literallycaressespieces

[literallycaressespieces]

Strength in Weakness

After literal blood, sweat, and tears (I stabbed myself with my prop, broke many a sweat, and cried more and more as the day of the competition started approaching), here is my second-place winning piece for the 2017 US National Pole Championship.

[literallycaressespieces]

I could remember my dad

I could remember my dad as the man who would walk with me to Robert L. Burns Park every morning and tirelessly push me on the swings until beads of sweat became small streams running down his face. He put up with my illogical two-year-old demands as I ordered him to sit down and stand up at the same time, and rewarded my feistiness with a treat from the ice cream truck.

I could remember my dad as the booming businessman eager to fulfill the Filipino-American Dream, coming home from trips all over Asia bearing trinkets like Yang Ming freight car toys for me to entertain myself with at his office. I spent countless afternoons staring at the wall-to-wall world map in the lobby tracing where he had been while he worked back-to-back meetings trying to tie my country to his. Little did I know he was working to make both the United States and the Philippines ours.

Before the internet had taken over travel he started a ticketing agency for Philippine Airlines to make going home easier. He created a Filipino newspaper for those who had settled here to help make sure they never lost touch with what was happening across the Pacific. He had a shipping company to send Balikbayan boxes filled to the top with American goods back to Manila so that those who weren’t able to run from the Marcos Administration could still have a taste of freedom. Before he left his homeland, he worked for years as a lawyer to reveal and fight against the veiled corruption of their government. Though Los Angeles was 7000 miles away from Manila, he wanted to help fellow immigrants feel like home was never too far.

As a little girl completely unaware of this, I had taken it all for granted. I’m told that when I was three years old we had dinner with President Cory Aquino and I ruined their conversation by crying the entire time. I thought that all of my other Filipino-American friends spent each summer and winter break in the Philippines, and was utterly confused when I found that none of them spoke fluent Tagalog. It wouldn’t be long before my privilege was finally checked.

I could remember my dad as a depressed and enraged alcoholic. I remember when the empty bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label became decorative accents around the house, when yelling obscenities at my mother and Lola became normal, when we had to sell our house, when he finally had to let go of his other three babies and close their offices for good. “Puñeta ka!” began to slip from his mouth regularly as his businesses and “friends” slipped out of his arms.

As a teenager I hated him for not “manning the fuck up”, for constantly disrespecting our extended family, for making me cry the night before my Shakespearean monologue competition because what I loved and found solace in was a useless pursuit (when just years prior he had tried priming me to become a performing artist in the Philippines). I hated him for laying on the couch all day talking absolute nonsense, for wasting what little money he had on lotto tickets and booze, for not helping raise my little sister, for making it so that my brother had to join the Army, for making it so that I had to work twenty-five hours a week after school. I hated him for making us the parents and himself our child.

I could remember my dad as a passionate romantic who had finally lost all hope. I remember him being completely blindsided by the divorce papers. My mom had been his first, his last, and his only – but the haze of his depression made it hard to see that his marriage to my mother had fallen apart along with all the other aspects of his life. For years he consumed himself with jealousy and rage, sending e-mails to our friends and family with attached documents similar to legal briefings detailing the affairs of my mom and her new boyfriend. It has been almost ten years since their divorce and he still won’t let her go.

Though our relationship had been severed in my adolescence, as an adult I can now see past his flaws and am thankful for all that he did to have us here. As I typed out that last sentence I realized that I actually do love my dad – and that’s something I haven’t been able to say genuinely since I was twelve. He worked hard and gave all for his dreams, and though for years I resented him for allowing his commitments to our family fall by the wayside I will admit that I attribute my own work ethic, boundless care for my community, and passion for justice to him.

Today my dad can barely walk, pained with gout and his kidneys beginning to fail him. With his zeal diminishing and little to live for aside from taking care of our beloved dog, religiously watching CNN, and praying that I apply to law school, I can’t help but cry when I have to go back to my life in Oakland not knowing how many times I’ll be able to see him again. I hope he knows that when the time comes I won’t remember him this way.

Because I’ll always remember my dad as the man who would walk with me to Robert L. Burns Park every morning and tirelessly push me on the swings until beads of sweat became small streams running down his face.

[literallycaressespieces]

Sermon

Geoff wouldn’t consider himself a true Catholic. He did not believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, or in Jesus Christ his only Son, who he was told was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He did, however, enjoy the ritual of the Mass, and most of all, Father Sal’s homilies.

When it came down to the homily, Father Sal never followed what Geoff imagined to be standard priest protocol. Usually a priest is to follow the Gospel with a homily that honed in on the moral message of the reading, but Father Sal liked to go off book. For one month he decided to base his homilies on an excerpt from whichever chapter of Saint Augustine’s Confessions he was on.

Geoff always remembered the morning the sermon referred to Chapter 8, because that was the mass in which he sat next to Lisa Moreno and therefore got to hold her hand during the “Our Father.” That same day his best friend Eric, the most dedicated eleven-year-old wingman that ever was, coordinated a passing of notes between them to see if Geoff’s feelings were reciprocated. “No thanks.” The words stung, but luckily spring break was fast approaching and there was nothing a marathon of The Lord of the Rings movies couldn’t remedy.

These days Geoff thought less about Lisa and more about Father Sal’s homily that morning. “The mind commands the body and the body is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.” These were the words that stuck with him long after his days at St. Joseph’s Primary School. He would only come to truly understand them almost 20 years later, in the pit of his deepest bout of depression. For over a month now he found himself begging his mind, “Please, just be happy.” Each day was a battle, and with each loss he was closer and closer to raising his white flag.

[literallycaressespieces]

Bliss

“Follow your bliss.” I couldn’t understand why Max was so obsessed with this mantra by Joseph Campbell. Anytime I’d bring up something that I was unhappy with, he’d stop me in my tracks and say, “Just forget about it and follow your bliss.” I’m sorry, but I couldn’t just drop everything and follow my bliss when my parents had left me to pay the mortgage while they followed their own bliss in their drunken stupors. Bliss seemed like such a faraway concept, only to be found by the irresponsible who would love and then leave those of us who worked hard to pick up the pieces after they had moved on to another accountable fool. Bliss was for the reckless, and bliss was not for me.

My friends partied, and I studied for mid-terms while working graveyard shifts at the diner. They’d complain about how their parents didn’t get them the car they wanted, and I became friends with Fred at the towing company because my mom couldn’t tell she had parked her car blocking a driveway on a weekly basis. They’d go sailing and explore the seas, and I’d lock myself up at the library and get lost in the worlds of Edgar Allan Poe, Neil Gaiman, and Octavia Butler.

Halfway through American Gods, I realized that my bliss had been under my nose all along. It was then that I heard the annoying Toucan Sam from those Fruit Loops commercials squawk in my ear, “Follow your prose, wherever it goes.” This probably isn't the way Max wanted me to finally accept my journey to follow my bliss, but it worked for me and for that I am glad.

[literallycaressespieces]

Sightseer

Tina’s work space was not adorned with tapestries and crystals, nor did she own a crystal ball. She had a pristine home office with a sleek desk that only held her trusty iMac well equipped with its solid state drive. She did not wear flowy robes or a headwrap, and she didn’t have an air of uncanniness that the stereotypical clairvoyant would hold. You could usually find her wearing jeans, comfy sweaters, and Birkenstocks. A Cal graduate with a degree in linguistics, she was a successful freelance designer as far as the natural were concerned. The supernatural, however, would learn that she was much more than that and fear her in the coming years.

Anna had first met Tina on BART, on her way to the city. Sitting at the back of the car, brows furrowed, it was clear that though she was physically present in the midst of the morning commuters packed like a can of sardines, Anna’s mind had been elsewhere from the start of the ride. Tina couldn’t help but notice her discontent, and though she knew it wasn’t her place she couldn’t help but try to soothe her worries. She was still working on keeping her mouth shut when she wasn't getting paid.

“It’s okay, you’ll be out of that relationship soon enough,” she whispered, immediately feeling both alleviated and guilty.

As fate would have it, this was the beginning of Tina and Anna’s relationship in this lifetime. They would soon come to find that they were inseparable in seven lives before, and this life would not be an exception.

[literallycaressespieces]

Shadowy Hallway

If I could go back to that night I would have had that second serving of short ribs. Of course, I couldn’t bring myself to actually do it because, as usual, I was “watching my figure” and couldn’t let everyone think I was a fat ass. Well I really don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks anymore, because clearly no one gives a shit about me. If I had known that would be my last meal I would have had another three plates.

The sun has risen and set twice now since I slipped, and I have seen the shadows of the trees across the wall come and go. I’ve watched the wind move their branches and make them dance, and it drives me mad. I want to dance. I want to walk. Hell, I just want to pull myself up so I could just sit.

But here I am, lying face down in my hallway, just waiting for someone to open the door.

[literallycaressespieces]

Emigrant

“So where are you from?” the older man in the driver’s seat asked, making eye contact with John through the rear-view mirror.

John always dreaded the loaded question. He could either entertain what the man was actually asking and tell him that his father was white and his mother was Vietnamese, or he could be honest.

“Los Angeles – but you know, the real Los Angeles. I grew up in Koreatown,” he replied, half speaking, half sighing. He didn’t feel like amusing anyone today.

“Oh, so you’re Korean?”

“No, but my stomach probably is. I’ve been struggling to find good Korean food here for a while. Jong Ga House is pretty good, but we certainly could use a few more options. Do you know of any good spots?”

“Er, no... I don’t really go out looking for Korean food. Kimchi isn’t exactly my thing,” the driver responded, with a slightly acidic look on his face as he imagined consuming it again.

“Ah, well to each their own,” John murmured as he checked his phone for any kind of diversion from the uncomfortable conversation. He pacified himself by mindlessly double-tapping as he went down his Instagram feed. It wasn’t long before he realized he wasn’t getting off that easy.

“So, where are you from?” the driver had to ask again.

Still looking at his phone, John switched from Instagram to the Uber app, and looked at his driver’s profile: Laertes, 4.3 stars. “Laertes,” he thought to himself, “the man who killed Hamlet.” He was instantly grinning and forgot what the prince slayer had just asked him.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Where are you from?” Laertes inquired once more.

John couldn’t help but laugh.

“Both of my parents are from Portland, but my mom’s family is from Vietnam. Right here is fine.”

Laertes pulled the car up to the curb.

“Vietnamese, I wouldn’t have guessed! Well, you have a wonderful evening John.”

“You too, Laertes!”

[literallycaressespieces]

Morning Chill

08.12.2057

My Dearest Phillip,

I came across some of your writing the other night, and it was just the comfort I needed to get through another day in the field.

“Indirect sunlight is the cruelest of jokes known to mammalian existence. The soft yet brilliant light provokes the circadian rhythm to start a new song, a song motivated by the promise of the warmth of the sun. Warmth, after all, is what we’re all after. On a human level, many may argue that the desire to procreate is attributed to self-preservation, but it all really boils down to the physical movement of kinetic energy. On a cosmological level, the planets do not revolve around the sun just for the sake of it. The planets move to be moved, and are fueled by the energy the stars provide. Indirect sunlight invites us to get up each day with the promise of an exchange of warmth from our dearly beloved star, but it seems our shining star is no longer as close as it was before.”

The cruel joke continues this morning as the earth enters its tenth year in its sixth ice age.

Can you remember our last summer? I still can’t believe we were able to make it to Indonesia just months before the Equator had completely disappeared. My parents could not stop laughing when you showed up with all of your jackets and scarves. Yes, they did warn us that it would be freezing, but when the average temperature is 82 degrees, freezing is closer to 60 than 16. Wasn’t Raja Ampat just breathtaking? That whole world we found that day we went diving is now ice. I’d give anything to be able to see an ocean move again.

I’d give anything to be with you again.

I think I’m finally getting close to the answer. The sun hasn’t actually been moving away. I think we may have made the earth colder by freezing all of those memories. I promised you I would get to the bottom of this, and I will.

Forever yours,

Andrew

[literallycaressespieces]

Moth-eaten

The light of the moon reflected upon the cold, wet ground. Rain was rare in Los Angeles, but the conditions that month of October were a total anomaly. For two weeks straight it poured, and it poured hard. Climatologists were still trying to come up with explanations for the strange irregularity,  but Michelle comforted herself with the idea that Zeus probably just lost a lover and needed to grieve after holding it in too long. Whatever the reason, she was glad that the skies had cleared and finally allowed for her to get back to her nightly runs around the lake at Echo Park. These runs were her reprieve from her long days at the office. She was happy to help her patients deal with their issues, but this was her chance to let them go and make space to sift through her own. It was during her second lap around the lake that she saw it. An old, olive, double-breasted trench coat -- which had clearly been ravaged by moths -- glided along next to her. In complete disbelief, Michelle told herself that this is what she got for breaking her routine, and thought, "Am I really this tired already? It's only been a mile!" She blamed the rain and wanted to curse whoever had slaughtered Zeus's lover for making him so inconsolable. The coat floated effortlessly in front of her, blocking her from continuing her route. She reached out to touch the garment and it pulled back to dodge the attempt. It then turned away from the lake and prompted her to follow. As she ran to tail the authoritative coat, she decided, "I'm definitely going to need a therapist of my own."

[literallycaressespieces]

Rash Promises

I didn't really notice the pain until I felt the pain. And even then, I didn't want it to stop. It was worth it. 

When I had finally reached my threshold for physical torment, I yelped, "Agh, my back!"

Looking a bit perplexed, he immediately got up.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it just burns a little.”

I knew it was an understatement, but I didn't want it to ruin the evening. Maintaining my title as Queen of Minimization, I smiled sheepishly as I slowly pulled myself up, now feeling the the gash searing down my back.

"Oh my God, I gave you a raspberry!", he said quietly but exclaimed with his eyes.

Raspberry is not the most appropriate term for the excrescence that has added a new topographic layer to my body's landscape. Raspberries are meant to top off a delectable dark chocolate cake, or to be infused in a refreshing lemonade. I love raspberries, but I did not love this excruciating eyesore. I did love what it stood for, though.

I smiled. "It's fine, consider it payback for the Pollock piece of back scratches I gave you when we first started seeing each other."

As was customary, we spent the rest of the night catching up, exchanging witty banter, and making light of the heavy state of world affairs as he helped me tend to my new wounds.

He gathered his things, put his clothes back on, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

"I was so excited I forgot I had these with me," he said as he placed them on my dresser. "We'll have to use them next time."

I must say, I always look forward to next time.

[literallycaressespieces]

Defeated

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum was my mantra the first time I thought I had gotten over the incident.

I don’t know why I always call it an “incident” by default. Maybe I like to minimize things. I fear that a description of what it truly felt like would be too dramatic.

I want to give you the facts, but what I remember now is probably far from factual. I should have given you the facts right after it happened, but recounting it then was hundreds of times more painful than it is now, and it’s painstaking to even begin to remember it now.

I don’t like being in speeding cars. I don’t like trance music. I hate the two of those things combined. I should have known that he was so eager by the way he raced down Highland Avenue. Was it Highland? Maybe it was Cahuenga.

I just wanted a ride home. I shouldn’t have agreed to let him stop by his apartment to get something.

“I bet you can’t drink more than that.”

I hate Captain Morgan.

I wanted to go home. I wanted to sleep.

I didn’t get what I wanted, but he did.

It has been eight years since I was defeated

and I might still be a sore loser.

[literallycaressespieces]

Committed

She jumped in head first, and I waded. She waited, and I waded. I'm still wading. She's gone.

[literallycaressespieces]

Empty House

After hiding under the covers with puffy eyes long after her unfamiliar extended family had left with all the personal effects they wanted, it was finally time for Melanie to start cleaning up. She dragged herself out of her grandmother’s bed, which still smelled of the same perfume that gave her headaches when she was a child. She then pulled Lola’s favorite flannel sweater over her head, took a deep breath, and slowly headed out into the living room.

It was hard to decide where to begin. Though she could now afford to replace the green chintz furniture set from the 1980s that had always bugged her, it was still fully functional and too much of a hassle for the time being. There was no question about the upright Yamaha piano – that was definitely staying – but the numerous trophies from piano recitals that sat atop it had to go. Melanie loved that her grandmother was proud of her, but the awards actually stood as reminders of how disappointed her Lola was when she quit playing.

“I’m glad I can finally put these away,” she muttered to herself as she put a box together and gently placed them in one by one.

Then, of course, there were the religious objects all over the house: the tapestry of The Last Supper, the smiling little angel figurines lining the bookshelf, the crucifixes, and of course, the statue of the Virgin Mary – whose eyes gave Melanie a guilt trip the night she walked in after having lost her own virginity.

It was then that she realized she was no longer obligated to pray the rosary each night. She didn't have to go to church every Sunday. She was finally free from the rituals that kept her from being like every other senior in high school who was allowed to go out and have fun.

The odd thing was she wouldn’t actually be like every other teenager now. She was alone in an empty house that stood to hold memories of the only family she ever really had.

[literallycaressespieces]

Stain

Dad’s shirts were always hungry, and we always had to tell him when they had caught some of his breakfast ‘cause he was too busy proofreading his articles to notice. They seemed to really like oatmeal.

Sometimes his shirts didn’t get enough sleep, so once in a while Dad would leave them a drop or two of his Folgers coffee as he’d rush out the door.

You could always tell when Dad’s shirts had pulled an all-nighter. This was usually on Fridays, after Dad would push his deadlines to make it to press. They would be wrinkled and tarnished with sweat, and usually had much more than two drops of coffee on them.

A few of Dad’s shirts were women. I don’t think I should be telling you this, but the first time one of them borrowed Mom’s lipstick she cut her up into pieces.

Mom stopped washing his shirts after that.

[literallycaressespieces]

Caresse Isabelle Fernandez

September 18, 1990 - November 28, 2016

In her 26 journeys around the sun, Caresse lived a life full of love, laughter, and rich experiences. From playing in a blues band and pole dancing to managing a city council campaign and helping with divorce and child custody cases, her only regrets were not completing her grandmother's voyage all over the world and professing her love to Sir Patrick Stewart in person. Though her passing came too quickly (too soon to even join the 27 Club), she died doing what she loved most -- writing.