Internship in downtown Detroit

The highlight of my day had to have been stopping to chat with Steve, the security guard outside the Compuware World Headquarters. He is a joyful older black man who says hi to everyone that passes by the parking lot of the building. I talked to him today just like I did two Mondays ago while I waited for my vanpool to leave back to Ann Arbor. Today was a long day. I woke up close to 6 in the morning, just to arrive at Sam's club where my vanpool began it's journey to downtown Detroit, 55 minutes away. I started the internship at 8 a.m. up until 4 p.m. without a lunch break working on contact information for different publications, all of this without pay. I sacrificed my entire Monday an hour away from where I reside to get the opportunity of working with the Consulate of Mexico with Spanish-speaking individuals helping out their Mexican nationalists that reside in the surrounding Detroit area. Often, I get labeled Mexican because of my appearance. I often think to myself, "I am not Mexican, I'm a Texan. I am a Xicano." I have a disposition of being a third-generation American with the label of being a Mexican by any new person that I strike a conversation with. Life is unique in the sense that I am working with Mexican nationalists, but I am the outsider. I am American, Americanized, and a Texan. I helped my boss translate "Talking points of the Mexican Government" from Spanish to English. The communication between us is shaky because of my inability to speak Spanish fluently and his inability to speak English fluently. How can we be so similar but so different at the same time?

Sundaze

Writing for thought. I must release the hardship, the fear of not doing a great job. I need to quit deviated and just learn how to do it. I need to plan better and follow through with the plans. I need to stop being distracted from the mundane and focus on the ultimate goal. This week was just another example of me getting in my own way. I am tried of routine. I feel like I'm stuck in the process of no real progression. I have tunnel vision and can't see the end. I can't see my hard work paying off. I see only more hard work to achieve and conquer. Is this what I wanted when I decided to leave my humble in south Texas. Now, I find myself pondering over what life might be for me if I never decided to push myself. I guess this is where Robert Frost's famous poem, "The road less traveled" comes to mind. If I chose this other path things wouldn't be much different. Things would still be the same difference and I would still be questioning my life's decisions and what could my life be if I decided otherwise. I must appreciate the life I live now and make best of my situation.

What bothers me about the person I am today:

1. I have gained weight and eat junk food as a remedy for my ill feelings about life
2. I am not doing so well in my classes.
3. I am more dependent on smoking marijuana than I would like myself to be
4. I work a lot and don't get paid as much as I wish I would
5. I feel like I am missing out on seeing my family grow.
6. I feel sad about not giving Anna all the things I wish I could give her.
7. I don't have a car.
8. I owe a lot of money to my mother for helping me follow my dreams.

Things that make me appreciate my life:

1. I have an apartment with electricity, heat, and water.
2. I pay my bills on time.
3. I have two jobs where I get commended for my hard work.
4. I have the most amazingly beautifully wonderful woman in the entire world, Anna Joyce.
5. I am still in school and am close to graduating with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Spanish Language.
 6. I have a loving and supportive mother and two sisters that are always there for me whenever I need it from them.

Tuesday

"It's just another day in paradise," as that guy from Tower Inn says every time I ask how he is doing. I never know if he is being sarcastic or if he is truly being honest about his outlook on life. Today I feel a little bit of both. I feel his sentiment on how I interpreted his feelings. Life is good, but it isn't. The day is upon me to make better decisions, to push myself to become someone better, someone that I know I am capable of becoming. I am just not trying. I am not putting forth the effort that I know I am more than capable of reaching. Well, today it starts. Today is the day I turned things around. OK, maybe today wasn't the day. Maybe today was the day shit just kept going like usual. Maybe, things need to progressively improve minimally each day. I like to think the latter will work. I have slowly tried to ween myself off of marijuana. I have smoked two days out of the last three weeks. I have drunk mildly less, but have consumed junk food as a remedy. I have downed pop like no other these past three weeks. I have eaten salt n' vinegar chips like it's no one's business. I have eaten my emotions away. As far as school work is concerned. It is of much concern to me. I haven't done much to stay atop of my class in attendance and in grades. I have just stopped giving a fuck, as I like to say. Things just seem to be dormant and uninteresting. I know I am more than capable, but knowing that statement to be true is good enough for me. Knowing that I can be great is fine with me right now. I am complacent, and I'm OK with that because working hard takes too much effort. What is at the end of this daunting graduation plan for me? What am I to find that I probably already know? I know that the hard work will continue and progressively get harder. I know that opportunities will arise when I decide to buckle down and take risks. I know that a prosperous life will be within my reach once I decide to take full advantage of it. And that is my problem with it all. I know this and I refuse to go forth and do it. It's easier to bitch, not do anything, make excuses, enjoy the simple pleasures in life, and just do nothing with anything. I do hate working part-time jobs though. I hate cleaning tables, standing all shift long, hearing half-ass servers complain about their meaningless lives, and catering to snobby-ass rich people who expect you to be a certain way because they are practically paying for you hard-day's work. I hate people so much sometimes. That is where my focus should be focused on. I should be focusing on really sticking it to this bitch-ass motherfuckers who take their children out to eat at fancy restaurants just so they can make a mess at their table while watching their favorites television shows on their fancy tablets which was a present to them for doing well in their school project. I should be great to stick it to those little fuckers. Fucking rich snotty little fucks. I will show them. I fucking hate these bitches. Tuesday, you win this one. Wednesday, you better see me coming.

The person I am today

Today ponder over the idea that you are the person you are meant to be in this world. You chose the paths you did and that has made you the person that sits there and reads these words. You are today what you are going to be tomorrow because of your yesterdays. The ideas, the dreams, the morals, the feelings, the goals are you, every cell of you. Never forget to remember that you are a single entity of numerous individual entities. You're everyday actions affect your perception of tomorrow, and how you will become the person you will be tomorrow. Lest we forget that we have to see the person we wish to be in the future by the actions of our today not the shortcomings of yesterday. In essence, be you. Take everything one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time, one moment at a time. Today, I'm the person I am going to be tomorrow because of what happened to me yesterday.

Stuck in the middle with you

I love to stare at people. It puts them in a difficult, uncomfortable place in the world surrounding them. Everyone is aware of the presence of another. Sometimes you glance their way; sometimes you double glance; sometimes you stare. You stare to consume and grasp as much information as possible. You see, read, learn, and analyze every detail. You seek knowledge in their eyes, their lips, their demeanor, their body movements, and anything that gives off an indication of information. Last night, I glanced at you. I couldn't look into your brown sensitive eyes. I knew of your wrongdoing; I could see it with my own two. You didn't even want to look at my own two. You squinted your eyes smaller, so we can all seem like a blur. The sight of smoke rose from your denim jacket, like smoke rising from a hot flame in the beginning of January. It was January and you were burning like a hot flame as we stood beside each other saying our goodbyes. "Ya, you're leaving?" brown eyes asked. "Yeah, I've got to go. School starts next week, ya," brown eyes replied. It was my decision to come this late at night. My glance turned into a double glance. I was waiting for the right moment in time and in conversation to make my exit. Brown eyes wasn't on my level. I should've stopped by while the sun was still out. It would only have helped my odds out. I could've left on a good note; I could've left with a genuine smile. I left and smiled, but the smile wasn't for me. It was for someone stronger than me who never saw moments like these. It was for her, glowing in her angelic bliss. She loved me, but she didn't know. She couldn't understand why the pins were piercing my aorta. She could never tell in those two brown sensitive eyes. When I smiled, I made sure you saw it. I had to force it because it hurt. Now, I was staring. "See you in a while crocidile" another brown eyes called out as the door shut. Still I'm consuming every detail, watching every final step, and analyzing every movement of our last goodbye. The words you stumbled to articulate. The riddles you failed to share. The savvy you failed to attain. It hurt, but it felt good to see that it didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would. It was good to see you like so. It was the best thing I could ever see. My pain is my power. It puts power where you wish it hadn't. It puts faith in me that you won't see but you will feel when you glance into my brown eyes. So, brown eyes don't be afraid of my own two. My own two feel and see pain just like you. If my brown eyes don't bring you comfort, gain comfort in the other brown eyes that said goodbye to you. He'll work miracles sooner or later, Aligator. 

Working Saturdays

Working Saturdays are the worst. I usually wake up an hour before I have to go in, groggy and out-of-it from the night before. I drag my ass from my bedroom to the shower, to the sink, to my closet, to the fridge, to the front door of my apartment. It is all familiar; it is nearly all the same each week. Now it has become routine. Every Saturday I have to go in midday and close at 6 p.m. Every Saturday I have to see her. She sits diagonally from me. She is a sweet, nice, small young woman. From time to time, I'll see her peak over her computer and look towards the front desk. These two are best friends. She loves her friend very much. They look out for each other. Every Saturday in my time of solitude, I see her on her computer. I can't help but know she is there somehow connected to her friend in some sort of way. It scratches me like a scratch to  an open flesh wound. It hurts, and then hurts some more. I'm trying all I can to detach, move-on, forget, and then I see her. I see you with her on the second day I met you. I see her friend and you walking around downtown Ann Arbor checking out the scene. I see that crazy sunset on top of that parking garage. I see you walking in the library with a friend, and I knew somehow someway someday I was going to hang out with you. I see you freely found your way to me to speak to me for a while; i liked that. I see you inviting me out to downtown Ann Arbor with her after work. I see me and you waiting for her to come outside of the library while you chatted with another friend of yours. I didn't mind. I was happy to be with you in that perfect moment. You smiled and laughed. You were radiant in the final days of summer. Every weekend when I work my Saturday shift, I see her and think of you. I think of you wanting to watch a movie. I think of you telling me all you know about your yoga. I think of you spending the night. Now that you're gone, I can't stop thinking about you entirely. You are in my daydreams, my happy places, and my fondest recent memories. You are in my breath, my blink of an eye, my smirk of a smile, and in my gaze of deep thought. There was once a time where I enjoyed working Saturdays. I enjoyed working Saturdays when I would get off work and go see you. I enjoyed racing through campus just to get to see you  Saturdays. Now I just don't know what to do with myself. Maybe I'll switch shifts for next semester. Maybe one Saturday these memories will fade.

lovesick

wasting time, doing everything but what needs to be done, same feeling as it was before I slept, insanely wondering what she does, unable to concentrate on my life, disappointingly remembering my fuck-ups, detached from the world around me, desperately seeking for a new day/a new thought, anything to keep me away from these blues. but, here I am just a fool. who am I to think I had one moment of greatness within me to make wrongs right? So, I drench that bridge. I soak it with gasoline. I make sure every thread, every fiber swims in gasoline. I, then, blowtorch it to ash and walk away.