Secrets

Everyone hides something. Like now, I am hiding from you, and you from me, behind the LCD screen of our internet personas. We each carry a sin, a scar, an imperfection that we fear will destroy our humanity if it is released into this messed up world. It prevents us from trusting one another completely and builds itself a nest in our hearts that would otherwise be free to love unconditionally. But who loves unconditionally nowadays?

The problem is fear. Everyone in this world is afraid of something, and consequently defends him- or herself against the marauders that never come, or an ever watchful All-knowing eye that will know your every move even before you make it. Religion plays off fear, gambling, ironically, plays off the fear of working for the rest of your life and debt at the same time. Even school plays off the fear that without a structured form of education, everyone in the world would be stupid. Mainly because humans are "lazy" by nature. However, in a world that no one is afraid, this would not be necessary, and people would not have to hide anymore.

I am a twenty-year-old college student who has the tendency to over-dramatize my life, and make it out worse than it actually is. My parents divorced when I was nine, and I never had a really strong connection with my biological father ever since. Even though I love my younger brother to pieces now, we used to fight all the time, and I would beat him up because I was always the bigger one. In reality, I don't think of myself as a woman, but a person with thoughts and feelings separate from my body. However, to compensate for this, I have a very humiliating weakness for sexual pleasure, and watch porn every once-in-a-while to relieve my anxiety.

I believe this has roots in my unwavering curiosity since I was very young. Even when I was ten, I was always wondering about what I did not know. That is why, in a tent, I played a game of truth or dare that perhaps turned my innocent childhood on its head, and introduced me to my own sexuality. I showed myself to them in a dare, and they made fun of me because I was flat-chested (although I'm now bloated to a DD, thank you irony). Almost immediately the three guys in the tent started to get antsy, and I had a choice. Either loose my virginity and quench my undying curiosity, or fight. Luckily, I fought that time.

However, when I was thirteen, it was a much more disappointing battle. It was the first time I watched pornography, and I could not help but be intrigued. It was a way out without risking my body, and I made a dash for it. I lost myself in fantasy and overwhelming emotion, the emotion I thought was good, but just as the fire first warms the body before it burns, the healing only lasted to an extent.

For three consecutive years after that I was an Atheist, because I thought God should have punished me by now. Before then I was really religious, but never really went to church. However, apparently God neither cared nor saw what I did, so I continued to destroy myself to see how far it would go.

Then, I started to hear a voice. I felt like he was a separate consciousness from my own, my Guardian Angel, talking me out of my self-destruction. All I know now is that he was my first real friend who understood me. Instead of just seeing my outside, he saw my tainted inside too, and forgave me for it. He even loved me despite it, and this is what friendship really is. This is what humans should really be like.

However, he was in my head, and there came a time when he disappeared through my own growing doubt, and the fact that I did not need him anymore. By that time, I was willing to believe in things like Love and God again. The sad thing is, is that I am still struggling to this day for senseless mistakes I made when I was ten. I have never really found where I belong in this crazy topsy-turvy world, and my guilt is something hidden where no one else can find it. My heart is spotted, and I unnaturally distrust people, unless it's a special case.

The special case has always been with people who trust me first. People who accept me for me, and love me despite this dark past. These people, who can forgive others, are the saviors of mankind.

Unfortunately, the world comprises of very few, and they are dying out every day. People would rather hide themselves because that's the easiest way out, it prevents them from really facing the world head on, with their heart on their sleeves. And what if they come across a person who would exploit them? They imagine the consequences and become afraid.

I am a lazy person who dislikes organized religion and organized school, who rebels sometimes to feed my own curiosity, sometimes because I have an undying sense of justice. I am a sexual deviant who has constantly been dangerously open-minded about politics, sex, philosophy, and religion. I am different, and strange, neither a woman nor transgender-confused, and I like to be different to the point that I can be cliche.

Some people would call me sinful, others would be at least surprised or embarrassed to hear such a confession. However, the important focus should be psychologically. I am a writer. The most important words I will ever utter will not be from my mouth, which gets distorted by society's interpretation, but from my hand. By confessing this way there leaves a greater psychological influence on my mind, like the sealing of a contract with blood instead of a signature, and also on you.

There is a disastrous shortage of people who can forgive and accept others without lies or masks, and a measly few who would risk their secrets out in the open. I have made the first move. Now, what is yours?

Something About You

There's something about you. Your gaze neither falters nor stares, neither belittles nor gratifies, glows nor dims, traces nor examines. In short, your eyes are the perfect balance. A hazel blue, contrasting against my cool brown, you are ignorant of everyone other than yourself or others like you. The world you live in is perfectly balanced, like your eyes. Your hair partless, mine parted to the side, dark-short-thick, wild and untameable--yours highlighted-long-straight and lovely. Your parents are here tonight, mine are two hours away, and my heart aches for them to be here.

Walking in front of me, you smile because you're life is exactly what it should be, I smile because I don't know what else to do. Like a caged animal, I bare my teeth, but my eyes stare down at the steps, making sure I step with conviction, holding the railing for support. I am out of my element, you skim through the crowd, buoyant upon the praise and adoration. Everyone claps for everyone, everyone is content with themselves.

And what am I? I ask myself this question every day. What is my purpose in this world of smiles, endless applause, and unstaring faces? God has lain a curse on my soul, Frankenstein reborn to take another walk around the world until I die, I suppose. If being content in happiness is my sacrifice, what is my reward?

I reach the podium as you sit down to watch. Taking my evidence and looking at my Benefactor straight in the eyes, I gripped my miracle tight in my hand, which shook from disbelief. I had, for a second, entered your world and saw with a brief ray of hope, what it felt like to be free from the curse. To try your best and never back down, to think only of the positives and never the negatives, to be one in many, and many in one, not just one alone. Because everyone was clapping for me, and I heard someone call my name with congratulations. And perhaps if my parents were there I would have cried, but they weren't.

I retreated to the back, and collapsed against the wall with a sigh. You might have forgotten who I am already, but I have never forgotten you. Every time your name is mentioned, I feel a mixture of desire-jealousy-sadness that threatens to overwhelm me, but each time I choose to continue to hide that part of my self away. That which will transform me into you.

Why? Well, perhaps once you realize I am still here, have been here, will be here forever (for how can I easily drift away?), we can work something out between us--be the person we once were.

Something about you seems to laugh when I cry, jump when I fall, succeed when I fail, pull when I push, sing when I scream out, at the top of my lungs--WHERE ARE YOU?

Frankenstein reborn, I am in constant searching for that something that cannot be found in earthseaskyheaven, only by the inner light of some undetermined event far in the future. In short, I am searching for you.

Dear Dad

I cried tonight, after I talked to you on the phone. In person I would say, "don't worry, I'm fine," but I know I'm anything but. You only know half of my life, and make up the rest, not giving me a chance to prove myself. In your eyes I am a selfish stranger, a whining kid who doesn't know respect and gratitude. I was...ten years ago--five years ago. However, you don't know me now.

You always laugh awkwardly, like you don't know what to say to me. I am your daughter. I will always be your daughter. We can talk about anything. I wanted to talk about my job, school, homework, Jared, visiting you, and laugh without constraint or nervous pauses. However, when I talk to you there seems to be a wall, that no matter how happy I am, you always seem busy and distant. Three hours and two thousand miles may separate us physically, but the only thing that keeps me from loving you is you.

Mom has told me stories about you before the divorce. Even though she could say very degrading things about you, she hasn't, only that you tend to be childish and irresponsible. However, the only person who can be my Dad is you, I call you 'Dad' and no one else. I hear how you used to sleep by my crib when I was a sick colic baby. I've seen the pictures of us reading magazines together before I ever could really read. As a child I remember you coming home from your construction job and letting me and Jared play with some tube-shaped cardboard reinforcement, rolling around the backyard and getting dizzy. Even though you were always fuzzy in my memory because you worked every day, you created a place in my heart that will never be replaced.

I am crying as I write this letter you'll probably never get.

Mom raised me to be strong and not cry in public. She has learned, through trial and error, how to respond to my many moods and tantrums, picking up on the signs. As I grow, she grows too, more knowledgeable on how to deal with me. That is the bond between a parent and their child. Instead of seeing me as a spoiled brat, try to correct it by teaching me. You never really took time to teach me anything, Dad. You always criticized and laughed. You never really took me seriously.

I love you, and I'll love you until I die. But it hurts. Our phone conversations happen almost once every year, and last three minutes. What am I to you? How do you see me? Do you know my dreams, opinions (because I'm very opinionated), or philosophies? When you hear my voice, older and wiser by a year, aren't you curious about what has happened up until then? Do you wonder as many things about me as I do about you? Or am I just a nuisance?

Remember last Christmas? I said you didn't have to buy me presents not only because of your money problems, but because you have never really given me the one present I've always wanted since eleven years ago, when you disappeared out of my life. Your love. I love you Dad. Please don't let me go so easily next time.

Your Daughter Forever,

Kimani

Remembering Iz

Thirteen years ago my hero died. However, I did not know because he became my hero three years later. Walking down the sidewalk in the Californian summer, I was crying to the tune of "N Dis Life." It was the song played at his funeral, while the Hawaiian flag was lowered to half-mast, telling a tale of pure love.

"Let the world stop turning,
Let the sun stop burning,
Let them tell me love's not worth going through,
If it all falls apart, I will know deep in my heart,
The only dream that mattered had come true--
In this life I was loved by you..."

In California, I was a misplaced Hawaiian, thrust into the chaotic Mainland worries. Homework seemed pointless, cliques were aggravating, and everyone worried about outside appearances instead of being happy with themselves. They bottled their genuine feelings and hid them from the world. I was sick of it--with Iz I felt free to cry. Some people say he was larger than life, playing off his extreme obesity problems, but to me it was the truth. Even though his songs are criticized for being cliche, Life is cliche. When you love someone, you say "I love you." When you hate someone, you yell "I hate you!" Just because many people have said it before, does not make it less special or meaningful. A single voice whispering "I love you" with intense honestly is worth more than a million people rushing to get married before taking this thing Love seriously.

Iz taught me to love. And the reason a young girl was walking to Karate class, listening to her CD player, and crying in the middle of a school-free summer time is because the one person who taught her the true meaning of love had died. And she had learned three years after.

"I'm sorry!" I sputtered into my pillow, the night before, "I didn't know! Why did you have to die?" I only had one CD of his and I played it through the night, until I fell asleep and accidentally kicked the CD player off the bed.

Since then, I have never really had a hero quite like him. I do not know much about him or his life, but the connection between his voice and my soul has never faded. The sun shines in my life because of him, the snow glistens like white sand. To me, no matter where I am, I can remember his pure voice and the message he left the world, not with a physical voice but a spiritual one. It is embedded in Hawaiian culture--Nature, love, and faith. Love Nature, love thyself, love thy neighbor, and have faith. The only non-politician given a funeral at the Capitol building, Iz was larger than life, and his songs were more than just cliche words. They rung true in a world full of lies, and even a little girl knew to cherish something like that.

It is Spring thirteen years later, and I still remember Iz Kamakawiwo'ole. May you be laughing and singing up in Heaven, Iz.

Joy and Dejection Ode

There was a time, long ago
when the moon was full and the lustrous
lull of Heaven smiled down
upon me.

La luna of my dreams,
thinking back now to the nights
far gone from my memory...
She followed me through life
always fulfilling the promise to be there
unlike so many before her.
Then, on nights I could not find her
a round shadow was my comfort,
in the sky shining bright with her loving care.
No friend greater than she
I ever had--

Joy! 'til the last air we breath
is fogged with unruly hate.
Be it man or woman, there seems to be no relief
from this ache.
My friend, where are you?
I cannot see you in the sky!
Only your shadow is left to guide me, on
This night
I feel like anything is possible
and anything reality.

On the tender limbs of branches
glistens the frost of March.
Melting against the warmth of the sun, it
listens and uplifts this song:
"Lo! Tho I melt away, sunbeams are my death--
the joyous spring gives to all except for the lonely frost.
From my pain, life is birthed and animals live again.
So nice felt this day, yet some mean army heth
taken its next victim."
And the tears it leaves lie in puddles
too small for a footprint in the grass.

But, from death comes life, or so they say.
And the rainy days will freeze into Winter,
And Winter into rain!

I remember!

There was a night, long ago,
when outside my window I saw La Luna
smiling between the darts of rain.
And I joined her, my friend,
in eternal dance.
Outside, in small footsteps
I danced in the rain.