the amphora project.

throw like a girl.

June 22, 2011 | Reflection, Writing | 3 comments »

I was in the first or second grade, and, for the first time, I wanted to do something solely because it was my choice: play baseball. Unlike most little leaguers I come across, there wasn’t anything definitive that brought me to that decision. I think maybe it was my grandfather; my entire childhood, he worked for the Anaheim Angels. He retired many years ago, but I remember getting boxes and boxes of merchandise. Angels hats. Angels shirts. Angels pendants. But nothing else around me really pointed toward baseball. If I could travel back and just observe how I grew up, I’d really love to know why I was so obsessed with this sport that I had such a comparably small relationship with.

There is one thing I distinctly remember though: I couldn’t throw a baseball. As a member of the male category of our species, that is not something that is easy to admit. There is a lot of pride and manliness that is lost when someone can’t operate a baseball. But my confession is a bit different; when I threw the ball, it flew straight. And I could throw it hard.

So what was the problem?

the future is lost (part two).

June 16, 2011 | Experimental, Novel, Story, Writing | no comments »

I never opened my presents. My special day bled into the nightmare that came crawling through every street corner, bathing strip malls and subdivisions in an inescapable unrest. People began constructing their own means of disposing of their opposition; soon, the sky became matted with the constant, deathly gray of soot and ash as choirs of explosions and wails echoed in the distance.

All I remember is the flash from behind my mother as we huddled together, trembling and crying and praying. It tore bricks and mortar from foundation as we pressed me into the corner between the dryer and the side door. But it wasn’t enough. I awoke ages later to the deathly still silence in the ruins of our kitchen, torn cloth wrapped around and smothering my face and neck while a toe-curling pain singed every inch above my chest. Each attempt to remove the makeshift bandages made the horrendous aches worse, so all I could do was lay still for hours, or maybe days, as I teetered between the thin membrane of consciousness.

the future is lost.

June 11, 2011 | Experimental, Novel, Story, Writing | no comments »

To the dismay of some and the surprise of many, Obama won his second term in office. But there wasn’t much he or anyone else could have done. The shit was snowballing long before that. Hatred had been on the rise. We saw it after September 11th. We saw it in Iraq. In Afghanistan. Pakistan. Libya. Yemen. Cities and dates that don’t mean anything today except the blood they’ve spilled and the destruction they’ve kindled; the major powers in the world began fighting radicalism throughout the world, attempting to topple one dictator after another. But retaliation set in…soon, primetime television shows stopped airing, and celebrities were slowly replaced with women in pantsuits and Anderson Cooper look-a-likes retelling that day’s travesties at home and abroad.

oh, the humanity.

May 21, 2011 | Quickwrite, Writing | no comments »

Don’t let them see you cry. It is your strength that lets them find theirs. It is your tenacity, your drive, and your unfaltering stability that lets them know that they, too, can sail their own ships to safety. Some of them don’t even know you. Surely, they’ve shaken your hand and have shared a smile or two with you, but, in the end, they know nothing of you. They think that you are a rock. No—a mountain; something that cannot be made, but instead something that simply is and will always be. Something that is nearly untouchable and unmovable except by maybe God Himself. But when you lose yourself, that pedestal will fracture and crumble, and they, too, will lose themselves. The world will swallow them whole, leaving behind empty dreams, empty hearts, and empty harbors. So stand tall. Stand proud. Be stalwart and unmoving as only a mountain can. But when they stop looking…weep.

meet me in the future.

May 14, 2011 | Moleskine, Reflection, Writing | 2 comments »

(While looking through some of the files on my computer, I found this. It’s from about two years ago.)

The memories of triumph, laughter, and ceaseless joy linger in moments past as they mingle with the remembrances we sometimes wish we could forget—the tears and the anger, the frustration and the heartache. And yet, in the complexity of our respective pasts, each event, whether it was glorious or unfavorable, has brought us to each other on this day. This journey with you has been remarkable—and the most amazing thing is that these nine years have only beginning.

When I was young, I thought I could predict the future. Not necessarily through sight or clairvoyance, but almost by mere chance—occasionally, I could answer a phone call before it rang, and I could detail a stranger’s actions as he walked down the road. However, before I met you, I knew, somehow, that we would end up here. Not necessarily marriage—as that’s one of the furthest things from a fourteen-year-old’s mind—but more like eternity. Somewhere, in my concept of what the future held, I wouldn’t have responded with my hopes for personal achievement or monetary gain. All I knew is that I would be with you.

So, will you meet me in the future?

to sleep and forget.

April 2, 2011 | Experimental, Quickwrite, Reflection, Writing | no comments »

Should I sleep?
Should I lay and wallow and slumber, hoping that the days will pass more quickly?
What if this could be some modern-day Irving tale?
Could I nod off and wake up in another time, free from all of this?
Could I be unchained from that which holds me back every day?
What would my dreams, or nightmares, tell me?
Would they be retellings of the moments that I am simply too human to change?
Would they lie to me and tell me that I didn’t make a mistake?
What will happen when my coma ends?
Would I have escaped the messes I had made?
Would the absence of my influence have been wafted away?
What if, instead, my selfish act would be the real mistake?
Could they understand my plight? My heartbreak?
Could they ever forgive me?
What if it were too late?
Should I lay and wallow and slumber?
Should I sleep?
Not today.

of water and life.

March 29, 2011 | Quickwrite, Reflection, Writing | no comments »

When I was in chemistry class, I didn’t learn as much as I could have. As a high school student, there are plenty of other things to worry about, I guess, than the atomic weight of carbon. What I did learn, though, was that chemistry was awesome. Without any true understanding of what was really taking place, I was still in awe at watching rocks sizzle and watching my teacher light a strip of magnesium on fire.

“Flashbombs,” Mr. Kirby said as he put on his goggles, “are made from this stuff. Watch your eyes.”

I still remember when I figured out why H₂O can’t be H₃O or H₂O₂. I had a tremendous sense of awareness, where for a moment I understood the world.