This time around, not starting over, but starting

I think my suicide attempt was my wake up call. After I plunged the razor into my veins and saw the blood crying, I knew I had made a mistake. I wanted to go back. I wanted to call somebody. I knew I would have to wear the scars for the rest of my life. I had too many scars on such a young body. So many years of self-mutilation to feel better. So many years of reckless behavior to punish myself. Funny, I treated myself like I knew I would.

I had my first therapy appointment today. I had my first AA meeting this past weekend. I’m looking forward to life again. I don’t want it to get that dark every again.

My therapist asked me where do I see myself a year from now. A year from now I would like to be alive. I like to be coming off a year of celibacy. I think I’ve misused sex and I need to get back in touch with my body. I like to be sober. I like to be in my own apartment. I like to bring the smile back to my eyes.

I know it’s going to be hard work coming back from the dead, again. The dead never come back the same. The last time I came back, I thought it was for love. I didn’t want to die without ever feeling love. This time, I got everything to prove to myself. I know I’m not the fuck up I can sometimes be. I know I can do something really special in this world. I know I can be healthy and proactive. I can be somebody.

Every time I’m embarrassed, I just tell myself this too shall pass and look into the future when nobody remembers I fell down. I know the road ahead of me will be difficult, but I smile because I look into the future when I’m happy and healthy.

Yes sweetheart, I do want to get healthy.

AA confession

I want to drink. It’s been six days since I tried to kill myself. It’s been on day since I got out of the mental ward. I thought I learned. I was feeling good. The pharmacy didn’t have my meds, gave me something for seizures. I don’t trust what they gave me. I’m not taking it. I will want until Monday to see my therapist. Can I survive until Monday? Can I survive until Monday? I feel like I’m all words now. I’m all fear. I know it’s irrational. I know what I’m feeling is irrational. I feel so damn ALONE. I feel like I’m never going to be happy again. I just want a fucking drink. I want to taste the rum on my lips and under my tongue and against the inside of my cheeks as I slowly swallow as it dances down my throat. I want to feel the dance. I want to feel the sunrise in my eyes. I want to feel the blood pumping my veins. It’s only been six days. It’s only been six days. I lost that guys’ number from AA. Was that faith? How did I lose it? I want to take to somebody. I want somebody who has been through tell me it’s going to be okay. It’s like I’m sick. I feel it in my stomach. I just want to cry. I just want to ball myself up in a fetal position and just cry. I want to hit. I want to yell. I want kick a hole in the television because everybody is drinking on it and I’m not. I’m watching some stupid comedy and all I can see is liquor.

I never felt so weak in my life. I can’t call anyone. Who am I going to call? Who am I going to call. I have no friends anymore. Nobody knows what this is. Nobody knows what this is.

I know the bar serves weak drinks. I should’ve gone to the store earlier. I waited. I waited yesterday. I just feeling like I’m waiting to break. I want to break. I want to break into a thousand pieces. I want to bleed. I want to fall down. I want to come undone. I want to break. Why do I want to break? That makes no sense.

What will happen if I do drink? What will happen? Will last week happen? Will I find myself in the bathroom the box cutter again slicing my wrists because I’m such a FUCK UP! Will I have to go back to the mental hospital? I don’t want to go back there. I hated it. I learned a lot but I hated being on suicide watch. You can’t even shower alone.


If I drink tonight what will happen. Will I survive this time and what if I do survive? Wouldn’t that make me want to survive again? It’s coming again. Why do I want to know what will happen? I know what has happened/

I just want to drink. I want to feel it on my tongue. I want to hear the music. I want to dance. I want to feel good. I want to feel good. I want to get rid of this anxiety. I want to get rid of this loneliness. Nobody is answering my calls. I think I will drink. I know I already am. I knew it on Tuesday. I’ve just been buying time.

Funny, just a minute ago I realized I’ve gotten some growth in my recovery. I do want to recover as much as I want a drink. I called as many friends as I could. I didn’t call them to stop me from drinking. I actually called them because I knew there relaxed response or lack of answer the phone would give me more of a reason to go out and drink. I talked to my sister. She still doesn’t know I sliced my wrists six days ago. She still doesn’t know I spent a week in a mental ward. She’s clueless. Everyone is clueless. I called her because I knew she would be bothered I interrupted one of her shows. I knew she would treat me like a brush off. All my friends do. I expect it. I used to think getting louder gave me more attention but I was just acting out. I called my sister because I needed a reason or permission to drink. It’s called reactionary defense mechanism. If she ignored me causally, not take what I had to say serious, gave me more irrationality to do what I wanted to do and that was get pissy drunk. I recognized it immediately. It’s my worse coping mechanism. I attracted people in my life so they would give me reason to escape. Give me reason to drug. For the first time in my life I’m realizing if I’m going to surive, I need a better support system. I need more.

so much has happened

so much has happened in the last week. I attempted suicide on Sunday and found myself in a mental hospital for a week. Very intersting. I went to my first AA meeting. I'm now on mood stablizers and Zoloft. I like them both. I will write about all of it soon enough.

But more importantly, what i thought was teh end of the world was actually the beginning. Wenesday i wrote a letter to my ex-Tom who has helped me through the very rough year of my life of drug overdoses and binge drinking and suicide attempts while trying to look for God.

The best part about being admitted to the mental place was that finally i got a name for my disease. I think i'd been misdiagnosed for years. I think i've been misunderstood for year. Some people just thought i was a tempermental artist. Some people thought i was just a dramatic queen. Some thought i just needed attention. Some thought i just needed to stop druging and drinking. I would get messages that "Are you sure sweetheart you want to get well."

I needed help. I needed help for years. I would go to clinics and different therapists and just get the same results. i'd try to get into relationships hoping that would change me or go to church hoping that would change me or whatever. I have a blog called "Light" when i asked god for light and not another chance. I was tired of chances. You can get as many chances as you want fumbling around in darkness directionless. What i needed was a fucking flashing light or moonlight or some type of light to go a specific direction.

When i was kid, I was constanly asked what i wanted to be when i grew up. I think all kids want the illusion of happiness. the stable home, to be a mom or dad live in a nice house with a picket fence, the fairytale and have a good job. I told my fifth grade teacher i wanted to be the president of the United States. I don't know why i said that. Some kids said they wanted to be lawyers or firemen. Kids always want to be some type of superhero. I wonder what that means. Nobody ever wants to grow up to be divorce. Nobody ever wants to grow up and keep getting fired from drops. Nobody ever wants to be the high school drop out teenage mama. But sometimes, often times, we do grow up to be those people. I didn't want to grow up to be a bipolar paranoid schizophrenic alcoholic wannabe writer.

But as kids, do we really get much choice what we're supposed to grow up to be. With all the fairytales and family sitcoms and walt disney, isn't it a set-up for failure? My mother was a crack whore and father was a drug dealer that died wheni was five. My mother was never around. I was molested. I grew up constantly terried of if i would eat or have a place to sleep or be attacked. I grew up constantly terrified. I went from one foster care to another foster care to another family member house to be a runaway at 15 years old. I wonder why i wanted to grow up to be a hero. I cause i wanted to grow and be invincible. I think that's the attraction of superman and batman. I wanted to grow and be able to fight the bad guys and win. But the bad guys became my demons. The bad guys were the demons of my childhood.

Maybe in a way i'm getting to grow to be the superhero. I have to fight those voices in my head that constantly what to destroy ever that i love dear like the villian in the cartoon. Maybe on some subconsious level children understand the need for good to prevail. It's for life to prevail.

i suddenly found my meaning in life. I used to think cartoonish villains were teh bank robbers, the rapers, the murderers, the jokers, the dictators and those people are real. But what's also real is the pain we sometimes never get over as kids when were touched by real evil. Superhereos always have a purpose because they've experience real evil really young in life. clark kent and lex luther. need i say more.

Day 5: The purpose Driven Life

Chapter 5

“Seeing life from God’s View”

This is my most favorite day. I thought about this day for two days. I understand this day. I understand how I think I am and what I must do.

I wrote about it a little in Day 3. I wrote about how I turned my back on god.

“How do I see my life” In the last couple of days it’s been so complicated. In the last month it’s been so confusing. I was trying to prove so much to so many people. I wanted them to know that I was a good writer but they weren’t reading. It wasn’t until I understand that Steven Fullwood hadn’t read my book that I begin to understand “how do I see my life” because I wasn’t attractive to him: he didn’t want to suck my dick or fuck me, nor did he want to read my blogs or get into me. I couldn’t understand the manipulation. I couldn’t understand what he wanted from me so I had to threaten him. I had to make sure he understood I was leveling him. I had to make sure that we would never speak again.

And I was angry. I read his shit. I read his book. I read his website and he didn’t even take the time. He bought my book and that would be cool if he was just another trick. But he bought my book as writer and he didn’t even read and that was the worse insult.

I couldn’t understand it. Something I still can’t understand. I can’t understand how I love someone who did everything he was supposed to do. Why did I stay when I knew to begin with his heart was someone else? Why did I stay? Why did I make a case? Why am I not letting it go? What point am I proving? More importantly why?


I’m trying to see life from God’s view. Yes I fell in love with a preacher’s boy, but he didn’t’ teach anything about God. Sunday morning and I got fat lip.



I want to see my life differently. I have been thinking about my life differently. I’m beginning my life differently. I don’t see myself in the prison anymore. Because understand the prison now. I don’t see myself in the prison anymore. My rebellion is not about the prison anymore. I see my life in the university. I don’t understand why others don’t want the education anymore. I don’t understand why others keep the education from me. Is it not because they’re no teachers. Is it because they are spies. They are dictators. I don’t want those people in my university. We will not get along.
Day 5 I accept what god view of me is. It’s like a wrestling match. To think I actually fell for a preachers boy when I was preachers boy, told I would grow to be a preacher. But we are not the same. God will give me another door. I just hope for him he can live with who he is. I can’t live with

Day 4: The purpse Driven Life

Last night again tom and I got into it. I’ve been reading old blogs about our relationship and how it’s been so volatile. Last night he split my lip. He said it was an accident like me putting a hole in the wall was accident. That was no accident. I got an interview on Monday and he accidentally hit me in my lip and split it, I don’t understand my life anymore, and I keep trying to get him to read the purpose driven life. Maybe he doesn’t want his life to have a purpose. Maybe my time with him is spent.


Day 4

Made to last forever

I’m not for sure if I will last forever. I know my soul will go and do different thing but I comprehend the process.


It seems my life at the moment is full of so much drama within itself that I can’t think about eternity or whatever. I just want to make it to tomorrow. I just want tom to forgive me. I just want to forgive him.

It seems so easy to say I’m preparing myself to be by god side when there is so much bullshit going on in my life. Why do I still get angry? When did I start punching holes in the walls? When did I start holding on to the anger. I want the forever. I need to remind myself I’m more than this life. It’s so hard to forget. I don’t like chapter four. It’s not telling me what I want to hear.

Day 3: The Purpose Driven Life

"What Drives my life"

Day 3 or chapter 3 was the easiest of the questions. I know i'm mostly driven by anger, hurt, my past, more haunted than anything. It's very hard to let go. i remember i was at the dentist for a tooth cleaning and she made the comment that when i was a child i must've not gotten very good nutrition because the enamel in my teeth were very weak and soon all we have to be replaced.

I remember sitting in the chair and tearing up when she stepped out the room. It was as if my past was coming back for me again. I grew up poor. The first time i went to a dentist i was in college. I never got my teeth cleaned as a kid. Nobody cared what happened to me as a kid. I didn't go to doctors. If something happened, I was told to just deal with it. I needed a hearing aid for my right ear since i was five years old. My grandmother woudl tell me that i was faking not being able to hear and every year when we had to do those day physical tests, they sent the same report home. I couldn't hear in my right ear.

I've blamed my family for a lot not just the childhood abuse, physically and mentally but also not preparing for adulthood. It was as if i became a slave after my mother abadoned me. That's how i began to see myself, trapped. I saw my entire life as a fucking prison. I couldn't trust anyone. Not anyone. Not even myself. I only saw life as bars and walls and prision guards and thieves and hustlers and overseers. I couldn't even trust my heart because i knew if it accepted any kindness it would make me weak. I told myself very young to never fall in love. I saw how men in my family loved. I saw them beat their wives and cheat. I also hated my mother. I told myself to never fall in love because if i did and it didn't work out, i didn't know what i would i do. I knew i probably kill.

hopesslessness has driven my life. i figured a person like me was never supposed to be happy. happiness for teh shiny happy people. I could only feel artificial happiness. i knew i could only feel happiness if it wasn't real. If i knew it wasn't real. I had no friends. I had no family. I could trust that. Everyone left me. Everyone was selfish. Everyone wanted something or needed something and i could trust that. That was my jail. That was my sentence. I didn't know what i did but i knew i was born into it and i could survive within it.

i've been a terrible friend. i've been a terrible brother and son. I have to curse everyone out. I have to fight everyone. I've been a terrible employee. i've been living my entire life like i'm in prison and there's no way out. It's been frustrating.

the only way i've known how to escape is mentally: alcohol, drugs, sex. Every day i've waken up i've just wanted to scream. I walk down the street and i feel everyone watchign. I feel as if everyone making sure i don't escape. So i stay quiet. I disappear. I plot because i feel everyone is plotting against me.

So what does this say about waht i feel about God today? I felt god forsaken me and i never understood why. I've actually felt as if God hated me, wanted me to fail or was just setting me up to fail just to fuck with me. To give me just a little and then take it all away. Or if God gave me anything, I was just going to destroy like an ungrateful child.

i'm begining to realize my relationshiop with life has been like my relationship with God(universe), very tempermental. It begs the question, what would it take for me to forgive God. I i used to think to myself it would take money, fame, recognition, soberity but honestly, what is that i think i need to forgive god for? My life. What is it do i think God owes?

I used to be driven by anger and underneath the anger was loneliness. I thought god abadoned me a long time ago. I thought that before i decided with a whole heart if i believed in god or not.

Now that i'm older, wiser, i know that God has never abadone me, i abadoned God. I turned my back. I stopped living my purpose.

Day 2: The Purpose Driven Life

"You are not an accident"

Beginning day 2 in the purpose driven life it was nice to know that i'm not an accident. I first had some issues with accepting my mother and father. I always considered myself somewhat of a mistake or life as somewhat of a mistake given all the bullshit that happened to me in my childhood. It's very hard to accept or even consider that my rape, abuse, abadonment, more abuse, neglect was all for a reason. I didn't know if i could believe in that type of god.

chapter 2 in the purpose driven life talks about long before i was conceived by my parents, i was conceived in the mind of god. I decided to stick with my orginal train of thought and take the book philisophically rather than literal. There's so much bad shit going on in the world. The other day i read on the CNN website that some five year old kid was beaten and then burned alive. HE survived but would have to live the rest of his life with the scars:mentallly, phyiscally and spiritually. I think that child would always question god. I think that child when it's older will alway ask if god thought of him before he was born why didn't god protect him. Why doesn't God protect many of us?

I'm gay and wasn't the most masculine kid on my block, why didn't god protect me from the harassment? and now that i'm grown, i've been the victim of gay bashing a couple of times, why wasn't i protected? If god concieved of me before i was born, he obviously knew what i was going to be, so why is it the so called conversative christians always question thier own God?



I think the second chapter is more about trust, that no matter what man does with my life, my life was never an accident. I think God in itself it's not the pain or reaction of life, but life itself, how it doesn't discriminate, that there are no illegimate children. We are born. We didn't ask. We are born. It's the living that makes it hard. It's the living that tests faith. I think the second chapter gave me great insight to understand teh difference between god and man.

THe question i'm spposed to consider is "I know that God uniquely created me. Qhat ares of my personality, background, and physical appearace am i struggling with?"

As a black gay man borned in the ghetto, the answer should be simple. I don't think i ever struggled to accept my physical form and it's characteristics, I think it's always been faith. I don't ever think i considered myself or life an accident, i questioned the reasoning for some of the pain. I questioned why my father had to die or why did my mother get addicted to crack. I questioned the poverty.

I don't belive everything happens for a reason. I believe there's a difference between god and man. I no longer think of God as the details, like war or racisim, i think of God as the universe, that its big and getting bigger everyday and we're just specks of dust in it, none of it accidental.

This is love

This is love


That night on the streets
The lights dimmed
The folks didn’t call the cops
Didn’t know my selfish heart was so confrontational
But before that
On the dance floor
Something so real
Even if it’s ending
No one will ever love you like I loved you
Sometimes I think love is just fucking with me
Because love is god
The world can begin or the world can end
Life can having meaning or everything must end
Love is like accidental
You can bring it up with respect or you can drop it off like a coward
And never care how loved survived the abandonment
You can listen to the song on the radio
Or drink or drug until you pass out\
You can sex all night
Or asked for half of life

Some of us
love
getting high on
that chemistry with a sticky dollar bill
But it interacts with you
Your passiveness
It’s still loving you how they didn’t love you
And you must go back and correct the math
Correct the soul
In the clouds behind closed lids
Interacting and loving what you think you can’t love
Addiction
Pulling you under water like crocodile to a zebra that got to close
But it’s all love
Even if it’s the devil
But what if I choose heaven
Maybe we have the problems we have
Some things I do, make it clear
I love you
Some addictions are good
Because I’m not afraid of dying
Because I love you

Day 1: The Purpose Driven Life

The first sentence in the first chapter states “It’s not about you.” That made me laugh out loud. Supposedly it’s all about God. It’s not about my happiness, family or career but God.

I must admit, the first chapter confused me. If everything is about God and god’s plan, why the fuck does he need me? Am I just a rat in a maze teased by the smell of cheese so that I could bump in corners and hallways, so some scientist could document how long it took for me to figure out the puzzle for the prize? Why does God need anybody? If god knows all and sees all and already plan it before I was bored, wouldn’t that be boring? I mean if he knows all and see all; he’s going to know those who just going to say “Fuck you.”

I mean if god knew all , why didn’t he see the devil coming. The devil was once one of his best angels. And what about Eve. I mean didn’t he know Adam and Eve were going to eat that damn apple. Maybe god doesn’t know all and see all. I would think knowing what’s going to happen next would be so boring.

Which brings me back to why the first chapter in "the purpose driven life" pissed me off. I first had to decide if I believed in God and then I had to decide if God was an asshole. I mean I have no desire to spend eternity worshipping anybody. If god is that lonely, he should get a dog.

I decided god is not that lonely. Not my god. I think god is individual like I believe God isn’t taught, he or she is discovered. I don’t think you can teach anyone god. I think you can teach rules and rituals but that’s not God. Growing up we were made to go to church five times a day, eat the cracker and drink the wine, pray at night, but that didn’t teach me anything about god. It taught me that when I grew up the first thing I was going to cut out my life was church. I hated the ritual and all the hypocrisy. I hated that I couldn’t question anything.
Growing up I realized quickly that others exploited and manipulated the word of God for their own personal gain. If god was all knowing and seeing and I had questions, wouldn’t god allow me answers? I mean he knew I was going to question, since he was all knowing.

Funny, at the end of the first chapter the question I was asked to consider “In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself?”

I laughed because the book itself I figured was some form of advertisement for its own personal gain. At least that was my first impression. I wasn’t going to go into the book with fearing god or any of that bullshit. I was going to go into the book that if I believed my life was purposeful; I was interested in seeing how I could fulfill its meaning. I was ready to read more.

The Purpose Driven Life: The prequel

By no means am I religious. I’ve only been to a church in the last twenty years for a wedding or funeral. I only bought the book, “The purpose driven life” because a good drinking and drugging friend of mine suddenly decided one day to find Jesus. I’d known Myron since our freshman year in college. We spent the next ten years of our life cruising bars, clubs, bathhouses, drug dealers houses and etc. He was a great club friend, the type that would tie the rubber band around your arm to find a vein and shoot you up with the latest drug. One day he decided to get sober, which I thought meant he was just going to let the hard stuff go, but he meant actually sobriety, not even valium. Because we were friends for so long, I decided to entertain what I considered his latest phase like when he fell in love with ecstasy and xanyx.

I bought the book so that we could have something in common. I grew up on the bible so talking about God was nothing new to me. I was actually intrigued. I never considered Myron one-dimensional because I always enjoyed his intellect and humor, so I was excited to see where the new adventure would take us. But Myron wasn’t having it. He decided he was conservative Christian despite the fact he was gay. I knew underneath he was just trying to protect himself and his new decisions. Actually, my interest was only to discourage what I considered his newest annoyance. I wanted the old Myron back. I wanted the “fuck up” that made my life seem somewhat normal. We stopped speaking. Ten years of friendship gave us too many issues. That’s the thing about some friendships—the longer the relationship the more shit to be rehashed. “Remember when you did this, and I did that” bullcrap.

It very hard to forgive people you’ve known your entire life.

A year and something after I stopped speaking to Myron, I re-discovered “The purpose driven life;” mostly because I hate having books in my library that I haven’t read. I hate going to those people houses and they have books on their shelves and when you ask them about them, they haven’t read them. I refuse to buy books I don’t read. Every book on my shelf I’ve read from cover to cover and if I like it, it goes in my reference collection to be quoted and re-read.

Anyways, beginning the “purpose driven life” beget a question I hadn’t considered seriously in a long time. I had to ask myself, did I actually believe in God. I knew I didn’t believe in my childhood God, or heaven or hell. I got over that the first time I sucked dick. I had to ask myself did I believe in God which mean life had purpose. I used to be very dark. Very dark where life was just fucking meaningless. I read every existential book. I wore black. I constantly fantasized about my death. I remember making the decision in my head that I was just going to piss my life away. I wasn’t going to do anything with it. I was just going to get high, have sex and fun. That seems romantic when you’re twenty two years old. Turning thirty years old and surviving my twenties gave me a different perspective on life. Just having fun suddenly seemed stupid. Anyways, I had to ask myself if I believe in God. I thought about the big bang theory. I thought about evolution. I thought about Adam and Eve. I thought about the trees and wind and the human body and how it all seemed so specific and planned. I couldn’t ignore the sun rises for a reason. I couldn’t ignore the purpose of bees and ants and even the germs on my body that I can’t see. I couldn’t ignore purpose. That everything on this planet in one form or another has purpose. And if there was a purpose, meant there was an intelligent mind behind it, that someone planned this. That someone decided it. I knew I wasn’t an atheist. I grew up a church boy, there was no way I can ever be an atheist.

Indirectly I believed in God. Which mean indirectly my life had some purpose? That was new. I never even thought of my life having any purpose. Yet intellectually I couldn’t deny the fact I wasn't0 exempt if 99% of life on this planet in some small or big way had purpose. The wind blew despite the fact if I wanted to feel it on my face or not. So if my life had purpose, I needed to figure out what that was.

I knew part of me would have a difficult time digesting some of the crap written about the bible. And I’ve read ever self-help book on the shelves at Borders, so I knew it probably wouldn’t tell me anything I already didn’t know but I was up for the challenge.

The book begins with I must take forty days out of my life and read each chapter and process it slowly and sincerely. I knew I wasn’t going to take forty days to read a book. But I did decide to dedicate individual blogs for each chapter. I call it my purpose driven blog.

Now that I know I believe in God, the first chapter is “It all Starts with God”

The worse day ever

Yesterday was probably the worse day ever. I went to the doctor for an inner ear infection. This is were speaking up for youself is important. I told the bitch I might be allergic to Batrim but she prescribed it anyway. The last time I took Batrim I was in the hospital for a two weeks. It wasn't for sure if it was Batrim that turned my eyes bloody red or the infection or whatever. I just know, the second i swallowed that pill my temp rose like five degreess and then finally to 106.

I don't know why i didn't listen to myself yesterday. I don't know why i didn't push the issue. I know my body not my Doctor. I took that pill again and spend the last twenty four hours in agony, again. My head was spinning, my eyes turn bloody red, i got such a massive fucking headache i thought my head was going to explode, my breathing slowed down, my temp rose to a 103.

I'm still suffering the side effects. But the lesson is to speak up for myself. Authority figures don't know it all. Just because she wore a white coat didn't mean i should allow the bitch to kill me.

But as i lay in agony like a year ago when i laid in that hospital bed, i discovered there's a lot about my life i need to change. I was alone going through the agony. Tom was there but he barely paid attention. He probably just thought i was being dramatic. Whatever.

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.

Silence

I've been sleeping alot. I think i'm gathering up strength. I don't go out as much as i used to. I don't drink as much as i used to. I don't feel the need.

All i need now is silence. I asked God for light. that was a mistake. i just wanted to know why i had been fumbling around in the darkness for so long go every direction but the right way.

I asked God for light, and got a flash. I saw the road ahead of me. It was more like climbing a mountain. I suddenly felt like Sympus. I read that book by John Camus, loved it. My favorite line "there is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."

Why do we do anything. Why get up in the morning. Actually, two years ago i tried to kill myself. It was the sixth time. But two years ago was the worse. I still have scars. Two years ago one day i just didn't feel like getting up anymore. I didn't call in to work. I stopped paying all my bills. I just laid in the bed for like five months. I just walked away from all of it. Of course i regretted it.

That's the thing about suicide they don't tell you about. It's what if you fail. What if you get to that point and change your mind. It's hard coming back because you know rock bottom. Suicide was like accepting my death. It was so beautiful. But not dying is like figuring out why to live.

After the last suicide attempt i became very afraid of me. I gave up. I knew i could give up again. It makes it harder to rebuild knowing another storm may be in the new future. I guess you can compare my last suicide attempt to Huricane Katrina. It's not just the storm that happened in New Orleans and its devastation its how to rebuild the ghetto. Can one rebuild the ghetto? Isn't the ghetto the very essence of devastation and poverty. That's the real issue with New Orleans nobody is talking about and when i think of my last suicide, it's like how can i rebuild a broken soul. The storm was only the symptom. The storm only brought attention to what was already brewing.

Maybe that's what i'm most afraid of, that my soul is the ghetto and what happens if another storm comes into town.

So i dedicate this to silence.

Day 2 of light

I asked god for light and i still acted up. Am i that hopeless or helpless. That voice in my head started acting up again yesterday and i listen to it. I didn't have any money but yet i found somebody to buy me liqour. what the hell is wrong with me.

The last fuck up standing.

I’m not sure if that’s the title I want to bear but it’s the truth. Back in college and afterwards, I was surrounded by other fuck ups. We went to the bars and clubs six days week. When did recreational drugs. We constantly complained about how our lives weren’t coming together.

Friend by Friend got into rehab or found religion or became really great liars. We each became liabilities to each other. We used to be each other’s family: myron, edcoco, Miguel, paul, mita, Sha, Crystal, Curtis. I mean these kids had problems. Myron family hated him. Always hated him. He was so ignored. He grew up to go to college, get his masters and sustain a very expensive cocaine and ectasy problem. He used to be one of my best drinking buddies along with Johanthn. WE used to call ourselves “Trash.” We even got t-shirts.

I remember when Edcoc was in the free clinic every other weekend. I got tired of going with him. He always had something. He always called me over to his apartment and asked me what this or that was or if he should do something about it. They all used to call me if they got sent to jail or got in a fight or needed to find whatever drug dealer in whatever city.

I remember when Sha became a stripper. I knew she only did because Cyrstal had been stripping all throughout college. I didn’t like Crystal. I found her ghetto. She liked men who beat her. She also loved her cocaine. We all loved our cocaine. She kept her’s in a vile she wore around her neck like she seen in the mover Dangerious Liasons. Crystal was the type of girl who didn’t like to wake up sober. She kept drugs on her nightstands to do when she woke up in the morning. I loved her for that. I just didn’t like her attitude.

Sha became a stripper. Such a typical tragic girl looking for a man in all the wrong places. She loved men like her father. The men she grew up knowing that cheated on her mother and then abandoned them. She never dealt with her childhood rape. She grew up to like the liquor. She was also the coolest in the group. I love Sha the most because she was an abandoned child like me. I thought we had more in common. I never thought she would become a conversative housewife after the stripping career ended.

And then there was poor, sad, pathetic curtis. I’m still pissed at him, so I will say nothing more but fuck that bastard.

There was a time I only hung with the strippers, escorts, drug dealers, addicts, alcoholics, but all that had to change. We got older. We grew up. We started looking at each other as liablities. First there was my Sister and suddenly I was any good anymore. Then curtis who told me that night in the grocery store when I vomited in the baby aisle and thought it was funny because I was high that I was pathetic. And he meant it.

I’m the last fuck up standing. Maybe I was too loyal. Maybe I didn’t get the memo that I was to report to Rehab. I tried going out into the world and getting more fuck-ups but my heart wasn’t into any more. I also didn’t like what I called the “shiny happy” people. The normal people. People I reblled against. People I told myself I would never become. But things change. The rules change. It hurts. I couldn’t go out in the world and get more fuck-ups because it’s like trying to recreate Woodstock. Those things, clikques, only happen once in a life time. I couldn’t recreate it. That’s when real addiction begins. It’s when the people you used to party with begin to disappear and you’re still at the party dancing on the dance floor by yourself. Maybe I needed it more. Maybe I wanted it more. Maybe I still need to make it make sense.

I’m the last fuck up standing from the class of fuck-ups from 1996-2007. Thad went to jail. Will got killed by his boyfriend. Frederick went to jail. Gaylon died in a car crash. Mita died. Rick died of an overdose. It’s just what happened.

And when I’m out now, I see the new ones. The new class of fuck-ups. They don’t know it yet because they’re drinking they techno-colored drinks, dancing, fucking, thinking they have all the time in the world. But when it’s over, they will come looking for me. Like I went looking for Tim, the ex-drug dealer party boi, like I how I found Emanuel Xaxier, how I found those people who would allow me to have peace with my past.

So dance baby, dance the night away. I’m baking cookies so when you get tired of dancing, we can talk.

The beginning of accepting the wreckage

After my much to do about nothing rants for the last two weeks I started thinking about chances. We always pray to god when we figure out world is going right asking for another chance. I’ve been asking for chances for years. I’m on like my one millionth second chance; but last night I decided to do something different. I didn’t ask for another chance. I was referring to the fact I missed out on a very important job last week because I didn’t check my email or phone messages because I went on an alcoholic binge and drug rant. I missed out on that job that one paycheck would’ve got me back on my feet with my bills. I’m really pissed about that.

So last night I asked god for light. I asked god for some common sense. A year from now my life will be completely different. I will either be dead, homeless or free. Those are the only choices. It’s funny how life really hits that fork road in choices that you either die or live. I know I stopped living a long time ago. But that’s another subject. A subject that will aptly be called “Wreckage” in the future. I know longer care about becoming the best seller writer extradoinare. Last week I was watching the movie “El Cantante” with Mark Anthony. It was a pretty good movie but the story about Hector Lavoe was just sad. I decided I didn’t want a life I didn’t get. I didn’t want a life where you supposedly get everything: money, fame, legacy but you don’t get sanity. I wasn’t going to be one of those artist boozing and drugging my life away and everyone after I die say how brilliant yet tragic I was, that used to be romantic to me, now it’s just sad. It’s sad not to get your own life, your own brilliance, your own purpose.

So I asked God for light.

A year from now I will not be Dead or Homeless, but I will be enlightened. I will be on my own in my own apartment. I will still be trying to get it together. And I’m not afraid of the loneliness that comes with getting healthy.

I asked God for light because I no longer wanted to act like the victim or as if I don’t know consequences. Life is just a bunch of choices and some of them lead us in the wrong direction that we’re lost for years. I’m in the dessert, I know that. I’ve made a LOT of bad decisions. I’ve been fumbling around in the dark like I could feel my way to salvation. I should’ve asked for a damn flashlight a long time ago.

I write this not for my self, but for you, you who will come looking like I did when I started asking questions and couldn’t find answers. You are not alone.

Writer in Exile day whatever: let there be light

This little light of mine
i'm going to let it shine.

Day -9

I'm counting back now. I'm no longer calling it "writer in exile" but it's more like "soul in exile"

i found a really great psychtrist this week. I think he's going to work out. i don't believe in taking prescription medicince. i tried that. it made me feel weak and tired all the time and when i stop taking it made me feel suicuidal. i want behavorial therapy. i need to talk it out. i need to write it out. that makes me feel stronger.

it's a good day because i'm finally understand and facing me without the smoke and mirrors. Some people think me writing this candid blogs is about me putting my business out there. So not true. I'm not giving specifics, i'm revealing insecurities. I'm hoping in a way not to only save myself one day but use these revelations to help others. I get so tired of reading somethign where a person killed themselves because they didn't reach out. It's hard to reach out when you get older because it's so much more you have to hide. Nobody wants to be weak. Nobody wants to be disappointed. It's like after 23 we all pretend that we're so busy and important. Yet too many of us are suffering in the darkness.

life is hard. it's so fucking hard. it's like you keep thinking you get to a point where it's figured out but you realize the floor keeps slipping away. i don't know shit. i'm a student everyday.

so what is it that i want to say on day 9. hmmmmmm. i want to forgive. i want to get healthy. i want more to be stable than successful. i don't care about being such a great writer. i don't care about being rich. I don't care about having the perfect relatinoshiop or life. if i can just wake up and like me, that's good enough.

i'm getting there. i am so getting there.

Day 8

I put together the pieces this morning. i tried to figure out why the train derailed, what happened to make day 3 and 4 be so tragic until i went back to day 1. it was the money. it was when i got the money and of course i became concern. i could now afford the demons.

now i reazlie it's not the money or me working, it's the convenience. those demons are real. the only problem is trying to figure am i the demon or am i the victom of the demon. i tried to figure that question out my entire life. did i become what it made me or am i still being harassed by the past. which begs the fucking question, who the fuck am i?

i like day 8, finally i'm asking the right question without outside interference, that's what has frustrated me the most. i get tired or people and thier opinions on my life, telling me to get over it, that i like being the victim, tell me all kind of crap i don't care for. i need to figure this out. nobody can help. they never could.

Writer in Exile, day 7

i actually thought of suicide this morning. i think it's the pills i'm on. i'm having this urge to take a butcher knife and carve in my chest, "i hate me" i hope that though passes.

why am i so damn depressed. i'm on the medication. is it the medication that's making me crazy. or is it the drinking, smoking and all the other shit i've been doing. i'm panicking. i'm need to stop. i just ruined another job pontential. i didn't even seen that the person called because i was high the last day and a half.

i need to stop. i was reading up on Amy Winehouse today. i actaully felt sorry for her and then i thought of myself. i feel sorry for me. i feel sorry that i have such low self worth. that i think so low of myself. that i think i'm weak. that i feel so damn alone all the god damn time.

but i'm not alone. i have friends. they care about me, i should stop pushing them away. i have fans. today, i have decided to end this rants with something i like about me.

today i like my hands and feet. i think i have really pretty hands and feet. i'm saving myself for my hands and feet. my hands are typing these words so that the universe hears me. my feet allowing my body to stand and run when i need to. i feel better. i feel better.