it’s funny that
i’d run into
a friend of a friend
of a girl i used to love
(at least i think i did)
whilst travelling
because she and i
used to love meeting on the road
driving sixteen hours
to meet half way
in a city we’d never been to
sleeping in our cars
immortalising her in a tattoo
stories for our memoirs
formative years
*this was supposed to be up before the new year, but i have no accountability these days. i want there to be more to this piece, but this is all i have for now.
i started the decade without a single tattoo
and i’ll end it with twenty-two.
some for friends, some for lovers,
three for family,
a highlight reel of the most important people
so when they ask “what’s the meaning behind your tattoos?”
i can tell them the story of jess, jesse, jessica, and ally
chelsea, dani, sam, aubrey, mehr, and chloe bee too,
i can even tell them about the time i survived Valley.
無敵
when i was 21,
i had a shirt with the kanji for invincible,
that i’d wear to every club night and party
proudly, almost daringly,
like i wanted the universe to test me.
it’s not that i was delusional
i never actually thought i was invincible
but i was so far down a black hole
of depression and self hatred
and suicidal ideation,
i never thought i’d make it
to the other side of 25.
having those thoughts accompany me
everywhere i went,
gave me a sense of reckless abandon
i don’t remember exactly
when things changed
but when my car hydroplaned
and hit the center divider on the 101
a day before turning 28,
it was terrifying
i no longer felt invincible
i felt small and scared
even now, almost a year later
and i still can’t bring myself
to drive in the rain
siblings
this is an old piece, so some of you may be familiar with it, but it’s an important piece i think about a lot.
i know it’s not
who they wanted us to be
but i really like
who we’re turning out to be
it’s taken us this long to realise
that we’re on the same side
it’s us against the world,
we don’t have to fight
for a single spot
when there’s room for three
together we’ll fight
against our father’s sins
and our mother’s anger
we’ll fight the darkness
lurking in our brains,
telling us to fight each out
and ourselves.
being on the same side,
means we can share our lives
instead of hiding them
on blogs and texts
they had plans for us,
to live out their dreams
but we’ll forge our own paths
whatever they may be
i know it’s not
who they wanted us to be
but i really like
who we’re turning out to be
3 years (version 1)
i know i said a lot
when we first met
rules and beliefs
that i thought it was important
to be upfront about
so you knew what you were getting
like if you can’t love me like this
then you won’t want to stay
and we can just cut our losses
like if you can’t accept me as i am
then it’s a you problem,
and it’s not my fault
but most of it was bullshit
to protect myself from getting hurt
but you stayed
you asked me to grow
except i wasn’t ready
yet you still waited
more patience than i’d ever known before
you waited and forgave me for all my fuck ups
when i got scared that you were too close
and i loved you too much
and that if i didn’t end it
we’d both come out the other end a total mess
eventually though i realised it was time
to grow or give up
and i was never one for giving up
nobody asked
i never meant to write long-form on here, but i’ve got to get something out of my head. i find myself struggling to post things, hesitant to write, because there’s a voice in my head that says “you’re a man, there are already too many dudes that write about how sad they are, nobody needs to hear that shit again”
but then, they’re mostly white dudes and i’m so. fucking. tired. of hearing about how great some white guy is because he’s seen the light after becoming famous for being edgy and using drugs. so he went to rehab and bastardised several eastern religions to become “enlightened” that doesn’t mean we give him a platform and praise him for talking about it. (is he actually enlightened if he’s still constantly selling himself out for attention?)
writing for me began as a way to process things that i couldn’t or didn’t know how to talk about. and i think that it always will be that on some level, but another part of it is that i really like telling stories. and i think it’s important for people like me (insert whichever label you’d like) to tell our stories, the more stories we have, the more perspective we have, and hopefully we’ll grow from that and realise that we don’t want any more mediocre white dudes.
the path to self development is paved with abandoned poems
the words used to flow
so freely and quickly
pouring out of my mind
too fast to grasp
falling through the space
between my fingers
struggling to hold
any tangible line of thought
there’s so much i want to say
so many half written thoughts
in half filled notebooks
some lost, some given up on,
some i won’t go back to
these days i struggle
to stay focused
and remember why i write
staring at the vast expanse
of the empty page
willing words into existence
only causing them to flee faster
09/18
hello friends, i know some of you may be thinking, “here we go again, he’s starting another blog that he will eventually abandon,” and others might be surprised to learn that this isn’t my first blog. if you’re in the latter category, it’s likely that was intentional.
you see, i used to either write in anonymity or under a pseudonym. i used to tell myself that writing in anonymity took away the pressure of suceeding. but over this past year, i’ve been doing a lot of self development and growth, and i began to realise that there was a second part to it, that i was hiding part of myself from the world. so in the interest of living in alignment with myself and embracing my full potential, i’ve decided to do away with all of my old blogs and write under my name.
for those of you that don’t know, i also recently set a goal of publishing a book of poetry for my 30th birthday. in preparation for that, you may see some of my posts from previous blogs resurface either edited, or reworked entirely. i don’t have many other details right now, but i’ll update in the future.
regardless of how you got here, welcome. thank you for reading my work, and i hope you enjoy it. -ekiyoshi
yoshi with a き 