive it. I believe I’ll have to keep doing this for a long time until the pain finally begins to dissipate, when there is so little pain that I can hold it in one hand and quietly remember the good things. But then there are days when goddamn it, I just want to let this shit go and live. I want to eat some nice food, play some video games, and laugh loudly. I like to laugh loudly (and according to my aunts, who knew my mom before she got sick, that is something I got from her).

At the same time, I totally realize and acknowledge that people who are giving me their condolences have the best intentions and want me to know that I’m in their thoughts, and that they’d cook me food, hang out, get coffee, or whatever, just to make me feel better. And in that sense, it makes me feel wonderfully loved and cared about. And that’s fantastic. That tells me that I did all the right things in my life, and managed to surround myself with great people who care about me. And I am incredibly thankful for that.

But you know what? Sometimes, I just want to be Justin, that guy who makes a lot of art, not Justin, that guy who just lost his mother.

At the same time, when people expect me to just be normal, to take the workload a normal person takes, to deal with the things a normal person does, I just want to scream at them “MY MOTHER JUST DIED.” because honestly, I’m not normal yet. I’m not 100% yet. And it’s hard for me to accept that as well. I pride myself in being always ready for action – always ready to get work done, create something, coordinate stuff. And that just isn’t how I am right now. And I want people to recognize that, maybe wordlessly. Maybe that’s why I keep talking about this shit on Facebook – maybe because meatspace communication brings up all this conflicting shit for me.

So here I am, no answers again.

Writing the Grief, Clouds.

I woke up missing my mom and thinking of this song.

For those of you who don’t know, Zach Sobiech was a kid with osteosarcoma who passed away on May 21 after battling the disease for four years. There’s a beautiful and moving tribute to his life, his struggle, and his family here. I watched it a few days before my mom died (stupidly at work) and barely avoided breaking down at my desk.

Go watch that documentary and come back here. Get some tissues while you’re at it; you’re going to need them.

Okay. Whew. Heavy, right? When I watched that video, it became very clear to me that the world was losing a wonderful person and a beautiful soul. At the same time, I wonder if the cancer is what made him so mature, introspective, and creative. His brief time on this planet forced him to truly carpe diem in a way that a lot of us never do. Did his disease, in a way, make him who he is – the Zach Sobiech that we admire and miss?

At the same time, did my mother’s disease make her who she is, in our memory? Did my mother’s disease make me who I am? And if I like who I am (and I do sometimes, honestly, I really do), then maybe I should be grateful for that? I feel terrible saying that, because how could you feel grateful for the thing that killed your mother and seriously messed with your childhood? But maybe life isn’t that simple. I have a big problem with shades of gray and uncertainty. Things are this or that, right or wrong, and that’s it. Maybe the most important thing for me to do right now is to try to take things for what they are, in their entirety, confusing contradictions and all.

I miss my mom. That’s one thing that isn’t confusing or contradictory at all. I miss my mom.

Writing the Grief, losing track of time.

I’m back at work today because I was beginning to forget what day it was. Separated from the structure of the five day work week, I began to lose track of which day was which, what I had to do, what commitments I had made. I’m the kind of person who makes a ton of commitments, gets bogged down by them, gets stressed out over them, but almost always completes them and feels good about that. I schedule my life out months in advance. I give time to people, causes, and organizations. Keeping it all organized and together, as well as prioritizing what matters to me and what doesn’t – that is an important component of who I am. Or at least who I think I am.

When my mother died, I dropped everything. I don’t drop everything for anything. Or anyone. But there was never any question that I would cancel all my plans and spend time with my family. The clarity of purpose was brutally sharp.

Now I’m back at work, full of an uncertain future, in a life that I finally feel like I own, and the only thing I want to do is get on schedule again. Start committing. Work harder (or blog harder, in any case). But my work has, for so long, felt like a rut. Why do I keep doing this? Why do I feel like I need this?

Maybe it’s the distraction. Maybe it’s the structure. Maybe it’s because when I get deep into a project, I can feel like I still have both parents. Right now though, I need to get back to work.

Writing the Grief – the wrath of khan

Just watched the original Wrath of Khan. There is this beautiful moment at the end where McCoy asks Kirk, “How do you feel?”

Kirk, staring at the Genesis Planet, says, “I feel young.”

For a long time, I’ve felt very old, chased by death. Death didn’t catch me. It was never coming for me, not right now anyway. It was coming for my mother. And now that I am no longer living in its shadow? I feel just a little younger. Just a little more full of possibility. My mother is resting now. No longer in pain. No longer sick. No longer a consciousness trapped in a tortured body. And I have my whole life in front of me. How do I feel?

I feel young.

PS It doesn’t hurt that David Marcus tells Kirk that he is proud to be his son. When things like this happens, we find the necessary parallels, or we write them ourselves. I want to do both.

Writing the Grief – food, love… foodlove.

Guys, if someone ever loses somebody, and you have no idea what to do but you want to do something? Give them food. The Bolestas and the Eggnors and the Sierzegas, my neighbors for years, gave my family amazing, delicious food in our time of need. We didn’t need to worry about ordering out, about cooking, about anything. And that was beautiful. And wonderful. Delicious chicken piccata, yellow rice, crisp salad, homemade ziti, Italian cookies. My entire extended family was taken care of. And in my family, food equals love. Food is what you give when you don’t know how to say “I love you.” Food is how you say “I cherish you.” Food is how you nourish the soul as well as the body. Food is perfect. Food is always appreciated. Food is love.