New

I woke up this morning feeling new. My therapy is going great. I don't know why it took me so long to get help. I guess growing up a baptist boy in church five times a week i thought all i needed was Jesus.

The main reason i dediced to get help in the first place was because of Hurrican Katrina. I'm from Lousianna. I know that poverty. I know that racism. Shit, help never came quick enough in the ghetto. I wasn't surprised by the goverment response. Part of me wanted all those n****** to drown. I figured the world would be better off because i only felt the ugliness of the crackheads, drug dealers, welfare moms, gangbangers, thieves, hustlers, just the fucking poor.

Funny, i used to be one of them. Funny, i'm still one of them, i get foodstamps. But that was self hate. That was a past i still haven't healed from. That was from growing up in the ghetto and feeling worthless. I had to face my dark skin and nappy hair and love it and see humanity. I had to face my own blackness watching Katrina and not allow rationalization to make me turn away. I had to face all the uncles and cousins in prison. I had to face my mother who is a crack whore. I had to face my father who was drug dealer. I had to face the desperation of too many poor black people in this country. I had to face slavery, segregation and oppression and not allow it to take my heart again, not this time. I had to help. I sent money. I still send money when possible. It's not much, five dollars, sometimes twenty, but i also send my heart and tears and prayers. I keep talking about it until we're all free.

I've been thinking alot about my past. Why i am the way i am. I remember screaming at my sister, "I CAN ONLY TELL YOU HOW I GOT HERE." I now can tell everyone where i'm going.

My life has been full of so much self hate. So much destruction. I got out the ghetto but didn't go very far. I got out the ghetto but my soul stayed behind. That soul that was told he was too dark, too smart, got his ass kicked for wearing the wrong colors in the wrong neighborhood. That soul that had to grow up with a mother who prostituted herself for drugs and then abadonened. That soul that got hard and wouldn't let anybody in, not sexually, not emotionally, not nothing. That soul that walked around the earth with his fists balled. I thought that was how i was going ot get into heaven, with my fists balled. I don't know why it took me so long to get help.

I thought i was prepared for life. I was just prepared to survive at any means necessary. That's not a life. I was prepared to hustle, steal or whatever to get to the next second. I was prepared for instant gratification. And then add in gay.

You see the thing about trouble kids they are always looking for some validation for their pain. They usually want to be models or actors or something in the spotlight to rationalize in order to believe in God. As if God owes them. I used to believe God owed me. I owe God for this life. It's the living that makes us forget.

I think in the beginning the only reason i wanted to be a writer was for the fame. I wanted the attention. I got a book published. I sold like sixty comics, but it wasn't enough. I wanted more attention. I wanted more money. I didn't realize i was that empty. And the more attentino i got the more destructive i behaved.

There's a movie called "El Cantate" with Marc Anthony and it spoke to me. It's when Jennifer Lopez said, "The more love Hector got, the more he sanked into his sadness. It was as if he couldn't feel it or want to feel it. I guess the sadness was too deep."

I understood what she meant. I never had the words before but i had that same sadness. It was a moment i was stuck in. It was that childhood quicksand i fell I was pushed into with being raped at five, abandoned by mother crack head mother at eight, foster care and then the neglect and physically and emotional abuse i would endure because daddy was dead and mama didn't care anymore. That sadness, quicksand, was thick and unforgiving, and more love people showed me made my heart heavier and it sunk me more. I decided if i rebelled agains the love, i feel lighter. i wouldn't have to struggle because the more you struggle in quicksand the faster you sink.


It's hard not worshipping the wound. The sadness is the quicksand. I've been in it for a long time. Trying not to move or breath. Getting high to forget that i was drowning. Not calling for help because being ashamed that i was pushed into the quicksand. And the more people tried to save me, the more i rebelled or pulled them in. some of them saved themseves. Most of them save themselves and left me. They couldn't understand. The quicksand was the only home i knew, and i was going to give it up so easily. They couldn't understand so they yelled at me, they tried to punish me, they stopped speaking to me, they ran away, they shook thier heads, they read thier bible verses, they promised to pray for me, they tried to love me, but i kept sinking and that made them frustrated.

the thing about that sadness is was stubborn. The thing about that sadness it stop trusting a long time ago and i called it home. It was the only home i knew. I wasn't going to leave it so easily. Ironically the sadness gave me protection. It was how i was suriving. The older i got in that quicksand the more lonely it got. Soon i was alone. I was alone. Nobody but the darkness and the cold nights and the addiction. Everyone had given up.

But sometimes we have to leave home to grow up. I didn't want to spend my entire life a child. I wanted to be part of the world. I wanted to see more than beyond my block. Funny again, I thought when i left San Antonio Texas, i got out of the ghetto. I thought because i've been all over the US and overseas, i did more than many in my family. Yet, my heart never left the ghetto. My heart never left the quicksand.

I ask myself, how does one rebuild the ghetto. You don't. You uplift. You educate. You inform. You give people choices. You get some in therapy. You tell the story.

I woke up this morning feeling "new." I'm finally in thirty years telling myself the truth. I'm in fucking quicksand and if i don't get out, a bitch is going to drown, die, stop existing. And nobody can save me but me. Funny, the entire time, a fucking tree had been leaning over my head. I thought it was just shade. All i had to do was reach up and pull myself out. I don't know what i was waiting for. I know what i was waiting for. I was waiting for it to love me. It's never going to love me. I was going to have to redefine love. The love i knew was going to let me die without my life having any meaning. The quicksand would've let me die. I wasn't ready to die.

I don't want to be a writer anymore because of love, fame or attention. Shit nobody reads the blog except for like five people. I want to be a writer because i get to tell the story. I want to be a writer because it's my soul. I want to be a writer because it's how i'm saving myself, therefore, it's my proliferation. Somebody will be reborn again because of my words.

I trust myself, that's new. I'm out the quicksand, that's new. I'm learning to be careful. I don't want to go back.

Now I must face the wreckage. Being in quicksand for thirty years takes its toll on the body and mind and spirit. I must learn how to love again. I must teach the world who i am now. I know it'going to be difficult and lonely. That's why i asked GOD for LIGHT. I can tell you where i've been and now i can tell you where i'm going. I'm walking out the jungle. I walking towards the sea. I'm going to build me a new home where the sun rises. I'm going to live by the light.