yeah, i’ve had a long day. those types of times that drain you, of energy, of joy. maybe it was just ‘cuz it was a shitty day outside today. then again, i go through periods when everything’s hunky dory and then periods where everything’s bloody awful. i can see that as a near universal. we are all at the whim of the wild fates, bend and weave to the wiles of their wings.

if you can’t tell by my poetry, i’ve been hella fascinated with alliteration recently. there’s something about the way the sounds just roll off the tongue that gives me a simple aural pleasure… what billy collins believes should be the first thing you look for in a piece of writing.

on some level, i agree. if it doesn’t read well, if the first few lines don’t grab you, you’re probably not going to want to go through the entirety of the poem. you might do it anyways and thereby find yourself pleasantly surprised… or you might do what i do, skip ‘em over till i have nothing else better to read.

c’est le vie. i’m going to try to make it to jits tomorrow, work off the excess emotion. sweating has a cleansing quality all its own. and working off my aggression is always nice. but bloody hell, so much work to look forward to. at least there should be more sun soon.

and it’s kinda ironic how fascinated i am with 80’s hair considering i think i’m going to get my mohawk back tomorrow. we’re ’sposed to be agentful beings, i know… but sometimes, i feel like i have so little control over my life and the things going on around me. thas when i get haircuts, because hell, i might not be able to control everything, but at the very least, i can cut my goddamn hair.

yay mohawk!

now from that high, back down to a low. for whatever reason, i’ve been writing hella emo poems. at the very least though, i hope they still present multi-dimensional characters, still have some decent imagery, some fun sound and most importantly, some connection to the greater.

tell me what you think.

——————
april 6th

chi dem, co ngay gap ma

the touch of ghosts
like the ache
of a last kiss or the touch
like mortality, the memory of illness

she told him she could love him no longer

his moods, more a burden
than she could handle, her shoulders
too narrow to hold a tempest
the sunflare of her temper
too hot for his inconsistencies

he drinks

she painted his portrait
with water colors, he wrote her love poems
on napkins and by email
they declared their love
under an unlucky moon, eyes
like will o’ the wisps

he fights

she caresses the purple cataracts
like twilight starbusts
across pupils and knuckles
visiting hours ticking away
through the iv, he courts danger
like he had eyes for no one else
she left him once before, but always answers
his call

he cheats

sleeps with women who fall
for his sleepy eyes, futile ego-stroke
and she forgives him
once, twice, too many times
her attempts to punish him
backfiring like misloaded bullets
or the vain cutting across forearms

he smokes

she says she quit, but can’t
knows he hasn’t even ever bothered to lie
only tells her
he loves her when his voice slurs
his head lolls, forgetting
he’s broken. her muse
splayed across the bartop

he tell hers, he needs her

and she weeps for a moment
mourning a fantasy, all she tastes
in the dregs in his stout glass
the fortune she reads
a signal to wander on, lips set
fists clenched tight enough
for fingernails to pierce

her phone left
in the bus station bathroom

his languid arm reaching for shoulders
and finding emptiness enough to startle

——————————————-

life is a process of humbling.

and my head keeps spinning, can’t keep having these visions, gotta get wid it

love.

casanova fucking by the copacabana, the sheer weight of the word is like mountains, like duty itself. yet, its glibness, the way it falls off the tongue, like pennies and peonies strewn haphazardly, with nothing but a grin at the way the sun hits petals and tarnished bronze just so.

love.

the source of childish laughter, drunken debauchery… of murders and masterpieces, the joyful spontaneity of a groaning exultation, the anguish that can drain away years in a few mere moments. what we all say we’re looking for, what we’re all so afraid of getting. the source of envy enough to launch a hundred thousand ships, the fire that illuminates the night even after the bombs have taken off all the lights.

romantic-fucking-love.

jeebus. why would i be discussing such a subject? oddly enough, because of a goddamn sitcom. a pilot at that. how much of a sap am i? but really though… i was going through one of those moods, the existential crises that drain the joy out of life, that makes you doubt the rightness of whatever you may be doing. not depression, that’s too much credence to lend it, rather a sense that there’s more than this life you’re living has to offer out there somewhere. maybe.

watching tv to try and take my mind off it, i saw the new abc show cupid. it was about a guy… who was either a man who had suffered such a fundamental heartbreak, so earthshattering and life-splitting that all he could do to cope with the force of it, that shock that took breath from the lungs, was to come up with the delusion that he was cupid or eros or whoever, the ever so fickle god of love. or maybe, it was really was the demi-god himself, the real cupid, punished for fucking his job up and now left to wander the streets of new yawk city until he can match up 100 couples with true love.

(as an aside, let me just say, fuck the way they treat the city… we really aren’t THAT devoid of wonderment and romance and the soft mushy things. hell, i would even argue that new yorkers are hold onto that delicate, transcendent part of themselves even more tightly than anyone else… is it a crime that we protect it more? we hold it more dearly, because we know how ugly the world can really be. the city runs you down, but thas why you grasp onto the idealism inside of you and hold on for dear life.)

i have a cigarette to pass the time, because the traffic is hell

but yes… to return to my point. i was watching this show, in my funk, and honestly, as i was watching it this smile crept across my face like a soldier creeping across no-man’s land. it was just too cute. i couldn’t help but enjoy it, i was powerless under the assault of its saccharine fancy. and it of course, cheered me up immensely, but more importantly, it made me think about love, which i’ve been tried to break down all these years anyways.

so here it is… my definitions of various expressions to describe it, ‘cuz dude, i’m just a boy… do you think i really give you the secret that haunts us all?

crush – a mild attraction that may or may not motivate enough effort to approach the object of affection, but is sufficient to be source material for both fantasy and for adolescent boys maybe something else.

lust – if’n you don’t know the definition of lust, you’re either a-sexual or pre-pubescent. if’n the latter, you shouldn’t be reading this blog anyway and tell your parents they should be bloody well monitoring your internet usage. if’n you’re the former… thas like trying to describe this to a blind man, or moonlight sonata to a deaf man.

infatuation – that stage, when you’re teetering the edge of sanity. sure, your OOE may not take up every thought of your day, but you sure as shit have the desire to call him/her entirely too much, especially considering it’s all a game. you savour the smell of their hair, the shape of their nose, the curve of their neck… and you know that in a blink, it can become all-consuming, if’n only it moves just a little bit more. or it can go completely the opposite way, and all of a sudden… it’s over. you’re bored. it’s done. this is where boys like me get stuck on.

in love – the phase where you can truthfully plead temporarily insane… that all consuming fire and passion and insanity that makes short shrift of anything so mundane as personality compatibility, credit reports or ‘other’ commitments. this is the stage where emotion is a drug, more insidious and ambrosial than anything else, that which the best quality MDMA is nothing but a pale ghost of an imitation. the wildness, the fascination of it, when you can’t help but ache, down deep when you’re not with your OOE, when your whole world, your very perception of life itself has narrowed down to this one person. when the locks of her hair caught in your towel, the ham-handed way he handles wine glasses, when those define your world. everything else is burned by the blow-torch intensity of it all… but… with that much more risk of burning out.

love – that stage, after the oil has taken the charcoal of your soul and burned away and what is left burns with a much more subtle, but steadier depth. that which is able to last, maybe even endure past the rain and the lack of oxygen. this is the stage of love that they say abides, where your perception of the world is able to see more than your OOE, but nevertheless, it like you yourself now cannot be defined, from now unto forever without your OOE. two plants, in nature, occasionally lean onto each other until they start becoming entwined, occasionally going so far as growing into one. this is where that starts.

granny love – … no you dirty mo’fo, this is not a porno title. it’s that place when someone becomes so fundamental to your life that they make it up. i don’t even know how to describe this, as i’ve never be anywhere near it myself… but we’ve all seen it.

settling – when you have none of these, but you make a relationship go anyway, if for no other reason then not wanting to be alone. and maybe, just maybe, it’ll become real love someday. for now though, this life is too hard, the trials too great to not be halved, the joys and triumphs too meager to not be doubled by sharing.

… maybe i’ll do more in the future, if’n anyone wants me to. as is, i’ve already taken up too much of all yous valuable time.

so au revoir.

we keep on pavin’ over paradise, because we’re only human

life is the awkward moments when you’re awake. whoa.

btw, this is going to be a long asssssed post, covering a wide arrange of topics. so be forewarned. to a large extent, i’m blogging so profusely because it’s helping me to explore myself in a way that i haven’t been able to for awhile. i have been writing poetry, but in a lot of ways, i haven’t been able to say much new. i haven’t been progressing as much or as quickly as i want to be. i’m hoping that by blogging, i can push open the artistic barriers within myself.

“i’ve written pages upon pages, trying to rid you from my bones”

it’s weird to see someone you once loved, deeply and powerfully, but no longer do now, for whatever reason. especially when there was also negative emotions enough to match the positive ones. which is not to say that love is inherently positive.

i saw my ex today for the first time in awhile. or i should say, for more than second, more than a flash and a glimpse. i gave her a grin or a half-hearted smile, i’m not sure which.

there’s so much emotional weight, so much baggage to even an image of a person who had that type of place in your life. it’s hard to reconcile it with the realities that we deal with in the everyday, when, some part of us remembers that link between people.

soldiers who have lost limbs say that they sometimes feel those missing pieces of themselves, as phantom sensation or the pain of something that isn’t there but should be. i guess seeing someone you once cared about touches that old wound, reminds you of a bond that was once there. and on some level, no matter how “ever tortured” you are, some part of you can’t help but want that back.

these moments are life’s kicks in the balls. the awkwardness, the shock. the oh shit factor of it all. the freezing up and the wondering what the hell to do. and then the pain afterwards, the inevitable ache of a missing limb.

no wonder i’m epic fail at relationships.

but hey, like they said in dedication, no woman loves the truly fucked up guys. so i guess it’s time to make an effort to fix myself. or to find myself a shy illustrator somewhere who is just as damaged as i am. someone who needs to be needed.

which actually brings me to the first of my love poems to an asian women. yes, i know that’s not grammatically correct. it was done on purpose. i’m artsy like that. or a moron, either way.

—————————————————————————————
#1

insomnia
her constant companion
now, in the days after

when she has reconciled
or she tells herself over
and over, again

her body
remembers too well
the missing comfort
of squeezing into sparse space
between arms splayed

being needed.

she slept earlier, then
as if holding together
tenuous miscommunications
enough to tire the heart out
the effort at trust

she wishes him well, she prays
in half sleep, everything
he needed, she didn’t have
her feelings, she examines, paws over
touch till they lose their cutting sharpness
the angles worn, memories fade
dulls the ache, cools
the phantom warmth
lingering

stiffness of dried tears, regrets
maybe even the resentment
like fleeting city air
through the the gap of her window
begging to be filled.

now she waits, till
the sun creeps its fingers
to her windowsill
before she will climb
the few feet, insurmountable
to her bed.
———————————————————

“your pain was my pleasure, your sorrow my joy, i’m afraid i’ve lost you now to pain and good cheer”

one of the most interesting things i’ve gotten out working on this series is the fact that my socialization has made it so that i look at the same emotions much differently than some of the women that have written in to me. it’s actually kind of dope to examine these feelings in a different light.

consider an emotion as a many sided object, a rubix cube of sorts. i’ve only seen one side of it, seeing it from another side brings out a completely revolutionary experience. it’s full of epic win.

BUT i need more, many many more. SO PLEASE SUBMIT MORE EXPERIENCES TO ME.

more poems in the series are forthcoming, i promise.

“i’m more than a handful you’ll see, so kiss me, i’m shitfaced

so. the nyu protests were all over the news and all across the blogosphere.

i was actually there. me being me, i was at the bar before hand, but wanted to come out there, like many folks, to see the drama. and maybe get some free quesadillas.

let’s face it, i’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life for the sake of free entertainment. dating women, going to events posted on the internet, antagonizing people, going to nightclubs. a lot of random experiences and events that have become a large piece of who and what i am. so why not right?

but as luck would have it, i actually ended up hooking up with a crew of street medics and spent my night watching their backs, making sure they had space to work and no one fucked with ‘em. not protester, not counter protester, not bystander.

it would figure that when there were three distinct sides and a shitload of bystanders, i’d have to take up a fourth side, one likely to get my ass into a fight, with no back up in sight. after having left a bar no less.

but all in all, it was a great experience, the street medics were great folks.

on to a discussion of the larger implications of the take back nyu action though. let’s face it, it was a failure. there were hella mistakes made. many blogs have already discussed the various problems with the whole thing.

what i just wanted to briefly talk about was the dopeness of the democratic spirit in action. not just in the protesters themselves, who i thought were a little crazy even if goodhearted, but the counter protesters and the folks just screaming out random shit. democracy is not just about the idiots agreeing with you, it’s about screaming at the idiots who disagree with you as well. it’s the discussion that grows out of diametrically opposed theses. it’s the creation of discursive space. and let’s face it, clashing signs saying things like, “we support tbnyu” and “you suck” and “we want quesadillas” are, to me anyways, a sign of democracy in action.

the ability for those three sides to exist in one space is probably the only positive thing i see coming from the entire fiasco. i actually managed to see people who didn’t agree with each other having semi-rational and fair minded conversations about their politics. that’s dope as hell.

of course, there were hella scuffles. but fuck that shit. the voices battling each other, singing freedom songs against oppositional chants, smells like democracy to me.

i do wish there was a little more entertainment and it wasn’t so fucking cold. but hey. ain’t nothing perfect, i should know that better than most.

“can’t make it alone, i built my dreams around you”

i think i’ll be posting nyc moments from now on, just the things i see day to day that warms my heart and reminds me that i live in the greatest city in the world. new yorkisms. moments that are quintessentially urban, and contribute to the mystique that new york has and always had in my mind. will always have most likely.

today, i saw a father playing football with his son on the sidewalk. all i could think of was that it was such a new york minute, to be playing on the side walk, as people walked by. there’s not that much space, so waddya expect?

i love reading new york’s missed connections on craigslist. there’s so much loneliness, yet hope there, that i become addicted to it. the image of a shot in the dark, a chance at love, the ultimate message in a bottle appeals to the hopeless, broken hearted romantic in me.

the sheer variety in them, everything from hipsters and indie scenesters narcissistic enough to realize that folks who are just like them have a bloody good chance of browsing missed connections, because hey they do it too. forreal forreal, the sheer amount of stuff that comes from the L makes me laugh hella hard. i’m really tempted to do ride the L one of these days, dressed hipstered out, smile tentatively at some girl on the train, write furiously in my tiny notebook and get off at the next stop. i figure that’d earn me a missed connection. yes, i just stole that from xkcd. but hey.

old people making a last ditch effort, the last arrow before their quivers are depleted.

folks cussing folks out anonymously. full of teh lulz.

all sorts on missed connections, and every one of them entertaining. so addicting. now i miss get back to it, in the forlorn hope that i’ll get my own. come on, how many mohawked asian boys are there in this city?

actually that kind of reminds me. i have this crazy thing about love and crushes. let’s face it, i’m obsessed with the concept of love, probably more so than most men. i’m not very good at it, i epic fail at relationships. i’m too much of a fuckup, and i admit it.

sooner or later, i’ll get my shit together on it. but for now, i enjoy it.

i like having crushes. they’re fun. even if they usually lead to nowhere. and even when they do, i usually end up getting bored and restless. i guess the unattainable is so much more fun than the real. i like having this image in my head of an attractive woman in my head, attractive for whatever reason and having the hope that she might be the one. whatever that means.

but it’s all so conceptual. i guess that’s the way it is with me and love and relationships. i’m good at thinking about it, dealing with it on a flirtatious level, but i epic fail at maintaining it. im better at writing about it then actually going through with it. i always say i want a relationship, i want what i see that other people have. those folks who are pretty much married make me jealous. but if i can’t get my shit together on the fact, is it fair for me to pursue something like that? especially for the girl?

i guess that’s love and relationships in the city.

or maybe i’m just immature.

“i’m lucky to have been what i have been, lucky to be coming home again”

more than that, i wanta tell all of you that the chapbook is back on. in lock step with the children’s book i’m working on. i am inundated with work of all sorts these days, but i NEED to get this ish done for the sake of my sanity. especially since i haven’t gotten a chance to go to jits nearly as much i want to. it’s full of epic fail.

my webguy, i36, will be revamping my page a little bit, updating it to make it more efficient, easier to use and spoofier. i’m eventually hoping to get a gallery together where i can post pictures that i take with yall. you’ll notice that the blog is the first page you see when you get to vinh-hua.com, which is the first of the changes.

i will also be bringing more people onto the blog team. while this is my personal website, considering how much i ruminate and touch on all sorts of artistic and philosophical topics, i figured it’d be appropriate for me to bring more people in. and i think the cross pollination of ideas would be good for all of our creativities.

i’ll be announcing acquisitions to the team soon. if you’re interested in joining the team, hit me up.

life is a woman, you should be able to love her with or without her makeup.

I’m at 158 right now… and ideally, i’d want to compete at 139. 17 days, almost twenty lbs, the problem is obvious. i honestly believe that i could do it, cut that much weight…

if i had the time. life is a busy beast. if it weren’t, than i’d call it empty or boring. grind-ful and drama ridden and crazy my life may be, but never empty or boring. so i can’t cut the weight. i’ve decided that for my own good, i’m not even going to attempt it. on some level, with the sheer amount of work i have coming up, between poetry and shows and school, i probably shouldn’t be competing.

but like everyone else, i need something to look forward to. some goal with which to ground myself in the every day and to work towards. some connection to put my head back in the game of living. so it looks like i am going to try and compete on nov 8th. but because i don’t have as much time for training with my horribly busy school and life schedule, not enough time to get into the gym, but hey. such is life. if i compete and do well with my schedule being like that, than i truly deserve to be where i’m at.

along those lines, this is the workout i’m going to try to do at home in mornings and evenings, in addition to going to yoga and training whenever i can. i’m going to try to sweat and workout a little everyday, so that the eventual 10 lb cut to 149 will be an easy, no stress cut. sitting in a sauna all day is not my idea of a good time.

5 gi pullups
10 front pullups
10 back pullups
10 seconds grip switch pullups
20 bicycle crunches
10 hindu pushups
10 hindu squats
30 second leg raise

three sets of that every morning and every evening should allow me to be in better (not good) shape for when tournament time comes in.

along those lines, i’m going to cut carbs, including alcohol and eat cleaner… no more mamoun’s or sweet sweet whiskey. try and eat healthy in general, cut out anything that’s really bad for me… try to go to sleep much earlier, if i can. it’s awkward isn’t it, that i need the spectre of getting my arse kicked to actually get my life a little bit healthier.

which gets me to the last thing i wanted to talk about in this post… how pain and competitiveness and the chance of getting hurt or getting your arse kicked is such a good motivator. it touches something really and truly primal in yourself that grounds you to the present and the real. it pushes you to do more, to reach for things that you normally couldn’t touch because you didn’t have the motivation necessary.

it’s one of the things that allows humans to be more than themselves.

which is why it’s dope.