Tag: poem

Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 3 (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

If you haven’t read all the previous parts or you don’t remember them well, I urge you to read this short(ish) story from the beginning (link here). The whole thing is supposed to be experienced in one sitting, but I didn’t want to go radio silent for about a month.

My mind often revisits, perhaps as punishment,
My mother’s face dominated by a scowl
That deepened the creases long etched
Through years of worry and resentment.
Her lips were pursed as if holding herself
From unleashing a hellish rebuke,
And her eyes, intense and narrowed,
Assured that wherever her gaze landed,
She would find some detail to fault.

As damning evidence,
My mother showed a tied-up condom:
A limp and deflated rubbery sheath,
Its head filled with creamy-yellow fluid.

My mother ordered me to explain this gift
I had left for her to find while cleaning my room.
I wanted to shake my head and spit out bitterly,
“Sure, Mother. After my girlfriend and I made love,
I tossed the condom aside and forgot about it
To screw with your persecution complex,
To express contempt for your brand of parenthood,
Your desire to control every facet of my life,
To mold me into the perfect son you wish me to be.”

I apologized, but suggested she could appreciate
That my girlfriend and I use protection.
My mother scrunched up her nose
Like she had stumbled upon a pile of dung.

Her voice rose in pitch and volume as she said
I shouldn’t be having sex with “that girl,”
Whom she had welcomed into our home for years.
“No wonder your grades are slipping
If you focus on pursuing vices instead of studying.
Think of your future, think of your career!”

She had called your mother to inform her
Of the grievous sin we were committing,
But your mother already knew
Because she had heard us going at it.

“How could that girl throw away her potential,
Squander the sacrifices made by her parents?
Her mother gave birth to her, nursed her,
Stood at her crib every morning,
And hoped that she would grow into a good girl,
Only for her child to become a disgrace.”

My mother referred to you as a bad influence,
A rotten soul going nowhere fast,
A walking advertisement of aimlessness
Who would end up pregnant and homeless.
She forbid me from bringing you to the house,
And added that if I were mature enough,
I’d know that I should stay away from you.

Had I foreseen such a confrontation,
I would have imagined myself yelling,
But I saw my mother for the first time:
An aging woman who followed a script,
Who needed to straighten every life’s crooked lines,
Who met my father and shortly after got hitched
Because that’s what people are supposed to do,
And ever since, they argued as often
As loving couples exchange smiles.
My parents, my life’s givers, lived trapped inside
Something too awful and intractable to escape.

Still simmering from the confrontation,
I accompanied you and your mother
To a bike dealership in Astigarraga
That smelled of leather and new rubber.
The polished frames of motocross bikes,
In screaming colors like red, blue, and yellow,
Gleamed in a line-up,
Resembling museum exhibits.
Those knobs in the bikes’ tire treads
Would dig into the dirt for maximum grip.

You fell in love with a Suzuki RM125,
Its bodywork clad in bright yellow,
Its mechanical heart laid bare
And ready to be flecked with dirt,
Its front suspension forks
Like the limbs of a seasoned athlete.
The high-mounted guard would prevent
Mud from splattering your lovely face.

At the counter, when time came to pay
And your mother pulled out her credit card,
You grinned, clasped your hands,
Let out a squeal of delight,
And bounced on your tiptoes.

You had dreaded surrendering your Aprilia
To fill the void in your hard-earned savings,
And found yourself marveling at your luck
When your mother offered to chip in.

Bless that woman, bless her heart
That beat with love for you, her little star.
I will be forever grateful
She kept opening the door of her home
Despite knowing how you and I spent our time
Whenever the adults left us alone.

Her words echo in my mind,
As clear as if spoken yesterday:
“I’ve never seen Izar this serious about anything,
And even if I tried to stop her, I know I can’t,
Because she’d just pack up and leave.
She was always the wild one:
Uncaring for the rules,
Unafraid to do whatever she wanted.
Nobody had to teach her how to be free.”

For encouraging a “ridiculous dream,”
As your father called it,
Your mother’s support opened a rift,
And now they argued more often than not,
As most couples are destined to do.

During my lunch break, you and I met
At the restaurant that faced my high school.
In a dining space that smelled of garlic and olive oil,
Surrounded by the clink of cutlery
And the chatter of youth unfolding,
You were savoring a potato omelette sandwich,
And dropping breadcrumbs on a motocross magazine.

You charted the steps to conquer the racing world:
Seek out the motocross tracks in Gipuzkoa;
Immerse yourself in racing clubs, your gateways
To structured training and expert instruction;
Compete in races and secure victories
So local scribes would ink your triumphs,
Drawing to you sponsors willing to invest.
From there, ascend to regional championships
With prize money and notoriety at stake.

You had brought a bulky backpack
Although you had the day off from work;
You needed to refine your riding technique,
So once I returned to my classroom,
To that monotony of chalk and textbooks,
You would head to the trails at Mount Jaizkibel.

I envisioned you astride your Suzuki RM125,
Navigating those winding, weathered paths
Lined with prickly shrubs,
Skirting cliff edges,
Your bike kicking up clumps of soil,
The distant roar of waves crashing on rocks
As your sole company.

In my mind, your front wheel caught
On a deceptive patch of loose dirt, twisting viciously.
Your world turned into a blur of sky, sea, and earth
As the ground vanished,
And you and your bike hung weightless
Until the rocky outcroppings below
Rushed up to meet you.

I asked you to bring me along;
I could stand around and watch you train.
If you suffered any injury,
I would run to your side and patch you up.
You told me to rest easy: you’d be careful.
Besides, you refused to let me skip class, arguing
That I shouldn’t sacrifice my grades for your sake.

You brought up my mother’s disdain,
Which whispered to me of never again
Holding you tight while lying on the bed
That my parents chose for their son,
Nor smelling your lingering scent on my sheets
As if you were sleeping beside me.

You inquired about my sudden glumness,
And after I confessed, you smirked and assured
That our love wasn’t tethered to any room.

At night, we rode in your Aprilia to Plaiaundi,
And ventured into the deserted ecological park.
In that moonlit, forest-like gloom,
Fireflies meandered like drifting candle flames.
After the rain, the earth exhaled a damp scent.

We ascended the steps of an observation deck
That rose on sturdy wooden stilts
Above the embracing wildness of foliage.
I settled upon the moist boards of the deck.
You nestled into my lap, straddling me,
And draped your arms around my neck.

Leaves whispered, rustling in the breeze,
And crickets chirred in the undergrowth.
My tongue laved over your pebbled areola.
I caressed your nipple with my lips,
Teasing and tugging on the turgid peak,
Gradually drawing it into my wet mouth.
I savored the silky texture of your skin
As it pressed against my taste buds.

Whenever you met me in the evening
Wearing your pleated, knee-length skirt,
You made the wordless promise
That our date would find us heading
To a building with a rustic stone façade,
That back then may have been a minor college.

We wound our way to the building’s rear.
It faced a desolate park and the highway.
In a shadowed colonnade, I claimed a stone bench.
You climbed into my lap, your favorite spot,
Then unzipped me and eased down my boxers.
After your panties joined my keys in my pocket,
You curtained your hips and my legs with the skirt.

I remember what it felt like in the night breeze
When you lowered your hips and slid me inside,
Engulfing me with your slick, velvety depths:
The warmth of a hearth in wintertime.

The same dude used to show up;
He stood in the light cone
Of the sole street lamp,
Drawing puffs from his cigarette
And waiting for his dog to poop.
You and I kept still, embraced,
Your inner walls gripping my length
While our hearts beat as one.

Shoulder-deep in the cool waters of Hendaye Beach,
My bare feet digging into the soaked sand,
I shut my eyes and basked in the warmth
Of the sun’s rays dancing on my face,
And of your tongue, that tasted of salt.
My fingers roamed the skin of your back,
Over the bumps and ridges of your vertebrae.

The sea rolled and receded around us.
The rhythmic lapping of waves against the shore
Blended with the cawing of gulls overhead
And snippets of conversations in French
As if coming from a gramophone in the next room.

Dark strands of your slicked-back hair
Stuck to your cheeks and neck.
Droplets scattered across your smooth skin
Caught the sunlight and glistened.
Your eyelids drooped to a half-lidded stare
As you broke into a mischievous grin.

When you leaned in, I inhaled
The coconut aroma of your sunscreen.
Your thumbs hooked inside my swim shorts.
While your wet lips brushed the shell of my ear,
You asked me to pull down your bikini bottom.

With the spandex garment bunched up mid-calf,
I cupped your firm and fleshy ass cheeks,
And you wrapped your legs around my waist.
As the tip of my member nudged your folds,
I worried about the lack of lubrication.

I wish I could remember how it felt
To make love to you in the sea,
But that memory cuts to a bald old man
Who swam in our orbit
While gawking with a smile spread wide
As if partaking in a private show,
Even though you kept glaring at him.
“What the fuck is that idiot doing?”

Beyond the scrubland at Mount Arburu,
The undulating hills were blanketed in patches
Of dark evergreens and deciduous trees,
Whose trunks had withstood storms
And decades of growth.

Seated at the rear, I clutched at the rider
While your Suzuki shuddered and jolted
Over bumps, rocking us back and forth,
While you wrenched the handlebars
To dodge rocks and bristly bushes
Dotted with yellow flowers.

We lay supine on eroded, sloping bedrock
Beside the feathery fronds of ferns.
Birds chirped in the nearby woods.
My lungs filled with crisp mountain air
That carried the scents of pine and grass,
And the sweet rot of decomposing vegetation.

The sun stretched the shadows of trees
And bathed the scrubland in gold.
Soon enough, our god would hide.
Under that ungraspable, azure dome,
Each succesive hump of the far-off mountains
Became lighter and lighter,
Watercolor washes on a canvas.

Author’s note: today’s song is “Hey Jane” by Spiritualized.

If you enjoy my free verse poetry, I have three books worth of it yet to be self-published. Check it out.

Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 2 (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

I urge you to read the previous part of this short(ish) story. The whole thing is supposed to be experienced in one sitting, but I didn’t want to go radio silent for about a month.

For the millionth time, I cast my memory
Back to your bedroom, my ’90s haven:
Jeans-blue walls plastered with posters
Of motorcycle idols in riding gear;
Dream bikes, like your Aprilia;
Misato Katsuragi making a V sign;
Pictures of faraway places that beckoned:
Mount Fuji rising up from the plains,
The Eiffel Tower’s wrought iron lattice,
Lady Liberty’s green patina,
A sunburnt desert stretching into oblivion;
Alongside drawings I created for you.
Worn wooden shelves covered in stickers,
Overflowing with manga volumes
And pricey figurines of EVA units.
On your desk rested your black helmet
Next to piles of VHS cassettes.
Perched on a corner of your CRT television,
A single sock.

Nestled side by side on the carpeted floor
Among a scattering of your clothes,
Facing your plugged-in Playstation,
You were guiding Jill Valentine frantically
Through a shadow-laced, pixelated attic
Of that mansion infested with zombies
As you primed and fired your grenade launcher
At a slithering, grotesque serpent
That chased Jill with nefarious intent.
But lost in a sensory trance, I kept drifting
To the scent of your strawberry body spray,
And every shift of your bare arm against mine
Ignited a tingling trail of shivers down my spine.

Once the serpent fled through a hole,
You spun towards me with a victorious grin,
Flashing your wet, crooked teeth.
What did you say? I didn’t hear anything;
That face had kindled a spark inside me,
Made me feel like a flame
Dancing in a fireplace.

I leaned in and molded my lips to yours.
They tasted of cherry chapstick.

When I pulled away, you were frozen,
Your chocolate eyes wide and unblinking.
Had I gone too far? Had I ruined us?
Blood rushed to my cheeks
And words tangled in my throat
As I tried to apologize,
But you exhaled, bit your lip,
Then tossed the controller aside.
“About time,” you said
While climbing into my lap.

Our tongues wrestled,
Our breaths mingled,
Our teeth clicked,
Our noses bumped.
Your fingers raked through my hair.
I gripped your hips,
Then slid my hands under your T-shirt
To stroke the warm curve of your back.

My thoughts dissolved in a bath-like heat.
My self, that I thought forever isolated
Inside airtight boundaries,
Seeped out to meld with you.

I don’t know when we stopped,
But I remember holding onto you,
Feeling your heart calming down
As it beat against my chest.
Your wet lips rested against my neck,
Your hot breath tickled my skin.

To your annoyance, your father had removed
The privacy lock from your bedroom door,
And that brooding overseer of yours
Invaded your space whenever he pleased,
So if we ached for some privacy,
We had to make out in public.

During your shifts as a pizza delivery driver,
Each time your rounds hinted
You might grace my area of Irún,
You called me so I would wait at a nearby park.
I stared anxiously at the traffic,
Eager to spot your scarlet polo shirt.

After you pulled up on the company scooter,
We sat on a bench, you took off your cap,
And our tongues played like two puppies
As your soft ponytail brushed my hand.
The scent of melted cheese and oregano
Still returns me to those days.

One evening, in the solace of my bedroom,
While my parents argued somewhere outside,
And the last light streaming through the curtain
Bathed our lying forms in a dusk-touched hue,
You explored my naked chest and stomach,
Mapping them with your fingertips.

I cupped the nape of your neck
And brought your mouth to mine.
I wished I could merge with you,
To live within your heart,
To breathe from your lungs,
To laugh with your voice.

One afternoon, you called from a payphone
To tell me, breathless, of an accident:
After some dickhead veered into your lane,
You swerved, but your Aprilia skidded
And bucked viciously, throwing you off.
As you slid over asphalt, it clawed at your leg,
Tearing through your jeans,
Grating against your flesh.

I had never felt such a panic surge in my gut;
I pictured your leg flayed to shreds.
While you complained that the accident
Had marred your bike with scrapes and scuffs,
I urged you to call an ambulance.
You refused; if your father found out,
He would attempt to take the Aprilia away.
However, your leg seared with pain,
So you needed me to patch you up.

I grabbed a bottle of water and a soap squirter,
Then rushed out toward the nearest pharmacy
To buy gauze, bandages, and antibiotic ointment.

When you opened the front door,
You greeted me quietly.
We had lucked out, you said:
Your father wouldn’t return for hours,
And your mother was nursing a migraine.
But that left leg of yours belied our luck:
A jagged tear in your jeans
Revealed the raw red of road rash
Caked with blood and grime.
My heart lurched.

After washing my hands thoroughly, I found you
Lying pantless on your hot-pink bedspread.
I knelt by your bedside and inhaled
The coppery tang of your life essence
Mixed with adrenaline-induced sweat.

I soaked gauze in soapy water
And dabbed it on the raw red of your flesh
To clean off the dried blood and grime.
The white gauze bloomed crimson.
You winced, your eyes watered,
But you gritted through the pain.

I squeezed a glob of antibiotic ointment
And smeared it gently on your road rash.
After I climbed onto the bed,
I started wrapping the bandage
Around your injured leg,
Unwinding the roll and draping it snug.

My throat had closed up;
I felt your pain like it was mine.
You were right, we had been lucky:
Instead of swerving,
You could have crashed headfirst
And broken your neck.
Next time I saw you, you’d be lying in a coffin,
And I would never hear your laughter again.

I leaned forward, hugged your legs
And pressed my lips against your inner thigh,
Planting wet, lingering kisses,
Longing to feel the steady thrum of your life.

In the silence, your breathing grew heavier.
You propped yourself up on your elbows,
With your caramel waves cascading to the pillows.
Your eyes were glazed over, your cheeks flushed pink.

Your sunny-yellow panties,
Their stretchy cotton material
Featuring a pattern of fern-like imprints,
Contoured to your pubic mound,
And over the cleft, the fabric was soaked.

Wordlessly, I nuzzled your vulva,
Warming my face with the heat,
And inhaled the hint of laundry detergent
Mingled with a mouthwatering musk.
Your dampness clung to my tongue
As I lapped up the salty tang,
Which made you grip the bedspread.

You arched your back and wiggled your hips,
Grinding against my face,
To slide your panties down my nose and lips.

Behold a lush, dripping flower.

Our hands were clenched together,
My face buried in your muff,
Your pubes tickling my nose,
My tongue teasing, tracing, flicking
Your moist labia and turgid nub
While you gasped and mewed.

Even if your father’s words stabbed through you,
Or school made you want to jump down a well,
I could offer my warm hands and mouth
To make you forget.
I would always be your refuge
Where you could let go and be yourself.

You pulled my hands toward you
And whispered, “Come here.”
I crawled, skin to skin, over your body
So your tongue could thank mine.

We peeled off each other’s shirts.
I unhooked your bra and kneaded your breasts.
Your fingers unbuttoned and unzipped,
Then tugged down my boxers.
You gripped me, stroked me up and down.
Pleasure settled in my groin like solid heat
As you wrapped your thighs around my waist
And guided me into your warmth.

While your bedsprings squeaked,
We breathed shallow gasps in and out,
And you dug your fingertips into my back.
The rhythm of our bodies synced together.
Something inside me cracked wide open.

If your mother had opened the door,
Ready to complain about the noise,
She would be outraged about more
Than our clothes strewn about the floor,
But any shouts, I’d boldly dismiss;
What we did and what we were
Was a cause to celebrate.
My heart pulsed with an aching joy
At the miracle of finding you, Izar,
And of being found by you.

From the day we made each other adults,
In the sanctuary of your bedroom or mine,
We spent our time huddled together,
Playing games, reading manga, watching shows,
Anticipating a knock on the door
And one of our parents to speak of some errand.
You and I would drown in silence, listening
To the sounds of our guardians leaving.

My body stirred with an electric tension.
Your eyes glittered, starlit with yearning.
Your nipples poked through the top.
Once the front door closed with a thump,
And the key turned once, twice in the lock,
We would allow a brief eternity to pass,
Counting heartbeats and hushed breaths,
Then our clothes would fly off.

When we lay in each other’s arms
On a tangle of sweat-smeared sheets,
The room melted away
To the slick friction of skin on skin.
We became the only people in the world,
Talking and laughing and making love.

Hand in hand, we strolled to the end of Meaka
On a gravel path speckled with moss
Past the hydroelectric plant of Irugurutzeta.
Shadowed by the massive wall
Made of layers of weathered, lichen-clad stones,
We came across wandering chickens
And a dog that glanced at us from its kennel.

I breathed in the rich, loamy scent
Of damp earth and decaying leaves.
We nestled on the bank of a meandering creek
That babbled as it flowed over riverstone.
A stockade of skeletal trees obscured the horizon.
To our left stood the ruins of Roman furnaces.
On the opposite bank, stacks of blackened logs
Loomed like burned tombstones.
Here, where human activity had ceased,
Leaving behind only traces,
Life sprouted, grew, and died untroubled.

Your mood hung heavy like the overcast sky,
But I knew you’d open up when you were ready.
Turns out your parents had found out
About your disastrous grades,
And lost their shit when you declared
That you were dropping out of school altogether.

I remembered how my mother scolded me
For bringing home sevens and eights
When I could, she said, easily ace tests;
Thus, if I chose to drop out,
She would probably drop dead.
I asked if you had rushed to this decision,
But your mind had known for weeks.

Algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry;
They were rusty spanners in a junkyard
To you, who had dreamed of riding a bike
On undulating dirt tracks
Through jumps, berms, and whoops.
So instead of surrendering your youth
To the hands of glorified babysitters,
You chose to chase the road forward
Before the mirror showed a stranger.

Author’s note: the song for today is “Your Hand in Mine” by Explosions in the Sky.

If you enjoy my free verse poetry, I have three books worth of it yet to be self-published. Check it out.

Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 1 (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial32 Comments

Wide awake at midnight,
As I lie in the oppressive dark,
I stretch my arm into the abyss of my mind,
Seeking the warmth of your hand.

I imagine the apartment’s buzzer ringing;
You’ve come to take me away.
I put on clothes, kiss my sleeping kids goodbye,
And rush downstairs to join you.

Garbed in your sleek red jacket,
You’re straddling the leather seat
And resting your elbows on the handlebars
Of your nineteen ninety-four Aprilia Red Rose.
Its lemon-yellow body, streaked with white,
Shimmers in the streetlights’ glow.
The sharp beam of its headlight pierces the night.

Amber radiance outlines your caramel-brown hair,
But your face is lit by an unrestrained smile
That creases the corners of your chocolate eyes,
That shows off your crooked front teeth.

Once I climb onto the pillion behind you,
I wrap my arms around your slim waist.
You start up the beast, making it rumble,
And we roll down the road.

Streetlights blur to yellow streaks
As we rocket through the streets,
Zooming past cars and trucks,
Past darkened houses and shops.

The mechanical purring of the engine
Ebbs and flows through my bones.
The crisp wind of autumn stings my cheeks;
It smells like wet pavement and gasoline.
Your jacket and wavy hair rustle,
Your laughter rings in the night.

Life is a wild and beautiful sickness.
In this universe of racing colors,
We are invincible.
Through the darkness we soar
Like two lonesome shooting stars
Tearing across the heavens.

We reach our park by the Bidasoa River,
Where freshwater meets saltwater,
And the salty scent of the sea mingles
With the aroma of pine trees and earth.

Lonely benches line the path, facing the water,
But we sit side by side on the cool, dewy grass.
Pine trees etch their silhouettes against a night sky
Bathed in the silvery glow of a full moon.

You ask me if I’m living the life I dreamed of.
I confess that things didn’t pan out like I wished:
I never became a comic book artist.
But through designing websites for corporations,
I employ what little creativity I have left,
Or at least that’s what I’d like to believe.

You ask me if I still remember us.
I tell you all the ways I do.

I was drawing my comic strip,
Sitting at the base of an oak tree
In my favorite spot of our school grounds.
The rough ridges of the bark dug into my back,
And the sunlight streamed through the leaves,
Falling in pools of amber-orange on the grass,
Bouncing off the paper in my lap.
Suddenly, there you were, towering over me
With your wild brown waves down your shoulders,
A carefree smile playing on your lips.

You asked what I was always drawing
That kept me alone and with my head down.
I tried to hide the pages, but you snatched them.
As your eyes darted over ink and graphite,
I tensed up, bracing myself for your mockery
Of the tale through which I lived vicariously.

It tracked the adventures
Of a team of heroes for hire
That drifted through the cosmos
In their ramshackle starship.

Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate,
Charted stars as their cunning captain;
Redheaded terror Asuka Langley
Was their fierce-eyed, unyielding gunner;
Ranma Saotome, fluid as water,
Their covert infiltration specialist.
The rest of their motley crew was filled
With characters from games, manga, and anime
That in days of solitude and sorrow
Had brought comfort and distraction.

While you flipped through the pages,
My pulse quickened, anxiety gripped me,
But you laughed out of delight.
Seated beside me, you kept reading.
Under the canopy of leaves,
Your chocolate eyes glittered
As you pointed out jokes and references
That I thought nobody but me would get.

Days later, you asked me how come
I used characters created by others.
I didn’t dare come up with my own;
What if they were stupid and lame?
Wouldn’t that mean I was talentless?

You told me I was a special kind of idiot;
Of course my first tries would suck.
Greatness takes effort, perseverance,
And a willingness to make mistakes.
If I kept working hard and learning
From the masters we both admired,
I too would one day create art
That moved hearts and minds,
That inspired others to dream and do,
But if I gave up, wallowing in fear,
I would end up like those pathetic adults
Who believed their dreams never came true
Because they didn’t wish hard enough.

That couldn’t be right, could it?
My mother always told me
That I was an intelligent boy,
Her bright, shining star,
Who’d nail every challenge
In the first try.

You invited me to your parents’ place.
I spent my, until then, best afternoon
Playing Super Metroid on your SNES
And munching on barbecue fritos.

We recorded mock radio shows
On your dad’s tape recorder.
You acted as the host
Interviewing me, your guest.

“Hello, citizens of Irún!
It’s me, Izar Lizarraga,
Your one and only radio DJ,
Bringing you a special edition
Of ‘Izar’s Takeover,’ coming live
From the studios of Channel 52.
Great lineup today, folks!
Our very own Guybrush Threepwood,
Bonafide pirate and space pioneer
Admired by millions, loved by all,
Reports to us from the ninth dimension.
How are you doing out there, Threepwood?”

“Well, it’s been quite the thrill.
I’ve been trying to find the source
Of this mysterious pink goop
That’s been popping up everywhere.
So far, it’s led to a lot of shootin’,
Scoopin’ and lootin’ in this cosmic void.”

You showed me motocross races
From your collection of videocassettes
Nestled beside your bulky TV.
Dozens of racers clad in protective gear
Darted and wove amidst the pack
Astride dirt bikes with coil spring shocks,
Their knobby tires kicking up plumes of dust.
The racers zoomed and skidded,
They surged up series of steep ramps
And vaulted in graceful arcs
Before crashing back down to earth.

The races blurred before me,
A storm of dust, noise, and fury,
But that flickering screen illuminated
Your childlike grin.

Before I met you, I wasted entire days
Secluded in my darkened bedroom.
Now that you summoned me to your side,
We made memories out of our adventures.

At the arcade, we fed coins into Bubble Bobble.
You picked the green chubby dragon, I picked blue.
Like maniacs we jumped on 2D platforms
And trapped our foes inside colorful bubbles.
As we clutched the joysticks and punched buttons,
The warmth of your arm grazed my skin.

We hit every wooded area in the city,
Where we climbed trees
And swung from low-hanging branches
Although we kept landing on our asses.
We sneaked into construction sites
To slide downhill on cardboard.

At night, we climbed the chain-link fence
Of the primary school we had attended.
Here’s where we played hopscotch,
Here’s where I drew cartoons with chalk.
We rested our plastic buckets and shovels
Inside this little square filled with sand.
That night, we shot some hoops in the shadows
Until the custodian chased us off.

How often in comic book stores
Did I distract the cashier while you slid
A volume of manga down your pants,
Securing it with the waistband of your panties?
Remember when you lit firecrackers
In one of the toilets at our middle school?
That porcelain bowl burst like a grenade.

As we lay prone on gravel,
Your lighter’s flame kissed
The tip of a hapless leaf,
That blackened and curled.
As an orange flame rippled
Like a flag in the breeze,
A white, incandescent band
Glided down the blade,
Leaving behind ashes.

One time you brought me to your home,
Your father picked a fight, I don’t recall why.
He spoke to you like scum,
Like you were no daughter of his,
And threatened to go beyond words.
After he slammed the bedroom door,
You burst into tears. I hugged you tightly.
Your warm tears soaked my shirt
As I stroked your soft hair.
You whispered that you couldn’t wait
To move far, far away.

I had also come to distrust my parents.
How many times did I hold my breath
While I pressed my ear against the door,
Eavesdropping on one of their quarrels
In case they decided to break apart my world?

I learnt how it felt to miss you for days;
You filled your afternoons after school
Studying for your motorbike license
Or working part-time as a cook at Telepizza.

One evening, lying on the grass at Aingura Park,
As the setting sun poured molten gold upon the river
And stray cats padded over our bellies,
You confessed, your eyes alight with dreams,
That you were saving up for a bike and riding gear,
That you intended to pursue your childhood dream
Of becoming a professional motocross rider,
Traveling the globe, competing at the highest level.

You made me board a bus
To an industrial park west of town.
As I meandered aimlessly
In front of workshops and warehouses,
A solitary figure emerged
Wearing white sneakers, jeans,
Padded polyester gloves,
A black motorbike helmet
With a tinted visor,
And a sleek red jacket.

You took off your carbon fiber helmet,
Freeing your caramel-brown waves.
Your eyes crinkled into half-moons
As you let out a hearty laugh.

After I met your beloved Aprilia Red Rose,
A treasure made yours from another’s hands,
You tossed me a half-helmet;
You wanted to take me on my first ride.

Weren’t you searching for a motocross bike?
Why choose this one instead?
You couldn’t resist such a bargain, you said,
And you could save up then trade the Aprilia in.

You slipped your helmet over your face,
Visor down to shield against the bugs.
The half-helmet’s padding hugged my head
As I fastened the strap under my chin.
Once I swung onto the bike behind you,
I clung to you like a koala.

You turned the ignition key
And twisted the throttle.
The engine growled and sputtered,
The exhaust let out raspy rattles.

As we raced toward an invisible finish line,
The roar of the engine echoed down
That sun-drenched industrial thoroughfare.
The bike’s rumbling quivered through me,
From my feet braced against the foot pegs
To my fingertips curled around your waist.
Spilling out the sides of your helmet,
Wind-whipped hair danced against my face.

I found the ride exhilarating, terrifying,
Like a rollercoaster, like flying.
My heart pounded, my mouth dried up.
I wanted to scream into the void
And let the thrill consume me.

What happened to that poster-size picture
I drew of you, that you hung on your wall?
Against a backdrop of blurred lines,
There you were, an anime-style Izar,
Riding your yellow-and-white motorbike,
Your caramel-brown hair flowing behind you,
Your favorite Evangelion T-shirt rippling in the wind.
Your face beamed with an open-mouthed smile,
And your chocolate eyes stared straight ahead
To wherever the road would take you.

Author’s note: the song for today is “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison.

Now that I have determined all the plot points and imagery that I want to include in the narrative, this side project of mine will likely take up to a month.

Revised: ‘Spider Commander Versus Dinosaur-Monkey’

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

I’ve been busy revising the messiest scenes of a novel I mostly wrote back in May of this year, because I intend to publish it as an ebook. Meanwhile, I’ve also rearranged all my poems into three distinct books that I’ll also upload some day. I’m going through the poems contained in the first of those poetry ebooks, to revise them and sharpen them and also expand them if necessary.

This time I had to handle the poem that received the most likes on my WordPress site. To be honest, I don’t think it deserves that accolade. I’m not sure how it happened. But it was a thick, heartfelt text that didn’t need to be expanded. I mainly sharpened it and in particular fixed the punctuation; the lack of periods made it far messier before.

In any case, the link is below:

Spider Commander Versus Dinosaur-Monkey

My Face Against a Revolving Grindstone (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificialLeave a comment

Yesterday I struggled through a hard workday.
Working at a hospital is hectic, chaotic,
Which is especially fucked for someone like me
Who requires peace and quiet to exist properly.

The barcode scanner for an electrocardiograph
Suddenly stopped working.
The electromedical service was handling the ticket,
But the emergency department needed the machine;
They demanded us to look for another barcode scanner,
Which turned this issue into Our Problem.

During my last contract, we had spare barcode scanners,
But now not even the guy who handles the inventory
Knows why those barcode scanners have disappeared.
In the end I had to snatch one used for the vaccinations.
Although Philips will have to fix the original scanner,
We will likely never get our replacement scanner back.

When I started working at this hospital,
I was a thirty-something-year-old ex programmer
Who never found a stable job in the private sector
(I wasn’t a hit with supervisors who weren’t technicians;
My solitary weirdness made those women uncomfortable)
And so ended up slaving away as a cog for the government.

First, I wondered why the fuck would I have to handle
Random machines like scanners, faxes, wristband printers,
But because most things contain a computer chip,
That makes such machines Our Problem.

In otolaryngology, a phone ceased to work
(We are in charge of phones; they connect to the network),
Which meant that the associated computer wasn’t online.
Everything was properly plugged in the network rack,
So I had to pursue the maintenance guys to fix the issue.

The phone’s location from the inventory was incorrect,
So the maintenance guy failed to find it,
But he also failed to told us he hadn’t found it.
For a few hours we had no clue what the fuck was going on
Until I managed to locate the specific maintenance guy
And direct him to the exact room that contains that socket
(He would have found it easily if he had asked around).
Turns out the whole thing wasn’t any of our business:
Someone had cut the hidden cable during construction.

One of my coworkers updates
All his tickets without punctuation
And with barely any information
About what he’s done to solve them,
So when he failed to fix
A serious network issue in the ICU
(Which mostly contains victims
Of the Chinese biological weapon),
My boss made me responsible
For resolving that guy’s ticket.

Turns out his updates were incorrect, maybe deliberately.
One read that the corresponding switch port had traffic,
But I found out it wasn’t plugged at all.

As I stood close to the ICU, in front of the network rack,
That has a tangled mess of cables nobody wants to handle,
Some random guy came from behind me
And then touched me without my consent.

“I don’t know what you came here to do,” he said cheerfully,
“But if you solve it in this disaster, you are a champ.”
I just stood there silently, never bothered to look at him.
He insisted, but eventually he got annoyed and left.
Nobody asked you to bother me, you fucking prick.

I got the associated computer online.
My boss said he had suspected
That my coworker hadn’t done shit,
He just intended to pass
His ticket to the maintenance service.
This coworker is a childish,
Annoying prick that nobody likes
(He’s the kind who just repeats
Mindless jokes from TV,
And when he gets bored,
It’s our job to entertain him),
But the bosses can’t do shit
Because he’s in a worker’s union,
And in the past he had called over
Some of those shady goons.

Two other computers were offline in anesthesiology.
The ticket’s info about the PCs’ location was incorrect.
When I finally found the user who had complained,
I discovered that they had produced at least two tickets,
So someone else must have been handling the other one.

As this nurse person guided me to the room in question,
Which would have been very hard to find otherwise
And is located past two doors that needed to be unlocked,
The nurse tried to make me empathize with her problem.

(She spoke slowly and carefully
As she wrapped both arms tightly around me.
Like many nurses with which I have dealt,
She sought the comfort of such contact.
Then, while standing right next to my ear,
She whispered how much she enjoyed my smell.)

She said they had moved a Zoom meeting to another room
Because the associated computers had been offline.
I didn’t pretend to care, and I could tell it annoyed her.
I’m never there to make you feel better; I fix machines.
Besides, I truly don’t give a shit about your problems.
I work because I need to pay for the privilege to exist
(Although I don’t even want to live).

In any case, when I finally found those blasted PCs,
I found out that someone had already fixed the problem,
I guess whoever handled the redundant ticket.
But I was the one person superfluous in this situation.
I had bothered to locate those rooms and listen to that girl
Just to waste my time and energies, and get paid for it.

When my dodgy coworker came for his shift,
He got nervous because I had handled his ticket.
Although he knew that our boss had passed it to me,
He still bothered me to figure out everything I had done,
And feigned surprise that his updates were incorrect.

In the middle of all this, my boss had called me
Because he and another coworker were travelling back
From dismantling the emergency vaccination stations,
And needed me to unload PCs, printers and phones
(I’m reasonably strong, so I’ve been a go-to guy for this).
We took that shit from my boss’ car and put it in my cart.
Later, I nearly sprained my back lifting a big printer.
I’m always exhausted, in my thirties, far from my prime.

(Nowadays, my body aches constantly,
My joints hurt, my head hurts,
My neck feels like a twisted pretzel,
So does every joint.

The world outside is dark and cold,
A place where mystery lurks
And sometimes death arrives.
Inside is warm, lit, clean, and safe.)

I have always been uncomfortable among humans.
When I was a child, I harbored the delusion
That one day I would find people I would like,
But the more people I met, the more I disliked everyone.
Once I worked at offices, I wanted to avoid most humans.
Now that I work in IT, I nearly loathe humanity.

Working with people always makes things worse.
We are a bunch of retarded apes
Who have no business making big plans,
Especially these civilization-wide restructurings
That originate from certain weasels in academia,
With all their grandiose political hypotheses.
We will suffer through horrible catastrophes.

Yesterday’s workday should have had a saving grace:
My contract would have ended, I would be free
To finally rest from having to work full-time,
Which always drains all of life’s strength from me.

But two hours before the workday ended,
I got the equivalent of “your contract is extended.”
So now I’ll have to endure through two more weeks
(And later on maybe more, I never know)
Until I can finally stop waking up at six in the morning
And some weeks returning home at eleven at night,
Not to mention all the garbage I endure in between.

Our secretary asked me whether I had made plans
That having to continue working here had screwed up.
I stared blankly at her. Plans? Other people make plans.
I merely adjust to the loads of shit that life throws at me
While I try to steal time to write and play the guitar,
Which are the only activities that keep me alive
(Besides masturbating).

All my coworkers and bosses complain about working,
And repeat that they have been ready to retire for years;
Still, some intended for me to be happy and grateful
When I had just been told that my vacations are cancelled.

I’ve never landed a stable job, never had proper vacations;
My vacations are whatever period of time is sandwiched
Between when a contract ends and the unknown moment
In which my phone will receive the dreaded call from work.
Ever since I learned that I’ve gotten fucked again,
I’ve felt a hollow ache inside my chest.

Besides, this job at the hospital won’t ever be stable;
You need to speak Basque to get hired permanently.
I hate the Basque language, it’s fucking ugly and useless.
Nothing it produces is valuable as far as I’m concerned.
All of my teachers chastised us if we spoke Spanish,
And none of them even knew how to teach it properly.
I don’t require it to do my work, it’s just about politics.

When I think about my following weeks,
I picture a dirty boot pressing my face
Against a revolving grindstone.

(A couple of days ago I was back in Whiterun.
I had to temper an iron dagger at the grindstone
Mostly to befriend dear Adrianne Avenicci;
Whenever I find or steal an ingot of refined malachite,
I will finally get to craft an alembic in a forge,
And if Adrianne likes me enough, she’ll let me use hers;
Money is too tight and I’d have to pay her otherwise
(I usually wouldn’t mind paying her; she’s got nice tits).

Once I get my hands on a fancy new alembic,
I’ll finally dissolve in it my alchemical ingredients.
They will allow me to learn about magic archetypes,
Which will become the sources of a series of theses
That will allow me, in days, to come up with new spells.
Those are bound to help me survive in the wilds;
Days earlier, I merely crossed the bridge from Markarth
When a big elk pummelled me into a paste.

I’m a puny Breton who wants to be a mage,
Although I haven’t even learned a single spell,
And I can’t afford to pay a bodyguard’s wages;
I bought a dog from some stablehand,
But the damn mutt and his Dwemer leg barely help.

None of these issues trouble me much, though,
When I can stand on top of the steps to Dragonsreach
And gaze down upon our city bathed in the sunset,
Including the Cloud District and its lack of pussy;
A myriad of sights that look so fucking good in VR.)

Yesterday, when my workday finally ended
And I walked out of the hospital complex
As I wondered why I bothered with anything,
My mind went numb until I reached the train.
Once I stood in a crowded passenger cab
And looked forward to a forty minutes long ride,
I remembered that it’s always been the same way.

As a child, for a few years I had my own bedroom
Where I read, recorded a pretend radio show,
Wrote, drew comics, and daydreamed.
But my mother didn’t like her two sons,
And wanted to free a room to create a new kid.

She convinced me into moving to my brother’s room.
As a seven year old, I didn’t properly understand
The kind of sacrifices I had signed up for.
From then on, until I became eighteen years old,
I was treated like an unwanted guest in my bedroom.

I couldn’t listen to my music nor watch what I wanted.
I couldn’t concentrate enough to read nor study.
My fragile mind requires silence to retain its sanity,
But my brother wanted noise to drown his thoughts.
Thanks to him, we slept with the radio and TV on.

I never rested enough, I was never comfortable.
I read my books as I walked through the streets.
I had to enter into random apartment buildings
To hide in the darkness and silence between floors.
Nobody was around me, nobody could touch me.
My heart pounded, hoping that no one would notice,
But in the solitude of such dark places, I was free.

Not even the weekends belonged to me;
A narcissistic cousin that my brother liked
Forced his way into our house every Saturday,
And he believed it was my job to entertain him.
Years later he even flirted with my then girlfriend,
Which was my excuse to get rid of the prick.
He suggested I had to forgive him for whatever,
Because we are technically related by blood.

Whenever I brought up to my mother
That I was suffering in my brother’s room,
She always repeated a variation of the same thing:
“You gotta understand it, he has problems.”

For her, if nobody mentioned a problem, it didn’t exist,
Like when she denied our sister was stealing shit
To pay for the hashish to which she was addicted
(Her own Muslim boyfriend was a drug dealer,
Not to mention an adult when she was a minor,
Which is legal in my country if the minor is willing;
Who knows what crazy shit my sister was involved in).

My mother denied it, but she still hid my valuables.
She didn’t even tell me she was hiding my stuff,
Which caused me to think my sister had stolen it.
I found my gifted jewelry years later, in a drawer.

(To be fair, as a teen I was a thief myself.
I stole books and manga; no internet back then.
My worst theft was part of a cousin’s wages
When my mother forced me to visit them.
I stole it to feel that I could affect something,
And I spent it on books and random groceries.
I regret that one, I couldn’t handle the guilt,
And I never stole anything ever again.)

Even with the people with which I hung out,
Or the girls I ended up romantically tangled to
(I wouldn’t have dated them if I knew myself better),
I always felt I would never stand on solid ground;
I remained at the mercy of turbulent currents,
And I had to struggle to keep my nose above water
While trying not to sink into psychotic madness
(If only my parents had done their fucking duty,
I doubt I would have turned out this rotten).

I was told to believe that everything was fine;
I just needed to put up with increasing anxiety.
But I’d rather live under glass and slowly starve
Than be suffocated and drowned in shit and lies.
Somebody please shut me in a box full of nails.

This morning I woke up at six in the morning again.
I managed to revise a whole scene in the train
(I hope I’ll get to upload my novel in a week or so).
Shortly after eight, when my workday starts,
I had to grab a RJ45 cable and a Patchsee light,
Because another network connection had failed.
After I took the rack key, our secretary laughed
And said that she always saw me carrying cables.

A couple of hours later, my boss called me in
To assure me that Saturdays are paid individually,
And that he needed me to come to work tomorrow
Because the new coworker was mostly useless.
But he fucked up and asked if I wanted to,
And I said that I would come if I was ordered,
But that otherwise I badly needed to rest.
Thankfully, he immediately changed his tune,
And now I have to deal with his awkwardness
Because I refused to sacrifice another day.

I’m looking forward to finally crafting
That blasted alembic at Adrianne’s forge.
That’ll help me survive in the wilds
Where monsters roam and prey is scarce,
Before I can return to our quaint little town
Where all the houses are built of stone,
With wooden doors and iron hinges,
And windows made of thick glass
So I can see my loved ones’ faces
And let the sunlight in
To warm my bones
When winter comes.

I need to wake up at ten to drink a coffee in peace
While I sit in my boxers to write whatever comes.
I need to walk into the woods with a folding stool
To play my guitar until my blisters pop.
I’m sick to my core of this fucking world,
And the only thing I truly yearn for is to die.

‘My Face Against a Revolving Grindstone’ by Jon Ureña

Revised and expanded: ‘Happiness Is a Warm Cat Girl’

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

I’m at the last stage of revising a novel I wrote mostly back in May, because I want to sell it on online retailers. Meanwhile I also rearranged all my poems; I intend to upload them as three distinct ebooks. I’m going through the poems contained in the first of those poetry ebooks to revise them, expand them and sharpen them as I see fit.

This time I handled ‘Happiness Is a Warm Cat Girl’. I expanded it a bit. I felt like I rushed it the first time through, likely because I wrote it at the office and I wanted to upload it before I left. I don’t discard maybe retouching it a bit in the future. In any case, I think the poem is considerably stronger now.

The link is below.

Happiness Is a Warm Cat Girl

Revised: ‘A Chaperone for Hybrids’

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura1 Comment

I’m at the last stage of revising the novel I wrote mostly back in May, because I want people to pay four bucks for it whenever I finally upload it to online retailers. Meanwhile I’m also going through the poems that will be contained in a poetry ebook that I’ll also try to swindle people into paying for.

This time I was eager to revise the first one in this book of what I consider my ‘epic poems’, longish short stories in the form of free verse poetry. The original version of ‘A Chaperone for Hybrids’ suffered greatly from my stupid decision to do away with periods when writing poetry. I had no idea why I thought that was a good idea. Anyway, I have cut out a few sentences here and there, have added a few others, and obviously sharpened what remained, but this poem was essentially perfect as far as I am concerned. The current version is considerably stronger, and especially clearer.

The concept for this strange story came from me hearing years ago about some psychiatrist that wanted to meet people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. The psychiatrist thought the whole thing was a delusion caused by the collective unconscious or some shit like that, but after processing many of such clients through hypnotic regression, the psychiatrist changed his tune: the phenomenon was real, and we should be very afraid. Some of the stuff that transpired on those sessions is reflected on this poem I wrote, but I won’t mention it, because that would involve spoilers. I have no idea if I imagined this whole backstory, but it doesn’t matter, because it served as fuel for this story.

Anyway, I’ve always been into aliens and UFOs, ever since I was a child. I had that common delusion in autists of believing that I must have come from another planet, because I didn’t feel much in common with humans. I even saw a UFO when I was thirteen years old, along with my parents and sister. We were coming back home from McDonalds when we spotted a big triangular UFO that was hovering over the local mountain. Three big lights that glowed yellow, orange and green, if I recall correctly. Otherworldly is the only way I can describe it; it simply wasn’t man-made.

We lost sight of it for a moment, but as my father parked the car, I just felt that I had to look up, and I suddenly saw the UFO again for a split second. It was hovering in the sky over my street. When I got out of the car excitedly, the craft was gone. I could have hallucinated the whole thing if not only my family but also four random, baffled people hadn’t witnessed it as well. It didn’t appear in the news; I doubt it had stayed around for more than a couple of minutes.

Anyway, the link is below.

A Chaperone for Hybrids

Revised: ‘I Wish I Were Wet’

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I’m at the last stage of revising a novel I wrote mostly in May of this year, and that I intend to publish on online retailers. Meanwhile I’m also going through the poems I’ve written, because I have realized that they could be distributed into three distinct ebooks, which I will also self-publish in the future.

This time I had to revise ‘I Wish I Were Wet’, which is mostly about the art of writing and my personal fears about becoming sterile. This was one of those poems in which I mostly updated the punctuation and then cut out a few sentences here and there and added a few more. The rest is reading through the text a couple of times while listening to your inner voice, that alerts you about the opportunities to sharpen the sentence by exchanging a verb for another or deleting a few words.

The link is below.

I Wish I Were Wet

A Human Like Them (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificialLeave a comment

If I’m lucky, in a few days I’ll be unemployed.
I will be able to dedicate myself to writing,
And I will limit my exposure to humans,
Because above any other hope and goal,
I just need to be left alone.

For the first time in any job,
I’ve tolerated my current one enough
That I think some coworkers are fine,
In the sense that I can deal with them
Without wanting to kill myself.

I’ve had interesting dialogues with some,
And I can stomach the opinions of a few,
But no matter how closely I work with them
Or the personal details they readily shared,
I clearly avoid getting close to any of them,
And whenever my contracts have ended,
I have never missed any of my coworkers.

I wondered whether I had ever missed anyone.
No matter what kind of person they were,
They all seemed to have disappointed me.
I no longer retain the echoes of how it felt
To be in a romantic relationship that lasted.
I don’t know if I looked forward to seeing them
Or if I dated them because that’s what you do.
They never were interesting enough to me.

When my longest one ended, it hurt like a bitch;
I found myself wandering to known places
Like a beast following the instructions in its genes,
But in a few months, those aches faded away,
And I identified that trial as withdrawal symptoms:
I had become addicted to the pleasurable feelings
That trying to fulfill life’s purpose provides,
But it was just a run-of-the-mill addiction,
Like with any other drug.

I never felt an impulse to socialize,
I didn’t want to go to bars or parties,
I just wanted to get lost in my imagination.
Interacting with people made me antsy,
Not just because it caused me anxiety,
But because humans are fucking boring.
I could have been daydreaming,
Or assembling a fictional story,
Or remembering some show,
Or just enjoying the silence instead.

As a child, I struggled with unlikely nemeses:
I had to be wary of tender-hearted ladies,
Usually teachers or social workers,
Who loved words like ‘compassion’ and ’empathy’.

The teachers resented that I was alone,
So I needed to be properly socialized.
They wanted to add a good deed to the list
(It seems to me that feeling like a good person
Is for these people another kind of drug),
So they pushed me towards other kids,
Whether they were loners or settled groups.

I could have been spared meeting such kinds
Like a kleptomaniac and pyromaniac
With the strangest tic I’ve ever seen,
And who either killed himself or OD’d
Before he reached the fabled twenty seven
(To be fair, he wasn’t that bad of a guy,
Just doomed and truly fucked up,
But it doesn’t mean I wanted to know him);
Several girls who used me as a prop,
As in ‘look how good I am that I deal
With this gross, worthless, retarded loner’;
An overcompensating, anorexic girl
Who derailed every conversation
To remind people about how fat she was;
Coke addicts and hashish traffickers;
A boring sociopath who stole to steal
And hurt others for the plain fun of it;
A jock for who bullying was an instinct
Which he obeyed without malice,
And he was also a lying sack of shit;
A malignant narcissist who became a politician,
Who tried to ruin my life for many years
Just because I stopped hanging out with him
(Luckily he took himself out of the way;
He crashed his car on his way to a meeting).

There were others I either have forgotten
Or my brain has ended up blocking out,
But my point is that I first met those people
Because some soft-headed fool
Who wanted to feel like a good person
Smiled as she pushed me towards someone.

The less I say about social workers, the better.
In my experience, they are all Grade A morons
Who mostly see the world in ‘positive’ prejudices;
I had to be a good person, a social worker said,
Because I am a high-functioning autist.

You are also a good person by default to them
If you belong to other protected demographics,
No matter the horrible crimes some commit;
Start having babies of your own, idiots,
And stop babying adults.

Maybe I wouldn’t distrust humans so much,
Nor be so anxious whenever they are close,
If I had gone through good experiences with them,
But when even romantic partners have exploited
The very private pains I shared in confidence,
I just want them all to fuck off for the rest of my life.

Today I ventured to watch a movie at the cinema,
Which I had avoided since this virus thing started;
I have little interest in the garbage Hollyweird spews
(They don’t want to tell stories, just propaganda,
So I gravitate towards manga and anime instead),
But that new Dune movie seemed decent enough.

The movie was fine, the people were shit;
A group of tweens talked the whole time
Although adults kept shushing them,
But it’s true, these generations are hopeless;
They know they won’t get any consequences.
So I had to endure the rest of the movie
While I fantasized about walking up to them
And pushing their eyeballs into their skulls
(I often daydream about murder for relief).

Afterwards, as I walked my way home,
I tried to avoid the noisy multitudes
(I felt like I was being strangled
By a bunch of screeching cats)
As my brain wondered pointlessly again
Whether I’m a human being like them
If those people truly enjoy such tumults,
Are eager to surround themselves with others,
Want to get romantic partners, and have kids.

When I was a child, I thought they pretended
That they enjoyed interacting with people;
That’s what they were supposed to do,
Like my mother, and teachers, insisted to me.

Now that I’m much older, a grumpy man
That girls sometimes refer to as ‘sir’
(I hope they mean it in a daddy sense,
But it hurts because I feel eighteen inside),
I have accepted that I lack a part of my brain
That in others makes them want to socialize.

I guess those humans act like nature intends,
And most of them are properly happy,
While I’ll always remain an alien creature
That can’t connect with this species.

I’m a society of one, if such a thing exists,
And when I die, this whole history ends.
A man alone can never change a thing,
But I guess I can keep writing.

‘A Human Like Them’ by Jon Ureña

Revised: ‘Fly on the Wall’

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

I’m at the last stage of revising a novel I wrote mostly back in May, because I intend to publish it as an ebook. In the meantime I rearranged my poems into three distinct books. I’ll also put that stuff on online retailers as ebooks.

I’m going through the poems contained in the first of those poetry ebooks, to fix their punctuation (I have no clue why I ever thought that doing away with periods when writing poetry was a good idea) and hopefully expand and sharpen them. This time I worked on the poem ‘Fly on the Wall’, mainly about an old amateur rock band I loved. I didn’t need to expand it in any way. I cut out a few sentences here and there instead.

The link is below.

Fly on the Wall