Latest Posts by nikrichard - Page 3

Eternal Sunshine

My grandmother is slowly beginning to lose her memory. No, she hasn’t been diagnosed with anything because she refuses to see a doctor, but every now and then she will ask me the same questions over and over again. Like, “hows grad school?” and I’ll tell her I graduated over a year ago and she’ll congratulate me for the 5th time and I’ll just nod my head and say thank you. The bright side is she’ll offer me 4 or 5 slices of pie and serve each one to me like its the first as long as I sit through the same story that she’ll tell to me 3 or 4 times. I try to act just as surprised as the first time I heard them.

Eventually she starts to do things like leave the oven on, and forget who she’s talking to on the phone, and what day it is, and what she had for dinner last night, and how to get home when she goes somewhere she hasn’t been in a while, and everybody else thinks this is a reason for concern. Except me. Because I see the beauty in slowly losing your memory as you get older.

There is a certain magic in forgetfulness that God rewards us with if we are fortunate enough to make it into old age. Because after a few years of the mundane every day is something new. An opportunity to experience old things for the first time as those bad memories fade away. In her mind, there is eternal sunshine and that's all any of us really want anyway. The look of surprise on her face every time I tell her I already got my degree means, to her, every other Sunday is graduation.

Every visitor is in town for a holiday. Every birthday is a surprise when you wake up and don’t know why everyone you know is calling you to tell you they love you and every package you ordered is like a present to yourself. You no longer recognize people in old photographs. There is no more living in the past. No regretting old mistakes or wishing you had second chances because as far as you know, you’re still on plan A and everything worked out exactly the way it was supposed to be. Beautifully.

Until that day we wake up on a beach in Montauk and feel everything fading from our memory we will drag our regrets to the shore and relive our mistakes over and over until we bury them in the sand and treat every morning as an opportunity to start over. 

Just don't forget who I am. 

Where Do You Think Our Souls Go When We Die?

Her: “What are your dreams? What city are you currently in love with? What is your favorite cheese? What are you afraid of? Who do want to be when you’re old? Where do you think our souls go when we die?”

Me: “To look back on my life and smile. Montreal. Brie. Losing my ability to see, hear or taste by way of some freak accident or old age. Dr. Nikolaus Richard the first. I don’t think I believe in death”

Her: “…but your soul, where do you think it goes?”

Me: “I don’t think our souls go anywhere when we die. I think as we live we leave a little piece of it in people along the way. Every time we love we lose a part of ourselves. Or every time we create. Or procreate. If we are lucky, by the time we die we wont have any soul left to go anywhere and our lives will be complete and our bodies empty. We will have given it all away.” 

Her: “So you don’t believe in Heaven?”

Me: “Sure I do. We’re here right now. You must have missed the sign when we walked in.”

Are You Happy?

I never fully understood this question. Happy with what? Happiness sounds like an ending to me, "and they lived happily ever after." How can somebody who has more life to look forward to than to look back on honestly comprehend that question? Ask me in 50 years and maybe I'll have an answer for you. 

A Poem About Cheese

If your heart was a cheese, what kind of cheese would it be?

I’m sure my heart is made of brie. Hard on the outside, but once you cut it open it oozes all over the kitchen counter like butter. It’s an introverted cheese. Some people like the moldy rind and some don’t, but brie never makes any apologies. It’s the cheese you put out for holidays when you want to impress people. My heart is like the holidays.

I’m pretty sure her heart is made of cheddar. Just as sharp as her tongue. As yellow as the sun that shines through the blids onto her cheek in the morning.

Or swiss. Full of holes because she gives too much. Or blue cheese because she’s always cold and her heart crumbles whenever I try to take a piece for myself.

She told me my heart is probably made of gruyere. Old and cracked and mostly good in fondu. The kind of cheese you melt down and make a party of and share with friends, and then regret that you didn’t save more for yourself to give to someone special. A type of cheese that likes to please. That melts too easily. Goes good with beer and cider.

I disagreed. I prefer red wine, myself.

She said her heart is made of pepper jack. Mild, but spicy when it needs to be. Versatile. The type of cheese you fall in love with instantly and will love you back just the same, but every now and then in the middle of the night it will wake you up and remind you, you’re not as young as you used to be. You have responsibilities… like no eating spicy foods past 10 p.m.

The D Train

I saw you tonight waiting for the D train. I was going uptown to Harlem and you were headed to downtown Manhattan, or Brooklyn, I don’t know, you were on the other side of the tracks so I couldn’t ask you.

You looked dead at me though, like you had something you had been waiting to tell me and you finally got the chance, but I was just out of whispering distance. So, you walked to the edge of the platform

like you wanted to jump. Not into my arms or anything, but like you realized you were about to get on the wrong train and you needed to hurry and get to the right side of the tracks. There was something you needed to tell me.

It’s an impossible leap, you would never make it. Plus, now the train is coming. I guess you didn’t care because you did it. HOLY SHIT, YOU DID IT! You actually ran to the edge and jumped

like you had been practicing your whole life for this. Like a gymnast who had never won a gold medal in anything in her life and now this were your Olympics. Just as you jumped, you opened your mouth to say something

and the train came and cut you in half. It was intense. There was confetti everywhere. I couldn’t wait to see if you were ok or anything because I had a train to catch. It was late and the D train runs funny at this hour.

I mourned you all the way to 145th Street until I remembered that you don’t even live in New York. Neither do I. I came to this island just to get away from you. I guess I should have chosen somewhere slightly more deserted.

8 million people in this city, I was bound to see you somewhere, in someone. Now I’m bound for the Bronx because I missed my stop and I have no idea how I’m going to make it home, or if I want to.  

Soulmates

You remind me of my ex-wife from a past life who I committed suicide to escape from when I made myself wings of feathers and wax, and fell to my death when I flew them into the sun. You just laughed and floated over me as I drowned.

They say birthmarks are entry wounds that show where we died before, and dreams are just memories we carried with us from the other side, which is why you looked so familiar the first time I saw you. Your feet never touched the ground.

My opening line was “you look like my daughter,” you smiled and asked “how old is she?” I said, “well if it all works out, five years from now she’ll be three, but I’m in no rush.” It felt like a third person existed between us.

And I wasn’t sure who we were before, or who are supposed to be, but I knew that on the other side of the world planted deep inside a forest there is a tree with our names carved into its side, and written in a language neither of us speak is inscribed

“forever is a pretty short time looking back on it,” and even though we may not be able to read it, we would instantly recognize our handwriting as evidence that we were part of the same tribe that died out a thousand years ago, and we would brace ourselves for

the earthquake as our souls shake and vibrate higher. We were sent here to repopulate so there was no time to apologize for everything we were about to put each other through. You just grabbed my hand and said “I look forward to getting tired of you.”

God don’t make mistakes, but people do. Souls only know wavelengths, and communicate through music and colors and sound; they don’t always remember to leave the key under the mat, or come home before 3 a.m., or put the toilet seat down, or

make sure to hold your hand whenever we’re out in public, because the flesh doesn’t understand it’s just a vessel full of flaws. Soulmates exist to serve as a reflection of how truly damaged we really are, how hurt, desperate and unexamined we are.

I never asked for a soulmate, just someone who hates all the same things I do, and in you I confronted all of the things I hated in myself, like a mirror that reveals the first time you realize you are no longer beautiful. My ugly is going take some getting used to.

I used to fear going to sleep next to you because I would get tangled in your hair and you would roll over, strangling me, leaving gasping for air in one of those dreams where you can’t quite wake yourself  up, until I realized that you only hogged the sheets so you could

expose me to the cold and wake up the other side of me whenever my dreams got off track. My arms would always go numb so I could never fight back. So instead of starting a war with you I would just kiss you on your cheek. I need you here with me.  

Maybe we’re just meant to walk through life trying to fill each-other-sized holes in ourselves. Feeling like we swapped souls at a crowded train stop like two strangers who picked up the wrong bag and were forced to wear the clothes they found inside.

I have that sweater you’ve been looking for, it’s a little stretched out but it still smells just fine. Find me again so we can make amends, or at least swap bags one last time. Everyone deserves a seventh chance.

I guess I’ll see you next lifetime when you and I are butterflies and during our migration we can gently clip wings and create a vibration that causes the tides to rise off the shores of Hawaii and forms a tsunami that crashes into the coast of Japan

and floods some kind of nuclear reactor that causes the world to spin backwards and we can finally rest our wings on the sand and look back on all we destroyed with a smile, and I’ll know that it was all worth it just to be with you when the world ends.   

Spam

LoveAndWater: Hi how are you? www.meetmehere.com

NikRich1986: Re: Hey, I’m good actually. Been so long since we spoke. I thought you may have deleted me from your life all together, I guess it’s kind of hard to delete an email address from the internet. It's the piece of technology that gives all relationships their last bit of hope, lol. I saw a wrecked white Jeep Wrangler yesterday and thought about you, us. Hoping it wasnt you inside. I’m guessing you’re ok. How have you been?

LoveAndWater: Do you like music? Click here!  www.mp3fr.com

NikRich1986: Re: I’m always looking for something new to listen to. I’ll check them out. Music has been my only company these past few months. I say, listening to music is like always having a friend around. The thing I like about music is that it always takes you back to where you were the first time you heard it. Like a time machine. But time machines have drawbacks, some parts of the past are best not re-lived. How’s your job? Do you run the place yet?

LoveAndWater: When is the last time you went camping? Check out these deals! www.kayakthroughyourtears.com

NikRich1986: Re: Haven’t been since I was a kid with my dad. I remember we talked about going camping a few times, but it never really worked out did it? Do you still hate nature? lol. I can find us a cool spot in Mississippi and we can cross at least one thing off the list of the many things that we never got to do together. I can finally show you how to fish! October is probably the best month. Are you free then?

LoveAndWater: I just won a new iPod by filling out this survey! www.areyoudeadinside.com

LoveAndWater: Hey, I think my email has been spamming you. Sorry about that! I’m going to delete it so don’t bother messaging again. Thx.

“Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world” =)

NikRich1986: Re: Wow… I guess we haven’t spoken in so long that eventually some part of our subconscious would reach out to each other. Its funny that you can think about somebody hard enough for so long and the universe finds ways to manifest them for you. Its almost like my heart hacked into your computer. Its pretty romantic if you think about it, that’s some real soul mate shit right there. Anyway, call me sometime, or text. I prefer you text. Just to let me know you’re doing alright. 301-5320 Same number it’s always been.

Failure Notice: Message Undeliverable

She was a half lit cigarette

  left smoking under the bed.

You had a chance to put her out,

  but you went to sleep instead.

As something slowly burned

  deep inside her core

You escaped into a dream

  as she set fire to the floor.