I look at the clock while
looking at her, while
thinking that it is
time
that it is about
time
and about her
but time refuses to look back, to
accommodate
my need
she smiles knowingly
like she does
without time
without
thought she
smiles
and I have to agree
have to
acknowledge
that she is right
she knows
time is simple
it is without thought
ideas
moments…
areas of
regret
I look at her
at time
at this moment and find
she is…as right
as
time
is simple.

We ask ourselves whether
it’s better to
do for others
than
teach others
how to do
for themselves and…
it’s the wrong
question;
is it better
to be grateful, or
confident…
free
or dependent,
because much of helping others
is absorbing their
responsibility
authority
accountability and
pain
but we know, we
KNOW
that without pain
there is
no change
none
so
not teaching
is
damning to
an endless
cycle
and saying to them
here,
let me save you this instant of pain
so it can
last a lifetime.

An old man on the subway
older than me
at least…another
but a kid
on the street
all are
the ticking of
the clock; the grand
manifesto of life
all brought together
by the idea
the moment
the instant
recognition of
wanting to live
but not let
time pass, of
somehow holding it still
that never ending moving river
of thoughts, dreams…
of us toward
nothing
while
we regret
we pine
we bargain
with nobody
hoping to slow down the crash
knowing
knowing
knowing
it is
inevitable
while an old man
on the subway
talking lowly to himself
calls it all
bullshit.

It is what we are all
looking for…that
thing that completes
competes
deletes the sad
the bad
the simple emptiness
of living
we are all looking
in places
where we know it doesn’t exist
because it is effort
that hides
our fear…knowing
it’s never
ever
going to be there
satisfied
we sleep at night
alone
OK
until
we look again
climbing back atop
the vicious cycle
for another
lonely trip
around
the block.

She was the light
from whom I stole poetry
for thinking in
simple subjects;
the entirety of living…
I saw less when
I lived more, yet,
hungered
when overflowing
with her words
and
now I am a thin line
toward a long horizon
the essence
of her smile
her heart
creating a stretched version
of who I used
to be…
I can reach between
stars, feel
between moments
as the entirety of
living
through her simple words, her
motionless beauty
encompasses, envelopes
and covers me
with a love
that questions
no one and
allows all.

She looked
for all the world
like my yesterday but
promised tomorrow
in eyes of blue ebony
I fell fast and
without looking…
she saw me
as I’ve never
been seen, with
a brightness
and depth
I didn’t
believe
but it was
a moment only
and where she is now
is too far
for me to go
I fell fast
but too far
and she was
gone.

Impossible to see, we
try…impossible to feel
we try
standing slowly we
try
to understand, to
somehow
comprehend
but
there is much
of what we know
in the way
of what we know
like pride
like fear
well spring emotions;
because of not knowing
not because
they’re real…
we watch each other, we
hear stories, we
talk quietly
we argue
the
internet happens
but we don’t know
and it’s fine, OK, good, not good
but always
reality that we don’t
know…so
we
learn
my shape form feelings, hers
his
theirs
we are not supposed to be the same
we are not supposed
to
anything
but
we want to, need to, feel
tremendous pressure towards
something
and not knowing
we call it god
but it isn’t
it is
love
which is what we call
not knowing but…
caring
as if
we knew.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

(caution: tiny spoiler alert at the end)

Here in Bijou Trevor, I just finished watching the newest Wonder Woman and…was quiet for 4-5 minutes…something that I don’t do often (meaning never). I sat rock still on the couch and almost didn’t even breathe as the credits rolled, the music played and I’m not sure I even blinked because in that moment I was racing around inside my head desperately searching for the correct word; the most appropriate response. I really didn’t believe I’d find it because every morsel I picked up and tasted, tasted exactly wrong….hollow…empty. I was ready to give up and just leave the emotion unnamed…un-mentioned but very deeply felt…when I stumbled right over it…

…superhero.

There are a lot of “superhero” movies that I’ve watched where that word never crossed my mind simply because none of them went the distance…none captured the essence, heart and soul of what a true superhero should be. None lived up to its own hype and they didn’t because until Wonder Woman I don’t believe they ever knew what the actual meaning and definition of the word was.

Is.

They either regulated themselves to some hokey, USA patriotism covered bullshit or wrapped themselves in snarky self-deprecation meant to cause comfort and familiarity (lest the main character create a “hazardous workplace environment”…if you know what I mean) or they just threw as many computer animated “gee whiz wow” characters at you like so many bead necklaces at a New Orleans Jazz parade.

Showing your tits optional.

Wonder Woman—and perhaps it could only ever BE Wonder Woman—did everything stunningly different by simply presenting an actual, fully formed reality. One with corruption and defenselessness, a deeply flawed population as well as the most noble of emotions stripped of pretense and Hollywood faux glamour. A reality with meaning…I’m saying REAL FUCKING meaning…and a story that made actual sense.

The movie started with the pretense of “this is just the way the shit went down” and kept that promise all the way through. Super powers were actually super powers but not immediately and that detail just felt accurate. Real. Regardless how gorgeous both Gal Gadot and Chris Pine are, people seemed to be actual people (with only a very few cliché’s) saying actual words you would imagine they’d say. No stretching of the point…no gratuitous explanatory dialogue (usually aimed at US audiences sorry to say) but just a very well told story. It didn’t matter that it was gods and super powers and seeming absurdities, the movie did what goddamn movies are supposed to do; it made you suspend your disbelief and forget about those details.

There’s been a lot of brouhaha about Deb Jenkins, the director, and the fact that shes a woman and it’s a blockbuster—blah blah blah—misogynist redneck rant from the right—blah blah blah—self-righteous “I fucking told you so” diatribe from the left…but, quite honestly, I couldn’t give a fuck; whoever can make a movie this amazingly good I just want them to hunker down and start making more…

…many, many more!

Also, it doesn’t hurt that in the movie a guy named Trevor had sex with a stunningly gorgeous goddess/superhero.

Just sayin

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

Learning things, I thought
I knew
innocence cannot be regained
cannot be found again, not
even its faded edges
that the entirety
of who we are
will always be less
than who we should be…but
we decide “should” and “have”
meaning
I’ve lost the thread before
and suffered my own loss
my own degeneration
but always aware of where
the bottom is;
knowing when
I can’t hear my own footsteps
it’s the sound
of a dead man walking…
we think it’s only us
only ever our own voice
in that echo
it is not
by listening closely
we hear humanity and grace
around the rough edges
where it has mingled and rubbed
against you
and you, and
you
learning things is how we know
that knowing is better than innocence
and it doesn’t rely on echoes
but grows out of
discovering
the edges of
ourselves

It’s interesting the waves of caring and compassion that occur when an “important” person commits suicide. The posts on social media start as a dribble then a flood and then it slows and once again becomes a dribble. It’s predictable and completely useless because the call is for those people; the ones who are clinically depressed, suffer mental illness, have unbearable grief…the call is for them to get help. The “helpful” people on Facebook, Twitter, etc. even cut and paste the national suicide prevention hotline.

Get help…that’s hilarious.

You’re telling someone who’s brain is already malfunctioning to do something only a well-functioning brain can assimilate and act on. You’re telling someone to somehow climb up and over that massive mountain—they know as their personal hell—that they’ve never EVER been able to surmount before to just, well, you know…get over it.

Literally.

Yeah, good luck with that. The point is that people, based on their mental state, who are in the position to contemplate taking their own lives are likely alone and isolated and have shut down communications to the outside world exactly because they cannot reconcile what the world is telling them and how they know they feel. There are no amount of words on social media or flashed as a PSA on the TV that will reopen a dialogue with them until they themselves found a way out.

Meaning they are responsible for saving their own lives…and only them.

But, as a friend and loved one—or merely just because you give a fuck—you can be responsible for paying attention and noticing when they retreat, when they self-isolate. You can be responsible for lighting a path to safety through your attention and acceptance and understanding. Especially your understanding that people who are hurting so bad that ending this amazing journey can be the biggest, loudest and ugliest assholes to the people they need the most.

People like you.

And you have to let them be assholes until they’re back on safe ground, until they are no longer turning their fear and self-loathing into the weapons of destruction that they can be. Until the darkness clears and they can see the path towards life and safety. The path that only they can take…but one that you can illuminate.

So…please stop cutting and pasting the suicide prevention hotline, as if that was an actual way to help people, and start paying attention to the people you love by lighting a torch of patience and understanding so that you can actually start seeing them…

…and they can see you…

…and see a way back.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen