Segundo Juan Devora

The house is quiet, with all the rooms in darkness except two. In the bedroom, the TV flickers but nothing plays, the wife and baby sleep taking up most of the bed. In the living room, I sit with the light on; my Santana station playing on Pandora. Why Santana if I was born in the 80’s? Who knows, better music I suppose.

As the music plays out of my phone, I sit on the couch with my laptop. A laptop that is going to be 11 years old. Ahh, I remember the days when Apple made products that would last. Sadly this laptop can’t be upgraded anymore. It’s been on its last leg for the past three years.

I sit alone to write, to think, to daydream with no interruption. The rest of my world is asleep, including the dog. The words tend to just ooze out of me with a flair for the dramatic. Still better a flair than writing with no life or soul. See, what did I tell you dramatic as fuck.

The pages fill, the ideas and stories change, some end and new ones begin. The music ramps up my writing, the better the song the better the writing. Music feeds the soul of a writer. I lose track of time. Realizing my fingers are the skinniest part of my body, from the workout they get every day.

The silence of my music is broken by my stirs of the baby. Time to become part of my world again. To leave the writing for now. Until next time, when I sit alone with the silence of my music, with my laptop; letting the words pour from my thoughts.

Day #36 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved

It gets better.

You are in the middle of the storm now.

But the storms always passes.

Words and phrases I have repeated.

Over and over again.

The worse things get.

The bitter sting those words carry.

Words with no meaning.

No action to support their validity.

Those words could be printed on a shirt.

The shirt would rip on the first day.

I know the lies those words are.

Yet I still try and press ahead.

Realizing the words never had any real power.

It was just a rally cry.

A cry I cling to when things get bad.

Time to brace for another storm.

It gets better.

You are in the middle of the storm now.

But the storms always passes.

I will just keep telling myself this.

Day #35 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved

 

 

His response was as cold as his look.

A man’s who expression could say it all.

Mostly cynical and mean.

The warmth of a parent he did not have.

Success on was not congratulated, it was expected.

Fail, and you were ignored.

A beating would’ve been better.

Never seen sympathy in his eyes.

Not a tear, after my mother died.

At her funeral, he kicked everyone out after five and told me to get ready for bed.

I grew to be cold, but not as cold as him.

Growing up alone, and self-reliant.

Left home as soon as I received my diploma.

Didn’t even get a hug.

I was handed an envelope with a few bucks, a handshake and told to work hard.

All he asked of me was to call or write to make sure I was alive.

I got married, he couldn’t make it because he had to work.

He missed a lot of my life due to work hard.

Time and distance drifted us further apart.

Still, I called on his birthday and would write.

I thought more of my mom than my dad.

I would talk more to her dead, than with him alive.

One warm day in San Diego, I got the call.

My father had passed.

I went home to take charge like he would’ve wanted.

His funeral was full of people from work.

Those who probably knew him best.

After all, they spent more time with him.

They came back to the house to pay their respect.

The bitter old man showed his true face.

His co-workers all had stories of me to tell, that my old man had shared.

Moments of my life I had totally forgotten.

They recanted all my achievements, the ones I thought he didn’t care.

I never knew my dad.

They told me how he would cry on the assembly line after my mother died.

He cried for weeks on that line.

He regretted not going to my wedding because he couldn’t bear to be there without his wife.

I tried to be as cold as him and failed my tears.

My wife hugged me as we both cried.

I learned about my father from those guys on the line.

In his nightstand were all my letters and pictures.

The house was full of memories.

Memories which I failed to realize.

Today I buried my father, a man who loved me like no other father could.

Day #34 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope eventually fades. 

Faith will falter. 

Motivation will eventually abandon you. 

Discipline is only as strong as the person. 

It fails the weakest of us.

Equality gives a fall sense that this world is fair.

We would be foolish to think life would treat us fairly.

There are no chances without risk.

If you take chance to be your own boss.

The risk is that might fold after a year.

If you take the chance to stay are your job.

You risk that one day they might stop needing you.

The funny thing about chance, risk only follows it if you take it.

But fear has a way of making you see things at a disadvantage.

Risk will always follow, but so might success.

It is certain that if you never take a chance, you will never see greatness.

So we face a dilemma

What chance do we take?

You take every chance.

You take even the slightest chance.

Day #33 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved

Laying in bed, with part of the covers touching the floor. I can hear it walking around outside the bedroom door. It moves past the partially open door. The all too familiar sound wakes me. I wait in silence for a confirmation for what woke me. I hear it slowly creep up to the partially open bedroom door.

The door creaks open a bit as I hear it enter the room. My back is facing the door and I don’t turn around. I don’t want to face it. My feet hanging off the edge of the bed, I pull them in closer towards me. I start to slowly pull the covers up to my head. The covers come off the floor and back onto the bed. It’s times like this that I wish I had a dog or hadn’t broken up with my ex.

There is a cold chill that fills the entire room, like I knew it would, hence why I reached for the covers. The hairs on my arms stand, and my breathing picks. I start thinking about my vacation, anywhere to take me away from here. I can feel something is starring at me and that it’s standing at the foot of the bed.

I’m not a religious man, but if I were I would have started praying right about now. Now the back of my neck feels a sharp chill. Almost immobile, I can only move my head, as I dig it into my pillow and close my eyes. I do this before I’m too paralyzed by fear to do so.

Then I can feel it moving, walking closer to the bed. It’s stand next to me, and I hold my breath to keep from screaming. Not that it will do any good as nothing ever comes out. I feel it lightly touching the covers and running its hand, or so I think, up from my ankles to the back of my knees. Its hand stops moving and I can’t feel it anymore.

The bed squeaks as it sits right next to me. I’m complete frozen, even my mind can’t think. Even if I pulled all my energy to scream, I’m not able too, I completely catatonic. I can feel it over me, as it was screaming at me. I feel a force pressing on my chest, holding me downing. I’m fighting to move, using all my force, yelling at the top of my lungs and nothing. I don’t move or utter a word, can’t even blink my eyes. Just tears of utter fear building on the corner of my eyes.

I go flying out of my bed, slamming into the ground hard. Whatever was hold me down stopped, and I’m able to move now. My chest hurts as if someone punched it. I get up to my knees, with my hands still on the floor. The room is not cold, and the warmth has returned to my body. I can feel something moving by the door, its vibration felt on the floor. Without moving my head I look up, a figure is at the door. It looks at me and takes a step back and falls into the shadow. The door slowly creaks shut.

I get up knowing the worst has past. I pick myself up and get back into bed with the covers once again touching the floor. I wipe the tears from my cheeks. Take a deep breath, and close my eyes. Within minutes I’m asleep. The worst parts of my night has past and I can now rest in peace.

Day #32 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved

 

Stop dreaming of the world.

Dream of your world.

We long for more than we need.

The lives of others captivates us.

We chase after want makes others happy and believe it will do the same for us.

To often do we dream of being people who we aren’t.

We don’t know ourselves.

Always doubting and questioning.

Had I made that choice and taken that chance my life would have been better.

We must know ourselves

Who we are and what we truly want.

We must know our truth and lies.

Learn what we can do with and without.

Find your answers and find your world.

Let others dream of the world.

Love the solitude that you find in the world’s largest city. On a cold fall day where everyone is bundled. Walking through the crowd of people all in alone in their own world. We all share the streets of this city but we won’t share each other’s space.

My headphones blaring with the beautiful melodies of 70’s Rock, a time of freedom and expression. The guitar riffs and words lifting me past the cluttered city. The existential feeling of being filled with life as your mind is filled with music. Walking among the cold surrounded by even colder people, their lives a mere spec of what they dreamed it would be. Never have so many broken dreams gathered in one place to work so unhappily.

I walk past these city streets looking at the faces in the crowd, most are broken and fewer smile. Wonder if they have ever been happy at any point in their lives. Do they think about those moments as they walk around in this cold world?

I smile but none smile back. Standing in the corner waiting to cross, among a crowd of people, I feel alive, yet I know the rest feel so alone. Crowded strangers sharing the same pain, but they will never know.

Day #30 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved

Change we must.

To stay the same is to rot.

Knowledge must be constantly learned.

Learning leads to our growth.

When we stop growing we just await death.

With growth comes change.

A flourishing flower on your windowsill must have its pot changed.

Without that change, it cannot continue to grow.

So it starts to wither away.

In the same, if we don’t allow ourselves up to growth and fight the change.

We will die away, never reaching our full potential.

What a terrible waste I say.

Day #29 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved

 

Doubt is a loud voice.

Yelling at you to listen.

Filling your head with deception.

Those echoes will attempt to crush your core.

Doubt, chipping away at what you have built.

No longer are you in control.

The screams get louder and louder.

Demanding that you walk away.

Too afraid to turn around.

Your confidence a pile of dust, scattered by strong winds.

Never have you been so unsure.

Doubt introduces you to fear.

Fear to disappointment.

Disappointment to misery.

Misery to Death.

Why even try, doubt’s greatest motto.

But…

Learn to ignore doubt, in that lies true power.

Day #28 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved

 

I rise early to produce more.

Though my body is awake, my creativity is still asleep.

My mind a blank with nothing, not even echoes.

Just one spark, one idea that’s all I wait for.

Never has it been so quiet.

Never noticed how dead my living room sounds.

Empty of life this place.

I sit on the couch waiting.

Lean back on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

Finally a thought, “I really have to clean my ceiling fan.”

And just like that, there nothing but silence again.

Starring at a blank screen.

I need coffee.

I get up to make some, cursor on the screen just blinks waiting for my minds thoughts.

I decide to turn on the TV, and I see it on the TV.

Oh, it’s good, there go those wide eyes.

I muted the TV, and completely forget about my coffee.

My fingers trip over each other.

Trying to keep up with how fast my mind is going.

Going from a dripping faucet to a roaring waterfall.

An unexpected rush of life fills the screen.

Voices all shouting, music playing in this once lifeless room.

It’s brighter in here than I remember.

The sun rose while I was writing.

The streets outside fill with people starting their day.

Mine started hours ago.

Time didn’t exist for me while I was writing.

I stop to save and grab my coffee.

This coffee is ice cold, I should make a new cup.

Start the coffee machine and my eyes widen.

Run back to the couch to write some more.

I swear there is something in this coffee.

Day #27 SJD

Copyright © 2018 Segundo Juan Devora. All Rights Reserved