Greg S Cohen

Two Sides Entwined

The sun was steady in the sky, as though it would never fall. Its heat radiated through the hours of day, sinking deep into their exposed skin. Conversely, the ocean air was refreshingly cool and when he kissed her, he tasted its saltiness on her pursed lips. It seemed like they had spent lifetimes on the shore, gazing dotingly over each other, wrapped in rapture and beach towels.

But she was as difficult to grasp as the sand, somehow always managing to slip through the tiny gaps in his fingers. Eventually, he realized that if he were to capture her, it would be like the conch possesses the sound of crashing waves. He would need to internalize her beauty and emanate her splendor; he would be the conch and she would be the sea. Then when she rests her head on his chest, her ear pressed to his frame, she would hear her own heart beating within him. A lovely melody in harmony, a trick of the mind aligning with her most sincere desires. Ultimately, it would allow her to see that she has always been loved; all she needed to do was listen closely to the hollow of his heartbeat to understand that she was meant to fill that void.

The sun was steady in the sky, as though it would never fall; but all things are meant to fall and even the bold sun eventually plummets into the rich depths of the night. But this is no reason to mourn; the sun is always reborn in the wake of the night. Its luster reflected off of the pale moon, two sides entwined around one world.

ATL in April

What You Had To Lose

I grew up in this damn town and sometimes even I can barely take it. I mean, there are obvious things to love about New York City, but this place is unforgiving. I have seen people come and go, their dreams ebb and flow, and unfortunately, in my line of work, I have seen more endings than beginnings. It’s exhausting to be an Air Vac Pilot in a town with so many tragedies. Oftentimes the beauty of such a bustling place full of vivacious people is overshadowed by ignorance, hatred, and violence. I suppose it doesn’t help that I am typically exposed to the worst; if they call in the Air Vac in NYC, you know something terrible had to have occurred.
 
It’s funny; I began flying to get away from it all. I figured if I could get high enough off the ground, I wouldn’t even be able to tell the world was moving anymore. All I would see is a vast surface of varying textures that mingle quietly with each other. I remember when I was a kid I used to go up on the roof of our apartment complex in Queens. I could look out over the city and it vast vertical landscapes and everything would be quite. Even if it were at the height of the day, the noise from the streets below wouldn’t flood my ears. The altitude would just drown it out to slight echoes diminishing as they reverberated off the glass and brick of the surrounding buildings.
 
I still go up to the roof of the hospital everyday on my lunch breaks. The old card table and rusty chair might leave something to be desired, but the view is stunning. I can scan the horizon in all directions catching glimpses of Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, and various famous works of architecture.
 
I remember that day as though it were yesterday. The light poured into the stairwell as I opened the door to the rooftop. As soon as my eyes adjusted, I saw her climbing over the rail at the edge. Her beautiful golden curls were billowing in the breeze the shot up the side of the building. Normally quick witted and used to handling pressure, I found myself unsure how to proceed in such a situation.
 
She must have heard the door close behind me because she turned toward me. Her eyes were as vacant as the sea after a storm and there was a deep sadness lingering on her quivering lips. I smiled endearingly, as if I had caught her attention in a local bar. Then I held my hand out and asked if she would join me for lunch.
 
“Why? What’s the point?” She replied brazenly.
“If you can’t die happy, you might as well die with a full stomach.”
 
She half-heartedly chuckled, momentarily letting her guard down. I seized the opportunity and grabbed her wrist and pulled her into my arms and the safety of the rooftop. Surprisingly, she hugged me tightly for a brief moment. I put her down softly so that she could stand on her own feet, took her hand, and led her over to the rusty chair.
 
“I was hoping someone would help me eat this cheese-steak, this thing is massive.”
 
She just stared at me baffled and squeezed my hand. I pulled the chair out for her, plopped my sub down in front of her, grabbed the cinderblock used to prop open the door to sit on, and sat down across the table from her.
 
“Shall we eat? I mean, I need to get back to work before too long and I am sure you are eager to hurl yourself off the roof onto some poor illegal immigrant’s cab.” I locked eyes with her and reached across the table for her hand. “But I was thinking about taking the afternoon off anyway; I don’t suppose you would consider postponing your plans and joining me?”
 
She tilted her head slightly to the side and looked inquisitively at me, as though she was questioning if I was some kind of angle.
 
“Trust me, I am no godsend. But you are far too beautiful to ruin such a gorgeous day by killing yourself. So, what do you say? Lunch, maybe a walk in the park, dinner, a movie, or whatever you want short of leaping off rooftops?”
 
“Sure.” She said. “What do I have to lose?” She said.
 
Two years later, on that exact day, on that exact rooftop, she responded the same way when I asked her to marry me.

Love Gives Me Hope

I took a cheap redeye back East after my first semester of college. I thought my exams had gone fairly well and I was excited to get home and spend some quality time with my family. Mom and Dad always seemed to be renovating or putting some kind of addition on the house and I was curious to see what had changed over my first stint away from home. I am not going to lie, I thought Mom might have changed my bedroom into some kind of craft zone full of thread, ribbons, stamps, and other assorted scrap booking materials. I was also interested to see how Ben’s first year of middle school had been going. I was sure my quick-witted little brother would be a hit with the girls and wanted to know what kind of trouble he was getting into.

Dad came and picked me up at the airport and Mom was waiting in her robe when we walked into the house. She cried a little upon greeting me and Dad carried my bags to my room. Ben was already in bed because he had school and Mom told me she wouldn’t let him bother me in the morning and that I should sleep in. We talked for a few minutes; Mom showed me the renovations to the hall bathroom and Dad told me about how they planned to expand the deck in the backyard and put in a small pond. Before I knew it, I was full of microwaved leftovers from their dinner and off to bed.

I slept till about two that afternoon, well mostly just laid in bed staring at the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling. I thought to myself that I was probably around Ben’s age when I put those things up, trying to match the constellations exactly. I eventually got up and rummaged around the fridge and pantry for food; I forgot how nice it was to have real food at hand. College was a whirlwind of cafeteria food and ramen. I indulged myself with a variety of delicious and seemingly rare delicacies in my freshmen mind.

I heard the door open abruptly and Ben ran in to the kitchen to greet me. He was obviously excited to see me, but seemed to rush through the pleasantries only pausing to tell me I looked like a hippy with my hair growing out. I didn’t even think he knew what a hippy was. Before I could inquire about how middle school was going, he asked if I could take him to the library.

This was strange, even for Ben. I mean, watching him grow up, I got used to his odd requests, but he was never keen on reading. I even remember reading him some of the books he did elementary school book reports on because he refused to read them himself.

“What is going on at the library?” I asked, naturally assuming that their had to be some type of event to entice him into a building full of books.
“Nothing.” He replied quickly.
“Ben, I know you; the library is not your scene. I will gladly take you there if you tell me honestly why you want to go.”
Ben reluctantly responded, “There is a new girl that just moved to the area and started attending school with me today.” He hesitated for a minute before continuing with, “She is deaf and I wanted to get a book on sign language so I can be friends with her.”

I was astonished that my little brother had such a profound request, so I quickly put on clothing grabbed my car keys and took him to the library. When we got home, he immediately went to work. By the end of the night he knew how to sign his name, “Hello”, “How are you?”, “Yes”, and “No”.

The next day, he went to school with the book under his arm. I assume everything went well in their first encounter because today, years after Ben had asked me to take him to the library, I stood beside him at their wedding and watched him sign, “I do.”

The Cost of Smoking

It’s me, in the most somber of tones. I know there are a plethora of daunting and scary things weighing heavily on your shoulders. I know that I may play a role in the churning of your mind and the beating of your heart. I don’t want to disrupt either of those and I do this in an effort to make it easier for me not to. You have heard all of these arguments and they upset you as they upset me too. If you can’t read them, please refrain. They are listed here as a simply declaration for you and the world to see. They are listed here so that I don’t have to upset you further. They are listed here so I never have to list them again. They are listed here in no particular order. They are listed here.

Arguments

• Smoking is the most selfish activity anyone could ever participate in. Not only is it harmful to you, it is harmful to all of those around you. Therefore, I have never met a smoker I fully respect.
• • Once, in middle school, a man did a demonstration for us. He had never smoked a day in his life, but he had fallen for a woman that did. They lived out their lives together for years. She died of lung cancer and left him alone in the world. But, through second-hand-smoke alone, he was forced to breath through a hole in his throat for the remainder of his life. He had us try to cover our noses and breath through stirring straws as a demonstration of how difficult it was for him to breath.  
  • A girl, that used to be the most important person in my life, had never smoked a day in her life. However, throughout her childhood, her Mom smoked in the house they lived in constantly. This girl has now undergone surgery twice in her young-adult life to remove cancer that has been linked to smoking. Her mother still smokes even though her little sister is still subject to it.  
• I care about you and I can’t stand the thought of you willingly subjecting yourself to tribulations associated with smoking.
• • As you are aware, my father passed away from cancer. He had never smoked a day in his life and was a very health conscious individual. There are so many ways to die, why would you invite death in?  
  • I bear witness to my fathers suffering; I saw his once burly frame turn to that of a holocaust survivor as cancer ravaged his body. Ultimately, I shed tears of his lifeless body finally resting.  
  • I also bear witness to my families suffering; even a decade after his death, my mother still suffers with the loss of her companion. My brother and I will not get to experience graduations, weddings, babies, and a variety of other momentous occasions with our father. I never want to go through a loss like this again and refuse to knowingly subject myself or anyone else to such a traumatic fate.  
• Smoking is disgusting and instantly turns me off.
• • Kissing you after you have been smoking is like kissing an ashtray. I hope you have never tried this, but I assure you, it is not appealing.  
  • Most of the time, if someone is smoking, I will instantly dismiss them. For one, they must obviously be a selfish person, but they also must not care about their personal health.  
  • If a girl is smoking, she might as well be morbidly obese. No matter how attractive I find someone physically, emotionally, or mentally, as soon as that cigarette hits their lips, they instantly repulse me.

Rebuttals

• “I never smoke around you.” – The later two above arguments are still viable whether the smoking occurs in my presence or not.
• “I am stressed and smoking is my safe zone away from the pressures of school, work, relationships, and life in general.” – You are not the only person with stress in your life. I have gone through experiences so strenuous that they make any of my current demands look like jokes, yet I have never once tried to summon that argument as a reason to use something as a crutch. You are capable of dealing with anxiety in a way that is not so selfish / destructive / repulsive. Refer to all above arguments.
• “It is hard to quit.” – I understand that is it hard to quit. I cannot empathize with you but I am sympathizing. But “slipping up” is just a way of diminishing the fact that you are still smoking. You have to push past that wall of addiction without using the crutch of a cigarette; otherwise, it compromises the entire premise.
• “I don’t want to quit for someone else.” – First, any reason to quit is a good reason. Second, please understand that this is for you as much as it is for anyone else. Refer to the middle argument above. Also, in a relationship one can no longer make decisions from a singular vantage. If you want independence, choose to be independent.

There are countless other arguments against smoking. I tried to outline the ones that are most personal to me. But the point, I am trying to convey is such: I am not trying to change you, smoking doesn’t make you who you are; I am merely demonstrating my vantage on the subject. In the end, it is your choice if you continue smoking or not. After this I will avoid the subject matter, but I assure you it will still affect me. Eventually, I may become so discouraged that my adoration for you no longer outweighs my distaste for smoking. At that point, I will simply become another cost of smoking.

Be Here Now

“What’s going to happen with you and the girl when you move?”
“We’ll cross the bridge when we reach it; no need to get all destructive about it in the present tense. Life is in constant movement, I shouldn’t deprive myself of an amazing girl like her and the experiences associated with her due to that fact.”
“I’m glad you view it that way.”
“Me too.”

Be here now. One should have momentous long-term goals; however, no one knows what resides beyond the crest of their horizons. This moment is the only one. The present is all you are guaranteed. Never forsake that. Don’t simply seize the day, seize every ineffable instance.

When I see her next, I will kiss her as though nothing in the world exists but her and I. Ultimately, in my mind, during that intimate encounter, that is the truth.

Tuesday Night Special: Shallow Charades

My buddy and I have a weekly outing… well, we have several weekly outings, but this is the only one we actually consistently attend and/or plan to attend regularly. Anyway, I digress; each week my friend and I go to a place a few minutes walk from my apartment in Old Town, Scottsdale. It is a bar a grille that serves gourmet takes on traditional Mexican dishes. However, on Tuesdays, they offer two-dollar Tacates (mmm beer) and one-dollar shredded beef tacos (mmm beef). You can get a good buzz and satisfy your apatite for less than a ten spot. Not to mention my buddy and I, using our charming personas and cash (well, mostly our cash in the form of large tips), managed to make friends with one of the waitresses there. No matter the line, she seats us promptly and brings us beers without asking.

This past Tuesday was no different, my buddy and I were greeted with a hug and circumnavigated the long line whilst being led to a table on the patio. The only difference was my buddy had invited along two more people and one of them had invited another (so, to recap there are five of us). The crew is set as such: me (dude), my buddy (dude), his underage friend (dude), our mutual friend (dude) that is normally a huge drunkard but dipped out to work on something this particular evening but invited along the last member of the group, and an outspoken girl (girl) that might have a slight Napoleonic complex.

Anyway, dinner is pretty uneventful. We find ourselves ragging on each other’s mothers (I have never met any of these people’s mothers and I am sure they are respectable ladies). Anyway, my buddy is terrible at this and even the waitress throws a few below the belt shots into the ring. I can imagine his mother would be offended at his lack of ability to defend her and launch counterattacks in retribution. Anyway, Napoleon (as we shall now refer to her) is acting a little hoity-toity throughout the beginning of our juvenile banter (she is a full nine years older than Underage-Boy). Ultimately, she warms up to the banter and establishes a seemingly lighthearted distain for my buddy and, therefore, uses his mother and lack of wit as a platform to make this apparent. Ultimately, I think this is hilarious and invite the girl to continue on with us to the next bar.

Miraculously, Underage-Boy gets into the bar with help, our one friend dips out, and the crew has diminished to four. The bar we have graduated to at this point in the evening also has an amazing Tuesday special referred to as two-dollar-you-call-its. That’s right, everything is only two bucks for two hours! We proceed to pound drinks like any self-respecting bargain drinker would do. The four of us manage to rack up over a $60 bar tab at $2 a pop within the hour-ish we were there. Yes, thirty drinks split between four people might not seem like much, but we knew the bartender well, who would poor them 50/50 or more, she also left things off our tab, they were all hard alcohol drinks, and someone bought us shots that didn’t make the tab. Needless to say, we were all moderately disoriented. Every time someone got up from the bar to go to the bathroom, a game of musical chairs would ensue, effectively leaving the person in the bathroom to come back to the seat situated by the morbidly obese creeper sitting alone at the bar who would randomly interject unwarranted comments into our conversations.

However, the highlight of the evening was that both Underage-Boy and my unwitty buddy were trying to get with Napoleon and were met with less than success, while she continued to make radically sexual statements about random hookups, penises in her, dicks in her, needing to get some, craving ass, being horny, and a variety of other obscene comments in my general direction. Not accounting for Napoleons busted face but seemingly decent body, I am spoken for by an extremely attractive girl that I would like to hold onto for an extended period of time and am not interested in her advances. Although, Napoleon was aware I was off the market, she continued her barrage of blatantly crude remarks.

Once the special ended, we went to seek out another bar. However, Underage-Boy was not as fortunate and didn’t make it into this bar. Therefore, I gave my buddy and him the keys to my place while I finished off the beer I had already ordered with Napoleon. Napoleon is unaware that I am texting the hilarity to my girl all along and at one point we even see one of my girl’s friends at the bar while Napoleon is hitting on me and I am gulping down my beer in a desperate attempt to leave the scene as soon as possible. I finish my beer and get up to head out; Napoleon follows suit because she lives in the same apartment complex as me. After arriving at the complex, we part ways and I meet up with Underage-Boy and my buddy for a little after hours Wii Bowling.

After a few minutes, Napoleon shows up at my door with her spastic dog and waltzes in. She proclaims she can beat us all at bowling and continues to trash talk us until she has indeed beat us all. Myself being the only one to effectively beat her in a game. She even cheats to ensure she wins; yet the trash talk is relentless even in the presence of cheating. I think she finally understood that I wasn’t going to have sexual relations with her and it was her way of venting that (this is just a theory). Mind you, her dog was so spastic that she took him back to her apartment at one point and came back. Eventually, Underage-Boy decided to leave. My buddy and I basically team up to trash talk Napoleon directly out of the apartment and the shallow charades of the evening came to an anticlimactic end.

Lessons:

1. Know thy waitress.
2. Know thy bartender.
3. Drinking on a Tuesday is cheap.
4. Your mom is most likely not a whore, but it is fun to call her such when there is little to no retort from you about it.
5. No one wants to sit next to the morbidly obese creeper sitting alone at the bar that randomly interject unwarranted comments into conversations.
6. Drunk Wii Bowling is always a good call.
7. Some people apparently take invitations to be included in outings the wrong way.
8. There is very little attractive about desperation.
9. Always keep your girl abreast of the situation; otherwise it could look potentially bad when you are sitting alone at a bar with another girl because your buddy’s underage friend couldn’t get in, thus, effectively leaving you to fend unwanted advances off by yourself.
10. Napoleon is friends with Bat-Shit-Crazy (cue dramatic music the leads you to believe something unsettling is about to occur).

Awakening

The slats of the Venetian blinds swayed gently with the swirling of the ceiling fan. The sunlight shifted through the slight gaps to rouse me still tangled in the sheets. The left side of my jaw was aching, as if I had taking a maliciously heavy hand to my chin the night prior. I gasp for air and the first few breaths hurt as they drew through my sore throat. I can’t seem to shake this sickness, so I simply live with it. I expected to feel you damp on my skin from a night of clammy sleep in a stagnant room. You always go to sleep with chill bumps and awake kicking the comforter off your perspiring surface, yet you maintain contact with me the entire time. If roll to my side, facing away from you, you roll to kiss my back softly in the dead heat of night.
 
I awoke alone this morning for the first time in a long time. Your fingers were not there to comfort me as I desperately tried to clear my congestion. I could not bring myself to get out of bed for reasons opposite of you. Instead of your soft frame enticing me to linger longer on the horizontal plane, I was weary of the world around me. A day that does not start with you seems a dismally dreary dream.
 
Eventually I pursued the day vainly and ultimately found myself writing this confession. I confess that my days feel pointless without you to hold. You fill me with a purpose equivalent of a goal achieved perpetually. As though every time I garner a glance from you, I am responsible for the meaning in your day. As though every smile that adorns your beautiful face was shaped by my presence. As though every touch of your lips to mine is a story worth telling for generations to come and I am the author while you are the muse.

Serene Routine

You are under my sheets and under my skin; you are sleeping in the middle of the bed again. My right shoulder is practically resting on my nightstand and the left side of the bed is virtually a plane of vast open land. You claim that the mattress is slanted in my direction, but I feel you scooting in and limiting my sleeping section. I am caught in reflection wondering why you desire my affection. Ultimately, I decide that this connection is perfection and questioning it would be crazy to an intolerable degree. So, I resolve to rest my churning head within the confines of my narrow slip of bed and sleep with you in my arms.

Perpetual Movement

The landscape keeps changing around me and these skies seem like more of a fractured memory. You would think that the sun and the moon would be constant enough, a daily reminder that to endure is not overly tough. The sun will rise and the moon will fall and this has occurred throughout it all. The lesson here seems to be that it is not the landscape that changed, it is me. 
 
I can picture the summer nights of my youth when everything seemed an absolute truth. From big wheels to convertibles the Maryland air flowed through my golden-blond hair. The cracks in the Knoxville sidewalks caused me to stumble and ultimately become a bit more humble; I found a girl there but could not manage to hold her beautiful stare. This shook my very foundation and led me into an all-encompassing transformation. I spent plenty of Georgian sunsets sitting on the cliffs above the Chattahoochee wondering what would become of me. Eventually I prevailed through realizing that although my life was unforeseen, I had not failed. Which leads me to now, where I am finally able to avow that I am who I would like to be, that I am contentedly me.
 
Four stages have passed, from innocent childhood to adolescent boldness to challenged adulthood to the contemporary; thus, making the move from Phoenix unnecessary. But somehow I feel as though I will find more where the waves and the sand meet at the California shore. Maybe a calming peace to envelope this steadfast mind, maybe a place to help me cope with the daily grind. Regardless the sun will rise and the moon will fall and the only thing that will remain constant is the perpetual movement of it all.