...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWndei_UYw&ab_channel=Ont%27Sofa

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The truth, 

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The truth is that I began writing for a very simple reason,

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A very straightforward, and in some ways very tragic, reason:

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I survived something that I shouldn't have.

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I had a story.

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And though I didn't presume to think

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That I knew how best to tell it, I did,

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However, greatly and almost desperately, long to learn.

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It's been ten years, and though I feel that I have some command over this language,

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Some degree of skill, I still, for the life of me, don't know where to begin. 

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There are things that we sometimes see, that we go through or are subjected to

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That transcend language, that are inexplicable or require a degree of comprehension,

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A certain sight, a vantage or a greater perspective, that I now, at 27, still don't have.

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I don't know where to begin.

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But I could tell you what it feels like to drive through caribou migrations -

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So close, to so many animals, that you could literally reach out and touch them.

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I could tell you what eskers are, or about how,

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During communal hunts, an entire hummock would open up

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With intermittent rifle fire, and all you'd see,

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From eye to eye, is dozens of animals, drop.

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I could tell you what it was like to stumble across an open, and unmarked grave -

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Centuries old, for all I knew, but recent enough to warrant a burial

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Befit with the man's gun, his tobacco tin and his kettle.

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I could tell you what it was like to play ice-hockey

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Alongside people, that, less than three generations prior,

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Were completely nomadic -

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To hear drums, played in the old way, to see the tattooed and solemn faces

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Of real elders, the last of the stone-age people. 

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I could tell you about the dark and terrible things

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That I'd only catch peripheral glimpses of;

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I could tell you about the incomparable, and beautiful things

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That coincide with finding hope, identity, 

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Amidst a state of absolute hopelessness

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And the merciless throes, of tragedy.

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I could tell you about the foreign, or the strange,

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The familiar or the intimate.

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I could tell you about family, 

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An odd kind of intergenerational meaning

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That only carries significance

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To those that I'd adopted it from

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And to me, as the inheritor of those legacies.

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I could talk about love, in all its cliché nuance -

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About its height, its depth, 

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Its severity, and its levity. 

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I could tell you about hospitals, and airplanes, 

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Europe, or China; I could talk about addiction, survival

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Or drive, academia or sports, s**t, I could tell the story

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In so many ways, with so many different 

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Perforated agendas, that I'd render a lifetime into convolution 

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And would still, have absolutely no idea, where I truly should've begun -

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Whether it be dedicated to observe institutional failings,

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To, like so many others in the saturated schools of Canadiana,

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Dedicate the story to politics,

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To make it about race, race relations, about impoverishment or privilege,

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About lawyers, and insurance companies, and media outlets, and policy,

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About administrational obligations, about blood debts.

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But that, too, would render it all into a CBC article

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That only those that knew me, might care to read,

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Or only those that pre-determinately wanted to listen,

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Might ever care to air.

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The truth is that I began this journey, from a place of naivete;

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I thought that I was unique, that I had something that needed to be heard,

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That I was somehow owed something. And the more I'm faced with the world's indifference,

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With the absolutely desperate state of this world's affairs, I realize now, that I've no need to tell the story

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Because there are already, so many others, that tell their own versions for me.

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Maybe, it's a sad truth to know that there's a glass ceiling on it all -

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That I'm not Baldwin, or Dostoevsky, or Hesse,

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That I can't do what those men did.

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Maybe it should be sad, to realize that;

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Maybe it ought to carry the connotation

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That coincides with futility, 

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With the forgotten, or a dying dream's obituary.

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But I don't feel that it does.

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"The wave is gone but the sea remains."

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And some things are more important than stories.

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There's a certain significance to that, 

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To the thought that life's greatest meaning

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Remains bigger than myself, bigger 

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Than the sole, and intrinsically flawed vantage

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Of my own, limited perspective -

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Because life, all of it,

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Every truth, joy, beauty, lie and hardship,

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From the very beginning

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And despite such tremendous biases,

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Was never about me, 

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Or about how I felt, or about what I saw. 

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I don't see the dying dream as a failing;

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It doesn't feel like defeat.

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It just feels like a weight's been lifted;

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It feels lighter, 

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Or that, for some strange reason,

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I've grown, somehow, an inch or two taller

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Than I'd been, before I'd made the decision to begin

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And before I decided that there'd be no loss to quit.

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Author's Note

(fuck it)

((photo (below) taken ten years ago and photo (above) taken last November))

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

there is art and there is art. Some of it is fairly showy and we might be awed by it, but some of it is the type that whacks us in the gut...the kind of reality that few will actually put on paper...
makes us too vulnerable...
I think your perspective opens our eyes as well. And I am not sure any of us really knows where or how to begin to really tell it like it is...but we try....we can only be ourselves in our words.
You do that so well here and all along with your honesty...
j.

[Ookpik]

I've heard it said that sometimes the things we need most, lay in the places that we want least to look - those parts of ourselves that we're afraid to look at, or to acknowledge, or to bare before the world.

There are other times, too, where a strike in our gut can prompt us - uncomfortably, perhaps even a little ruthlessly - to investigate those places that we'd otherwise wanted to hide away. It hurts, and nobody actually wants to do it, but there is meaning in it. And, in some rare cases, a degree of lasting resolution.

It was good of you to comment, Jacob.

-Ook

[John the Baptist]

First, let me say it's an honor to be quoted. It's probably the closest I'll get to being published. Second, this confession (meant in the highest, Augustinian sense) is truly stunning. That one so young could come to such conclusions, some that many never reach though they go beyond the threescore and ten, is inspiring. That such awareness had to come via tragedy is heartbreaking, but this is often the case. Sometimes the path to enlightenment does lead through the trench of pain. Though, as you indicate, the dream may be dying, that is all right. Sometimes when dreams die, the real road opens.

[Ookpik]

Those were my thoughts exactly John.

I have to admit, I had misgivings, at first, in quoting you (I didn't want to pass off the image as my own) but the idea left a very strong impression and the image is incredibly profound.

I'd hoped you'd take it as an homage, and am really glad to see that you have.

It's also very touching for me to hear you say that, John, really - this is the kind of thing that people like me hold very tight, for very long periods of time, and your reception means a lot.

Thank you,

-Ook

[Carlos Lorenzo Estrada]

I want to hear all those stories my friend and I want to hear it from you. Not from Hemingway, Dostoevsky, or any other writers, because they are not you and don't have your perspective. Those guys are dead, but you are alive and have so many stories to share. You are a writer. You must write. What you just wrote was incredibly moving and made me travel the world in the few words you spoke. I love the art of Poe, Steinbeck, Gibran, and many others. But they are long gone and I wouldn't want to be or write like them because it wouldn't be my voice. My stories. My art. And it wouldn't be my gift to share with others. Write for the love of writing, not for the ghosts of writers. Even if no one reads my work I'm still going to write. Because I have stories to tell...and so do you my friend.

[Chris Shaw]

So much here to consider and why leave it to others when you can say it with your own unique voice and perspective. I started to write after I survived an event which rocked my world at the time. Never had any regrets. Poetry is my escape world now. I enjoyed where your lines took me through the journey of your experiences. Listened to the music link too and enjoyed that. Pleased I stopped by. Thank you.

Chris