Hopeless Romantic--Poems from High School

These are some poems I wrote when I was in high school. There are many more, but I'll slowly post them. It's beautiful to remember the girl who was a hopeless romantic. It makes me smile. It's great to remember the girl who could write tragedies, yet her life was full of rainbows.

ANYTHING HIM

10/31/01 @10:26 p.m.

Anything "him" dazzles me.

The awkwardness of his undefined emotions,

the sternness of his gaze,

the mischievous smile that enhances his face,

and sometimes the questionable complexity of his dissonant being.

Aggravated by myself, I ponder the meaning of what I've felt all along,

But as I untangle the threads of love,

I ambush my callow heart with multifarious, absurd unknowns.

And his anything menaces my relative logic,

his anything mystery darkens my hope,

and I've always known the impossibility of us,

Still I refuse belligerently to let go.

Anything him surrendered me.

The minimal impatience I triggered upon him has dissipated much

and his mediocre looks are enough explanation

of the dull conversations we disguise in crimson songs.

Anything him drowned me.

The misery of a never begun love story

antagonizes the dreams I drank in love.

Today and in the morn I will weep for my martyrized hope

for anything him consumed the ashes of sweetness

that in my devotion I gave to him all.

NEVER NIGHT

04/15/01@11:43 p.m.

Never night, I'm lost in your sorrow.

Tonight the wolf cries a fainted song.

It's all misery.

As I walk, dragging my unchained feet across the moist dirt,

the wind slaps my innocence and rests upon my face.

Stars shine in their absence.

The night is dressed in an opaque, mournful black, and

my being is so lost, my spirit attempts to smile...

Even in darkness I am blind?

There, hidden in the horizon,

the sun sleeps his eternal breath.

I know I'll never be free...

I'm succumbed in the realms of contempt.

Lost, demolished, blind, restless.

Oh, the perpetual yelp of pain.

Tear after tear glides across my cheeks

and, suddenly, I drop to my knees.

"Forgive me Lord, I have sinned!"

Never night, I was lost in your sorrrow.

The Lord embraced me while I thought I traveled alone.

The nightingale has crowned the morning

and the wolf sleeps peacefully on the hill.

"Lord, I am free!"

WHAT I BECAME

04/28/00 @12:43 p.m.

Immensely submerged in an ocean of silence.

Drowning incessantly the light of hope.

Walked I through the silence that broken speech became,

Facing the terrors of the shallow barricades.

Struggling, sword in hand, denouncing the universe to fate

in everyone's behalf.

I stained my spirit with inhuman hunger,

I choked myself with immortal anger.

Looking at the reflection of a face to me unknown,

I wiped away the tears of rain,

I tore apart my human flesh,

I chained my soul to a heavy rock,

Keeping in me the infinity of my everyday song.

GOODBYE (to my uncle)

04/09/00 at 12 a.m.

Through the vanishing memories along came crude reality.

The whispers of truth so carefully buried in my innocence

flourished upon the discontent of my soul.

Abruptly, the cold winter wind of your soul cut through my mind

and I was frozen in disbelief, escaping the words, denying the feelings.

Nothingness held me captive of my own self and

I who was once so secure of my heart,

meddled in the cold night questioning the stars, praying...

Closing the wounds, counting the scars.

Why, you must ask, would I blame you for no reason at all?

Why you are the curse life chained me to.

Tonight, just as last night, the wind blows hastily,

breaking down the doors to my weak soul.

My sick heart lies inside me, coughing, sick from your existence,

and I light a candle in honor of your intact soul.

For when you arrived, roses blossomed.

For when you left, they wept in sorrow.

YOU'RE MY RAIN

03/18/02 @11:15 p.m.

A drop of rain is you

For an instant refreshing and with the heat

it evaporizes leaving no trace.

A chord of sounds is you

Finding your way into my heart

and sounding my resonance in my ears that in love with you...LISTEN.

A synonym of confusion is you.

Opening a world of perplexity

astonishing me into the realms of your vague world.

A compound of silence are you

Emerging your bitterness into the love you don't profess

while shutting the world out of your microcosmical world.

A stupefied child am I

Because I made me to love you painstakingly

forgetting that real love can't be forced...only found.

Whatever You Did For Them, You Did For Me

When people ask me what my political philosophy is, I always think of this passage. I live my life trying to change the world one person at a time. I strive to give my time to those who did not have my good fortune. I may not end up being the richest person in the world, but wealth never drove me to where I am. Compassion did. Love did. Believing that I can can make a difference did. You can have all the wealth in the world and be poor. You are often more enriched by simple things than you are by collecting expensive ones. Love doesn't have a price. You love regardless, at least you must. Laughter doesn't have a price. Sincerity doesn't have a price. Humility doesn't have a price. Family doesn't have a price. The world puts a dollar sign on many things, but it is up to us to help those who have less. Be kind with your words. Try to put yourselves in their shoes. This is not to say you're not supposed to be stern. I have many times had to be tough with my clients. You have to call things as you see them, but remember you are not perfect.

Out of the pain, the wrongs, and the broken laws I encounter every day, I always find a ray of sunshine. Somehow. If it's not there. I'll find it. Sometimes there's a piece of silver out there that needs polishing. Sometimes I am a cynic, but I'm often an idealist cloaked with the truth of a realist. You can't live your life and think you've done your part if you don't do this:

Matthew 25:32-46
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne,and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. 'Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'

And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'

Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'

He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.' And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

An Ace's Ace: Connor Andrew Moore

It is almost cliché, but definitely not an understatement, the  saying that birth is witnessing "the miracle of life." We say it, but this belief for most does not come out of actual knowledge. Our saying it comes from faith, scientific knowledge, or both. It is different, like with all other things, when it comes from first-hand experience. Some of us argue that life is  in the mother's womb, beating from the very beginning, but we have never felt it. We look at children and we marvel at their curiosity and their innocence, but we do not get to witness it the way a mother does until we have our own children, yet the love for another's child can be so powerful. We love babies because they are defenseless and fragile, but we do not know what it feels like when you know a life is on its way, when you anxiously await the birth, when we see that baby's face for the first time, even if that baby is not ours, just a fragment of us...We do not know until we live it.

My sister Amy texted me nine months ago, "Merry Christmas! I love you. You're going to be an aunt, by the way." In disbelief I tried to unmask her joke, but it wasn't a joke. My sister had made the choice of becoming a mother and she gave me the most amazing Christmas gift. However, I had no idea how much this gift would change my life or hers. Amy is the youngest of our Phi Alpha Delta family, the Ace of Clubs and our youngest, our redheaded pride was about to bring a life into the world, our first Ace baby.

Those who think they know what it is to be pregnant because they know someone who is pregnant do not really know anything at all. We do not have morning sickness, cravings (except for my non-preganancy induced, random cravings for oysters and ice cream, but I digress), stretch marks, growing out of clothes, and an extra human to feed. My life went on while my sister grew a life in her. I was in my last semester of law school, avoiding work like the plague, being an activist via the Internet, being a legal intern, chatting on Facebook hoping that time would tick away, and in the back of my mind I always thought about my Amy in her first year of law school, writing memoranda, reading hundreds of pages, working at a law firm with her child growing in her belly. While I thought about graduation, my sister was about to graduate from the most important profession of them all: she was about to get her degree as a mother. There is no professional schooling for motherhood. I do not care what Dr. Phil or Oprah say, no self-help books prepare you for that. All you have is instinct and love. 

Because of the mess that is a law student's life, I missed Amy's baby shower, I didn't see her belly grow, and didn't get to spoil her the way I wanted to, but I got to see her the last three months of her pregnancy. More importantly, I was there for "the miracle of life." I witnessed it and I can say proudly that it is no cliché for me. Its meaning is plain and as magnanimous as ever. Amy Lynn spent almost 19 hours in labor. Maria (my big sister) and I truly wished we could have shared the pain induced by the pitucin and we really wanted to help her push, but birth is a single woman's game and we had to leave the room. Sitting in room 317, Maria and I, on hour number 100 it seemed, prayed. We pleaded to God to give her strength and to assuage her pain. No, really, we prayed for the end of the pain because our brave sister believed she was weak. "I'm a whimp. I can't do this," she mumbled in tears. Childbirth is nothing like they show you in the movies. It is true there are screams and pain, but it is not real until you are standing there next to a woman searching for strength when her body is exhausted. True there is cursing and an honest targeting of the man in the room and true there is waiting, but nothing prepares you for the real thing. Especially, nothing prepares you for that feeling you get when you see "the miracle."

On August 8th, 2009 at 9:40 a.m., Amy Lynn Moore delivered Connor Andrew Moore into this world. He weighed 8 lbs. and 10 oz and was perfect: open and very alert gaze, 10 toes, 10 fingers, beautiful smile, and not a tear on his face. I cannot explain how I felt when I saw "the miracle of life." I felt proud of my sister, yes. I saw her in a whole new light, she is now a mother. I saw a child look up to the woman who courageously decided in December that she was okay with her world changing, she would be a mother and a lawyer and she could do it all. I know she can. If she can withstand 19 hours of labor, taking law school finals while 9 months pregnant, and coming to terms with her life the way she always has, she can do it all.

 The day Connor was born I saw love and I saw God. That may be more cliché  than calling childbirth "the miracle of life," but I cannot deny what I witnessed. The love of a mother is unbreakable because that bond between mother and child is so intense and inimitable. We cannot create miracles. We can be conduits to miracles to let others witness them. Amy, thank you for your miracle. I love you.

War Against Boys?

I have always argued that men are not really from Mars and women are not really from Venus. We were both born on the same planet and the fact that we don't share the same gender chromosomes doesn't necessarily mean we aren't designed to understand each other. Anything can work, I argued to the girls, if you listen to the boys and don't expect them to be, well...girls.

I understand a guy's love for sports, for rolling out of bed in the morning and going to school in gym shorts, the annoyance they feel when we take too long to get ready, and most importantly, I understand them when they say we are way too emotional. Girls, we ARE emotional. Admit it. We expect men to know that every little thing they do somehow affects us because we innocently believe that everything they do is directed to us. Now, with that out of the way, I must say, boys, you need to play by the rules too.

Lately, I have realized that some guys (and this is through my experiences and my friends') are just such pieces of work that they put Dali's Bullfighter masterpiece to shame in size and complexity. I am throwing all the justifications for men out the window for the girls. There is no reason we should waive the white flag and surrender because there are good men out there, but I have been asked by a few of my friends to write this.

So boys, here are the major complaints from the girls:

1) Dating someone for more than a year does not give you the right to be their friend when you break up. Some girls do not want to be friends with their ex-boyfriends, especially if you, (a) were a jerk when you broke up, (b) want to talk about other women now, or (c) a and b. This does not make her immature. It makes her proactive. You're wasting her time to stroke your ego.

2) I have been told that guys don't like it when girls like sports. Now boys, seriously...some of us actually love sports and you should embrace it. This means we won't change the channel to some girly show when you are watching the game of the year because we will understand it's important to you. You have the upper hand. We also understand that you will want your "guy time" with your nachos and beer. We may even prepare the snacks. Stop whining and feeling threatened by this. It makes you look petty.

3) If you like your drinks strong, you should not be complaining about smart and strong women. A girl who is a professional and determined is not snide or arrogant and does not think that she has more power than you do. If you have self-esteem problems, don't go after the smart girl and try to create self-esteem problems for her too. Go for the weak girl who wants you to do everything for her and buy her things all the time. Just don't complain later that she treats you like a doormat.

4) When you say you are going to call a girl, whether it is as a friend or because you like her, call her. We give guys way too many chances and we try to think you are different from "the others," but when we give up, don't say we are being dramatic.

4) Texting a girl at 11:30 p.m. and asking her to come over, if you don't know her well, is not classy. It rings like booty call and you should know if the girl you are texting is the type. If you do not know, reflect before you act. Sometimes it's not your intention for it to come out that way, but when it does...

5) We still like it when you open doors for us, when you hug us, when you are sweet to us, so don't stop doing it because you think the other boys are going to think less of you. The same way you need us to make sacrifices for you, we need you to make a few for us to show love. We do like attention as much as you like beer.

6) It should have not been necessary for the book/movie "He's Just Not That Into You" to be published. You would have saved the writers and actors the trouble if you had just been clear. You complain girls say too much, well...you boys don't say enough. Not interested? Say it. Want to break up? Say it. Which brings me to...

7) Do not stay in a relationship because you think the girl is not going to survive the break up. Get over yourself. It's going to be hard, but it's worse when you are condescending enough to tell her you never thought she'd make it and that you know this is tough.

8) At the end of every relationship, there are memories, sometimes one too many, but don't do this: call her and ask her for the gifts you gave her back no matter how broke you are. Are you really that ridiculous?

9)Do NOT, under any circumstances, even if you are in your death bed, compare your girlfriend to your ex. If you liked your ex so much, you should've stayed with her. We don't care if you think your ex was a better cook, thank your stars that we are cooking for you in the first place. There's always fast food.

10) If you like a girl and want to let her know this, it is not appropriate to say, "Hi, you're hot and I want to do to you everything that Ludacris raps about in his Fantasy song." This will, at the very least, not get you the girl. At the most, it may land you in the hospital after she punches you in the throat. [This happened to a friend of mine recently and the man is lucky he is not sporting a cast with that bark.]

11) We girls love to be high fashion and trendy, but it doesn't matter how 21st Century Cosmopolitan says it is, we don't like making the first move. It's unnatural. You'll know if she likes you: she'll turn 20 shades of red, get nervous, giggle, get cold hands, or attempt to ignore you. Starbucks is your lifesaver in the 21st Century. Ask her out for coffee. Especially in this day an age, coffee will never fail you.

There are many other complaints out there and I'm sure these don't even scratch the surface, but they are the complaints I've had to listen to for a while. I noticed these before I became single after three years in a relationship, but they are quite more noticeable when you turn 24 and boys still act like they did when they were 17.

As a caveat, I do know that guys get hurt, that there are women who cannot be more humiliating to their men, and some of us think it's unfair that you get dragged around at the mall and forced to shop with your girl at Forever 21. It can be a daunting task to survive a shopping frenzy.

However, for the sake of the good girls out there, please, take into account that not all girls like to play games or want to tell you what to do. Some girls really are not at war against boys. Some girls really just want to even the playing field, so just don't make them take out their weapons. As the saying goes, "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned."

I Once Met A Man, My Hero

I once met  a man who was elegance and sport, wit and song, the barrio and love, birth and death, pleasure and pain. Tonight I ponder this man; a soul so fulfilled, yet so incomplete...my eternal paradox. I knew him from the perspective of one who sees the world through a pink glass, who has to look from her 4.9 feet up, who did not yet abandoned the ribbons, but already despised the curls. He looked at me through a gray glass: a life of submission, a life full of chains and, in me, I guess he found light.

He was condemned to death, had been for a decade, slowly corroded by the vicious, earthly poisons, brutally sentenced by AIDS. In life he taught me less than he did after dead. While he lived I learned about his pain, hiding my pain instead. I learned to be strong from his mother. I saw him go from place to place trying to unchain himself, but as much as he tried to set himself free, the tighter his bonds grew to his addiction. No one saw that I saw, that I understood. No one realized I slowly swallowed his pain perhaps hoping it would assuage his eternal hurt. I looked at him and I knew who he was, but I also knew what he was. He had made so many mistakes and walked down all the wrong paths. He hurt everyone he loved. And though I knew this and understood it, I could not judge him. I was still a child, and beyond that, the eternal idealist.

He died fourteen years ago and when he died, I died a little inside. I don't think anyone understands why I still hurt, why I still cry or what I knew or didn't know that day. I've never talked about him this way. Don't be mistaken for I was never ashamed of the man, he was my pride. However, I never talked about how I felt back then. I was broken. I had not said good bye and I love you and the thought that he had left ignorant of the love I felt for him tortured me. I stared at his coffin for hours and I swore he moved.  This false and empty hope enabled me to remain standing because the man I knew would not leave me like this. But he was gone and my world collapsed with my first brush with the enigma that is death. Since the day he died, the smell of the flowers at the funeral home haunted me, a constant and unforgiving reminder of death. 

Because of him I dispatch the stereotypes. He was one, if you had met him back then. Since the day he died, I cry for those who get lost, I do not loathe the druggies others can't bear to look in the eye, I feel for those who die alone, for those who roam the streets aimlessly, for those who beg, for those who choose the wrong path, all of them like me with the only difference that they carry a different script. Since that day, I carry a little bit of the pain in the world with me everywhere I go.

For ten years I idealized that man I once met as if he had lived his life solely to teach me what not to do in mine. The truth is that he lived just what he was meant to live and suffer. He read the script, played the character, and when he was done, he buried the script. He suffered, not for me, but because he was human and because he was weak. His soul was weak. He was not a Batman or a James Bond like I had envisioned. I made him up to be a superhero. In my world, it was easier to believe he was flawless. We all suffered his pain. For years I pretended that his life ended just because, but I never put into the equation that being on his own death row drove him to find his death. He didn't want to walk the green mile any longer.

God, I thank you now for taking him away. However that may have been, I don't ever want to have certainties. I thank you for not letting him fade away in a hospital bed. The vision alone is blinding and the cries deafening. I thank you man because you weren't a hero. At least, you weren't one academics write about in history books, though I'd argue they should.

I thank you man I once met for the blessing of your life, for these tears, and for the eternal pain. Because when I see others far worse than you, my heart opens up like a flower in the spring to embrace their weakened souls. I thank you for forcing me to be sensitive to this pain, for making me understanding, for bequeathing me strength. I met you man and you were my flesh. I buried you, man, and you became my hero.

When I remember you, man, I remember who I am and where I came from. And I am the girl who buried you man, and with you I buried a piece of my childhood and the pink looking glass.

-----------------------

My world was never the same after Manuel Mendez died. I was already 10 going on 30 as a child, but when I lost him I was forced to embrace a pain that choked me. Death is not something easy to grasp at any age, but when you are ten, you do not understand how fragile life is. I wanted to heal him, but I couldn't. In my innocence, I believed I could cure him. Perhaps, I did somehow. This man I once met was my uncle. Why is he my hero? Because no one else could have taught me a harder lesson and no one else would come back to let me know he loves me too.  I will always carry you with me. You are in my heart every single day of my life. I am who I am in large part because you inspired me. You could have been so many things, but you failed. Instead, your triumph is that you live as the biggest of my lessons and I am forever indebted to you for your strength and for your pain.

I wrote this blog on December 10, 2005. I have since edited the blog and I am thus republishing it to celebrate the man whose existence alone changed my world for good.

Genesis

For a while I have been attempting to write, but I could not convince myself to take the first step. I used to be a writer. Writing was to me what going to confession is to others. However, I lost that when I became trapped in a small labyrinth in my life. My life changed so suddenly that, for the first time, I lost my footing. I guess you can say I fell face first and then instead of standing up, I sat down to wait. More importantly, I did not know how to ask myself for forgiveness. Contrary to what many believe, it is not talking to the priest that makes confession tedious or embarrassing. The truth of the matter is, asking for forgiveness means that we must accept something for what it is and forgive ourselves.

Instead of holding my head up, I crumbled. I decided it would be easier to rebel against myself. Don't get me wrong, I understood then as  I still do, that when things happen--the things we get, the people we meet, whatever we keep or lose--they carry a lesson with them. The Belinda who sat on the ground after the fall expected things to change, the lessons to teach themselves, her life to fall back into place by mere osmosis. So I embraced my downward spiral. I cried constantly, I lived a bit mechanically, and worst of all, I dwelled on the past and attempted to analyze all the events that had taken place with the hope that through my analysis I would uncover a glitch that would show me how to fix it all. The truth is, you can't fix people. You accept people. You can influence people, but you can't force people to see the light they cannot see. 

After months of crying and fighting with myself, after weeks of attempting to lead a life that was not mine (I have never been good at being a party girl really), I finally turned to who had been with me, watching me, and waiting for me to truly mean the words that came out of my mouth when I prayed. God had been with me the whole time. I have never stopped praying, but I was not truly and wholeheartedly been relying on God. I, implicitly, wanted God to give me what I wanted. When I could take it no longer, I remembered the words from a Garth Brooks country song: "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers." I started making it a point to find time for prayer. I went to church as I had done before, but there was a new person kneeling in front of the altar. Prayer is not the vehicle through which you persuade God to give you what you want because you need it. Prayer is the way in which we connect with God so we can let Him give us the peace and strength we need to face our lessons. God has always been in my heart and in my thoughts, but I had stopped allowing God to teach me because my life changed and I was in so much pain. My losses seemed greater than my faith and not once before that point in my life had I allowed anything to be greater than my faith in God. I had let one loss change me. I forgot my purpose. I forgot the world kept moving while I stood still. 

God brings you joy when there is sadness. When you open your heart to the Lord, you become an instrument of God and your life takes a different meaning. I became who I was again, but a better version of myself. I allowed myself to accept that I have always wanted to work for the people. That's the reason why I went to law school. Martin Luther King's dream of justice inspired me when I was ten. I'm the girl who believes that what is just doesn't lie in political party lines. I'm the girl who thinks that faith and kindness cannot be labeled or categorized, much less compromised.

Today I write because this is my genesis. I am walking forward with my head up high, holding steadfastly to my God and the people I love and open to the world because every day, I learn one thing more.