Posts by Jonathan Gonzalez
When the fear settles in
The fear enters the blood stream — my veins harden at the thought.
The doubt sews and ties the wires up above, but short circuits abound.
Smoke clouds sight.
It’s no wonder it’s called the nervous system.
Too negative. Too destructive. Too worried.
About a state of mind that tends to takeover.
A state I only tell you about,
for others eyes would roll at the suggestion.
About worry itself.
It’s perhaps my greatest fear of all.
About why sitting still is one of life’s impossibilities.
About why silence is often too loud.
Front Row Seat
I wonder what you wonder when you wander off.
Your beautiful mind must see all the colors,
hear all the sounds,
connect them all with the stories you create.
As we circle the tracks,
the warm autumn air trickles and lifts the soft hair from your head.
Each shining strand for every reason I’ve fallen in love.
I look at you while you admire the tunnel of trees – green.
Amazed at the changing colors – yellow.
Listening to all the sounds – choo choo, click clack.
They’re all here for you, as I am, and you are for me.
Son, you are my universe and I am grateful to be in your orbit.
I circle you as we circle round this place, this day, this life.
You were first in line, as always.
The blue torn bench behind the engineer,
but no matter wherever this train goes, fast or slow,
I’m the one who gets to have the front row seat.
Lose Our Way
It felt like the days melted together,
like the way the fire burned through people’s lives.
Like broken hearts forced to connect,
bonded by the will to survive.
Dizzy, I leave a week that felt like a month.
I question why we are surrounded by luck when others are crushed by despair.
The air so thick, it makes it hard to breathe.
A night darkened by evil makes it hard to see.
Where can we even go from here?
What’s the point of moving on?
Some questions never find their answers
no matter how much time moves along.
A clock is a funny way to tell time because it’s always the same.
But sometimes time moves slow, turning hours into days.
Sometimes time moves fast, reminding us not to lose our way.
Firefly
I sit on the edge of a dark pier,
past the point of where the waves break,
the force shaking the pillars more and more each time.
Each bulb is a firefly in the sky,
twinkling just enough to remind me of why.
Why we do what we do, and who we do them for.
The clear night stars only matched by the lightning storm in the distance,
brightening the earth’s edge for just a moment,
fast enough you can’t blink.
Slow enough to remember.
I’ve never seen anything like this night sky contradiction,
and I’m sure I won’t again soon,
but this may be as close to heaven on Earth as I can imagine,
and I’m privileged to call this place some distant home.
Where my grandfather was given life,
not far from where my grandmother was given hers,
on the night before I finally see where my father was given his to understand how mine was given to me.
What a life. What a sight. What a storm.
All Our Own
Two kids in a wild world that was all our own.
A world shaped by musical notes and a curiosity.
A place where love could sleep still, above the trees.
We were always covered, even on the wildest of days.
We didn’t know any better, and we didn’t care to.
Our way was the only way.
I still see us through rose-colored lenses, serene and blooming.
And on any day less than immaculate, I know we’ll wipe away the fog.
Our home has become wherever we are, all our own.
A Year Ender to Remember
Who knew a heart so small could be so big.
Who knew a tiny smile could laugh so loudly.
You are a warmth I had never felt until you arrived in slumber
and we shielded you from rain.
You are a spirit I always feel, I always hear, I always see.
You are surprise in something we already knew was coming.
You are a light that’s always on.
But when you close your eyes, I hope you know.
We had never known something so pure before you.
You make us want more.
365 days a year and yet it took just one to change the rest of ours.
I never knew a such a little boy could warm a cold man’s heart.
But this year knew.
And it was worth the wait.
I knew it then
I knew it then, all that we were capable of.
Holding a love gently in our hearts,
I knew it when less was said and more was done.
A home to come home to,
a brimming smile on a bright-eyed boy,
some strings of lights, a casual conversation.
This, I knew, would always come.
I think back to the moves.
A thousand miles for a thousand days of what would become our sweetest era.
That was our time.
But now, too often, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.
And I don’t know who to thank
for the calming peace that flows through me.
And then I realize, I must thank you.
If I never live another day,
it’ll have never been about the joyous job or humble home.
For you are my life’s purpose,
your love my grandest gift,
our love my greatest honor,
and all who come with it.
Never a doubt
A heart this full never yearns for something new,
only more of what it already has.
But a heart this full knows no greed,
it knows to love all it has.
Take it from a man who pleads for peace,
but a man who can find himself lost on chaotic roads.
I fought my way through enough dark corners to know illumination is my destined path.
I smile with lips, but my mindset is ethereal,
trapped by the sight of your glimmering eyelashes looking up at me.
Your cheery grin is reflected in your bright eyes.
My heart never looks for a way out.
Instead, it rests knowing all that I possess.
And for these mere moments, I want nothing more,
I need nothing more than what I see.
For I am a witness to my own dreams,
coming true right in front of me.
The First Day
Sure, the backpack smelled of freshly minted polyester.
Its pockets precisely organized with pens and newly sharpened pencils.
The notebooks full of blank pages full of potential.
The clothes, the shoes, the hair — the cleanest they would be all year.
I hated the first day of school.
The backpack overpriced and waiting for the first of many rips.
The pens find a way into an abyss, while the pencils become as dull as the classes.
Pages of a notebook become filled with only drawings.
Pant cuffs torn, shoes scuffed, hair unwieldy after the longest first week of your life.
Never did I feel more nervous to learn of my new instructors, the classrooms I couldn’t find,
the awkward lunch table because of the friends I left behind last year.
Last year was always easier, except for the first day.
Always anything but normal.
A terrible indicator of how the year would play out,
but you’re never quite sure until it does.
Instead, you finish the longest day of your life, another year in a row.
But you quickly realize it’s because it’s the first time on this road,
and each day after shrinks in time,
as does the anxiety that prevails on the first day.
The first day, I hated the the first day.
But it was just one day, every first day.
Well, son, you’ve found it
I brush my stubbly cheek against your soft face,
and yet you don’t push away.
Instead you push your head into the softest part of my neck,
looking for a safe place.
Well, son, you’ve found it,
much like you found your way into the softest part of my heart.
I spend my mornings waiting for a glimpse
of your sweet laugh,
your newest sound,
your latest move.
I wonder what you wonder as you stare into our eyes
gazing back at you.
What we see is our proof of any good in the world.
Proof that any sense of joy we had prior to your arrival
could be maximized infinitely.
Could you even know the immensity of our adoration?
Maybe not.
Maybe never.
But if anyone could, it’d be you.