I Asked Her Who She Voted For In 2004. We Were Discussing Politics And Religion And That Was The First
I asked her who she voted for in 2004. We were discussing politics and religion and that was the first election I was old enough to participate in. I said, Gore she said that was the year she stopped believing in anything but she still went to church just in case. She still voted in every election after that just to be safe because she didn’t want to be blamed when things went wrong and things always went wrong. And knowing she wasn’t the reason why helped her sleep at night. I asked her how she’s been sleeping lately. She asked, “why do you put so much pressure on me to dream when I’m still stuck between feeling lost and feeling free? Forced to get along with those who arm themselves and dream of harming me. Sold me a house with a lawn and picket fence but made copies of the key so you can come and go as I sleep at night and my dreams can be policed. I worked my whole life for the American dream to find out it wasn’t for me. What do you do when your dreams come true and you don’t want them in the end? Or you’re so in debt you don’t know if you can afford to dream again? Do you work the rest of your life to pay them back or go on and pretend like you never gave a second thought to giving up or giving in? Happily ever afters make you think that your dreams come true in the end when they actually happen somewhere in the middle and the rest of the story is you figuring out what to do with them. Who is it you want to be? Did you ever consider maybe giving up is a way of getting free?” I told her she sounded like a politician campaigning for an election she knew she would never win. A disappointed victim of her own expectations. And there I was, trying to convince myself I didn’t want all the things I knew I did. Still holding on to dreams I was told to believe in ever since I was a kid. But it’s such a relief to wake up and no longer want the things you felt you could never have. I could free myself by letting go of all the dreams I’d been sold in the past but I didn’t. I still wanted it all even if she warned me it wouldn’t last. I wrote my vote on a post-it note and slipped it in her bag. She won the election, I lost my way. We were a new nation under old flags.
More Posts from Nikrichard and Others
“Don’t you write no poems about me”
“Boy, don’t you write no poems about me! I’m not trying to wake up tomorrow and read me on your timeline, or see some words written on your wall about how you trying to fall in and out of love with me, I don’t wanna hear all that. Matterfact, you probably write a poem for everybody, huh? I bet they all feel like the one once you get to talking like you do, I know you. Well, you can save all that with me. You need to be asleep anyway, don’t be over there trying to come up with something poetic to put up on your tumblr about us in the morning.”
Choose your weapon just in case this doesn't go as planned. Hold my hand but hold your knife too. I promise I'd never hurt you but this might kill you. Will there be any pieces of us left when it's over? If it's over? I've never done this before - loved someone I couldn't hide from. Can I love you when I'm still in love with everyone else? Can you love me when everyone else is still in love with you? What are we gonna do other than clutch our knife and our gun and hope the other doesn't run when things start to burn? We always love the savage but never before was that savage a friend. Stability or madness? I'll choose the madness, again.
We're the lucky ones, the ones who love the ones who lost the ones who stay up late the ones still trying the ones in debt the ones who are sorry the ones who create the ones with regrets the ones still changing the ones still looking the ones who die over and over again for their art, we're the lucky ones because we have so much to look forward to.
Pick up the new book (and the old one) at Studio Be in New Orleans or visit my website nikrichard.com
My brother, the brilliant @nikrichard dropped off some copies of his new book at @studio_be_ , pick up your copy while supplies last. #studioBE #ephemeraleternal #ADreamForSale (at Studio Be)
Soul Mates
You remind me of my ex-wife from a past life who I committed suicide to escape from when I made myself wings of feathers and wax, and fell to my death when I flew them into the sun. You just laughed and floated over me as I drowned.
They say birthmarks are entry wounds that show where we died before, and dreams are just memories we carried with us from the other side, which is why you looked so familiar the first time I saw you. Your feet never touched the ground.
My opening line was “you look like my daughter,” you smiled and asked “how old is she?” I said, “well if it all works out, five years from now she’ll be three, but I’m in no rush.” It felt like a third person existed between us.
And I wasn’t sure who we were before, or who are supposed to be, but I knew that on the other side of the world planted deep inside a forest there is a tree with our names carved into its side, and written in a language neither of us speak is inscribed
“forever is a pretty short time looking back on it,” and even though we may not be able to read it, we would instantly recognize our handwriting as evidence that we were part of the same tribe that died out a thousand years ago, and we would brace ourselves for
the earthquake as our souls shake and vibrate higher. We were sent here to repopulate so there was no time to apologize for everything we were about to put each other through. You just grabbed my hand and said “I look forward to getting tired of you.”
God don’t make mistakes, but people do. Souls only know wavelengths, and communicate through music and colors and sound; they don’t always remember to leave the key under the mat, or come home before 3 a.m., or put the toilet seat down, or
make sure to hold your hand whenever we’re out in public, because the flesh doesn’t understand it’s just a vessel full of flaws. Soulmates exist to serve as a reflection of how truly damaged we really are, how hurt, desperate and unexamined we are.
I never asked for a soulmate, just someone who hates all the same things I do, and in you I confronted all of the things I hated in myself, like a mirror that reveals the first time you realize you are no longer beautiful. My ugly is going take some getting used to.
I used to fear going to sleep next to you because I would get tangled in your hair and you would roll over, strangling me, leaving gasping for air in one of those dreams where you can’t quite wake yourself up, until I realized that you only hogged the sheets so you could
expose me to the cold and wake up the other side of me whenever my dreams got off track. My arms would always go numb so I could never fight back. So instead of starting a war with you I would just kiss you on your cheek.
Maybe we’re just meant to walk through life trying to fill each-other-sized holes in ourselves. Feeling like we swapped souls at a crowded train stop like two strangers who picked up the wrong bag and were forced to wear the clothes they found inside.
I have that sweater you’ve been looking for, it’s a little stretched out but it still smells just fine. Find me again so we can make amends, or at least swap bags one last time. Everyone deserves a seventh chance.
I guess I’ll see you next lifetime when you and I are butterflies and during our migration we can gently clip wings and create a vibration that causes the tides to rise off the shores of Hawaii and forms a tsunami that crashes into the coast of Japan
and floods some kind of nuclear reactor that causes the world to spin backwards and we can finally rest our wings on the sand and look back on all we destroyed with a smile, and I’ll know that it was all worth it just to be with you when the world ends.
There are no pieces of you missing. The same way a tree doesn't miss its fruit when the farmers come for the harvest, neither should you worry about what parts of you are not there.
This may be a bit intense...
Every day without you is like a week without rain, to survive, I’m forced to drink the blood of the other loves I’ve slain.
Look how you’ve changed me. I’m a vampire, I’ve died but still remain here in a castle that’s haunted by the absence of you. You’re the real monster though you have no claws, no fangs.
Every night I stare into the waters of Lake Pontchartrain as the sun sets, then I dive in and swim to the other side without taking a breath as I search through swamp and suburb counting each and every one of my steps, holding out hope that I will find your footprints left behind, and I’d follow them blindly off the edge of this earth while I fight off beast and thief as I search for a sign that you may not be as far as I think you are.
Though I am the hunter and you’re on the run I have armed myself with flowers and gave you the gun so when I find you my fate is yours to choose, and if you reject my apologies I’ll drag my bloodied and lifeless body back across those slain beasts’ and thieves’ bones making sure I leave a trail of these flowers and bleed all the way home just in case you change your mind and want to love me back to life again you'll know where to find me.
If not, I’ll gladly die knowing that the night is not as frightening as what I see every morning when I wake and face the dawn.
Be Safe
I’m superficial, I know, and I’m growing, but I felt something last night when I hugged her bye. Maybe because I was drunk and she was high, but I didn’t want to let her go. She’s so cute and so stranded and so graceful and so damaged and so ready for whatever is about to happen next. She laid her head on my chest and said “be safe,” and I knew she was talking about more than just the drive home.
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