a young writer from the lone star state

A piece in which I try to advise my younger self.

High school boy: you always run around and say no one ever really understands you. You run around and say no one’s ever really been through what you’ve been through. You run around and want to be some champion of pity.

You selfish high school boy–too scared to do anything about the girl suffering next door. All you do is run around and try to pretend that she’s not hurting, that she’s not begging for a safer place to sleep. You might as well pray that someday you’ll forget her and, indeed, one day you will.

Then you’ll be a college boy and run around with a girl who’s just like you. You’ll run around and drink and cry and scream and laugh and walk and kiss and fight and ignore and write and confess and drive and hug together. She’ll tell you of things she’s never told anyone and you’ll carry those secrets like a sort of unpronounceable cancer yet you know that as long as she hands those burdens to you, she’ll wake up the next morning and be a little better tomorrow.

You’ll know that her boyfriends are never good to her, or good for her, but all you can do is just stand and watch and wait for the next time she wants to go to have lunch with you.

And you’ll know then–once she calls you lover boy–that you’ll never forget her.

A short observation on an object that resonates with me.

Once, in community college back in Dallas, my professor Dr. Mary Northcut gave me an old coin. Ancient. It was a coin used during the reign of Philip II of Macedon–the father of Alexander the Great.

Dr. Northcut would not have known that, as a boy in elementary school, I used to collect old and rare coins. My oldest coin, perhaps, is a three-cent silver coin from before the Civil War. I stopped collecting before I got into middle school and when I got into high school my favorite historical figure became Alexander the Great. I want to name my son, if I ever have one, Alexander–the name means something like, the defender of man.

Dr. Northcut gave me the coin because her class was a film studies class–Film Noir, namely. On the first day of class, Dr. Northcut was having a few troubles with using the computer. I got up and helped her run a DVD she was struggling to play. On my last day of class, after I handed her my final essay, she pulled me aside and thanked me for all my help throughout the semester. Then, she handed me the old bit of bronze.

I’ve added it to my collection–the first new coin in years. I enjoy looking at it–I think of Dr. Northcut, of the Cowboy Bebop DVDs I made a copy of for her, of Alain Delon and Humphrey Bogart, and of Alexander marching across Asia Minor.

A very short contemplation on the word “suspension.”

Suspension: to hold, perhaps upward, like a bridge that is suspended mid-air over a river. But what about the phrase in-school suspension? Or to be suspended from school altogether?

I’ve been to ISS, but only once–it’s a pain in the ass. You’ve got to sit on a stool the whole day with a lunch tray as your desk. But I have to admit: it was kinda fun. I sat next to my friends and it was a challenge to try and hold conversations with them without the monitor hearing. We got to do all sorts of weird stuff like take out the trash and clean the cafeteria. Just how would that cafeteria stay clean if there weren’t a handful of students in ISS? I was a little mischievous in high school, if I’m being honest.

Suspension: to be held. For example, “class is suspended” means something like “class is paused for the time being.”

Frozen. I supposed that, in a sense, bridges are frozen in the sky.

But there is a tension in this word, if you look hard enough. A suspension bridge has supports full of tension force, and suspension from school implies a sort of tension in conduct and behavior.

Suspension carries with it–holds with it–tension.

Is there not tension between all things? What is the opposite of suspension?

I thought of embrace. I thought of release. Of motion resuming and of bridges falling.

There’s a special kind of fear you get after waking up from a black out. It’s an anxious desire to know where the hell am i and what the hell happened. The absence of tangible memories creates an ugly and urgent kind of mystery. It’s like an awkward conversation; like asking your own ghost to remind you of dreams you’ve forgotten. I’ve had to ask twice.

The first time was in 2016. where the hell am i I woke up and found myself lying in a vacant lot at around six in the morning. The gray sky and cold air were rude replacements for soft pillows and warm blankets. I lifted myself up from the tall grass surrounding me and I felt dirty – how long have I been sleeping on the ground? The little red ant bites all over my arms would suggest that I had been there for at least several hours. Then I heard hurried cars cruising down the street behind me. I turned and saw a familiar road that told me I wasn’t far from home. what the hell happened Behind that road were the railroad tracks. oh i know now what i was trying to do i was trying to kill myself But I must have passed out in the lot before I could lay myself down on the tracks. I drank too much and the memories stopped, so I asked my ghost what I was dreaming of and he said you dreamt of dancing with death and youd hoped youd never wake up again

The second time was a year later. This time, a Tuesday night. what the hell happened All I remember was drinking again at a bar. But the next thing I remember is waking up on an uncomfortable hillside made up of small white rocks. where the hell am i It was still dark but I heard a great big thing whirring and turning behind me. I lifted myself up from the bed of rocks and turned around – it was a locomotive. here i am again but this time i got closer Again, I asked my ghost what did i dream of and he said you dreamt of dancing with death…

The December of 2017 was almost a third time. Except this time there wasn’t any booze. Instead, I drowned myself in the pages of a philosophy paper that was overdue. where the hell am i This time I woke up on a bed in a hospital room. what the hell happened Instead of walking out to the railroad tracks again, I focused on that paper and forgot my type 1 diabetes. I stopped caring about blood sugar levels and insulin therapy and tried to live in a world of classical literature, John Locke, and Chicago-style citations. This time I didn’t wake to train tracks or ant bites, but to family, to friends and to nurses.

Suicide and autoimmune diseases are both forms of self-destruction. The former means that a person deliberately takes their own life; the latter is when a person’s immune system decides to attack its own body. Three times have I attempted self-destruction. The first two times I chose to get drunk and pass out, dreaming to never wake up. The third time, however, I chose to stop managing my autoimmune disease. I wouldn’t say I wanted to kill myself, but that logic sure does sound like I was trying.

My ghost might have been there in that hospital room, ready for my questions, but I didn’t need to ask what the hell happened or where the hell am i Instead, I listened the machines and monitors beeping and buzzing all around me. I touched the bruises from failed IV insertions that looked like budding roses on my arms. I felt the flimsy little hospital gown that hid my devastated, vulnerable and naked body. I heard the IV’s pumping insulin, antibiotics and saline solution into me. I tasted my throat that had been choked and violated by intubation. I smelt the dried, rusty blood in my nostrils. I looked at the paper wrist bands that had my name and date of birth.

Everything around me told me you dreamt of the future you wanted to wake up again and you hoped your friends and family wouldnt have to listen to silver taps but you arent dying anymore youre done with trains and youre done with death

I have a night pass for Texas A&M that allows me to park in many of the parking lots on campus, but only after 5 PM. This afternoon, at 4:55 PM, a guard stood at the entrance of the parking lot that I usually park in — it’s one close to Evans Library. I’ve never seen a guard there before. I tried to pull in but he told me, politely yet seriously, “I know it’s only five minutes ’til five, but I can’t let you park here. I would say, ‘go on and turn around and find some other place to hang out for five minutes — and then come back here.'” I said alright, turned around, went on and parked in an another unguarded lot.

I parked in lot 47, which is a lot that is connected to a little path that leads to the Aggie Bonfire Memorial.

I’ve been a student at A&M for two years now, but I had not yet visited this famous landmark.

I decided that this partly cloudy afternoon, I would walk down the trail and visit the sacred place.

what a moment, what an experience

The weather for this moment could not have been anymore perfect — it was in the upper seventies, yes, but there was a good little breeze going such that I never broke a sweat.

At the memorial I was alone. It is far enough from campus that you can not hear a conversation nor a single voice from the students drift over to the area. My whole visit was silent save for the rush of the wind’s breeze. You could hear the glide of rubber tires as they rolled on all through Texas Avenue and University Drive, but the drone of it all blended in with the ambience of the cool wind. I was absorbed in the sanctity of it all — the green plains and hills that surround the memorial remove you from the bustle of A&M and pull you into what is known as the spirit of Aggieland.

I read all twelve inscriptions dedicated to the Aggies who lost their lives in the tragic Bonfire collapse of 1999. On the one hand, I felt sad — I felt my own heart break into twelve bold little pieces because I know, just know, that had these Aggies lived, the lot of goodness in this world would be exponentially larger. Yet, all their memorial inscriptions were messages of hope and pride — an encouragement for those of us who are still alive to make the world a better place. I would say that every Aggie holds a responsibility to these twelve fallen to do the good deeds they themselves would have done so selflessly.

And boy did those Old Ags know how to write poetry! I will share some of my favorite poems found at the memorial.

The Purpose of Life

Why look for reason

there is no cause

Why try to find a purpose

there may be none at all

Take whatever there is

and make the most

And if there is nothing

make your own

And while you are loving to live

a reason will become

and a purpose will appear

making all the more reason to go on

– Jeremy Frampton ’99

 

Enough

If I stare long enough

If I talk hard enough

If I touch soft enough

If I look good enough

If I love deep enough

Will I live long enough

To love life enough

– Jeremy Frampton ’99

 

There is living and there is existing.

If you are living, life will take your breath.

In tasting honey you may get a sting,

but life stagnant is worse than death.

 

Bite into life and let the juice run down.

Lives are not measured with chances untook.

Enjoy the blooms now, in time they’ll be brown.

Chances for lovers are often foorsook.

 

Forget all the past, look not for your fate.

Take life by the horns and live for today.

Hard times will come if you rush the gate,

but interesting people have suffered worse fate.

 

Take hold of the world and go for a ride,

’cause not all men live, but everyone dies.

– Lucas John Kimmel ’03

Every year, we shall remember and say here. I regret taking so long to walk through this amazing place. I thought I’d only spend five minutes there, but the memorial does not exist in time. These are words I needed to read, needed to feel, as I approach graduation. I said earlier that these Aggies fell. That is wrong to say. One line in the inscriptions at the memorial said that the Aggies did not fall — they flew straight into the heavens above and have not yet come down. That is much better to say, much better to hold.

I want to love living and to love life.

To live and to fly.

If you are ever in Aggieland, I emplore you to take the time and walk through this place, to stand and to study the inscriptions, to lean towards the eternal bronze and feel the spirit.

More information on the Bonfire Memorial can be found here. There is much interesting symbolism and history I have not touched upon in this post.

(The photo I took this time is, yet again, another one point perspective photo.)