Who cares

This past weekend was black gay pride and I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Who cares.” I really wasn’t in the mood to mingle this year. I wasn’t promoting a book. I didn’t want to see old faces that probably tell me I gained weight or I’ve gotten older. The entire thing actually felt depressing to me. I wanted to stay as far away as possible.

As I lay up under the covers I couldn’t understand why I was so bothered. I guess because black gay pride brings up issues. It’s like having a high school reunion every year.
I thought about my life and how much it had changed from a year ago. I no longer speak to half of the people I was friendly with a year ago. I changed so much. I’m not as crazy. Yet for the first time in my life I didn’t feel good enough. I used to rely on my looks but those are also fading. I feel myself becoming one of those bitter drunks.

Yet, after a day of self-loathing, I decided to pick myself off the floor and clean my apartment. I felt a certain sense of self-empowerment as I scrubbed the toilet and bathtub. It was like I could finally see my life. I felt in my twenties there were too many distractions. There was the starving trying to look like the magazines. There was the promiscuous sex trying to find love and acceptance in all the wrong places. There was the over drinking trying to drown my insecurities. But alone in my apartment just making the bed I felt like I was finally home. Shit, I had nothing to prove to anybody. Somebody once told me that getting older was learning to deal with lost.

I need to start learning to look at my life different.

Understanding the truth.

The American idol finale is coming on tonight. I know I need to go home but I’m afraid because I know I will drink. No witnesses. But I’ve been thinking about that no witnesses delusion because when you become a alkie, there are always witness. Shit, alkies go out and find them. Yea it would be great if I didn’t get on the phone, email or go outside and nobody new, but I guess that wouldn’t make me an alkie.

Anyways, the need for me to drink is really about routine. Back in the day on the show’s I love finales, I always drank with friends. But that was years ago. The friends are gone. If I go home, I’d be drinking by myself. I get that now. I’m not drinking tonight no matter what.

Buying liquor at ten o’clock in the morning

She never apologized. My grandmother once accused me of trying to kill her. I was only making a sandwich. I was ten years old. She was drunk. It was a late evening and I was still hungry. I decided to eat the last two pieces of ham with mustard and bread. I was slicing the sandwich in half with a butter knife when she came stumbling in the kitchen. I thought I’d get in trouble because my grandmother had a strict rule about kids being in her kitchen. She only saw the butter knife. She was so drunk. She screamed like I was about to attack her. I stood frozen. She ran to me and knocked the knife out of my hand. She beat me to the floor with her fists. I was so confused. I begged for her to stop. The next day when she awoke me for school she asked me where I got the bruises on my face. I wanted to slap her. One of my cousins told her she did it. She denied it. She told me if anyone asked I got into a fight with one of my older cousins. She never apologized. I never forgave her.

It was not the first time. Every time when I awoke, I’d feel shame. I’d look at the clock and determined that I had an hour before the liquor store opened. I wondered what I would do with the time. I always questioned if I had a problem. I figured the private torment kept me aware. I decided to cook breakfast and pretend I’m not counting down the seconds. I was on unemployment so I knew didn’t have worry about work. I felt anxious. I needed my medicine. I wished I gotten an extra bottle the night before. I wished I lived in a city where they sold liquor 24/7.

After breakfast I decided to get dress. I put on jeans and a hood shirt. I picked a baseball cap and the darkest sunshades I could find. The liquor store was seven blocks from my apartment. At 9:45 in the morning I stepped outside into the wet snowed streets. The wind was brutal but comforting, I liked the distraction. I felt exposed as if everyone was watching me. Like everyone knew my dirty little secret. I’d been trying so hard to keep it under control but there were times I fucked. My neighbor once found me passed out in front of my apartment door. I tried to make her laugh, telling her it was one hell of a party. It was a life of fear.

I arrived to the liquor store a couple of minutes before ten. They were not opened. I’m not alone. At least 15 other people were waiting outside the doors. I watched them carefully. I wonder if I looked anything like them. I tell myself I am nothing like them. They look broken and desperate. Half of them were homeless. The other half look as if they have given up on life. We all had that addict impatient look in our eyes like a racing heartbeat that needed to slow down. My clothes were different. I wore bright colors they wore dark. I looked like I was still trying to hide the fear of loneliness they looked as it they had gotten comfortable with abandonment. The addiction had taken everything. I once went to an AA meeting. It was after a really bad weekend of binge drinking. I woke up in alley on a pissed stained mattress and decided that I’d probably hit my rock bottom. I called the number I found in the phone book. They made me call back like five times and then put me on hold for like thirty minutes. I figured they were testing my commitment. They gave me an address of a meeting. I couldn’t think of anything worse to happen to my life than going to an AA meeting other than going to prison. Of course I needed a couple of drinks just to build up the courage. I was facing my failure and didn’t want to do it sober. I got to the meeting. I was horrified. It was nothing like I’d seen on television. It was nothing like the rehab memoirs I’d read. I thought it would be clean, maybe a couple of celebrities and welcoming. It was dark, filthy, the people looked so downtrodden. The stories were so pathetic like who drinks rubbing alcohol without thinking they may had gone crazy. I felt sane compared to their hopelessness. I was just at the first level of Dante’s inferno. I saw a guy throwing up in a corner. Another alcoholic who’d fallen off the wagon fashioned an obvious piss stain in front of his pants. Those people didn’t look salvable. I ran from that meeting. I never went back. I didn’t drink again for a month. It didn’t last.

As I waited a block away waiting for the liquor store to open because I needed enough distance from the crowd, I thought about my grandmother. I remember she drank from the time she woke up in the morning until she passed out at night. She didn’t drink the hard stuff just beer. I remember when the doctors demanded she give up the beer she started drinking non-alcoholic beer. She said she liked the taste. She went back to the real thing after the frustration. I never thought of my grandmother having a problem. I just thought she went crazy sometimes.

I always knew I might be predisposed to a substance abuse problem because addiction ran in my family. My mother was addicted to crack. My favorite aunt had a long battle with Heroin. All of my uncles on both sides either had crack or alcohol problems. I thought I was different. I graduated at the top of my class in high school. I was the first in my family to go and graduate from college. I was the first male in my family to not have a criminal record. I figured myself different. I was nothing like them.

I never wanted to grow up and become any of my relatives. My uncle once got drunk and decided that I was too uppity, so he decided to hold me down at thirteen years old and pour bottle after bottle of beer in my mouth. He thought it was funny. I was sick for two days. I never drank beer again. Every holiday someone got drunk and became belligerent pulling out their guns or beating up on their wives. As a child, I never thought much of it. I just knew I wasn’t supposed to give three of my uncles money because they liked the crack. I just knew my grandmother usually passed out around nine o’clock at night. I never thought of it as a problem just an annoyance. I thought it was normal. How was I to know what’s normal growing up in a family addicts?

I looked at my watch and noticed that the liquor store was ten minutes late opening. It angered me. I thought about walking another three blocks to the next liquor store but decided to wait it out.

I didn’t have my first drink until I was twenty two years old. I never did drugs before. I was a good boy and fucking tired of it. I craved excitement. My first drink was a whisky sour. I remember it was bitter but it wasn’t beer, so I felt safe. I had ten. I remember that feeling of being drunk. I liked it. I was suddenly social, smart and attractive. I was a bad boy. I flirted with strangers. I danced on top of tables. I was aggressive and didn’t care about reputation. I wasn’t so repressed anymore. I didn’t think it would be a problem to just have some fun. I remember when I used to say I’d never drink alone. I’d never drink depressed or angry. When I got drunk, I started doing a lot of things I never thought I do.

The liquor store finally opened. I felt relived but decided to wait five more minutes. I didn’t want to look desperate. I didn’t want to be part of the crowd. I was always amazed how many people showed up so early in the morning. Some had taken breaks from work. It made me feel not so alone, almost normal, but not safe.

I thought of my grandmother again. She was always self-imprisoned in her room watching her soaps or whatever was on television getting drunk. She had a green Kool’s cigarette cup the size of a gallon of milk and every hour she would yelled at one of us kids to go fill it up with cheap beer. She was always alone in her fire hazard room. In the winter a portable heater sat atop of blankets kept her brittle feet warm. In the summer, in the same spot, a portable fan circulated the cool air from the air-conditioning. My grandmother didn’t need anyone as long as her Kool’s cigarette cup was filled with her favorite cheap intoxicant. She didn’t need anyone for a conversation because she had them with herself or at the television. She didn’t need anyone for entertainment because she was always laughing at something in her head, or on the television or crying about something she would never explain. She died in that room, alone, clinging to her Kool’s cigarette cup. It seemed to be her only happiness.

I finally decided that I waited long enough. I try to give a polite smile. The liquor store owner always recognized. Actually, all the liquor stores in a mile radius knew me. I’ve tried them all. I like the Asian liquor store the best. The prices were cheaper and they seemed a little less judgmental. It was just business. I didn’t even have to tell him what I wanted. He grabbed the bottle of rum. There was no talking. I handed him my money. It was simple. It was guilt free. With the other liquor stores they wanted to talk. They wanted to ask questions. I felt I had nothing to explain to nobody.

As I walked the seven blocks back home, I knew there was a liquor store at the corner of my block. I didn’t like them. They changed management at least three times a year. The first owner was a black man, his brother and his wife. They were a shady looking group of people. I think they sold liquor and crack. One thanksgiving I had a party at my place and we ran out of Vodka, it was just my luck the liquor store was opened. After my purchase, I made one small joke that it was great for him to be opened for the alcoholics. He didn’t laugh. The next time he saw me, he handed me an AA pamphlet and refused to sell to me. I was pissed. I hardly ever went into his liquor store, he never seen me drunk, I was always sober, but one tasteless joke, he made me walk the three blocks to the next liquor store. The great thing about my neighborhood there was a liquor store and church almost on every corner. A couple of months later, a new group of owners arrived, they were Indian. The guy was really cool, very friendly. I spent at least seventy dollars a week at his liquor store. The only problem, when he saw me out, be it the grocery store or bus stop he would always try to sell me liquor. I couldn’t walk by that store; it was as if he had a tracking bug on me, he run out his store and try to sell me liquor. He acted like he was my dope dealer. The third group of people I hated the most. They never put their prices up. It was as if they could charge you whatever they felt at the moment. They made me nervous. They never looked happy to see me.

Four blocks on the way home, I pass my old stomping ground liquor store. I thought about stopping in and saying hi but I knew it was ridiculous, they didn’t care. I remember the cashier was mother of the owner. She was at least eighty years old, could barely stand up straight, her hands shook like a withdrawing addict and her neck wobbled like a wild turkey. She had a look in her eyes of too many bad decisions in her life. Shemanically puffed those long thin women cigarettes. I liked her. She reminded me of my grandmother. She always appeared drunk. Maybe she was just old. I had a weird relationship with her. It was as if I was seeking her approval. I remember in the morning she baby-sat her great granddaughter. I found it old for an infant child in her Walt Disney playing pen at a liqour store. She seemed peaceful. I never heard her cry. It was a mom and pop store, one of the best in my gentrified neighborhood. The other liquor stores didn’t display their liquor out front, instead it was hidden behind bullet proof glass along with the store owners and you have to yell through a hole in the bullet proof glass for what you wanted. They always heard you wrong and you have to yell again, then go point, and play the “you’re getting warmer” game. It was annoying. I like the mom and pop store because I got to peruse my liquor and not feel like a criminal.

As I passed the store, I remembered even at ten o’clock in the morning at the “Mom and Pop” liquor store I always purchase the largest bottle because it was usually on sale and saved me money in the long run. I also figured by purchasing the large bottle the store owner wouldn’t think I was some drunk. I wanted her to think that my purchase was maybe for an important party I was to attend later that evening. I remember I always dressed my best. I made sure my fingernails were clean and my teeth sparkling white. I wanted her to know that I was different. I didn’t know why. I always made conversation. I knew that her grandson wanted to be a singer, she handed me his demo one day for no particular reason. It was awful. I told her I loved it and couldn’t wait for his album to come out because it was going to be huge. I knew that the liquor store had been in her family since she was a child. I knew that her great-granddaughter loved Snow-white. I bought her some exclusive DVD and told the old lady I had gotten it free from a friend who worked for Disney. It was a lie, it cost me twenty bucks. I didn’t know why I was trying to impress that old woman. She just made me feel guilty. I stopped going to that liquor store because I couldn’t handle the pressure.

Two blocks away from my house, I passed the church and have to wait at the corner for the light to change. I see the church people and I hug my brown paper bag. It’s obvious what’s in it. I pretend they don’t care. I had nothing to prove. I was the good kid growing up and it really pissed off a lot of my relatives. I was the kid who always had his hand in the air with the answer at school. I was polite and well groomed. I respected my elders. I took shiny apples to school for my teachers. I got straight A's. I was in the boys scout. I helped old ladies and the blind cross the street. I cut the church’s grass for free. I never cursed. It was no fun growing up the good kid in a family of degenerates. They treated me like I was an angel sent down to hell to make them feel bad about their lives, therefore the desperately needed to corrupt me. They would always play cruel jokes on me. My cousins tricked me into asking my grandmother questions like what is a “clitoris” or if she liked “golden showers.” Of course my drunken grandmother would go ballistic. They jokes never stopped. They would stick pictures of nude girls on my back at school. They try to get me to smoke weed. I stopped waiting to be good. I started waiting to be liked.

When I got inside my apartment, I felt relieved. I went to the refrigerator, opened the freezer door, and got some ice for my big plastic cup that I got from one of those themed restaurants. It was my favorite. I filled it up with ice, some rum and coke. I went to my bed, turned on the TV. The View was so much funnier with a big plastic cup of rum and coke. As I sipped my freedom and the rum ran rampant, I felt alone. I wasn’t doing anything productive with my life. I felt like I was stuck in quicksand and running out of time to be rescued.

I rushed the liquor. I finished the first cup so I could enjoy the second cup slower. I just needed to feel that first buzz. I thought about my grandmother again and how I never forgave her for some of her evils. I never thought she had a problem. I just assumed her flip personality was normal. I thought about some friends I’d lost because of my drinking. I never felt I had a problem. I just felt bad shit just happened sometimes. I didn’t think I had a problem. I thought I was normal. It didn’t help that I grew up in a family plagued with addiction. It turned out I wasn’t so different.

Maybe that was the shame I was feeling, that I thought my grandmother had wasted her life sitting up in her room getting drunk everyday. She no longer wanted to see the world or control her anger. I suddenly felt as if I never really knew my grandmother. I only knew the craziness of her addiction. I knew I didn’t like that person. So what did that say about me? I fixed myself a third rum and coke and decided I was nothing like her. How was I supposed to know normal growing up in a family of addicts?

It's never over

I say people do dumb shit all the time. I think about the weed smokers how they sit in front of their television and just get high, giggling like the crazy man at the rain. People jump out of planes just for the thrill. We get tattoos, body piercings or ridiculous plastic. It’s in human nature to be dumb. I say we do dumb shit all the time because it’s fun and life boring. I remember when I turned twenty-five years old and realized I was so bored. I figured there was nothing more to life but I had to keep living so I started doing a lot of dumb shit. I started drugging and drinking. I started having a lot of promiscuous sex. I started getting into the fights just collect wounds. I started self-mutilating. I considered it fun. I liked the thrill. I liked feeling like a badass

I believe we are all addicts. Some people just haven’t found their addiction, that insanity or dumb shit. I found mine accidently. I really didn’t have my first drink until I was twenty one years old. But it hit me like a brick.

This past week I hit another wall in my so called recovery. Actually I relapsed badly. It’s not what most people would think of a relapse because it was very quiet and intelligent. I knew something was going on so I tried to isolate myself from the human race as quick as possible. Funny, before I knew I had relapsed, I was already drunk. I was already falling down drunk. Of course I tried to continue with my life, waking up the next morning and going to work. That was a mistake. I hurt somebody I liked feelings. I gave myself another reputation. I didn’t plan any of it. I was just doing some dumb shit.

It’s never over, this annoyance that seems to keep taking over my life. I just want to have fun. I don’t want the rest of the crap. It’s never over.

CVS

As I get older there are so many things that just get on my fucking nerves.

I was in CVS and noticed they had a sale on noodles. They were like a dollar so of course I decided to stock up. I get to the register and the lady asked me if I had a CVS card. I look at her blankly. I search my pockets for my wallet and begin rummaging through the tens of card some store gave me a long time ago. Of course, I wouldn’t have a CVS card so I offered her my GNC card. I figured they were both three letters. The cashier didn’t get my joke.

I didn’t like her attitude. I asked her what I was supposed to do because I wasn’t going to pay full price. I mean, why put crap on sale and make it only available to a certain crowd. I get so tired of needing a different discount card from every damn thing. I need a card for the grocery store and if I happened to go to a different grocery store I need their card. It’s insane. My wallet is gorged with plastic I never use. It’s a waste.

When your looks fade

This fat bastard going to tell me unsolicited that I don’t look as good as I looked a few years ago. I laughed and replied, “lucky for me I have a job that doesn’t require me to be good looking.”

At first I wanted to be offended. I mean nobody asked him for his opinion on anything. We were just standing in the grocery line and I hadn’t seen him in years. I was just catching up.

As I walked home from the grocery store I knew I had stopped going to the gym. My social life consisted of me and a bag of Doritos sitting in front of the television. I wasn’t interested in impressing people anymore. I just cared about hiding my hangovers at work.

Honestly, I never wanted to be good-looking. I considered it too much work and having others so invested in my attractiveness. I’ve seen the shows on TV where people got so obsessed with a beautiful person they ended up killing them. As a kid I just wanted to be naked and eat as many oreo cookies I could fit into my mouth. I had desires to become so fat they’d have to bury me in a mobile home. I guess because I was a poor black kid who was often starving I thought really fat people were the idea, that it meant prosperity. I thought the really fat people lived the best lives just eating and farting. All that changed when I became a teenager and wanted to have sex.

When I got home after being insulted I went straight to a mirror. I didn’t think I looked so bad. At least I wasn’t fat.

Karma

Growing up every time someone pissed off my Grandmother she used to say “You better be glad I’m saved.”


I always thought it was funny to imagine my Grandmother going around bitch slapping people because Jesus wasn’t in her life. Instead she went to church four or five times a week. She gossiped behind people’s back. She took her physical fustrations out on moping floors and beating the dusts out of rugs. Jesus was always there by her side like a parole officer I guess waiting for her to fuck up and lose holiness so that he could send her to hell. I wondered before she was saved what type of woman was Grandma. Was she in a street gang?

I recently decided to get me some spiritually like ordering knives off the QVC channel because in the moment it felt like I needed it. I guess I wanted to be a better person. I was tired of celebrities getting all the credit. I wasn’t going to adopt an African baby but I could at least smile at people.

One day after a night of binge drinking I decided to go to church. Well I was just getting home and I passed several churches on a daily basis I decided to stick my head in and see what was happening. First, I learned they do not allow liquor. I found that contradictory because what I remember as a child Jesus blood was liquor. I didn’t fight usher on the issue and just discarded my bottle of snapps. I decided to sit in the back of the church because I didn’t want to bring any attention to myself. As I stumbled to find the perfect seat I tripped on my feet and knocked the pew over. Everyone in the church turned around and sneered. The ushers rushed over and helped me. They asked me if I needed some water or coffee, I really wanted a burger. I promised them I was okay.

As I sat listening to the sermon I realized church was really fucking boring. I couldn’t sit still. I kept nodding off. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would torture themselves every Sunday. I decided to leave. I stole a bible and left.

Gotta go

And then I asked myself how do you commit yourself? My relationship with Thomas is getting really complicated in the end. I don’t know how it happened. I mean it’s been so rocky the last couple of years. We are not romantic. Two weeks he pushed me down on the floor. I jumped up and grabbed him by his throat and choked him. I looked down on his and saw the fear in his eyes like he was so tired of his life it didn’t mattered if I killed him. I let him go. He threatened to call the cops if I didn’t go home. I told him it was four in the morning and the trains didn’t start until five. It had been like the fifth time he’s threatened to call the cops on me in a month.

Somebody asked why we are still together. We aren’t together. We don’t even sleep in the same bed. Tom sleeps on the coach. Somebody asked me why I still stay there when I have my own place. At first it was because of habit. I mean we had a routine. I guess also I didn’t take our breakup that serious. I thought it was the neighbors who were trying to get rid of me not Tom. Now I feel different. I stayed so long because I felt I still needed him. I guess I wanted to need him.

I’m also afraid I can’t make it on my own. At tom’s he cooks dinner, he washes my clothes, folds them and put them in the drawer. It was a great situation. He picked me up off the floor when I got too drunk. He took really great care of me and of course I abused the hell out of it.

But it’s over. I need to get the point through my thick stubborn head.

John Doe

I’m dying. They have the oxygen mask over my face and pumping me with electricity. And it feels so good, the jerk. That pushing on my chest. That slapping my face cuz my eyes going crazy

I went to gay pride. Not the black gay pride but the white gay pride. And it’s the parade. I went with a drug friend. He handed me 8 cherries. I didn’t think so much of it. When went out to eat and was having a good time. I thought they were just cherries. So I ate them. Even if he was a drug friend and the person handing out the cherries was a drug dealer. So suddenly I started feeling good. It was the best fucking pride I’ve ever been in my life. So I kept eating cherries. Nobody told me there were drugs in them. I like drugs. I do them often. And I was feeling good. And everybody kept taking my picture. I was the fucking star of gay pride. I went walking in the streets. I was feeling so damn good. If it looks and feels so good, how could it ever hurt you?

And that’s when I saw him again. We keep seeing each other. He thinks I’m so mysterious. He says he can’t trust me cuz I won’t tell him my real name.

So I was walking home from gay pride for the bar. And everybody was telling me I was on something. And i kept saying that I was just drinking alcohol. Everybody kept telling me my eyes were wild. I only had a couple of martinis. So I started walking home. And then I couldn’t breath.

I like him, He’s cute. He’s tall, he looks like a person I could wake up in the morning and not be ashamed of my hard dick. He looks like he wouldn’t mind me watching jeopardy and jacking off. He wouldn’t punish me for being a Freak. I like him, he’s so debonair. And when I kiss his lips, he’s so giving with tongue don’t act like he’s kisses everybody. I like him. I know I could have fun with him, but he kept asking my name.

I told him so many names. Maybe I’m Chris. Maybe I’m Sean. Sometimes I’m Josh. Other times I’m Nathan. What’s so fucking important about a name? I’m reinvented, not born. I’m rebellious not nurtured. I think to myself could he understand. My name doesn’t’ get my dick hard. A named doesn’t get a dick hard. I could tell him Sean, but he knows that a lie. What if I actually told him? Would he care the story behind it? Or is my name something he needs to cling to like something falling off a cliff.

What can’t he understand I’ve been so disappointed? The name is the oldest magic. If I gave my name then I’m own by artificial. If I know I want him to get to know me, I don’t tell him my name. I see if he’s really interested. It ain’t the glory some dick sticking out to be sucked. It’s the decision of love. I can’t understand why he need to know my name unless he serious about who I am. Unless he wants to know the story. So I tell him Josh. the nest week I tell him Nathan. After that I tell Sean. I make him keep asking. I make him keep questioning, not that I’m a liar but somebody is behind the dick print and cute smile. I’m like, don’t kiss me and think you’re not paying half of the rent.


It’s how stories end, it’s how stories begin. Let me re-introduce myself. I first ask for forgiveness, because I no longer feel the need to pretend your fucking fantasy of the tooth fairy leaving a quarter under you slobbery’s pillow because you lost something that you vomited. I aint got no teeth no more. Somebody kicked my ass outside the bar and stomp out four of my front teeth and I ain’t got no insurance. So I aint dressing up in a hot ass Easter Bunny suit hiding eggs so that you think Jesus didn’t get his ass beat like a slave. And don’t get me started on Santa Claus and how poverty makes kids think materialism is happiness and their parents don’t love them because they on food stamps and couldn’t afford the Toys R us bullshit that told them to never grow up. Read it again. Read it again, bitch, read it again and slowly and understand the set up for failure.

You see I had to create this persona to survive because I wanted to be normal. I knew if I grew up to be the fuck up they predicted, I get to be normal. They would say I would always grow crazy like my mama. Shit, I was molested. I was raped. Mama got addicted to crack and abandoned. Grandma fed us from dog bowls. Daddy got himself killed. My uncle Fred liked kicking my ass. I knew I needed to create a persona that was unforgiving so they wouldn’t think I was a freak. If I forgave too quickly, they wouldn’t trust me. They treat me like Sadam Hussein. They would constantly accuse me of weapons of mass destruction. They want to take me to labs and opened me up and see how I ticked. So I had to create a person that was so damn wounded they would think it never healed. I knew they would understand knife wounds. I knew if I didn’t show some sign of inflictions, they would think I was a fucking freak. They would think I was normal.

You see, I kept healing. It was some weird shit. Everything that kept happening to me, I just heal like a fucking super hero. I never forgot my purpose. And I hated that about myself, having those fucking super hero powers. So like Superman, I created the weakest exampled of humanity I could think of, Clark Kent. I made him mild mannered. I made him the boy next door. I gave him glasses and clumsiness. I called him Carmichael.

But in my case, I created Sean. The black ghetto kid. I gave him a drug problem. I made him so hopeless that everyone who met him would think he was a waste of time. I then eventually gave him a drug problem. I lied to everyone about him. I never told anyone my real name. It was the only I could tell the story. It was the only way I could tell the story without being cold. They could pity Sean. They could think he was sexy. They could think they could save him. It gave them purpose. IT made them feel better about their fucking pathetic lives. I did them a service. Cuz otherwise they would’ve said why does he keep healing. They would wonder if my mother was on crack why I had such good English. I dated this guy once. I would always tell him I was from the ghetto but he would tell me that I was the prince of wealth. I would cry to him at night that my uncle Fred used to beat my ass and I got raped at five years old and he would tell me I grew up in a mansion and got a pony at five years old. So I lied. I created somebody predictable. I knew it would explain the story better.

The problem with alter-egos, they take on a life of their own.

So I created this persona I couldn’t’ no longer control. It was what I needed because growing up; my cousins would throw my books on the top of house. My grandmother’s punishment was taking away my library card and all my books and pencils. It was putting me in that room, face forward with no television and no creativity. So I had to create this persona, to make them think I was like them, that I wasn’t some damn cat with nine lives.
That I wasn’t some voodoo witch casting spells. I had to make them think that I died.
.

What I didn’t understand, the oldest Magic is a name. It’s how parents name their born. It’s how we grow to become the wounds of the original wound. Why name me Michael? When my name has always been Sean?

So I had to create a person to get free. I had to keep them distracted. Because I didn’t believe in their suburbs, baseball or apple pie. I knew politicians came to the ghetto to score crack and I was that drug dealer.


As I lay dying in that ambulance, I think if I tell him my name, does that mean I tell him my story. Does it mean he could love me? Am I setting myself up for disappointment? If I tell him my name, the oldest magic would he get scared. To give him my lips would’ve been easier. To give him my dick, my ass, my spit, or whatever would’ve been easier. But my name was the only thing I reserved. It was mine. It belonged to me. He could only have the illusion. Superman don’t go around telling everybody he’s fucking Clark Kent.

So I don’t tell him. When I die, I’m a John Doe. They are going to bury me in some place I don’t know. That’s my name. I don’t exist.

Fat ass Al Gore isn’t missing any meals.

Sitting on the toilet at work, I suddenly think of Sheryl Crow. I ate some bad chili for lunch that fought with my stomach like two angry kangaroos in a boxing ring. I needed to go sit for awhile and not to pray but give birth to something messy. After the convulsions and explosions, I stared at the toilet paper. I had one of those diarrheas that didn’t just wet the booty hole, but flooded and wet the booty crack. I tore off one sheet of paper and wondered how it was going to work a miracle. Jokily, Sheryl Crow once said that in order help with global warming we should only use one sheet of toilet paper. She obviously didn’t know my situation.

Sometimes I feel the Global Warming goes too far. It’s the fat and rich and elitist trying to create some new trend to entertain their boredom. Recycling isn’t anything new to the poor. I grew up dirt poor, government cheese poor, and been recycling since I knew how to breath. I’m the youngest of six children, so my mother’s uterus was used and abused when I got to it.

Al Gore was on Oprah talking about Global Warming. He looked like he hadn’t missed any meals. I’m sure all the trash that comes from his snacking is enough to at least save a Polar bear. I watched him on Oprah giving tips to the average folk how to save our planet and it seemed sort of pretentious. I mean Oprah lives in a 50 million dollar house, and have several others in Hawaii and other places. She’s taken up enough space to at least save a forest our something. Think of all the trees had to be cut down. And that Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t he have the ultimate “Green” house built from scratch. I mean wouldn’t it had been easier to just buy a “used” house. I mean, recycle the economy damnit.

Recycling isn’t anything new to me. All my clothes when I was growing up were hand me downs. We recycled everything. When the bread went bad, it became bread pudding. When the bananas went bad they became banana bread. We had to bath in the same bathwater until I was at least thirteen years old. Fifty percent of our groceries were non-perishables because they were cheaper and last longer. There was hardly any waste in my impoverished house. Even soap was recycled. When the bar got to small to hold in the hands, it went into a jar for latter use.

I decided to ignore the wishes of Sheryl Crow. I grabbed a huge wad of toilet paper and wiped my shamed into submissions and flushed it down the toilet. And then I decided for desert I’d eat that fruit cake I got for Christmas because when you’re poor you waste nothing.

I am a fighter, there is no turning back

Well I finally got myself a new therapist. I just felt like I wasn’t being listened to or help. I felt my psychiatrist get throwing drugs at me like I was a lab rat to see what worked and didn’t work. And my therapists she made me feel like she was just recording statistics. They were both recommended by the hospital after I checked out of the mental hospital back in September. They were what my insurance covered. At first I just went with the flow. I really didn’t take my mental illness that serious. I figured I’d probably like the drugs once I amped them up with the street drugs I was already taking. But as in previous blogs I stated, that was a HUGE mistake. I almost went crazy. For an entire day when I mixed alcohol, seroquel and crystal meth I felt as if my heart was going to jump out of my chest. It was horrible. I realized I couldn’t “use” and be on anti-psychotics, so I gave up the anti-psychotics. But that was before I got deep into recovery. When I finally gave up the streets drugs and drinking, I went back on antipsychotics. I didn’t like it. I was sober. I only acted up when I was really drunk. I figured I could make it on my own without any influences. I guess because I was already an addict, I knew I would just start abusing the anti-psychotics. I actually found out that if I mixed the Paxil, energy pills and drank red bulls all day, I’d get the best highs. So I decided to just go cold turkey.

Of course when I told my therapist she adamantly was against it. I’d just pour the pills down the toilet.

I was walking to work this morning and I thought of my sister. She’s on the same anti-psychotics I was on. She claims she can’t live without hers because she is afraid of going back to the old addict she used to be. I don’t think she fully understand her disease. But I’m glad she finally got help. I’m glad I finally got help. Funny, we both ended up at the mental hospital after suicide attempts. I guess suicide runs in my family. I wish my family was closer so I could get more answers.

The reason I thought about my sister was because living in darkness and not knowing what’s going on with you is awful. I suffered with it for ten years before I got answers. And it feels so good to have answers. I’m not completely sane or sober, but I have answers.

I don’t plan to ever go back on the drugs. I just plan to continue with my therapy. I really don’t believe every bipolar person needs to be on drugs. It’s just a process of learning to control one’s emotions and irrational fears.

I know I’m aware because a year ago I could have never been able to write this blog. I just thought I was lost and hopeless. And I knew it was getting worse. But somehow I stumbled on the education and began the healing process. I know there are others out there suffering and not really knowing why. I pray they find the light exactly when they need it most.

Reality Blog

I feel as if my blog has become my own reality show. I guess most bloggers feel that way. My last outburst kind of reminded me of Kanye West. i guess I can be a drunk diva sometimes. i got into it with my ex over something stupid. It's always something stupid. i think i started thursday night argument. Breaking up is hard to do. It's like i can't critize him anymore without it getting all personal. And then i was also drinking like a fish. i didn't go to work the next day knowing i had rent to pay with that paycheck.

I'm beginning to realize with every slip up there's a chance to learn something about myself. It's still a process trying to heal from old wounds, recover from addiction and became a proper adult.

Fuck you

i guess if i wanted to make a career of those who paid me to leave them alone, i got a business. But i was always in love and i just wanted them to know if they tried to leave i would destroy them. I would send naked pics to all their co-coworkers, call the IRS and tell on them that time when they claimed thier cat as a dependedent with thier dead father's SSN, or the old man who liked young boys who mothers were willing to testify. So i get paid constantly, that's how i keep moving from texas to miami now Dc. But it always hurt.

and now my boyfriend called the cops on me last night. i may not be on the lease, but i got squatters rights. he signed for drivers license. i got him by his balls. and he attacked i just defended myself. he tried to pay me so many times to leave. i took the money and stayed. what's different about this relationship..

this time i ain't playing motherfucking charles. don't pay me to get out of Texas and think i won't call all you co-workers. I'm a bitch. I'm a vendictive. I will destroy anthing after me. And Tom thinks that after i leave it's over. Let's see how his parents like to see our sex tape on thier 50th anniversary. I don't give a fuck. I;'ve been to jail. I've shot. I shot ppl. So if i can get what i want, let's see if he can live with that. let's see if he can breath

I love me today

I was reading my old blogs and all I have to say is thank god for growth. I sometimes go back and read old diary pages from high school and college and I’m like growing up is a motherfucker. I mean all the insecurity, societal pressure and feeling just lost. Of course each of our processes are different. I had a rough upbringing with the crack addicted the mother and violent criminal father. It was going to take awhile for me to see the light.

But now, I’m so happy to at least to feel like I’m moving in a different direction. I’m secure in the fact my life is changing for the better. It feels good to blog about something positive. But I still hope those who are looking for peace read the old stuff and see change isn’t easy. It takes time. It takes many mistakes. It’s not about being perfect. It’s just about learning to love yourself. I love me today.