the goodbye song
10 samples
TAPIOCA
a poem
If I told you the few things keeping me alive,
Don’t run, don’t laugh, don’t cry.
Just forgive me for being soft in life,
I am one of those things that die.
This afternoon I cried all the way to the bottom.
And tears take with them a reason as they leave,
Collecting from your heartshelves one problem each,
Carrying it on their way down as they roll from your cheek.
My store was newly stocked and here’s all my crying took:
Not being touched, not having a friend,
Missing mother’s voice, missing Lisa again,
Exhausted of myself, exhausted of the world’s weight,
Scared to call for help, scared my dreams are too late.
But I shivered to the kitchen in my soggy body
And the only remedy that seemed to surprise my melancholy
Was a simple sip from the glass of a milk drink
With tapioca pearls on the bottom to sew my weak.
If I told you all the things that kept me alive,
Tiny little things I can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch—
A blanket.
Hot water.
Free nature.
A romantic comedy.
George’s Pastry Shop.
Tomorrow, I might drown beneath an ocean’s whirl,
But today, I will sip some milk and delight in tapioca pearls.
CHARM THE UNIVERSE
Living a good life will be unnoticed,
But it matters, you matter, truth matters.
There is a charm you do not want to miss—
The only real thing worth staying for.
It is like being the last man on earth,
But still going back to push in your chair.
It’s knowing in a duel you will die first,
But twirling your gun as if you’re not scared.
It’s holding in your arms a brother dead,
But pulling the skin curtains of his eyes.
It is choosing to walk around a grave,
Knowing across would cause the dead some pain.
Men won’t know you stood a true winner, but
Such souls taste rich when Death eats his dinner.
DEAR CRYSTAL
a letter
“…here’s one thing I can offer you C, and I’ll be brief. Please consider the budget. The company spends too much on food meant to allure newcomers. We invite people to events and say there’s Chipotle, and do you know who comes? People who like Chipotle. We put our cause on the bottom of our newsletters and the “FREE FOOD” goes bright and center and we wonder why no one stays. If people want to come, they’ll come. We don’t need guacamole. We need people who are hungry for our mission…”
BEDSHEETS
an object
“…The shit thing about beauty is only another can redeem it. You can love yourself, but because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, those without beholders aren’t beautiful. They cannot trick themselves into thinking they are. Someone has to say it. Someone has to say, “You are beautiful.” One’s beauty is like the classic fallen tree; “If no one was near the tree when it fell, did it really fall?” If people called you a beautiful baby and now you’ve grown, are you still beautiful? …”
LECHON
a recipe
Organize their money on a chopping board. Sort out your worth.
$15,000 for outdated textbooks K-12.
$1,000 for a lifetime of flu vaccinations.
$8 an hour to help someone else make money.
$300 a year for food coupons.
$1,000 additional salary for any job that has a chance of expected death.
$600 co-pay on medication for an illness they cause you.
$2,000 for social security.
$15,000 for pension.
$150,000 for the average life insurance policy. $250,000 for a doctor’s fatal mistake.
$350,000 if the doctor made it in a different state.
2/5 of a soul lost in the workplace.
3/5 of a soul lost to fuck for food.
$4,000 to bury someone in the soil.
And there you have your lechon. Easy to make. Affordable. Special.
TO INDIVIDUALITY
a direction
“… One step back: Away from love. You claim to want love, but how can that be if you have not yet met the person you love? Rather, you desire its advantages: touch, security, and company. Love is born from another person—their touch, their company, their ideas. Love is a hand that knocks on our doors and owns no door of its own for you to knock on. When dealing with people, we are each too unique and changing to be labeled and be fitted to another person’s prerequisite needs. And so, it is our lovers who introduce us to our desire. Until then, it is not love that we want. If we claim, alone in our homes, to so badly want love, or marriage, we likely want that other thing…”
I'm Sorry
a haiku
You might find no one.
Love’s one in a trillion.
We’re eight billion.
YOUNG SOLDIERS AND YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHERS
a scene
The moon glows.
MATT. Is it our fault? That there’s nothing? What else is there?
ALEJANDRO. I feel you. I always ask what’s the meaning of life, but when I say the meaning of life I don’t mean, “Why is there an earth?” but I mean, “What am I supposed to do in it?” In this bum ass house in the suburbs of nowhere and a handful of decades
WOUND
a definition
/woond/
noun
A place to look for things
Proof you tried
Similar: happenings
Antonyms: machine, metal, mold
Humans were walking wounds and sometimes, they shared.
FROM MICHAEL
an entry
“… There are two types of kindnesses in the world. The first type of kindness is what some people are born with: an innocent, inherent joy to be alive. It’s nurtured with the right family. It laughs and it dances, on playgrounds and nightclubs, girlish and boyish. The second type of kindness is realized. It is born after countless heartbreaks, traumas, and molded by the darkest thoughts the brain can juggle. Add some life experience and a few good people gone, and you’ve got yourself a person who decides to be kind. Margo was the second. And you could tell by the way she spoke—an attentive politeness, a pain in between her blinks, and a tranquil surrender to how pathetic and beautiful we all are. You could feel all the people she carried with her. It was as if you were somehow meeting them all. And if we want to talk instincts, I could sense there was a quiet battle inside her. She wasn’t a saint. Her kindness wasn’t wholly pure, but it tried. It can be like a veil of effort to almost convince ourselves a person can be good, and I think “almost” is as far as we get. In some way, the same as completely good…”
The Goodbye Song
Copyright © 2021 by Kristian Ventura
Available in hardcover.
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