Family’s Retreat

  
Short Story based off of Diane Arbus and her photographic artwork “A Family on Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester”.

“Honey, you never want to do anything as a family. All you ever do is sit there and hardly say anything. You only go to work.” Abgail said to her husband Mike. “You don’t try to play with our son anymore and you hardly even look at me . . . ”

“Well when you work as many hours as I do you can’t help but be tired. And maybe if you stop drinking and letting yourself go to waste I would still be attracted to you. We went on this retreat to try to at least let our son think we are a functioning family. He’s too young to understand that we are meeting with divorce lawyers and that his parents are only together for his sake. You are so wrapped up in yourself that you barely even raising the boy. If he turns out to be gay it’s your fault.” Mike snapped in reply.

“Well if you were a fucking father to our son maybe his upbringing wouldn’t be sololy up to me. I can’t make him into a man, I don’t have a penis. If you wasn’t always trying to run of with that secretary of yours, maybe I wouldn’t have to be a mother and father to our son. But no . . . You always spending time with that whore of a co-worker. I only stopped working and became a housewife because you told me too.” 

“Look at our son, he’s a freak Abgail. He can’t make friends. All he does is spend time taking to himself and playing alone. Shit when I was his age, I was playing with my friends in dirty. Pulling on girls pigtails. We would race to the pond and look for frogs to race. All he does is play with is “friends” that no one but he sees. When we get back home I am taking him to speak with a specialist and that’s that. See I knew I should have listened to my mother and married Rachel. She was a serious Christian. Who valued herself and family.”

“You are not taking my son to see anyone. He’s a good boy. He’ll . . . He’ll . . . Hopefully grow out of it all. If not oh well. And maybe you should have listen to that hag of a mother of yourself. Does she know about you infidelity, I bet not. All you do is try to pin everything on to me. Accept responsibility for your fault in our marriage collapsing Mike. But you’re not man enough. You are nothing but a coward Mike. Who tries to blame this failing marriage on me.” 

Unknowingly to both Abgail and Mike, their son Josh heard every word of their conversation. And their conversations of the past. For sometime know he had known of their divorce. Which lead to his isolated behavior. His timid personality. 

Home Sweet Home No Gone Forever Gone

One of the most interesting changes in my life . . . has to be with the recent developments with my feelings regarding words like “home”, “place of belonging”, “mi familia”, and I could go on and on. Sadly it would be very repetitive and would very likely bore you to death. Within the last year, I’ve met some amazing people. People who affected my life, people I hope to know for a lifetime. Ironically, these people are from different walks of life than I am. Financially, racially, religiously, culturally, morally, and I could add to the list. Despite the distance, the bond was made.

With this new bond, I felt my purpose and goals renew. My faith in people placed in a new perspective, and my fears conquered. Yet this is where the climax of the story is reached. Where the plot becomes juicy and tender. Where it’s savory scent of the unexpected outcomes hangs in the air. Where you are stuck with the protagonist(me) dealing with two fields of grass. One field being that which for a long portion of my life I’ve ran and played in. The other field being freshly sown. As I considered both fields, all I could think of was “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side”. Quite contrary to popular notion, this new grass was greener and not itchy. Yet when I was forced to return to the old grass. I was relived to find grass from the new field stuck in the soles of my shoes and grass stains on my clothes. I was able to keep those small fragments of that grass with me. A constant reminder of where I sought to be.

See I grew up in a small, yet infamous city. Compton California, zip code 90220. My goal and aspiration was to fix my city’s broken school district. To repair my city’s degressive local government. More so, a school district that doesn’t primarily focus on the students academic success. One that doesn’t provide all the resources for the teachers to properly equip students for education beyond a high school diploma. Now don’t get me wrong, both Compton Unified’s Board of Trustees and Compton Unified’s Superintendent provide partially for the 20+ schools in the district. Yet one: they only provide when beneficial to their own image and two: are part of two and three other political roles. Compton Unified’s Board of Trustees use their role as School Board members primarily as a stepping stone or achievement in their developing political careers. Self-progression remains a priority over farther development of the school district.

So you might now ask yourself this, “What in the hell does that rant have to do with anything!” Coming home to the worn, drying grass has been one of the toughest obstacles to face. Giving me a sense of being a foreigner in a familiar place. Back home, there is a survival of the fittest, eat or be eating mentality. There is no sense of partnership. No sense of community. There is no “One for All, All for One”. Just you, me, and the other guys. To be quite blunt, it is the root of all things dark in my city. As one of few that came every few years, I seek to avoid being one of the damned. This city . . . My city raised me. Made me the person I am. Every obstacle and struggle became the casting for the person I was shaping to be. There is only one problem, this no longer feels like home. Yet it is still home. But doesn’t have the feeling to it. You know when you walk in your house on Thanksgiving or on Christmas. And you know you will smell food being cooked in the kitchen. The wonderful aroma’s of turkey and ham, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and other delicacies on Thanksgiving and the smell of pine trees and the laugh of children open gifts on Christmas. When that starts to feel cold and weary. When that doesn’t lift you heart like it once did. When all you want to do is get as far as possible away from it all. Then you’ll truly grasp my words. When it all starts to feel like a prison. As if I’ve been robbed of my freedom. I’ve only been robbed of the other grass. I just want to leave and come back when I want to. I no longer want to feel Iike a Inmate, but feel like the Warden. 

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

May the Macro Squad forever find success in everything they do. The Ben 10 will forever be united as brothers. #Stanford2k14

Foreigner in a Familiar Place

it’s strange to feel like a foreigner
surrounded by those you’ve known all your life
but I couldn’t help but wonder

where did the feeling go of being homesick

I do love where I’m from 
but I’ve ceased to hold this city in awe

for the things I hated I’ve now become numb

to . . . why does this place destroy all

for it was no small feat
to stop being a survivor but to live

especially with death and despair waiting down the street 

and somehow still strive

I was sick in entirety
disgust with self-centered and ignorant some could be

never hungry for more never thirsty for success entirely

but hey maybe it was just me

for I had lost my way 
and became to want nothing more

than to leave

the very place that raised me, yet brought so much displeasure in its lay

maybe after I’m gone I’ll grieve

on the memories I held
and maybe I’ll be like a war veteran 

who searching for the days in which he was youthful and war-bound

but the future lays uncertain

I’ve grown sick and displaced
I want nothing more than to follow the yellow brick road

down the path to a new place

to see what else the world could show

I never saw this coming in which
I wanted nothing to do with the place I loved

for it was were my memories were most rich

memories that I would never cease to remember

Obsessive Fisherman

I’m the sailer who set to sail at low tidefor I had one goal and one target to catch

and each morning I knew I was in for a long ride

but I knew this creature would be the most difficult snatch
as I used my unbeaten tools

I thought this creature would be like all other foes

haha was I the dullest of fools

this is how the pursuit goes
after setting sail, I contemplated a plan

would I analyze the strength of the creature or just full force

or would I be forced to use what I’ve personally banned 

I knew this would be the most difficult of wars
and so I started off underestimating the creature foolish 

the line of my fishing laid broken my ship capsized

as if this beast inner strength was something devilish

it took extreme fool for my mistake to be realized
my next tactic was to analyze the creature for a weakness

hopefully a obtainable special bait

not noting this creature’s true genius

and as I analyzed my boat laid in wasteful wait
I spent so much time sitting trying to craft the prefect trap

that when I finally tried to capture the beast

my once prized fishing expertise laid dormant and entrapped

instead of the perfect plan I made even more mistake none the least
but by the time I sought to change strategies

it was too late and I had been defeated

my ship lay in dismay, my equipment compromised, my will full of agony

I felt nothing short of cheated
in a last pitched effort

I patched together my equipment and will

to catch the creature, for know I felt I knew what it would take

and so now I waited for the perfect chance to go for the kill 

The Never Ending Cycle

always follow your dreams such a phrase we were told endless when we’re young

but it wouldn’t hold true as it would seem

but as we got older that it wouldn’t be the words they sung
it sadden me that as a youth we are told

to be all that we can be and strive for greatness

yet the moment we grow of a age our lives no longer are our own

and that dream you once had become meaningless
sadden that so long ago our imaginations run ramped

yet as we age we reach stagnation

in which our dreams we no control

for our dreams are no longer our salvation
it’s almost as if others try to live through us

as if they want our life to be as they dreamed of their own

and so they controlled us thus

it would seem as in time we’ve grown
given ourself over to the control of others

I remember dreaming dreams I hoped no one dare dream before

but being shot down by my mother and father

what I envisioned for myself ignored
oh but can’t you relate

and grasp the outcry I make

that when we should pick our lifestyles others try to dictate

making all the choices for our sake
the deepest of misery

isn’t the cause of failure but not controlling the lifestyle I perceived

my childhood being nothing must pure trickery

showing just how we are deceived
into believing we can achieve anything

when we don’t even control our future but see it in the hands of someone else

just because we are someone’s offspring

for we control not our lives but simply continue the cycle
a cycle in which those who came before

do everything to control those who come afterwords

so I end with a simple question, will you settle the score

and being the force that causes the cycle to avert