What Are You Gonna Be?

Hey Yael,
he casually asked,
What are you gonna be
for Halloween?
I smiled smugly
and gave him the same
smart ass answer I always give:
I’m gonna be 26 years old.

Halloween is my birthday.
So every year
I go out dressed as
someone who looks kinda like
the same person as last year
but a little older,
a little wiser,
a few more wrinkles on my face.

No, he said,
(breaking pattern from others
to whom I have given that
same smug smartass answer
by pushing the question further)
I mean,
What are you going to BE?

He meant,
What is your costume?
So at the time I told him,
You know,
I never dress up for Halloween.
My costume is always
“Hey! It’s my birthday!”
and that tends to get more people
buying me drinks than if I were
dressed as Captain America
or a slutty nurse
or whatever.

But, upon reflection,
I should have answered honestly.

What am I going to BE
on my birthday?
I’m going to be the most genuine
version of myself imaginable.
I’m going to be brave,
unafraid to take risks,
ready to fail, to fall,
in the name of living
squeezing every drop out of this sweet
short trip around the sun.

I’m going to be fun.
I will throw caution to the wind
knowing I have the greatest
safety net of all
in the people who know and love me.
I will be the person dancing
with every step,
the person jumping at
every opportunity.
I will be that bearded weirdo
that you wish you could be more like.

I’m going to be just
and righteous, standing up
to wrong when I see it,
defending those who can’t
defend themselves.
This is the one I say every year.
I am always aware
that I could be doing more
to defend justice.

But most importantly,
I’m absolutely
one hundred percent
going to be myself.
Undiluted, unfiltered,
impossible to contain.
That same eccentric person
you’ve always known and
have always had
polarizingly strong feelings about,
but a little wiser,
a little older,
a little more facial hair,
and a few more wrinkles.

That’s what I’m gonna be for Halloween.

Desert Rain, Part II: El Nino

holy hell
this is one wet autumn,
and it is heavenly.
this ghost they call
The Boy has come
from the west
to bless Phoenix
with a weeks-long
baptism of sorts.
that petrichor
lingers in your nose
like Gospel boogers.
that was one harsh summer
we had back there.
we need this wash.
we could use the relief.
you might even say
we deserve it.

A little help goes a long way

I went grocery shopping today. Hummus, pita, veggies, beer, you know, the basics. I’m waiting outside of Fry’s for my Uber to show up when two drifters approach me. Native guys with long hair, lots of tattoos, dirty clothes. Guys you would not want to get in a fight with.

One sits down next to me and asks me for change. I tell him I’m sorry but I don’t carry cash. He says that’s fine. His companion has been walking around, looking at the entrance of the store. He now joins us. I’ll be honest: I was a little scared. I wasn’t sure what these two were doing. I checked my phone, and my Uber was close, so I started to gather my things. The other drifter says: “Hey man, can I get one of those beers?”

Did I give these guys beer out if the kindness of my heart or out of fear that they would stab me if I had said no? I always have this strange balance between compassion and guilt when speaking to homeless people. I remember what it was like to be like them. In that regard, I gladly want to help them any way I can. In the same regard, I know how relative morality becomes when you’re starving, and therefore I become tense.

I gave them each a Fat Tire, and they were beyond excited. One introduced himself to me, and we shook hands. The other said, “Hey, now we don’t have to steal beer from the store!” as they walked away. So I helped these guys get beer, but I also helped Fry’s prevent loss of merchandise.

I guess that’s the lesson here. When you help someone, you may not know right away who else you are helping. Help people anyway, knowing that it does go a long way.

High notes

I got stood up tonight.
Should have expected that.
Online dating is a
sucker’s game
anyway.
Interesting people are
out in the world
helping construct reality,
not sitting behind a phone screen
constructing an idealized reality
that tricks people into
liking them.

As I looked at the seat
next to mine,
bare but for the program
of tonight’s recital and lecture,
I remember what my friend said
at Charlie’s last week:
“Enjoy being single.”
Damn it,
I thought,
I will.

So I cried a lot,
a lot more than I would
have, had I been
on a date tonight.
Kurt Weill has that effect on me.
He brings me to tears.
I got so
emotional because I
was fully deeply
present.

As a poet, I may work
for the rest of my life
to make words
that make sense
of how a soprano’s high notes
hit me
like hurricane wind
then soothe me
like petting a cat.
I don’t quite have it right yet.

Before the show started,
the young people had
to give up our seats
and stand in the back,
so the seniors could sit.
I met a man, my age,
named George.
We shook hands.
See?
Meeting people
in the real world
is really not that hard.