These teenagers protested in the face of terror with no concern for their own wellbeing, and a willingness to give their lives away. Many did. Out of the 120 that were imprisoned, all but 14 were executed. For two years, the prisoners would be woken up before the break of dawn by the sound of a rolling humvee. A soldier would get out of the truck, open a crack in the cell door and read a list of names. If your name was called, it meant your clock had run out.

Apparently everyone faced death differently. Some were solemn, some would clear their throats and give a final speech, others would sing songs of the revolution. My dad doesn’t remember a single person crying or resisting their end. They were true revolutionaries, bonded together through the release of their lives.

A story I won’t forget was about a woman named Genet. She was no older than 25, and the morning her name was called, she used the moment as a rally cry. Her voice shook the prison walls.

I’m not dying for a crime that I committed. I’m not dying because I hurt someone or because I am a thief. I am dying because I chose to fight for a free Ethiopia. I am dying because I believe what is happening is wrong and I will not be silent. The movement will not die even when I die. Remember me. Keep fighting. Don’t quit.

When I think about freedom these days, I find myself going back to the story of Genet. The irony is real—how can my reference for freedom be someone who spent her last months in a prison? Her daily routine was defined and monitored by guards. Every meal she ate, her time outdoors, sleeping and waking, it was all imposed on her. Even death—I mean none of us choose our last day—but hers was decided by her oppressor. Guards went down the list of names that morning and for whatever reason, chose her. This doesn’t seem like an environment that cultivates freedom, but it’s clear she had it—to an extent that few people ever access.

The contrast between the freedom she carried within her and the captivity she lived in on the outside is obvious. Even the person in control of every aspect of her life had no control of her spirit. She had the kind of freedom that survives anything, we know this because it literally survived both prison and death. This is the freedom Nina Simone succinctly described: one with no fear.

This isn’t the freedom I longed for as a kid, not wanting to follow the rules someone else was imposing on me. This isn’t even financial freedom, which means you are in engugh control of your finances to make whatever purchase you want. Genet’s freedom is a bit deeper. It isn’t just being on the right side of the cell, it’s being unable to be confined to any cell at all.

This kind of liberty is only found by someone who chooses to completely tether themself to something. It’s an oak tree with root systems so committed to her home, when hurricanes show up they can’t move her. The decision is made once the seed is first planted, and for hundreds of years after that, the tree lives with the freedom of someone with an unshakeable home.

Freedom is not having so much money you don’t look at price tags, it’s about not being pulled in by the ad in the first place. In the world of consumerism, freedom belongs to the one who wants the possessions they already have, so they don’t feel the need to look over the fence.

Freedom is owning your suffering. It’s a secret that has survived prisons, grief, and diagnoses. The secret that whispers in the ears of those who faced lashings and death threats, reminding them no human can touch their spirit. It belongs to people without a dollar to their name, but some billionaires cannot afford it.

It is the quiet soul, who is not pulled by animalistic instincts and not made rigid by robotic rule systems. It is the man who sells everything he owns (with joy) to purchase a field, because there is a great treasure in it.

Freedom does not belong to the rich and powerful, the people who appear to have the most control. Freedom is being able to give your life away. It is the ultimate release: unclenched fists. Freedom belongs to the person whose spirit can’t be bought and can’t be restrained. Who sings their song whether the crowd cheers or boos.

Nothing in this life is truly guaranteed, but when I remember Genet’s story, I am reminded that the things that matter are attainable. There is no promise that you will live a long life, there is no guarantee that all your dreams will come true—but in the meantime, there is the possibility to actually live free.

I hope you experience financial freedom. I hope you experience spiritual freedom. But above all of that, I hope you experience a freedom so true it enables you to give your life away. I hope you find Genet’s freedom.

—JG

“Music, like time, is measured but immeasurable, is composed but indivisible” —Kierkegaard

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” —Nietzsche

Life is short and there will always be dirty dishes, so let’s dance.” —James Howe

One of the blessings of having older siblings is being put on. When they have good taste it means you are gifted with cultural hand me downs, especially when it comes to music. My first iPod arrived after my sister’s first laptop so she already had a (pre-streaming) iTunes account filled with gold. All I had to do was plug the iPod in, press sync, and what was hers became mine. I knew the best way to show gratitude was by not ‘being annoying,’ so I accepted all the albums she already had without complaining or asking to add any of my own. I trust fell into her taste.

Thankfully I was in good hands. This humble exchange introduced me to artists like Amy Winehouse, Lauryn Hill, Tupac, Biggie, The Weeknd (before he was on the radio), the list goes on. My whole world changed. I would walk to school every morning, beaming. My new music turned those walks into transcendent experiences; a very normal commute became the kind of thing movies or music videos are made of.

I even started counting in songs. Since I was always listening to music (and always running late) I decided to start keeping track of the number of songs that played instead of checking the time. When the alarm clock woke me up, I needed to be out of the house in no more than ten songs. Showers had a three song maximum. My mornings became a moment of opportunity. I’d set the queue diligently, knowing there were only so many songs until the school day started and I had to take the headphones out. Time and music slowly started weaving together until the two became inseparable in my mind.

It isn’t that crazy of a connection. Music and time share so many traits that it’s hard not to at least treat them as relatives. They are both outside of our control, fleeting, unable to be grasped in a single moment. They come and go in these infinitely small pieces that slip through our palms. The difference is mostly perception. When time slips away we describe it as “wasted,” or “lost.” We commodify it, assuming the best way to honor time is by filling it with productive activity. We operate with a high grade anxiety about time running out. We want all the benefits of growing old while being terrified of aging. Day dreaming about time travel and hiding our wrinkles, we reach for control over time but it’s always too elusive. We have the longest life expectancy in the history of the world and still it never feels like we have long enough—we are set up to lose.

With music—the whole point is its passing; the next note can only come after the previous note leaves. The beauty of a song is the gradual experience and loss of each moment. We experience music’s beauty because it slips away. We dance to align our physical bodies with the music as it’s happening in real time. Unlike a painting that reveals itself more and more the longer we wait, when a song plays it escapes as it’s given to us; being present in the given moment is the only way to truly experience it. Simply put: we don’t listen to music to get to the end of the song. We listen to music to dance.

Control isn’t the solution to our anxiety about time. The ability to slow time down, or jump back and forth isn’t a key to the prison. We already have that same control over music: the ability to carefully choose playlists, to pause or fast forward and skip whenever we want, but all that stuff is still secondary. The peak experience is when you find yourself dancing, not constantly pressing skip or fast forward to songs as they play.

There’s this universal experience of being at a school dance where all the boys and girls are glued to opposite walls while the music plays. Everyone wants to dance, but everyone is too afraid of looking foolish. The room is full of people who got ready at home with every intention of dancing, but instead they all just stand there waiting.

There is a solution for these kids who know deep down what they want but feel frozen. It’s the same solution offered to anyone who is being tempted to shed their humanness in any way, whether it’s by fear or a busy schedule. It isn’t to control the moment but to enter the moment—to risk looking stupid and dancing.

When I counted time in songs, the music turned passing time into something beautiful. When caught up in that kind of beauty, the most natural human response is to dance, sometimes before we even realize it’s happening. But other times we forget our humanity and reach for control instead. In those moments we must listen to the quiet voice that lies deep inside our bodies, the voice of an inner child/prophet/maniac that gives the same invitation whenever music plays:

don’t forget to dance.

—JG

Superheroes don’t exist anymore
	there is nobody left to come save you
	nobody is willing to belong to the people
	if it means rejection from who you give yourself away to

	there’s no one wearing a suit and cape
	all are too afraid to stand out
	there’s no one wearing a mask while they do good deeds
	everyone needs to be seen and hopes to get clout

Superheroes don’t exist anymore
	we are left with so-called leaders instead
	who care more about the power at their disposal
	than making sure the people are led

	who care more about gaining the constituents’ votes than their freedom
	and more about their own wealth than anyone else’s dream
	who are quick to send soldiers to fight wars
	that they’ll watch from the other side of a screen

Superheroes don’t exist anymore
	they used to be the people’s hope
	humans who became symbols
	stories that only children could hold

	the idea that in every one of us 
	is a grain of greatness waiting to be unleashed
	and that any person you pass on the street
	could live a double life that’s keeping you free

Superheroes don’t exist anymore
	maybe they never did
	or maybe there have only ever been few

	but in a world with pain that is impossible to believe
	it’s not too crazy to imagine what a superhero would do

—JG

It’s not that I haven’t been intentional about setting aside time to write, or that I’ve stopped trying to grow in writing as a skill—that stuff has all been fine. It’s deeper than the superficial elements.

I haven’t been telling secrets.

It hit me when talking to a friend last week. He asked how often I write to process difficult emotions, and before the “of course, all the time” could make it out, I stopped myself. I realized that wasn’t actually true anymore.

Even though I’ve been writing about things that are meaningful to me—they’ve been missing something. They haven’t had the same level of turmoil or angst… they haven’t had secrets. It’s been a while since I picked up a pen to process something that was weighing on me in real time. Instead I’ve been slowly filtering things out as if there were some internal PR rep in my mind.

I started writing poetry because it felt like the only way to interact with the most overwhelming parts of my life. I didn’t sit down one day and chose to write a poem. I just took the weight of the questions clouding my mind and hoped by getting it on paper, it would get out of my head. It wasn’t too different from using a piece of paper to solve a complicated math problem instead of trying to solve it internally. I didn’t even know that those first poems I wrote were even poems. All I knew was that it worked.

It became a place to run to in times of chaos. A place where I could explore what felt unexplorable and say what felt unsayable. I wasn’t trying to become a writer or a poet (that evolved as my love and understanding for poetry evolved), but I was looking for something—relief. Those early poems didn’t give me a sense of purpose or accomplishment, they gave me hope. They taught me that the exact things that erode away at your insides and overwhelm you with anxiety, are the exact things that you have the unique ability to turn into something beautiful. Not through explanation or deciphering, but by simply saying it the way you see it.

One of the popular AA sayings is: “you are only as sick as your secrets.” Which is to say: you erode at the pace of the secrets inside of you. Secrets have to go somewhere, and without a blank page to spill them onto (or maybe a friend) they can creep around and occupy prime real estate in your mind.

When I talk about secrets I simply mean hidden truths. There are two groups: 1) the ones you keep from the world and 2) the ones the world keeps from you.

The secrets you keep from the world are the obvious ones:

That hidden vice nobody knows about.

The dm you had no business sending.

The time you froze in a moment of crisis and played it cool.

But then there are the secrets the world keeps from you:

Will I ever really fall in love?

What happens when we die?

Why do humans laugh?

We have to do something with these secrets. They have to go somewhere. Some people will be quick to brush them away, but we all know how poorly untold secrets age. A lot of guilt and shame is a burden that comes from our untold secrets. A lot of fear and anxiety is a burden that comes from the secrets we wish were told to us.

When I first started writing, I didn’t want anyone to read what I wrote. Not because I was scared of what anyone would think (at least that’s what I told myself) but because I had no reason to. Writing—in some way I don’t understand—captured the essence of the secrets that weighed on me, until they no longer lived in my mind but on the page. I didn’t need to bring other people into that because the process of writing itself was the gift.

When I started sharing more poems publicly, something began to change—and it happened at my desk. Slowly and quietly, I stopped being the only person there. The hypothetical crowd crept into the room and would peek over my shoulder, leaving comments on every line. That’s boring, no one cares about that. Oh that is really good. Yeah that’s the line right there. Oooh I’m not sure about that one, you sure you’re ready to let the whole world know that part of you?

It’s the nature of doing things that are seen, there is a new input: the crowd. And once you know you’re being watched, it can completely steal your focus. It’s why standing on a stage makes you forget what to do with your hands or makes you overthink your posture. The experience of being perceived is enough to take your focus away from what you’re doing and towards the people watching you do it. For me, it almost had me forget the whole purpose of writing.

A few years ago, I was in London about to perform at a poetry event. I wrote one of the poems while processing the death of a friend. Sitting in that chair had me lowkey spiraling. All I could think about was how wrong it felt to publicly share about him. You know the kind of thoughts. You have no business sharing this. You’re profiting off someone else’s death. He’s not even here to defend himself. Are you trying to prove something?

There were secrets underneath these fears: I missed a call from Ben a few months before he died. I saw the missed call a couple of minutes too late and forgot to hit him back. A month later I couldn’t get a hold of him and two months after that my sister sat me down to tell me that he was gone. My journal read:

The worst part of an overdose is knowing you were victim of your own hand

I wish you would’ve left a note

I wish you would’ve said that it wasn’t my fault

And there is nothing I could have done

Those lines were my way of telling a secret, of describing a hidden truth. I knew it wasn’t literally my fault, but it wasn’t that simple. There was more I could’ve done, at minimum I could’ve answered the phone and we’ll never know what would’ve changed.

Instead, his remains sat at Queens Park Cemetery and my remains sat in a chair in East London, with a poem in my pocket that claimed to honour his story, and a pit in my stomach from feeling like I was profiting off of a death I should’ve done more to prevent.

Not out of any sort of conviction or defiance, but just because it was the poem I was ready to share—I shared. It went well and there was applause, but the real lesson came later.

Four separate people came to me that night with similar stories of loved ones who died from overdoses. One girl specifically shared how my poem made her realize that she hasn’t allowed herself to truly grieve the overdose of her younger brother. The secret that I told that night liberated me, and also seemed to liberate others who were holding onto similar secrets.

Ben’s story coloured my world with secrets. There were the secrets I was holding onto about my personal guilt and also the bigger secrets that fueled my survivor’s guilt. The missed call. The reason any teenager has to fight a battle with addiction other people never have to. The questioning of where he is now. Poetry allowed these secrets to not only live in my mind but on a page. Sharing my poetry with that room allowed for them to uncover mutual secrets, leading to a form of mutual healing. It didn’t result in answers but it did provide some relief.

I don’t know if secrets ever lose the feeling of discomfort they come with. All I know is that we are all better off when we are willing to tell secrets. As we relieve secrets of their home in the mind and allow them to live elsewhere, we make room in our mind for other things. It’s a choice: live in a world where secrets grow inward, eroding away at your sense of self and humanity; or pick up a pen, book a therapy appointment, or call a loved one—and tell a secret.

—JG

having a phone was supposed to 
bring the world to my fingertips
instead it hid the world behind a screen

a beach vacation used to smell like the beach
It felt like sand and
sounded like laughing children and 
crashing waves
all framed by the glow that comes 
when the sun bounces 
off water and fills your eyes 
until you squint

now it looks like a photo dump
sounds like a curated song
and smells like nothing
it’s not true that the phone
brought the world to my fingertips
the worlds inside of me
and outside of me
have never been far away

the difference is now
they are only at my fingertips
when my phone isn’t

—JG

They share in the nature of God by becoming a companion of the unpredictable, and in return they are gifted with rings.

On every birthday. Glorious markings of what they’ve been brought through. Like tattoos on your insides, murals of braille. Every brushstroke from the hand of time himself.

There are some who seek youth forever, hiding every wrinkle and concealing the effects of growing old. Wanting to forget that they have survived, that every year is something earned.

I’m familiar enough with the pattern of oak trees to know my father has earned some rings, but usually you don’t see those until the tree comes down. You just trust that the one who made you is the one who forms you and you yield to time.

You let the artist do their work unbothered because it’ll all be revealed one day.

And that pattern is how my father’s son ended up with visions that were eerily similar to his old dreams.

But my father—like oak trees—has been given another gift.

You see oak trees have bark that starts off smooth and thin. As the tree grows, its bark grows thick and furrowed, literally growing so strong that it wrinkles. And the furrowed bark cries out to any onlooker: Can you see? Do you hear?

My father—like oak trees—remembers the bark of his youth, but it’s been shed. It needed to be. There would have been no other way for him to get here.

And today he stands. Tethered to the soil. Unshakeable. With rings as trophies awaiting him in heaven, and smile wrinkles and weathered skin awaiting him on earth. Not as a blemish or byproduct of aging, but like the oak tree, a mark of endurance and survival.

In medieval royal tradition you would hear subjects chanting: Long live the king, declaring that their king’s reign or legacy would endure.

Some mornings I hear the trees cry out:

Long live the fathers
May their bark grow furrowed and strong
And may they receive their trophies with grace

Happy Father’s Day y’all.

—JG

You are not the endless inner monologue
The string of derailing ideas

You are not your thoughts
You can’t be reduced to a run on sentence  
Or words at all

You are the skin clothed day dream of your ancestors
A blossoming emergence on your family tree

You are a time traveler
A voyager of memory
Who can instantly teleport to childhood moments through a scent

You are the primary spectator to this life you live
And the person living it

You are the overthinker
And the one listening

You are the mind that slowly quiets to rest
And the deep breaths that lead it there

You are a science experiment
The weaving together of actions and reactions

You are a story written by unsayable words
A song composed by unplayable notes

You are the confrontation
Between free will and generations of biology

You are one of those humans
A carrier of the magic that has created and destroyed this world

You are bursting with potential 
To do both extraordinary and common things

You can't be reduced
To a resume
Or photograph
Or name

You are reading this
While breathing and heart beating and blinking and mind racing

The mystery of a living being
Inhabiting the mystery of the time we call today

Tomorrow you will be brand new
And yet you will be completely the same

—JG

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.

- Rainer Marie Rilke

Jackson Square Park felt like the right pit stop. I had just picked up a couple of books from a store around the corner and the jazz music being played was doing just enough to convince me to post up for a little bit. I was having a nice lil vibe in the tiny park—when the older white man that was sweeping the leaves started looking at the book in my hands.

I’ve always found those old people so interesting. The ones who sweep leaves in public parks, or pull weeds, or feed pigeons—does it come with age or is there a generational gap thing going on too? I can’t imagine any of my homies sweeping a public park in their 70s. I know some great guys, I just can’t picture it.

After pulling out a couple of the small talk classics, he started asking about the books I had with me. I could tell this dude knew his stuff immediately. He smiled when he saw James Baldwin’s name on one of the covers—he said he would hang out on Christopher Street in the 80s, at a diner just a five minute walk away, back ‘when the west village was the west village.’

I felt my opportunity to glean some tenured wisdom and started slowly asking him all the questions I could think of on politics and education. What did you think growing up in the city? What do you wish you knew back then? Do you believe there is hope for positive social change in a culture like ours?

He was generous with the conversation and told me stories of being young in New York, watching tyrants rise and fall, watching artists make it big, and revolutionaries give their youth to causes they thought worthwhile.

Then he hit me with this: “You know there’s no way for us to know those answers, right? We’re too close. Archaeologists dig up thousand year old cutlery and identify the eating patterns of ancient people groups by the direction of the slashes. Most of the important answers can’t be found while you’re living them. You’ll need distance. I can only speak with any confident reflection on things that happened thirty years ago.” And he got back to sweeping.

The most inescapable question is the one most unanswerable. The answer might be the furthest one away. Not the kind of further that we can run/ climb/ fight our way to, but further on the other side of a barrier, a locked door, a passage of time.

He came back to encourage me to do a better job utilizing the library instead of buying physical books (which I’ve been keeping my promise on). I sat in the park and kept reading. He kept sweeping.

Uncertainty is a promise as we move forward, in the context of a world that keeps changing as we change. I’m not sure why that uncertainty feels as out of place as it does, but I know avoiding it doesn’t change its reality. We don’t have all the answers. We don’t know if we are doing enough today for tomorrow because we don’t know what tomorrow will hold. All bets are off. Nobody gets to play God.

Which means nobody has to.

Which means there isn’t much more needed than what I heard in that park: “We can’t know it all yet, we’re too close.”

The best we can offer is the best we have, and leave the archaeologists something interesting to dig up.

—JG

somewhat more than I used to
but with a lot less words than I used to
I think less of myself 
and more 
of the wind in the spring
and how you see it
only because it makes the leaves move

I pray 
with less confidence in what I say
or how it's arranged
I've learned I deserve 
more of the guilt and shame
But somehow 
I now have less of both to claim

I have fewer answers 
for the same questions that keep me up at night
but more sleep
less hills that I’m willing to die on
and more peace
less clinging for control 
and a little more release

I still pray
but now I’m thankful 
for every trial and every lesson
I no longer think 
everything that shines is a blessing
or every pretty face that smiles 
won’t bring you testing

I still pray
I just have less 
on my list 
of things to ask for
and more gratitude
I can’t prove anyone hears these prayers 
but I’ve stopped trying to 

I still pray
play my guitar 
or grab my pen
close my eyes 
and say
Heavenly Father 
it's me again

—JG

Some people don’t flinch at a sentence like that. It makes sense. Of course you could live in New York and of course your parents could fly out to visit. It’s just another logical step in life. At first glance you could miss how completely unbelievable it all is.

A couple came into the elevator on our way down to the hotel lobby and smiled—but they had no idea who they were looking at. My parents clean up nice, and we looked like we belong in the elevator of this boujee hotel.

But we shouldn’t be here. In the hotel, in New York… alive. It doesn’t really make any sense.

My dad was a part of a student protest movement in Jimma, a small town in Ethiopia, at the age of 16. He spent two years locked up with 120 other students and teachers, and he was one of only 14 that were released—all the rest were executed over the course of 24 months. I grew up hearing stories about the 3am wake ups to the sound of a fluttering humvee. How the guards would show up and read from a list of names and how the moment you heard your name spoken, your life ended. I grew up hearing about the growing dread for life, how what started as rows of cells all crowded with zealous revolutionaries ended with a single room of tired kids awaiting their death. He was released at 18 years old, unlike so many of his friends—alive—but the scent of death stained his being.

I have no idea what hope would’ve looked like to that 18 year old version of my dad— the rugged revolutionary who watched his closest friends die and walked out of that prison with nothing but the clothes on his back and a heavy dose of survivor’s guilt.

Maybe meeting my mom would have felt like the ceiling. Maybe the beauty of falling in love and finding someone to live for resuscitated his imagination. I wonder where his wildest dreams would take him. Stretched to their furthest margin, would they let him consider having grandchildren one day? Would they allow the idea of spending a week in New York City to come to mind? It’s hard to believe—even when the baton was passed to me decades later, I didn’t have room in my own dreams for a life in New York.

My dreams were never just mine though. They were hand me downs in some sense. Ideas that lived in seed form in the heart of a high school student that expected to die in prison. Isn’t that what it means to belong to a family or a community? Being a person who does not just exist in isolation, but in the context of the people you belong to and their stories. When you enter the world it’s already in motion. Events that will fundamentally shape you happened before you were born. It’s inevitable to be formed by stories that aren’t yours.

I’ve only been to Jimma once but its stories are constantly with me. The prison guards that released my Dad released me. As unfair as it feels to claim, his story belongs to me in a way. His survivors guilt colors my world. I borrow his discomfort in the elevators of fancy hotels, because I know that I was never meant to be there. Even though I’ve never seen the inside of that prison, I know more than just ideas about it. It is the context that shapes my world. It’s the difference between me and a fifth generation New Yorker who expected nothing less than the Ivy League.

Being a diaspora kid means you live in between worlds. The world in your home and the world outside your home. The world your parents immigrated from and the world they immigrated to. Especially when a majority of your life is lived in a different world than the one of the stories you inherited. But there are moments when you get reminded of all the important things that happened before you entered the world, all the reasons the baton found you where it did, all the different puzzle moments that had to fit together to make you the person that you are,

and how they all collide beautifully in this elevator.

—JG

I hope you have a good day
and not the kind of good day
where you get a promotion
or fall in love.
I’m sure someone else will wish you
one of those.
I hope you have a day
that seems normal—
where you go for a walk,
maybe argue with your parents,
or complain about train delays.
I hope you have one of those good days
that you don’t even notice
once it ends.
A day you forget tomorrow
and don’t think about for years.
And maybe in a couple of decades,
when your body doesn’t move like it used to,
and all the same people aren’t around—
you see a picture from today
and remember all the beauty in your life
that you forgot to see the first time around.
And maybe you reflect on all the days you got to experience
that were so normal and so filled with life—
just like today.

—JG

There is a man inside me that wants me to cling to the little control I have, and avoid decisions that come at a cost. I’m not going to listen to him though.

one step

the best part about taking risks 
is being

one step further
from the crowd of casual observers
one step 
from the version of yourself more concerned with preservation than life
one step 
out of the range of perfectionism's call

you could fail
you could fall on your face
proving all of the critics 
(including yourself) 
right

but the dirt on your jersey
would make it impossible to confuse you for a spectator

no, you couldn't be mistaken
for another opinionated critic
or the driver of a half hearted existence

you'd be one step too close
to our heroes

—JG

what time were you born
this morning
when the curtains of your
eyelids were drawn back
for the first time
in this new country
called today
how much of your old life
came with you
did it break skin
when it tried
hooking teeth into your arm
I know that happens sometimes
the biting
the attempt to
follow you through
the night’s resurrection
you know 
the teeth marks were yours right
don’t forget to disinfect the wound
and tonight try following the sun
into her gentler sleep
where yesterday fades into screaming shades of red
and tomorrow is welcomed
by light

There’s nowhere to put the snow.
It piles up on street corners 
and car windows—
a weighted blanket pinning down restless cities that won’t sleep.
Your umbrella can’t help you.
Your boots won’t protect you.

Each snowflake is deployed as a warrior.
Baptized into its roller coaster ride 
with gravity—
formed into its infamous uniqueness 
by this free fall.
The blizzard is an all out attack,
an air strike of crystalline soldiers.
The snow dances through the skies,
blinding us on the way down.
Absorbing our exhaust fume pollution,
and clothing our cities with rest.

Some places grab shovels in an attempt
to clear streets and bike lanes,
but those piles always take longer to melt.
There are no shortcuts—
the snow is faithful until it brings
its good work to completion.

There is nowhere to put the snow.
The experts scramble
and car owners get stressed.
The building managers start snow plows
and government officials meet with press.

But without fail
and with no delay

whenever it snows 
the children play.

—JG

"Do you think humans will ever fly?"

Imagine the nerve.
After the Wright brothers,
and Space X,
and moon landings(?)
Ungrateful if you ask me.
Or at least archaic.
Like those ancient prophets
that never seemed satisfied.
"Do more."
"Make God prouder."
"Fly better." Well,
I guess we could always fly better.
Being on planes never feels like
real flying.
I don't know who taught me,
but I know how real flying
feels—and it doesn't come with
a washroom and snacks for purchase.
Real flying feels like a dream.
Like medicine balls in your stomach
throwing off your center of gravity
and poetry infused wind blasting 
scales off your eyes.

Do you think we'll ever fly again?

When I asked if you believed in god, 
what I meant was:

Who does your mind run to when it races?

Who carries the weight of your unspoken questions? 
Or desires?

I wasn’t asking if you know any of the Bible,
I was asking if the Bible knows you.

The one on your nightstand,
Does it recognize the texture of your skin?

Does it have pages that have bent and stretched under your tears?

Has its spine cracked 
while it contorted to feed you?

I wasn’t asking for your stance on abortion,
Or caring for the poor,
Or if you think prayer works.

I was asking if your pockets know the emptying that comes with generosity,

If your face knows tears that were shed on someone else’s behalf.
The ones that get pulled down by gravity in single file
with no space or time to dry.

With all due respect,
I know you’re used to saying what you believe,

But what moves you?

What melodies cause you to sing before you are aware enough to stop yourself?
What music gets your feet tapping?

Where do you end up when you sleepwalk?

When your instincts take you,
before the rational mind gets involved.

What do you know of Peace?
Or Joy?

Is it just your mind that knows it?

Has Joy found its way to your smile before?
Does she ever make you dance?

Has Peace kissed your forehead?
Or showed up in your nervous system?

Sometimes I wonder if the actors are better off. 
At least they know the difference between reading lines and getting into character. 
They know the script doesn’t come alive when your mind knows what to say, 
but when your body wears the story, 
and the audience can smell it.

What character do you smell like?
What script do you bring to life?

When I asked if you believed in god, 
what I meant was:

What God do you know,
And how much of you knows him?

Have your beliefs remained thoughts?
Ideas that float in the air,
or have they clothed you?
Have they found a living home in your body?

Does your god live in your head,
or does he ever occupy your hands or feet?

Do your mind and body belong to the same church?

When I asked if you believed in god,
what I meant was:

What God do you know?
And how much of you knows him?

All your opinions are so well formed—you have no questions or friends to ask.

You’ve hiked up an impressive trail—with no memory of the view.

Some say you never fail—doesn’t seem like that’s the truth.

If you spent your whole life studying laughter, you might end up knowing less about it than when you began.

Knowledge puffs you all the way up, deflating joy to keep room for “important plans.”

It’s supposed to be fun. This whole thing!

(Not all the time and not always in the feeling.)

But even in war zones, some wounds need laughter more than bandages for healing.

Your laughter has been your song since the beginning.

The tune that came without a teacher.

The song that traded wings for work boots,

Until you eventually forgot how to reach her.

You have all the followers, all the fame, all the beauty, none of the shame.

You’ve seen your wealth double and your troubles cut in half.

I don’t think it was a worthwhile trade,

Since the cost was your laugh.

—JG

They played music on the titanic as it went down
The unsinkable ship was sinking, and the band kept playing

The chaos of their last moments was decorated by song

And when chaos comes for us
I hope he finds us doing what living people do

How else should we live?

He might show up tomorrow
But let's make him wait his turn

We can do the laundry
We can go for a walk

Dance
And fall in love 

And like the men on that ship

We can decorate the time with our songs
We can play music while we wait

And do what living people do

“If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.” - CS Lewis

—JG

Times Square is always bursting with light and sound, but New Year’s Eve goes to an extent that makes the world pay attention. I mean, a million people. That’s no joke. Even Times Square needs an inhale after a night like that.

It’s not that it was empty or quiet. It was the dusty, day-old confetti on the ground. It was the tourists who didn’t have the usual spark in their eyes. It was the ground still recovering from carrying a year’s worth of celebration and hope, compounded over a million people. (Did I say there were a million people?)

I can’t imagine New York without Times Square. Not that I like hanging out there—I just can’t help but remember that feeling when I saw it for the first time—feeling like a child—like I forgot how to walk or speak or something. Every day, the people who make it so crowded and touristy could be having that same experience. Whether it gets old or annoying or whatever, that should mean something.

I think that’s what made today feel so weird. Times Square is usually impressive to a lot of people, but NYE takes it to the next level and grabs the world’s attention. The morning after looked like a hangover—the one day a year that Times Square feels small. We all have our limits, and maybe places aren’t any different.

It’s so easy to boil things down to their function. A chair is as good as the weight it holds. A car is as good as the distance it takes you. A tourist attraction is as good as the number of people it impresses. But there’s more to it. Times Square might not be as impressive to me now as it once was, but it doesn’t need to be. Now it serves a new purpose: it’s a core landmark in the city I call home.

I haven’t been on a billboard, or done anything to make Times Square notice me, but in a weird way I’m growing to understand this place more. It has meaning to me, not because it’s impressive or loud or bright, but because it’s Times Square.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: thank you for your personhood. Your “you-ness.” The parts of you that are there on your biggest nights, and the mornings after.

Times Square looked impressive to a lot of people on their tv’s last night, but this morning it just looked like Times Square to me. I’m grateful it did. And I’m grateful you are you.

Happy New Year fam,

—JG

They were using a lot of the classic “heaven is a perfect place” language, but it sounded like too perfect a place—no room for questions or struggles or anything else that could be deemed “inconvenient”.

It reminded me of a meditative exercise I do every once in a while. It goes something like this:

I start by taking a deep breath.

I imagine a future version of myself.

He has no questions, no confusion. He understands everything. He has a full grasp of the meaning of life and death (and everything in between). He is married to a woman who is perfect. They get along perfectly and always understand exactly what the other is thinking. They communicate telepathically, but they still speak every once in a while (mostly so the people around them can see how perfect they are together).

They have children who are perfectly obedient—they are completely self sufficient—they cook for themselves, clean for themselves, fill out their own paperwork and sign up for their own extracurricular activities. At the same time, they call both parents every day and never have any disagreements. They don’t make mistakes, so they never get disciplined, but hypothetically, they would receive discipline with no complaints and never repeat the same mistake twice.

He still lives in New York but his apartment is bigger and in a fancier neighborhood with a better view and 1/3 of the rent. (Everyone else still pays regular rent to make it extra impressive.)

His prayer life thrives. Every time he closes his eyes, an angel shows up and hands him a script to recite word for word. God speaks to him with an auditory voice and perfect annunciation every time. If he ever had any questions (he doesn’t), he would get answers immediately. Since he never has questions, prayer serves as more of an ego validator than anything spiritual. (The relational capital is good to have with someone who has so much pull.)

He has way more money than he needs, so work is purely for fun. Every morning, he wakes up and chooses what the day’s workload will look like. If he gets tired, he goes home. If he isn’t having fun, he goes home. If a coworker looks at him the wrong way (you guessed it) he goes home.

He commutes through teleportation. This makes it so that he never has to interact with people unless he wants to. No slow walkers on the sidewalk, no sitting in traffic, no crowded airports. He’s never late, he always arrives at the destination both instantaneously and at the perfect moment. (Yes, even for events that start late!)

He has millions of followers on every social media platform. If he ever felt imposter syndrome or jealousy, (which he doesn’t) the person who is (second) best at that exact thing would call him immediately to remind him how great he is.

It’s perfect.

His life is as ideal as possible. He is never inconvenienced, never embarrassed, never inadequate.

*End of exercise*

By this point, I usually realize that version of myself isn’t someone I want to be around. He definitely isn’t someone I want to emulate.

Honestly, he sounds soulless—doesn’t really sound like a human and I don’t think he’d have much to write about.

I don’t know too much about heaven, but hopefully it isn’t like that. I hope heaven still has beauty.

Thanks for doing this exercise with me! You can ease back into the real world however you see fit, but I recommend going for a walk and maybe touching some grass.

—JG