migblog: 09.02

9.30.2002

this was the poem that i was so scared of because it's the most personal and it was the easiest to write. it's easily the longest poem in the entire series. there was an unusual flow that i got into when i was writng this. there's been little change to this since the second draft. i would hate to relive the event described in this poem again, for it scared a lot of us so much. that little something that could make me relate to the poem makes it that much harder to post it.

i hope you enjoy this one, folks. it scared me when i was writing it because i realized how true it was. as for You -- You know who You are.

fear

june 28th
the phone rings. it’s friday.
twelve o’clock, the clock read. jay was going home.
You had gone already because it was over 600 about two hours ago.
it was Your mother on the other end.
she said You were in the emergency room at st. joseph’s.

the laughter stopped and our smiles disappeared.

we rushed.
we got in mr. carvin’s mercedes, jay’s mom in the passenger side, and
we slammed the door and put on our seat belts and we gave the gas pedal hell.
red-green-red-green, the lights flashed
and we got on the onramp to the 91 and we hit the 55 and then the 22
and we saw the orange cones blocking the exit.
the trip was no less than excruciating and gut-wrenching. i was getting dizzy.
i was racking sobs inside of me while outside i remained
silent.
“main st. exit closed,” the sign said.
we madly dashed one past, turned right and right again
a sudden left and out the car.
the automatic doors opened wide,
greeting us as if the bright “emergency” sign was not enough.

we asked the nurse Your name and she said that visitors are limited
one at a time,
room thirty, past the door.
which door, which door – the one with the keypad – the one that
magically sprung open as i walked forward.
i stepped first, walked briskly past the threshold,
saw your stepfather-to-be and said there You are
expecting to see the worst.

i held my breath as i went past the curtain.

You were motionless and shallowly breathing
an intravenous drip down your arm
“we’re going to check your blood now” the other nurse said
while the other recounted her experiences with other patients
who needed amputations and couldn’t feel their toes and went blind.
Your forearm hurt because the nurse stabbed it with the needle.
You had a paper towel on Your head and Your eyes were bloodshot.
finally Your eyes opened and said
hey.
i was holding back tears every time i spoke with your mother.
it was a marvelous sight, the room.
it became traumatizing with You on the gurney
trying Your hardest to stay smiling
staying strong
aided by the proverbial twinkle of hope in Your eye.
You are truly amazing.

i held Your hand for a while.
You looked at me and didn’t need to say a word.
i clung on to it like i’d never let go; and this time
i prayed that i would give You something like strength
and hoped that a simple kiss on the hand would make it all better
like when You were little.
one o’ clock.
eerily silent, the room.

time passes. last count, 440. they’re doing final preparations
before we leave.
You can go home now.
no more tension.
knowing that if by waiting just a month more
the world would be a sadder place
i am happy that i know
and that You know.
two o’clock.
the emergency wing is quiet.

the ride home was beautifully uneventful.
i still didn’t let go.
people say that you need to get
scared
to fully appreciate something you love.
i was scared
and i love You.
i closed my eyes and thought deeply.
think, think, think, about what, about things i don’t know
about happy things, about imminence
about how God works in mysterious ways
(even though i’m an atheist)
and about how You look so different without your glasses.

how fragile we all are, i realized.
paralyzed by fear
gripped by things unforeseen and invisible
unanticipated, unwanted –
fear changes things.

i got home and slept for two hours
(i couldn’t sleep because i was too worried)
and woke up at four in the morning, crying.
fear slapped me in the face
and made me doubt
and let my mind delve into thoughts more horrible and perverse.
august seemed so far away, didn’t it?
imagine – no, i don’t want to.
i admire You so much.

fear sleeps in my heart.

i fear for You much more than i fear for myself.

9.29.2002

wow, haven't updated in a few days, but here's the latest in my revision of abstractia, so enjoy. it concerns being the receiving end of when someone's mad at you -- and when you know you deserve it. it's tough to swallow sometimes, but sometimes you just have to know to deal with it.

rage

anger in the heat of passion
blind madness like infatuation
obsessing to injure
loving to hate

i did it
i told you i did
and still you couldn’t find it in you to hate me
i am a bad person

i’m in complete denial
you have every right to hate me
but when you need to let that anger out
i am your punching bag

9.26.2002

this is dirty!!! but then again, it's justin timberlake talking about how he ate out britney spears...

like he said, "i'm in so much damn trouble."

hey, look at that, i'm back from all this crazy college hullaballoo... so to celebrate that fact, here's another installation of abstractia. have fun y'all. it was about where to draw the line where knowledge ended and wisdom began.

knowledge

some people often walk the fine line
between knowledge
and wisdom
pledging for one
but meaning the other.

to be wise you need to know
to know is not necessarily to be wise
because you may know the difference
between pure science and applied science
but not know how to apply.

knowledge is accessible to all
and wisdom is more elusive.

knowing the difference
makes us wise.

9.19.2002

ever get that feeling of being insignificant? i mean, when other people look at you, what do they see? then you wonder... what's it like to be in other people's shoes and ultimately their viewpoint? this intrigues me so much... and then, when you look at that, figure that there are six billion plus more people walking around not wondering about that. they could probably care less. some of them are wondering whether to go to the country house or the country club tomorrow, others are trying to survive in the country, others don't even have a country. it's amazing, this pool of diversity.

so along the lines of feeling insignificant, i wrote this next part of abstractia in response to feeling so helpless. it's the worst emotion ever, knowing that there's a situation but you can't do much about it except watch it unfold before your very eyes. it's heartbreaking and eye-opening. it shatters so many things, but when they're rebuilt, they're so much stronger in the end. so here's to never reliving the trauma of june 28, 2002:

helplessness

helpless
oh so helpless
unable to do anything about any situation
unwilling to move
willing to give in to anything

painful
very painful
knowing full well the gravity of the event-at-hand
acutely sharp
plague my dreams with the sight

it was heartbreaking
seeing you so helpless
i was feeling helpless myself
and neither of us could do a thing
except wait

wait and wait i did
until the doctor gave the ok at 2 am
and you finally came alive
i couldn’t help crying
and feeling helpless

9.17.2002

so today was kinda fun. i still need to write up my story for hardboiled as well as get a hold of steven, my partner for the story... otherwise, no story. and hey hey, san francisco tomorrow. that oughta be fun.

abstractia installment, y'all. watch out. (this one's about taking credit for the things that are rightly yours.)

pride

sometimes i wonder whether or not pride is a good thing.
it makes people unnecessarily humble
and then it makes their head swell
and then modesty doesn’t appear for a while.

often though pride smiles
and lets people shine in their own right.

we need pride because without it
we would be all too modest
all too honest
all too brutal and unable to face reality.

pride lets us be ourselves
without losing our pictures of ourselves
as we think we should be.

it keeps us normal
to a fault, of course
because pride lets us be.

9.16.2002

yay me, i was on tv! (they broadcast the michigan state vs. cal game on espn2, and they showed the straw hat band more than a few times, i heard. i was on tv, but i haven't really seen myself on tv (if that made any sense.)... i'll go try and find a copy of me shaking my booty on semi-national television. hehehe.

so, here's my off-the-point poem post for the day. it's about hypocrisy. abstractia installment. there ya go.

justice

it’s funny
how in the grand scheme of things
that in the end we’re all going to hell anyway
with the murderers
and the adulterers
and the liars
and the lawyers...

why a lie and murder can both send you straight to hell
it boggles the mind.

nothing in life is fair unless we make it fair.
all the sport and competition
even fair trials
have a bias. it’s never neutral.

justice makes me laugh because
she says to me
i contradict myself
and therefore don’t exist

9.13.2002

last and definitely not least is lyrics to a flaming lips song that i enjoy very much. it's a very interesting song, one you can just kinda get lost in. and hell, ben folds five has an awesome cover of this song. it's great. it's like apple juice. (don't ask me where that came from.)

she don't use jelly

i know a girl who thinks of ghosts
she'll make you breakfast
she'll make you toast
she don't use butter
she don't use cheese
she don't use jelly
or any of these
she uses vaseline
vaseline, vaseline, vaseline, vaseline

i know a guy who goes to shows
and when he's at home
and he blows his nose
he don't use tissues
or his sleeve
he don't use napkins
or any of these
he uses magazines
magazines, magazines, magazines

and i know this girl who reminds me of cher
she's always changing the color of her hair
but she don't use nothing
that you buy at the store
she likes her hair
to be real orange
she uses tangerines
tangerines, tangerines, tangerines

© 1993 by the Flaming Lips, under license by Reprise Records.

next up is the next abstractia installment for all you avid fans... it's a knee-jerk reflection to being true to yourself. probity? sure.

integrity

gritting my teeth i stared in your eyes
i said to myself i would never lie to you
nor to myself, for that matter
but it felt so right and it felt so good
so i did.

i was being true to nobody.

nobody knew who i really was.
nobody seemed to care enough
until you started to.
i wanted to be the me i wanted me to be
but i couldn’t.

i cheated myself out of integrity.

now i’m regretting everything,
having not stayed true to myself in the circumstances.
i wonder if you would have done the same
but i think you wouldn’t have
because i did.

i cannot live without my integrity.

convictions are set in concrete with integrity as the binder.
staying true to myself is like breathing now.

ok. three posts for today in order to make up for my absence over the next three days.

first up is a guest on the inkbeat, ms. mai kozai... this would be one of her works hosted on her very own blog ( i suggest you pay a visit) and upon reading was one of those things you can just oddly relate with. to me, it has personal undertones that i'd really rather keep to myself. it sent chills down my spine because i knew exactly what she was talking about -- or if i thought i did, then i was aware of yet another situation. as the author herself says, "this poem is not to be taken with an offensive view. it's more like, the power of love. i don't know. read it and you critique. enjoy."

Disease

Many a nights I’d travel to find,
Only concluding to what’s on my mind.
You.
And I’d question, I’d inquire,
But not a single word was replied.
And I live in illusions never to come true
Shattering my deepest desires
Into miniscule pieces that can never be repaired.
They become dust in the wind,
Debris that crumbles in front of my eyes,
My very own dreams.

So I lay there, crumbled and weak,
Contaminated with an ugly disease,
Your love.

© 2002 by Mai Kozai

9.12.2002

sonnet form brought to you by good ol' william shakespeare. fourteen lines of pure unbridled dilemma.

enjoy:

respect

you need to be deserving of respect
for otherwise you will receive of none
if anytime you start to act suspect
consider only being all alone
precisely why you must know when to quit
or when to say let’s push on forward, then
respect is more than one can really fit fit
especially in company of men
most others will respect you if you show
the same exact respectfulness to them
they trust in you and only let them know
you know your bounds and when your tide must stem
respect is earned and gained, not given free
respect is learned and shown for all to see

9.11.2002

today's post is for all the heroes, made and broken, one year ago today. to all who will always remember and never forget.

~this space will be reserved today in honor of patriot day and in remembrance of those forever changed.

god bless america.

9.10.2002

so it's the day before september 11th and you know, what am i supposed to do as an american to honor the lives lost and reflect on the future? there's been much debate here about handing out white ribbons as opposed to red, white, and blue ribbons. there's even been accusations calling cal unpatriotic. jessica quindel, the graduate assembly president, had been insisting that the university only hand out white ribbons for the occasion, but chancellor berdahl had some words of his own to say: "she speaks for herself. she does not speak for the university. i speak for the university."

i guess people forget the fact that september 11th happened out of hate. people were trying to look for the moral of the story when in plain fact it didn't exist. there was no moral. it happened. we grieved, we felt loss, we united. that's the consequence. and from that we are better people, a better country. here we go again of overdramatizing something. to help us cope, let's move on. peace comes to those who mind least. but we will never, ever forget.

abstractia installment eight, ladies and gentlemen. i found this oddly appropriate for tomorrow's activities.

freedom

benjamin franklin once said
he who is willing to give up liberty
in order for a measure of security
deserves neither liberty nor security.

why do we take freedom for granted so much?

freedom rings clear in all our voices
the ability to pursue anything we desire
the power to be oneself at any given time
is this not enough?

the bells toll for those who fell free.

do we liberate others when we say we do
or are we being hypocrites again?
do we infringe upon race or religion
or gender or beliefs we hold true to ourselves and ourselves alone?

freedom does not know any boundaries.

9.09.2002

so get this... the michigan state university band has approximately 300 members. we're sending, what, 32? no big. and did i mention that they highstep like we do? and that they have no upper woodwinds (ie, no flutes, piccs, nor clarinets) -- [which may actually be a good thing, hehehe -- j/k guys!]? yup. i wanna see this band now. along those lines, i'm going ot get my oski tie before most of the newmen since uniform for michigan requires it so.

this next installment of abstractia was written as a response to a prompt originally from one of my old journal entries ("define truth") which transmutated into a poem fit for this little project of mine. so here, yet another working definition for this abstraction:

truth

truth hurts.
it is never beautiful and is always ugly.
truth liberates the mind from the heart
the heart from the soul
the soul from the body
the body from the mind
and everything in between.

truth accepts.
it is never judgmental and is always biased.
truth gives peace to the belligerent
war to the hateful
hate to the mindful
thought to the careful
care to the peaceful.

truth lies.
it is never fully true and is always incomplete.
truth destroys the walls of society
if let loose
if grown rampant
if harbored wrongly
if abused.

truth is all too powerful.

9.08.2002

talk about religious crises here. hehehe. besides being an avid and regular poster on bolt's atheist boards, i tend to pray to some greater being in times of need (but i really AM atheist!) and then there's the object of "god"... ry knows some of the reasons behind it. i really can't fully explain my exploits into atheism, but for the most part, i don't believe in god. but as a response to the traumatic events of june 28th, 2002, i wrote this "prayer" as part of installment six of the abstractia series.

faith

in the name of the father
and of the son
and of the holy mother and child
amen, hallelujah, praise to up above.

to you i am thankful for the life you have given me
and to the patience you so exhibit
and for the chances you have bestowed on all your children
even though we never deserve it.

despite the genocides and the spite
and the mass destruction you seem to enjoy
you kept my best friend alive.
i could never ask for anything more.

i might not believe in you sometimes
and in all my prayers i may be the most selfish
but i acknowledge your power over people.
i don’t believe but i have a good idea.

thank you for my best friend.
amen.

9.07.2002

it's saturday, all! this year is turning out GREAT for cal because first of all, we won a football game against baylor (70-22), and now we beat new mexico state (34-13)... last year we were 1-10, and this year we're already 2-0. kick ass. GO BEARS!

on a different note, i'm almost done revising abstractia for the fifth time (yes, you read correctly, it says fifth). so here, without further ado, installment five of the abstractia series. it's one of my working definitions to quantify a person's strength: of might, of will, and of character:

strength

i am strong because i can carry heavy things, sometimes heavier than myself.

i am strong because i believe in my own convictions.

i am strong because i know the difference between right from wrong.

i am strong because i know when to say no.

i am strong because i have held you up before.

i am strong because i know my way around this town like the back of my hand.

i am strong because i live in the moment.

i am strong because i survive in spite of a heart problem.

i am strong because i have friends.

i am strong because i love you.

i am strong because you love me.

i am strong because i have you.

9.06.2002

hey hey hey! it's friday, and you know what that means: no class for mig! waHOO!

on the ink beat is the fourth installment from abstractia. i wrote this in the middle of some weirdly poignant and reflective hoopla that was going on. enjoy.

love

i’ve tried to tell you so many times
but every time i do the words escape me
because when i look at you
you tend to take my breath

away

and leave me gasping for air as i cry out your name
and then you turn around
and do the same thing all over again.

you are adorable.

call it a strange obsession if you will
i’ve kept silent for a long time now
but it kills me, holding back all this
this love

you speak like a bird
you laugh like the gentle falling of the rain
you make me the happiest person in the entire world.

i thought i saw it coming
until it hit me way too late
but then i realized i love you nonetheless
because you love me.

9.05.2002

hey there kiddies. class got canceled yesterday. awesomeness. and now apparently, i am a staff writer for the university's third largest publication, hardboiled. we're the leading asian pacific american newsmagazine in the country, thank you very much. we cover anything and everything that involves asian pacific americans here at cal, which is pretty much everything.

and hey, i found out that i'll be going to michigan state university as part of the straw hat band... yeah spirited freshman, and thank goodness no other second phonez signed up. so far, i have 100% SHB attendance. good stuff.

and once again, the ink beat returns, this time the third installment of the abstractia exercise. it's about, what else, the best thing in the entire world:

friendship

knowing that tomorrow will be the very same
hoping that tonight you will have uttered my name
searching for the comfort in the darkness that surrounds
i held your hand, you led me, i was lost but now am found

you think too little of yourself because you’re modest
i think it’s a gift, modesty: never the oddest
thing to cross my mind, least of all your loyalty
trustworthiness, capacity to love, and seeming fragility

smile for me just one last time before i leave this place
enlighten me with everything in that one last embrace
erase the sadness, tears, and loss of hope upon your face
our friendship holds forevermore: it is our saving grace

9.02.2002

j'irai*

j'irai partout pour toi
parce que je t'aime
parce que je t'adore.

tant que je te veux
tu as mon coeur
tu as mon âme
pour le moins tu as tout que je suis.

je ferais n'importe quoi
être juste près de toi encore
parce que je t'aime trop pour ne pas s'inquiéter.

je m'ennuie de toi
des profondeurs mêmes de mon être
et du fond de mon coeur
de façon ou d'autre tu fais la douleur disparaître.

soin de prise de vous-même
et rappeles-toi
que si tu as besoin jamais de moi
j'ai raison là
parole juste ainsi.

je voudrais voir toi bientôt
et nous volonté
assez bientôt
assez bientôt.

[nb: if you want a translation, leave a comment and i'll be more than happy to give you one.]

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