You Know Me Well

I’ll always read David Levithan’s books, even if they’re just okay, like this one. I don’t really have much to say about it except that I liked his previous collaborations with John Green and Rachel Cohn better.

Also, my cat knows me well.

The Tide is High

Written during one of the workshops of the New Shoots program in high school, and is one of the few things I wrote during high school that I am somewhat proud to share.

The Tide is High

In, out.  In out.  The water runs up the sands on Io Beach, then retreats, like a scared fourth grader who has seen a spider.  But it comes back, stronger than before, only to fade back again.  And along the shores, I sit and watch my free movie.  The sun warm me in such a way that I think my soul is even warm, or that could be my getting a sunburn.

“Jane, let’s go!  The water is, like, totally making my hair dry out!” screams my friend Fiona.  She emerges out of the water looking like Aphrodite (at first glance) but as she gets closer, she resembles something closer to Medusa.

I sigh.  “Alright, Fi-ho-na.  If your hair that much to you.”  I get up and shake out the sand that has traveled to my underwear, all the while hearing her shrieking, “No!  I so do not have split ends!  Noooo!”

Back in my room, I’m alone.  Now I can finally focus on my homeowkr.  ya… I pull out my geometry homeowkr.  I know all about special triangles, but for some reason, I can’t focus.  Another sigh.  I pull out my yearbook and flip to a bookmarked page.  Ah… there he is, again.  Just like I remember him.Well, I actually look at this picture every day, so I don’t know how I wouldn’t remember him.  The picture consists of one guy sticking his index finger up his nose while a few of his friends laugh.  I smile and stare at it dreamily.  Oh, how I long to be that beautiful finger in that beautiful nose.  Seriously though.  I’m that desperate and brainwashed, just like every other 15 year old teenager who reads Cosmogirls.  Chris, oh Chris.  It’s you I want.

****

My brother and I both like the same girl.  How screwed up is that?  Then again, we’re twins, so that might explain it.  At school, I’m walking down the hallway and I see her.  I have to avoid seeing her in order to not let my brother know I’m seeing her.  Believe me, he knows these things.  He knows everything.

But not today.  Today, I have the confidence and strength to talk to her.  And give her flowers and chocolates.  After all, it’s Valentine’s Day.  I just hope my bro doesn’t find out.

Suddenly, she comes out of the Math room.  I follow her but can’t seem to call out.  It looks as if I’m stalking her.  Be brave, Anthony!  Be brave!

“Jane!”

Wait.  That wasn’t me.  Wait, it was me.  Then who…

In front of me is Jane.  And directly in front of her is Brian, my twin.  What are the chances we both said her name at the same time?

He’s carrying flowersand chocolates in his hands.  How lame is that?  So it’s just three of us standing in the hallway.  Like a triangle.  A special triangle.

[I think I was trying to write something about triangles and geometry but I didn’t have time to incorporate it.  I like the idea though!]

The value of gay friendships — Glee

Gay relationships: it’s been done.  There is even the now-cliche in films and stories of the gay guy who has the biggest crush on his friend and if only his friend knew… but then his friend does know and they get together and they live happily ever after!  The end.

And sometimes even when you have a gay friend, there’s this implication that the two of you might get together just because you’re both gay, which seems bizarre but I’ve felt that in the past when meeting new gay people.  I came across an article many years ago about the importance of gay friendships and at the time, I didn’t think much of it.

Until Glee came along.

So for those who don’t watch this wonderful show, Kurt is the token gay character in the show.  He’s out in high school but a homophobic bully (who also happens to be closeted) makes him leave.  Kurt then transfers to an all-boys school where homophobia and any forms of hate are non-existent.  If only all high school across America and in the world, for that matter, were like Dalton Academy.

At Dalton, Kurt meets Blaine, a member of the school’s glee club who also happens to be gay.  Kurt is smitten with him and back in February, in time for Valentine’s Day, Kurt confesses his like for Blaine.  Perhaps surprising for many viewers, Blaine doesn’t feel the same for his friend, and says, “He doesn’t want to screw this up.”

How refreshing, I thought to myself, to see two gay characters on TV who didn’t hookup just because they both happened to be gay.  In fact, all this time, I had been wishing Klaine, as folks call the couple, would stay two separate words.

Here’s why: Blaine is confident of himself and his talents.  Sure, he had a slight questioning episode with that kiss with Rachel, but when we first met him, he appeared to be miles out of the closet whereas Kurt, although out at McKinley, was still emotionally vulnerable to homophobia.  Blaine seemed, at least to me, the kind of person, Kurt needed to become a more confident, smarter, gay person in the future.  I didn’t see Blaine as someone who would or should be romantically involved with Kurt, at least not for the time being.  So when Blaine told Kurt he didn’t want to mess things up between the two of them, I thought for sure they’d stay good friends, which I was more than happy with.  After all, Blaine can still support Kurt and they can both still be friends.

And why should they be together?  Besides the fact that they both happen to be gay, why should they?  “They would look so cute together!” is also not a valid response.

I commended the writers for keeping Klaine as friends because I thought it was refreshing to have two young gay characters who weren’t together just for the sake of throwing couples together (*ahem, Degrassi, ahem).  And not just that, but I felt like it was saying something important about the value of gay friendships rather than relationships.

Anyway.  But as of tonight’s episode — that’s a spoiler alert, by the way — after Blaine found himself looking at Kurt in a different light and kissing him, it appears that the two are now an item, which I have to say I’m not surprised to see, though I am a little disappointed.  I guess we’ll see how things play out with the two of them.

In the meantime, I’ll cheer for Klaine, er, Blaine + Kurt.

Article (part 2)

“Jeez, hurry up, Jeremy!  What were you doing?  Daydreaming?”  I looked at her and then at my books.

“Yes.”

When I got home, I had to immediately go to my room.  My parents told me that I ihad to finish my homeowkr before dinner, and if I didn’t, I had to finish after.  But this time, I just lay on my bed and thought about Sean.  God, how much I loved that boy, even from the first time I ever saw him (oh yeah, I’m gay if you haven’t already noticed).  Yet, no one would ever know how much he meant to me — well, except Chelsea.  She knew about me already.  I was relieved she was okay with it and wanted to come out to everyone.  Nevertheless, there was just no way.  My parents would kick me out, my school would hate me, and not to mention Sean might hate me!  I glanced around my room and thought about how boring my life was.  Something needed to happen!  I knew just what to do.

The next week, when issues of Teenink were distributed throughout our schooo, I waited anxiously at everyone’s reaction.  I looked for and found Chelsea.

“Have you read my new article?” I jumped up and down like a 12-year old schoolgirl.

“No, but I will now.”  She grabbed an issue her from locker and found the correct page.  I gave her a few minutes to read my article.  When she finished, she gave me a hug, which was surprising to say the least.

“I’m so proud of you, Jeremy.”  I took a breath and let it out.

“So am I.”

That scene right there was actually the only good thing to happen to me that day.  The rest of the student body all stared at me and uttered hate words to me, though most of them I didn’t even know.  Somebody spray-painted my locked with the word “fag”.  Hmm… perhaps coming out was not such a good idea after all.

I returned home after getting beaten up, robbed, and yelled at with hate words.  I expeccted some opposition but like this.  My nose bled as I walked into my house.  Immedialy, my dad asked me what happened.

“Oh nothing.  Just got the crap beat out of me!”  My mother, who was in the next room, came, took one look at me, and ran for the first-aid kit.  I sat down on the couch in the living room.  I asked my dad if he loved me.

“Yes, of course I do.  What happened?”  At that moment, my mom came downstairs and started cleaning me up.  I asked her the same question, and she replied the same.  They both stared at me strangely, but concerningly.  I took out a copy of Teenik and showed them my article.

After they read it, they looked at one another.  Again, I asked the same question.

“Do you love me?”  I was surprised how well they kept their anger in control.  My parents got up.  My mother started crying while my father answered.

“I think you know the answer.”  I couldn’t tell if he did or didn’t by the tone of his voice.

“So yes?”  My voice came out weak.  Without answering, my father lead my mom out of the room.

In the bathroom, I was so angry and depressed at the same time.  My parents didn’t understand.  I could hear them saying how they didn’t want me around.  My dad said something like kicking me out.  The phone began to ring.  My parents ignored it, and I did too.  I took out a razor from the cabinet and cried.

Eventually, the answering machine picked up.

“Jeremy?  Are you there?  Well, I guess not.  I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry for what you’re going through.  What I’m actually getting at is… I really like you.  I want to get to know you better… well, I hope you’re alright.  Oh!  And about what you said about me in the article… I love you, too.”

Click.  Sean hung up after I slashed myself.

[That’s the end of the story.  Typing this up, there are a lot of corrections I want to make but I decided to leave it in the original form.  Maybe I’ll edit this for later.  Oh, and I got 5 out of 6 on it.  :)]

Hallway

Something I wrote for my poetry class.  It feels like a complete departure from what I usually write but I like pushing myself to explore different subjects.

Hallway

Florescent lights, like a hospital patient room
Sanitized floors, trying to hide scuff marks
A crimson neon exit sign hangs above my head,
Me, a grim reaper with a gun

Number 1 and 2 fall soundlessly,
their hands in the other’s like I’ve always seen them
Always clutching, touching
3 screams before a silver reply pierces her lungs.
My devilish hands, puppeting my sight, spy 4, eyes closed
as if content for having lived only sixteen years.
I must turn away as my demon fingers pull the trigger
After wounding 5, she crawls on elbows, reduced to a human rowboat
But as I gain on her, cannon in hand, the boat sinks, a hole too many, liquid rushing out instead of in.

A sound startles me.

6 sits slumped, rocking back and forth, a pendulum
fingers creating trenches behind a crying face, moaning like a siren.
The sight slashes into me, deeper than any round I’ve fired
I nod in recognition of the pain he endures and will endure and continue
At the end of the hallway stand two white doors,
and before I pass, I turn around
It smells of death:
Blood tainting the floor
Flickering lights, like a morgue
They lie there, sleeping kindergarteners
Sons and daughters.  People’s children.
Suddenly, pain surges and I unleash a fury of gray tears upon myself.

It started with a bullet.  It will end with one.
My hands, still possessed, perform one last sin.
“How did it come to this?” I wonder as I christen myself number 7.