Man in the mirror: til it happens to you. Black gay pride 2007

You can’t make a person feel pride. I think it’s illegal. I feel conflicted every year like I do on Christmas because I’m not close to my family or Valentine’s Day because I’m usually lonely. What’s changed about me this year? Pride is usually the time I see people I haven’t seen in a year or two. Have I gotten fatter, I don’t know because I refuse to weigh myself. Have I gotten older, I don’t know because I see the same damn face every time I look in the mirror. I know I will see old friends and ex-lovers and some will say in their head that I’m not as cute as I used to be, or maybe time hasn’t been good to me or something unflattering. I will smile back with darts in my eyes as to say “I’m still here bitches.” Maybe they would be happy to see me, happy to see that I’m still alive. I guess that’s pride when we get older. The young live to die; the old just don’t want to die.

It officially begins with Phili. The blueprint is all the same. They usually have some silly theme.
Phili – “Your life, your pride.” I don’t know what that means. Are the clubs going to be free? Can I take the hotel towels? Of course I’m taking the hotel towels.
DC – “Liberty, Unity, Strength.” Again, I don’t know what the hell that means.
Miami “Sizzle.” It’s so obvious Miami is promoting a good dick sucking. It might as well be a Blatino party. It sounds hot.
L.A. – “Rock you.” Somebody must’ve been listening to Michael Jackson or something or just tired.
Detroit – “Eyes wide open.” In Detroit one must always keep their eyes wide opened because that city is ghetto.
New York – “Evolution of pride.” It sounds like a summer blockbuster movie or a video game where punks get make-overs or shot.
Atlanta “Moving it to the next level.” Again, I don’t know what that means. The themes are always so esoteric.

If black gay pride was a man, he would be 31 years old. We’re almost the same age. Each year with pride, I feel as if it’s trying to change. It wants to profit on the “Down Low” hype. It wants new blood. It wants to buy the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence and maybe adopt some third-world children. It’s not as young as he used to be. And it knows that the older have gotten complacent and don’t spend as much money. The older are not desperately looking for that approval. Yet, what is this new youth. Who are they?

It was like a horror movie. He couldn’t have been no more than twenty two years old. With hate in his eyes, he dragged a sledgehammer down the sidewalk, the block of metal thick as a fist scraped its knuckles against the concrete creating chards of flashes. Some black gay kids had gotten into a fight earlier in the bar. I didn’t know what had happened. I ran outside and saw a young man no older than twenty five years being kicked bloody. More important, it was that maniac with the sledgehammer rushing towards him. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. It was a Wednesday night which meant shirtless night at the gay bar. Most go for the free drinks from 10 -11 and then head over to the bar across the street. Mostly black kids went there because they played hip hop on the second floor. They didn’t used to charge to get in. Actually none of the bars charged to get in until too many young black kids started showing up. It’s because they like to fight. They don’t tip the bartenders. They are usually rude and loud. They don’t follow the white gay standards.

The charge was meant to discourage them. Five dollars for their regular customers seemed worth it to decrease the insanity. It always worked. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it happened. I lived a lot of places and always when too many black patronages usually mean a price hike. And now the fight.

I don’t know what’s going on with the young black gay kids anymore. In the last couple of years they seem like they’ve gotten more pissed like prison inmates. They come into the life with a chip on their shoulder. They club used to feel like a place to have a good time now it turned to gangs. I know the down low has done more than just been a problem with black women. The down low created the ultra-masculinity hype and said it was sexy. And now this ultra masculine gay boy was going to bash some kid’s head in with a sledgehammer. I was more amazed how everybody was just watching it like Monday night football. I ran to the kid with the sledge hammer. I wasn’t thinking. It’s a problem I have. A couple of months earlier I had gotten into a fight at that same bar. I don’t remember what it was about. I just got three ribs cracked and two missing teeth. I ran to that kid because I knew that anger. I knew that look in his eyes. He had gone too far to stop himself. Somebody else was going to have to do it. I ran to him because I wanted to tell him it wasn’t worth it. Yet, I knew that was stupid. I didn’t know what was worthy to him. I had done things in my life in hindsight that wasn’t worthy but at that moment was worth everything. Maybe that kid slept on the floor at his mama’s house. Maybe he had nothing to lose. Maybe life wasn’t going so good for him. Maybe that fight and winning was the only worthy thing in his life. I knew that look. I had looked for love, happiness and acceptance in many dark places. No one was stopping him so they might as well been cheering. I looked at the crowd, my black gay brothers; it was as if they wanted to see spilled blood like Rome. Some walked away as if it wasn’t their problem but will complain when the club raised the price again or closed down.

I took out a small mirror. I don’t know why. It was a mirror I carried with me to force myself to look into if I thought I had too much to drink at the bar and refused to go home. It was a mirror I looked into if I was going to do something stupid. It was my “safe” mirror. I learned the trick from an AA meeting that didn’t take. I pulled out my mirror and it’s a small mirror, wallet-size. I pulled out the mirror and flashed it at him. I hoped to reflect the streetlights, distract his anger for a second, maybe he’d think I was crazy or laugh or hit me with the sledgehammer. I didn’t know. I pulled out the mirror and put it in his face and for a couple of seconds he stopped. It was as if he saw his eyes and madness. But then he started up again. He was really pissed. So I screamed out that I was calling the cops. I searched for someone to join in the scream. A guy sensing my desperation screamed out he was also calling the cops and grabbed his cell phone. The sad soul let go of the sledgehammer. He ran in the opposite direction. I didn’t feel like a snitch. I felt like I saved both of those kids lives. I hoped neither remembered my face. Maybe that’s why superheroes wear masks to prevent having to testify in court.

Back to pride. I know this is the black gay community at its core, stripped, the anger, the self hatred, the nonchalance, raw sex, the drugs, the self protection, the violence against each other. I see it in the clubs, bars and porno. I’ve seen it online, in Flavaworks, those young kids just unconsciously throwing away their lives for pennies or fucking each other like prison bitches. It’s not even sex, it’s perverted disillusionments. I know because I had been all of that. Maybe that’s why Pride bothers me so much. It’s like going home on Thanksgiving and unable to talk about how Uncle Ray touched me when I was six years old. I’m just supposed to pretend we are all happy. I’m just supposed to pretend.

I believe we all come into this world happy and loved. It’s the noise that distracts us. It’s the noise of our mama and daddy. It’s gender. We don’t get to pick our names. And then for some us there’s the poverty, abuse, rape or war. All the noise makes us unable to hear ourselves, makes us believe we all don’t seek that innate happiness and love. Some of us begin to believe we are supposed to cheat or manipulate it. Some of us just give up. That happiness and love doesn’t go away. We just have to be still and reduce the noise to hear it. And then we grow up and become gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor. We become our religions. We become our fears. But it’s the same journey. The addict and housewife are on the same journey. The preacher and the prostitute are on the same journey. It’s to reduce the noise. Some of us call it god. Some of us call it clarity or charity. It all ends in death. We just take different roads.

I don’t believe that kid with the sledgehammer was a bad person. He was just about to do a bad thing. He got caught up in all his noise, the liquor, some weed, maybe somebody said something he didn’t like, but it didn’t mean he stopped wanting to be loved or happy, yet he was about to create more noise in his life. Even that kid laying on the ground, somehow he gotten himself in danger, maybe he asked for it. I know I’ve asked for it. It didn’t mean he didn’t want happiness or love. It’s amazing what we create to distract. It’s why we distract is the real issue.

There have been many mirrors in my life. There was the mirror of my childhood, my grandmother’s house; it was cracked just like my life. I remember trying to find a solid piece to really see myself. It was the mirror of the greyhound bus station when I ran away when I was fifteen years old. I needed make sure I was doing the right thing. There was the mirror of my first apartment. It made me feel free. There was the mirror that time I spent a week in jail for some bullshit. I hated that mirror because it was a shiny tin, just a hazy mess. There were all those mirrors at bathhouse and coming from one night stands. I usually avoided those mirrors. There was that mirror in the hospital when I almost died. I get up and go to the bathroom and see my blood shot red eyes and the light in me fading. I had hit rock bottom because nobody can come back from death.

And then it was that mirror I showed to that poor soul that night. I know after this weekend I will see many pictures in various magazines of black gay men hugged up on each other and smiling for the camera. What I really want to see are their mirrors at three o’clock in the morning. That’s the truth.

The thing about the mirror is that we all come into this world wanting to be happy and loved. Sometimes we get so distracted with our own noise. I think mirrors are to remind us of our truth. I know it’s hard sometimes because when we look at our reflections we see what we don’t like, but that’s only what we think others wouldn’t like. That’s not pride. I’m finally learning to look in the mirror and be proud. I got scars. I got dark circles. I got some knife wounds and emotional scars. But I am here. I am enough. I can finally go home because home is like testing my soul. I can finally do black pride because I longer have nothing to prove. This is my protest. I don’t need a silly theme to tell me how to feel. I got a mirror and look in it often. It tells me the truth. I listen. Don’t forget yourself this weekend. Happy Black gay pride.

Michael's art exhibit "Portrait of an amatuer artist"

The real terrorism: Gift Giving

Dear Martha Stewart:

I believe the real terrorism is gift giving--the use of violence or threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political/social purposes.

It’s that social pressure or bullying to make us spend our hard earned money on frivolous holidays like Mothers Day or Valentine’s Day. Every year there seem to be a new holiday as I get older. It’s the panic of birthdays, housewarming parties, weddings or getting out of prison. It’s rushing the department stores hoping to find that gesture to proclaim or certify relationships. What if they don’t like it? What if it’s too expensive? What if what they got you last year sucked? And what do you get a person who just got out of prison, maybe a hooker. But what type of hooker? Should you spend a lot of money or not? Should you expect a "Thank you" card?

The real terrorism is the person receiving the gift. What if i don't like it? What if i don't want it?
Gift giving suggests some type of relationships. It assumes that we know each other intimately when we're just fucking. It’s an unspoken exchange of commitment. Like what if the creepy guy from work gives you an elaborate Valentines gift basket with edible underwear, handcuffs and a penis pump? How do you tell a person, thanks but no thanks for the penis pump? I don’t like when strangers give me gifts unless it’s Orpah. She gives away cars. Who wouldn’t accept a car from Oprah? Yet, if an acquaintance gave me a car, it would make me suspicious. After all, nothing in the world is free. It’s like if that person gave me a car in five years he or she may ask for a kidney or something. I’d want that person sent to Gautama Bay and interrogated. I went them tortured. I want information like do I have to send a Thank you card from something I didn’t ask for in the first place. It’s a car. Only Oprah can give away cars because it’s like farting for her.

Here’s my dilemma Martha Stewart. I feel as if I’m being harassed and I want to know the proper etiquette for casual acquaintances and gift giving. I have this friend. Well he's not really a friend more of a casual drug connection. It's not hardcore drugs but you know Martha Stewart how hard it is to keep a good drug connection in the city.

My friend but not really, we were walking from a party when I saw a homeless guy on the streets selling what I thought were computer speakers. I remember saying I needed new computer speakers. I was eventually going to make it to RadioShack but it wasn’t life or death. I usually used my headphones anyway. The guy, not really a friend, we’ve gotten high together a couple of times. I only knew him for a month or so, nothing serious. After the second time we met he told me he accidentally used me as an excuse. He said he told a trick I stole his stash of drugs because he didn’t want to share. I found that odd since we just met. He said he didn’t use my name-- that he just said the black guy did it as if that made it better. And then he smiled. Of course I had my reservations. I didn’t trust him. One time he stiffed me twenty bucks. But he did have good drugs. I figured I find something to like about him. The next week he called and left a message on the answer machine. He said he was out shopping and bought me a pair of computer speakers. I listened to the message and erased it. I felt a cold chill go down my spine. He called again like five times. His final message was “I guess people can’t do nice shit for your ungrateful ass.” It was rude.

I remember Gift giving was supposed to be a time of joy when I was a kid. It usually happened on birthdays or Christmas. My heart would fill with childish flutter as I urgently blew on my birthday candles because I knew the tearing of gift wrappings was next; or that Christmas eve, the inability to go to sleep because I be so excited to find out if I got that racing car set I asked for or a bike. Well, that was how I’d like to remember my childhood but Norman Rockwell never painted any portraits on the ghetto. I was an orphaned kid so my birthdays usually sucked. And don’t get me started on Christmas because who gives a kid soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste. I spent most of my childhood writing death threats to Santa Claus.

When I turned thirteen years old gifting giving seemed to stop. There were no more lies about Santa Claus forgetting the house. It was drunken grandma in her new fur. She always promised to make it up to me on my next birthday. That birthday never came. Or if it did, it was Grandma giving me a hundred dollar bill and demanding to know where I was going to hide it. The money always came up missing the next day. It stopped when I stopped telling her where I hid the money. The look on her face the next day was priceless. I would tell her somebody stole it like they always did. She’d call me a liar and beat me like a bully until I handed her the money. I guess the charades were over. I found out Santa Claus didn’t exist and Grandma was an alcoholic thief.

Gift giving changes when we become adults. It’s no longer friendly fire but carefully crafted assassination as in "no good gift goes unpunished." When I was kid it was basically birthdays and Christmas. As an adult, anyone can register at Target for whatever celebration. But gift giving has to have a certain motivation. I just don’t go out and buy underwear from my landlord because that would be weird. I don’t just show up to work in the middle of April and give my Boss expensive earrings because it might be construed as sexual harassment. Even with my lover, I can’t just buy flowers without arousing suspension of cheating. It’s a cruel world. I don't think it's weird of me to be suspicious of some guy who I’d gotten high with a couple of times suddenly out the blue buys me some expensive computer speakers. I mean, what the fuck?

I didn’t think it was cynical of me to question his intention. After all, he was a drug connection who once stiffed me on twenty bucks with the drug man. It’s not like he was a Boys Scout. It put me in an awkward position. I hadn’t thought about our relationship. I couldn’t imagine why when he was out shopping and suddenly thought of me. I didn’t want that type of relationship with him. I knew if I accepted the gift it unintentionally gave him some casual entrance into my life like calling me for bail money or some terrible inconvenience. I wasn’t ready for that type of commitment. And then there was the terrorism. I felt he attacked my privacy. I felt as if he was trying to bring down my protective wall with unsolicited kindness. I felt as if he was trying to change our relationship. I just wanted to get high. It put me in an awkward position. He thought when he left the message for the gift I’d be happy or grateful. I was more pissed. It’s because when someone buys you a gift that usually mean you have to get them something. Nothing in this world is free. I needed to buy time to figure out if I wanted to be his friend or whatever. I wasn’t romantically attracted to him. I just liked the drugs. I didn’t want to hang out with him like best friends. To be honest, I kind of found him annoying but after I'd get high, it didn't. It was good drugs.

The harassment didn’t stop. Every text message he mentioned those damn speakers like a bill collector. He questioned why I hadn’t come over to his place and picked them up. He often threatened to throw them in the trash like I was renting storage from him and I needed to come get my shit. It was annoying. I mean I didn’t ask for the speakers. I didn’t ask for the nice gesture. I didn’t ask for the terrorism. I guess that’s the point.

In the end, it was obvious there was intention behind the “nice gesture.” It was too important to him. Gift giving can sometimes be like proposing marriage, you have to be 90 percent sure the person is going to accept. Otherwise, it’s just embarrassing. It’s not that I didn’t want the gift but I needed to first let him reveal himself. I knew if I just stayed quiet he would tell me everything I needed to know. He told me in the crazy seven voice messages he left on my answer machine. He told me in the confrontational text messages. I figured by not accepting the gift I'd be dodging a bullet of soon to be crazy needy bastard of a friend. I imagined your answer. I know Martha Stewart I shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists. I decided in the end not to accept the speakers. I was wondering should I send a “No thank you” card. I wanted to do something nice that was watershed with “Fuck off you crazy bastard.”


Love and Kisses,

Lazy Cheap Bastard

Refugee Artist: Art by any means necessary

In New York you see them with their guitar case laid open on the concrete floor singing their hungry hearts for change and dollar bills. Some walk by and cringe in embarrassment. Some place dollar bills in their hands. Some, mostly kids, make fun or harass. It’s not an easy life. In the summer, they hang in parks selling homemade t-shirts, jewelry or paintings. Some think they are hippies. They sometimes perform Isben plays or recite Shakespeare. In Louisiana they dance to drums and perform acrobatics. It’s a hard living. I say it is art by any means necessary.

In life we are supposed to stop and smell the roses but ignore each other. On my way to an interview for a job I didn’t want, I saw an older male group singing 60s souls music. The harmony was beautiful but I was in a bitter mood. My first judgment was they were homeless or crack heads who could sing. At first, I felt a little annoyed because I judged their presence as pollution to my mundane existence. I didn’t like my life. At first judgment, I felt sorry for them, figured they couldn’t get a real job and leave decent folks alone. Yet, in my heart, I knew I needed them. I needed their sad eyes and struggled smiles to be there singing their hearts out for pennies. I needed that part in the world that went against the status quo, that part in the world that made me believe just because it didn't make a lot of money or some fat head didn't approve, it can still exist. I tipped two dollars I couldn’t afford. Some people stop and smell the roses to feel better about their life. Some give money to the homeless to better appreciate their own homes. I give to the street artists, those who I figure are refugees. I have to support the fight for freedom. This is my life.

Where I grew up was like communism China but we called it the niggard ghetto. It’s always been “art” by any means necessary. To be soulful wasn’t encouraged unless it came in capitalistic constraints. I ran away. I didn’t feel like dying in a war I didn’t support. I became a refuge artist. When I’m on the streets in my "I'm a writer" t-shirt trying to sell my comic some look at me like I lost a war or something. I just hope they support freedom.

A refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, finance, religion, nationality, artistic expression, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country.

I don’t claim to be a Darfur victim, but some days it feels like it’s my life or my art.

The war with money had become an issue in my life again. I had somehow figured out a way to escape it for a year with food stamps, unemployment and selling my comic. The unemployment ran out. I didn’t recertify the food stamps because I hated feeling like a loser. I had no choice. I was going to have to find work again. I hadn’t won the war yet. I was still a refugee.

Every time I look in the “want” ads I get a headache because I don’t want anything in it. I usually feel queasy and have to go lay down for an hour or two. I used to think it was laziness. I have to force myself to scan through the job ads because bartenders and the weed man don’t like broke people.

After I send out my resume, I remember my cousin Tweety. He was one of those kids who had gone bad like dandelions in a good yard. Everyone whispered about it like his family forgot to cut their grass in the summer or didn’t put up Christmas lights. I was only eight years old. I thought Tweety was the coolest motherfucker I knew. He played basketball like a speed demon or like some twisted Salvador painting, absurdly brutal and vicious. He was very popular and all the girls liked him because he was very good looking. I remember my grandmother saying in disgust that he was full of sin. She said he sat around and worried his parents with his nonsense of wanting to be more than what he was. The odds were against Tweety. I mostly remember the disapproving tone in her voice. It was as if Tweety not wanting to scrub McDonald’s toilets or whatever job there was for a black kid growing up in the ghetto was something his parents needed to cure before something really bad happened like the cops.

It was the late 80s ghetto. The sad part, Tweety did get a full scholarship to college but his freshman year he got busted for selling drugs. He lost the scholarship and got a couple of years in prison. No more Michael Jordan dreams. Six years later when Tweety got out, I was fourteen years old. I remember him on the basketball court. He was still popular and good looking. He was still a legend in my humble ghetto. I saw him on the basketball court and he looked so free, the way he moved was like he was playing against himself, playing against his demons. Seeing my cousin Tweety on basketball court I knew in my heart that it was the only place in the world he could win. I knew if he stayed inside those parameters he would always be the hero, but the second he stepped outside the boundaries, he was just another black kid in the ghetto who dreams didn’t work out. It was that need for money, that instant gratification that caused Tweety his dream. He couldn’t sacrifice. He couldn’t starve for his art. He didn’t even know he was in a war. If only he had become a refugee. Maybe he could’ve been saved.

A friend who buys my weekly comic every week at the bar called me a starving artist. I didn’t like it because I knew what it really felt like to starve. In the ghetto we were so “po” that we couldn’t afford the last part of the word. It was the shame the food stamps. It was the constipation of the government cheese. The electricity got cut off every other month. Most of my clothes were from the Salvation Army or hand me down clothes. I remember bathing and brushing my teeth with baking soda or eating cereal with water or mixing that awful dry powder milk. Then there were days when we just ate rice with pepper because we didn’t have sugar. There were days when we just didn’t eat. I lost the use of my legs when I was eleven years old for a week because I wasn’t getting enough sodium in my diet. So I knew what it felt like to starve. I wouldn’t do it on purpose.


Yet, I knew a different type of starving artist. Art was like food for me. When I can’t express, it feels like I’m starving. When I was in ninth grade I won the U.I.L playwriting contest for my play “Rosa Parks.” The finals were going to be held at University of Texas which was an hour and half drive. I knew my grandmother wouldn’t let me go because it was after school. My school Principle told me he called her and she said I could go. I knew he was lying. I didn’t care. I wanted to perform my play. I didn’t get home until almost midnight that day. We won. I got a trophy and a certificate. I got a standing ovation. I couldn’t be more proud until I got home. The second I walked through the door my grandmother slapped me to the floor. The trophy fell and broke. It didn’t matter that I won because all she cared about was that I didn’t come home from school to do my chores. I remember after the beating nursing my bruises. I cried not because of the pain. I cried not because of the trophy being broken. I cried because it felt like my soul was being purposely murdered. There was a part of me that needed freedom and it was imprisoned. I felt life was unfair. I was finally getting three meals a day in that prison but I was starving.

So I went underground. I became a refugee. I hid. I wrote my stories at two o’clock in the morning on that back of cereal boxes or the corners of newspapers. I snuck and acted in plays. It was like this force I needed to get out of me.

But war is hard especially if it’s with your family. I got tired of having to fight or hide all the time. It started wearing on my soul. I stopped taking my art seriously. I stopped seeking the expression. It was like I died. I just didn’t want to be a burden on my family. I just didn’t want to embarrass.

I know a different type of starving. When I graduated high school and went to college, I did what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy. I got the big job in the city. I got a great apartment. I wore fancy designer clothes. I had really cool friends. I wasn’t happy. We would go to art shows or museums and I feel part of me screaming. Every time I walked into a book store I feel a part of me clawing at my beaten into submissive demeanor. I felt so cold inside. Every day I got on that elevator in Chicago to go to the 42nd floor to my cubicle, I felt like I was suffocating. I was suffocating in my Hugo boss slacks, button up shirt and that shiny red tie strangling my neck. I started to know what it really felt like to starve as artist. I spent three years in Corporate America and was skin and bones. I walked around life like I was an emaciated skeleton. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t feel the kiss of a lover. I couldn’t feel the cold Chicago wind against my face. I couldn’t feel the pleasure of an orgasm. I had all the material bullshit but couldn’t feel. I felt as if I was barely breathing. I believe it’s because some people just got to dance. Some people just got to sing. If they don’t it’s like the sun not rising. It’s just darkness.

When I walked away from “good life” no one understood it. My sister only understood that she got really cool Christmas gifts and that was ending. My friends understood I could afford the tab at the trendy restaurants and that was ending. I understand I was in a loveless marriage. I was playing straight and gay as a two dollar bill. I wanted love that made my toes curled. I was looking for love that when I went to sleep I couldn’t wait to get back to it. Real success was finding something to love and allowing it to love me back.

The day I realized I was going to be an artist, I cried. I had to accept it. I had to find a way. But it’s a war to make a living. I want the same things other people want. I want security. I want a stable home. I want to be able to afford dry cleaning again.

It’s a war to get the respect back from your family after too many years of doing what they called child’s play. It’s the reason I call myself a refugee artist. It’s like when I was back in ninth grade, how I had to find a place that would allow me to be without the persecution. I think of my cousin Tweety on the basketball court. I know the only way I can win is with the pen and paper.

And then there’s the war inside my head. I’m constantly apologizing to grandma or my family for the embarrassment because I haven’t’ made it yet. I don’t make much money. I got to supplement the income with selling comics on the streets, bars and clubs. I got to get jobs I don’t like. It’s still a refuge. I don’t want the alternative. I need to express. I am a writer. I am an artist.

Thank you for your purchase. Stop to smell the roses but don’t stop supporting art. You see me singing my heart out in the subways. You see me painting faces at carnivals. You see me dancing in the parks. You see me playing my saxophone in the rain in February. You need me. We are all in this war. Let’s be free.

For beautiful Tyler

Beautiful Tyler
In sunlight
Sunflowers rain in his storm
Beautiful than most
Reminds me of Spike, Snoop’s brother on Charlie brown
Sexy in his passive confidence and passion for life
When the sunsets, and nothing lasts
He’s spinning the earth, making the sun appear again
Just because it’s night
don’t mean the morning isn’t a nigga
“never ignorant getting goals accomplished”
it's okay
you're not alone

I don't want to be sober: One last time

i can't wait to read this 30 days from now.

One last time, the prequel.

It’s not like I haven’t tried.


I don’t want to be sober. And it’s hard, takes the breath from my lungs, and I’m crying like that eight year old kid wanted to do when his mother abandoned; and I’m crying like when my best friend mita died, but I didn’t cry. and I’m crying like how Charles rejected me that night, and I’m crying how Myron played me like a fool, and I’m crying like when my sister didn’t bail me out of jail, and I’m crying like when Tom tells me why am I’m still her. I’M FUCKING SURIVING THAT’S WHY I’M STILL HERE. I stayed strong. I was the “boy” man. And its rushing down on me like a sledgehammer, so much pintup, so much I decided not to feel, so much I didn’t want to deal, and I think I’m going to melt. I think I’m going to drown. I think I’m going to drown. I don’t know if I can swim. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME. I know now why babies come crying into this world. It’s the addiction of being safe. But life is never safe. Fuck, I don’t want to be sober.

The fear, there’s nothing to go back to. I never had a home, that’s the worse part. People always say they’re going home, a place where there childhood pictures are, or some stupid award they won in elementary. A home where there prom pictures are displayed, where there diplomas hang, all my degrees are in the same tube they sent them to me I think in a storage in Chicago. I have no place where I go back to and remember what life was meant before, no place that misses me, somewhere in Texas Mama is probably sleeping on the floor or passed out in somebody back yard or sucking dick for the hit of the pipe. Don’t know where my middle sister is. My older sister has blocked my number. There is no home for me, I’ve been everywhere.

And I’m starving. I look in the mirror and I only see skin and bones. I need to eat. I need to drink. I need the fucking drugs. I’m starving. I tell myself I’m no addict, but I’m starving.

I’m sitting here thinking I only got enough high for another snort of the cocaine. Ran out of the white lady. And I only got about a half of drink in the bottle. And it makes me want to cry. It makes me want to set fire to the apartment. Anything to feel and I don’t care if it’s the cold handcuffs. I want to leave the apartment and attack the first person I see on the streets. I want to fight. I want to fight. Damn, I need something. I need it. I’m fucking starving.

I’m supposed to be sober for the next 30 days. Why did I tell people? They all looking for me to fail. And I only have enough rum in the bottle for another drink. And it’s only 1 o’clock in the evening on a Tuesday. I know the liquor store is opened. I know my drug dealer is home and I got money. I take another sip from my cup, cradle the liquor in my mouth, snort the last of the cocaine, and it feels good. Yes, my nose has been a little bloody lately. I got bloody boogers. But it feels so good. My hookup for the day ran into some problems. I don’t need the dick, don’t care about the sex, but I want company. So I guess the sex want happened today. He told me tomorrow. He doesn’t know I don’t like sober sex. I can’t get fucked up tomorrow. Tomorrow the sobriety begins. Fuck him. He didn’t know I woke up at 8 this morning to start drinking so that I could be ready by noon to have sex. And that pisses me off. Funny, he asked, do you like with a condom or bare. Why do they ask that when they know they have a plan? Why doesn’t he just say, I like it bare. Or if he liked it with a condom, just say I only play safe. Not that he has the power. I just want to get fucked. I just want to feel nothing. I just want witnesses.

So I snort the last of the cocaine. I swallow the drink. I fix another drink. I think about walking to the corner and buy another bottle because I’m feeling good. So good. So good alone in my apartment with all the lights turned down and blasting the stereo with porn playing the background. Of course I’m not at work. I can’t work. And I think to myself another day of this bullshit. So I drink a big gulp of my rum, drink it straight from the bottle. And I like how it burns my throat. I like how it mixes with the cocaine in the back of my throat. I go try to find my Tina pipe and hope there is some residue left. I fire it up, the flame burns the pipe, makes it look like charcoal and I watch desperately it burn, and pray that it glows, pray that that beautiful gray smokes rises from its death. But it doesn’t. I inhale but it just tastes burned. I want to throw the pipe across the room but its too expensive and I don’t want to waste another 40 bucks for a new one. I want to call up my man, tell him I need a half, fuck rent.

And I hate it. I hate every fucking body. THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND. THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND ME. I HATE IT. I fucking hate it. And then I’m scared. I’m that eight year old kid again whose mother abandoned him. I don’t want to be him. I hate that fucking kid. He’s so fucking incurable. I can’t do it. I need to run to the liquor store. I need more rum. I need more drugs. I need more. I fucking need more. And then I start crying because I’ve been doing that lately when I decided the 30 days of sobriety. It’s like I’m dying. It feels like I’m dying. I can breath. I’m panicking. It feels like anything that’s good in the world, anything that’s fun, anything that makes me feel good is ending. Why is that anything I like has to end. Why is it that anything that I love is always bad for me? And I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back to that hell. I don’t know that person anymore. Who the fuck is Michael Whitley. I’m a whore. I fuck for drugs that’s what I do. I go to bars and sit in the back with my shirt off waiting for the next trick, waiting for the next drink.. I cause drama. I don’t know Michael Whitley anymore. I hate that bastard. Nobody likes him. And then I’m shaking. And then I’m take another sip from the rum bottle. It’s empty. I hold it at my lips like a dead lover. I feel the tears falling clouding like a storm. Will I allow the storm? I know I have to give it up. It’s so out of control. I’m so damn stubborn. Nobody will tell me not to love my Mama. and I know she’s a fuck up. Nobody will tell me not to love this addiction. and I know she sucks dick for the next dollar. But no one will tell me not to love her. I know she turned her back on me. but no one will tell me not to love her. Shit, I haven’t been sober in eight years. I haven’t been sober since I was eight years old. No one will tell me not love my mama. that’s the addiction to the destruction. that’s the real addiction. If I stop, if I turn my back, if I get well, if I stop, it’s like I don’t love her. I only have to pain to hold to. It’s the only thing I belong to anymore. If I stop, I belong to nothing. I’m alone again.

When I was a small time drug dealer back in the second Baptist projects in San Antonio, Texas, I used to think, drug addicts were so stupid. Then again, I was fifteen years old. I come from a long line of drug dealers. It’s sorta the family business. I was always surprise what the crackheads would do for that high. They would steal clothes out of the laundry mat, bring them to you soaking wet, begging for the crumbs at the bottom of the matchbox. They begged for crumbs, and I would be like, it’s just crumbs, why you asking to suck my dick for the crumbs, you can’t get high from that. I didn’t know. But I hated my cousins who were more successful drug dealers. I hated how they treated the addicts like they had no souls. They took their cars and donuts, spinning the car around in an open parking lot burning up the rubber. They embarrassed. They abused. They acted like they were gods just because they were a drug dealer. And if a crackhead didn’t have the money, they got their heads beat bloody. A memory, I was ten years old and I woke up to screaming. It was two of my uncles who tied this crackhead to the front yard tree and was beating him with chains. He stole drugs. It was only a couple of hundred dollars worth. I never saw that person again. I would ask grandma what happened to him, she told me I shouldn’t mind grown fold business.

Growing up in the ghetto, crack was a shame. My mama was on crack. She sold her body. I didn’t want to be anything like her. Yes, my uncles got high on weed. It was the strong stuff they stayed away from. It was that white boy’s shit they stayed away from. And I remember growing up in the ghetto when the expensive cars rode up, the whites to score. They were always the best customers. They weren’t so desperate so they were always overcharged but never could be trusted. You weren’t a good drug dealer until you had the rich white clients. The ones you could sell to in the clubs. And soon it stopped being about crack and just weed. It was cocaine. But I hated being a drug dealer. I had a bad habit of making friends with the clients. We weren’t supposed to see them as human, my uncle would say. They’re diseased rats looking for the cheese. We only sell them the cheese. If they don’t buy or wont to steal, we kill them like diseased rats.

And I hated being a drug dealer. There was Jackie; she was the most beautiful girl in the ghetto until she met Crack. Yea, she had her problems like falling in love with no good men. She had four kids. And then she was pretty, sometimes a curse for some girls who don’t grow up with good fathers. I saw the drugs ravish Jackie. She had a son, Jacob. She came over to the apartment to score a dime bag in nickels. She left her son with me. He was only a year old. I didn’t see Jackie again for a month. I kept the son. I took him to school. I enrolled him in our daycare system at my high school because I was from the inner city, and young black girls had a habit of being knocked up. Jackie came back. I didn’t want to give Jacob back to her. My aunt made me. It wasn’t my child. Jackie house used to be full of furniture. The last time I saw her, she was breaking into the back window and her house was empty. She had gotten evicted. I will always wonder what happened to Jacob.

I never saw them as lost souls just people who lost their way. I always saw them as people. Maybe because my mother was one. I remember thinking as a teenager standing on my corner waiting for the cars to pull up or the crackhead I paid in drugs to bring me new customers that I’d seen both sides of the coin. I been a victim of what drug abuse can do to the family and then I became the pusher. I stopped selling drugs not only because it was an exhausting business. Drug addicts never go to sleep and you can never trust them. It was too hard my soul.

I don’t think of myself as a drug addict, more alcoholic. It’s like my life has become full circle. I was victim of drug abuse, became the pusher, then became an addict, now I’m back to whatever.

I’m not a diseased rat. I have a soul I don’t need the fucking cheese. I can say no. I can say no. Watch me. I want my dignity back.

so I say goodbye to you beautiful addiction, the only thing I loved for real. And it’s so hard. it’s so fucking hard. you were the best thing that ever happened to me. but you’re ruining my health. you took away my insanity. and people think its crazy for me to cry over a empty rum bottle. but everytime I throw away it’s like throwing away a corpse. with every empty bottle I mourn death again. they think it’s crazy for me to cry, they say you’re ruining me beautiful addiction, but damnit if I didn’t love you, but it’s not about you anymore. it’s not about you anymore. It’s not about you anymore. and I’m so tired of being alone in this apartment with all the lights turned off, the shades pulled down, like I’m in prison. like I’m ub solitary confinement. I’m tired of loving you like I love my mama, like anything she does to me I will forgive. I can’t forgive you anymore. I won’t forgive you anymore. I’ve stopped forgiving you addiction. I’ve stopped forgiving you.


Love,


Michael

Virgin

Most people don’t understand molestation. They don’t understand how it makes you disappear. I don’t know my own pleasure. I only know when I’m alone. I only know when I’m jacking off. I play the game. I was supposed to grow up and mate. I was supposed to grow up and have sex. And when I starting having sex, I liked it for the power. It didn’t do anything for me. It didn’t do anything for me.

I’m only satisfied when I’m alone. I want someone to witness it. I want someone to witness how I touch myself. How I feel when no one is watching, like how I like my nipples. How I’m this top. I think I’m a top even if I love being a bottom. I want them to understand how I love the stroke of the dick. How I love the touch of man. I want to smell him. I want to kiss his armpits. I want to eat his sweaty ass. And when I’m jacking off, alone, I’m safe. I want him to see my face. Because I don’t think anyone cares about my pleasure. Its goes back to molestation, she didn’t care about how I felt. She only cared about getting hers. So I think I’m just this pawn. So for me to be real, I must believe I’m having sex with myself. Maybe that’s the key. Maybe that’s the key. When I have sex with others, I’m just the jack off material. I just think of myself as the jack off material. I so want to have sex. I’m still a virgin. For as much sex I’ve had, I’m still a virgin.

New Gane

looks how it shines for you


when I’m in love
I’m in love, so tragically
write you love poems, bring you roses everyday
but when I hate, everything must end
kick you out of my bed, tear up all your pictures
plot murder
everything about you must end

when I’m in love, we have romantic dinners
I try to be good, love you like jesus would
but when I’m rejected
i’m the last circle of hell
you don’t know hate
until you hate me
the devil
I just want you to burn
call your mother to tell you have premature ejacutions
send naked pictures to your co-workers
get you arrested
make sure the world knows you’re a fraud

when I’m in love
I’m hold you close, play with your toes
cook you pancakes for breakfast
but when I think you leaving me
I call the landlord
take you off my lease, close the all the accounts, want you to starve to death

when I’m in love
I give you my wallet
try to buy you the world
but when I hate you
I want to destroy everything you were
get you fired from your job
thinking about killing you in your sleep
picks fights
bloody your noce
make you plot to kill me
fuck up your life like calling all your co-workers and tell them you a child molester

when I’m in love I think about our kids
us as old folks feeding the birds
but when I hate you
I’m not myself anymore
gave you too much

when I love you
don’t want to be your past mistakes
don’t want our happiness to be a lie
so when I love
I’m scared
because I need to survive you
everybody is always lying
they say shit and don’t mean
they act like there’s no consequence
they act like others don’t mean it

so when I’m in love
I’m waiting to hate you

Rehab

One “YES” answer: BE AWARE. You may have or you may develop a problem with alcohol or other drugs.

Two or more “YES” answers:Indicates you have problems with alcohol and/or drugs and should seek help immediately.

Your "YES" answer total: 16 out of 20

I would have liked to have seen Betty Ford drunk. I bet she was entertaining, staggering around the white house buck naked, cursing and pissing on herself. I would’ve loved to have been there for her intervention. Did she cry? Did she grab a knife and try to stab somebody? Did they have to drag her kicking and screaming? Did she plead? It’s never a good thing when a group of people sit you down and tell you have a problem, that you’re no longer pleasing or acceptable. That you’re embarrassing. It’s like telling a fat actress she has to lose weight. There’s going to be drama. I never liked that word rehab. I guess because I don’t like rules. The addict in me: I feel as if rehab is where they send you for reprogramming like a cult. I feel like its social lobotomy, dressing up the pit bull in a cute costume. What was the real problem?

Everybody is doing it. Rehab. It’s like the new diet. If you get too out of control just go to fat camp. Brittney cuts off all of her hair in an emotional breakdown, so they send her to rehab. That guy from Seinfeld drinks too much and uses the “N” word. Mel Gibson. Isaiah Washington. Nicole Richie. Lindsey Lohan. It’s so celebrity. Rehab is the new anger management.

I’ve been to rehab; in the ghetto they call it jail. I was arrested for DWI. And it wasn’t located in the majestic mountains with private rooms and personal chefs. The handcuffs were cold and hurt and the jail cell cramped with twenty people and one working pay phone. A week in jail and whatever you did you’re promising GOD and all your relatives you won’t do it again. It was no need for group circles to talk about problems because the jail guard carried a gun and like beating up on complainers. The day I made bailed, I never felt so free. I pushed past the jailhouse door and the sun was shinning. I was never going back to that hell. I AINT GOING BACK TO JAIL. I didn’t stop drinking. I just decided to move to a city where I didn’t have to drive. In jail there’s no such thing as rehabilitation-- you just learn how not to get caught next time. What was the real problem?


To rehabilitate. To make whole again. What if I was never whole? What if I always been a fuck up? What if I was always broke? They say its to restore to good condition, operation, or management, as a bankrupt business. I like that definition. I’m broke? So I asked my therapist: “Do I have problem?” That was never an easy question to ask. I was asked: “Do you want to get sober” Honestly, I don’t know. I can’t imagine a sober life; I mean not needing something to take off the edge. How would I have sex? I don’t like looking them in their eyes. I was molested. I can’t stand intimacy. How would I be social? Most people get on my nerves. I can’t smile. I'm so fucking angry. I feel so down, sober. I need something. What’s the real problem?


90% of people who enter rehab usually go back to using within weeks. I tried to stop drinking so many times. I will never forget my first AA meeting. I will never forget that crazy ass weekend that lead me to my first AA meeting. I hated those people. It was like night of the living dead. They looked so broken. I didn’t want to be one of those people. I thought being an alcoholic was romantic. I thought it was a witty downfall. I thought of Ernest Hemingway, James Frey, and Rock Hudson. Whitney Houston or that Nicholas Cage movie. I thought of celebrities. But it wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t nearly as far gone as those people. I wasn’t drinking shoe polish or rubbing alcohol. I felt safe but I wasn’t. I wasn’t a celebrity. I was a poor black man. I didn’t have the money for Betty Ford.

Yet I knew, If I kept fucking up, my rehab was going to be jail again. That’s what happens to poor black people with problems, we don’t get book deals, we get a jail cell. Our family abandons us. It’s like slavery, the minute you complain about it, or the ghetto, black people don’t’ want to hear the story. They just want to survive. I’m so tired of surviving. My family don't accept my phone calls anymore because I got tired of surviving. I wanted to talk about the beatings. I wanted to talk. They don't want to talk to me.

And I tried to stop drinking so many times. I stopped after I kept getting arrested for stupid shit like stealing chicken wings at a 24 hour super market. I was going to stop after I crashed a friend’s car into some drag queen’s car after we gotten into a fight. I’ve been so crazy. Some think its so entertaining, but its tragic. I was going to stop after I had to pass out on a pissy mattress behind a dumpster because I was too fucked up to make it home. I was going to stop after I got on a bus and my dick was out and I didn’t know it. I was going to stop after my ex put me out of the apartment. I was going to always stop but what was the real problem?

It was the failure I was fighting. When you say you’re going to stop drinking it’s like telling the world you’re going to go on a diet. They are going to watch your every move. If you decide at dinner to go for the dessert, somebody is going to say something. It’s that failure I was fighting. That need to be perfect. That need to be the fucking "victory" story. So many have gone on Oprah and said they were sober, gotten sober like Marc Jacobs and now he’s back in Rehab. Robert Downey Jr. have claimed sobriety so many times. Oprah herself has gain and lost weight so many times. I’m not going to lie again. As an addict I’ve only known lies. I’m not going to lie again. I need honesty, like Jesus. LOL.

I thought it was the alcohol. I would have to fear the alcohol and there was a liquor store on every corner in my neighborhood. I couldn’t imagine going out to eat again and not order a cocktail. I thought I was fighting the alcohol, that it was the enemy.

The real problem, for me it was about enough. Growing up, there never seemed to be enough. Daddy got himself killed when I was five, so there never seemed to be enough time. Mama got addicted to drugs and abandoned her three kids to the system, so there never seemed to be enough hope or love. I grew up in so much poverty—spiritually, emotionally and financially. There never seemed to be enough government cheese or fried bologna. I’M STARVING!

Every addict has there click. It’s that switch of the light. For me with sex, I want it to be completely dark. I don’t want to see myself. I just want to feel. I don’t want a shape. I just want the pleasure. And I can’t stop until I feel full. I can’t stop until I feel overloaded. I can’t stop until I’m saturated. I’m always afraid I’m starving. I’m always afraid. I’m starving. Starving for attention. Starving for love. Starving to exist.

That’s the disease. It was never about alcohol. I would just replace it with something else. My disease is that I’m hungry. It’s like I have spiritual tapeworm. I can never get full. It’s not about the drugs. It’s not about the sex. I need to eat. Every time I look in the mirror I see anorexia. I hate that bitch. Why can’t I get full?

So I asked the counselor: “Can you help me be full. Can you help me free?” What I learned was that there’s good addiction and bad addiction. I was always going to be an addict. Childhood is so powerful. We spend the rest of our lives getting over our childhoods. I was a starved child. I was molested for years. I don’t remember being happy as a kid. I don’t remember feeling pleasure without hiding it because someone was waiting to destroy it. So when I feel good, I want it to last. I’m greedy.

I had to learn that spiritually and emotionally I was obese. I was drowning. Others couldn’t see it because I wasn’t physically overweighed but I was overweighed like trying to swim in deep water with dead weight. I wasn’t healthy. I didn’t care about the vanity. I don't FUCKING care about being pretty anymore. I'm dying. Can't they see i'm dying. I wasn’t healthy. I couldn’t sleep. And I was alienating myself. I was losing friends. I was losing respect. I grew up to be jsut like MAMA, an addict whore. A suck your dick for some attention. I was an embarrassment. I was picking fights. Anything to feel. Anything to feel. I was starving. Anything to feel. Burn me. Beat me. Make me bleed. Please kill me.

But I so feared the failure. I tried so many times. So many fucking times and I failed. It was so frustrating. But it wasn’t about the alcohol, drugs or sex.

I had to learn to look in the mirror and not see that starving kid. I had my own blog. I wrote a book. I had cool friends. I was loved. But did I believe it?

So I asked the therapist: “Can you make me believe in love when it’s always failed me?”

I don’t want to be rehabilitated. I don’t want rehab. I don’t want to go back to pretending.

And I’m sorry Mama. I’m sorry Sister. I’m sorry grandma, telling you, you’re going to hell. I know now I went about it all wrong. When I took my first drink and felt that warm happiness, I thought it was food. And when I was at the club, and some guy told me I was cute, I thought that was food. And all that sex, so many men, I thought that was food. But I could never get full. I couldn’t understand it. I was so damn cute. I followed the rules. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get full.

I hate rehab because it’s spiritual and it reminds me of my childhood god, forced down my throat, and didn’t allow questions without a backhand slap. My childhood god failed me. The hell and family I was born into failed me. I didn’t need to be rehabilitated, I needed a reincarnation. I was always broke. There was nothing to fix. It all just needed to be burned. My entire life needed to be burned down like the fire I set to my grandmother’s house when I five years old. I needed to change the chemistry.

Yet, I knew I couldn’t be afraid of the failure. Rehab is like an exorcism. I GOT DEMONS. I will always struggle with the addiction. I remember when I first tried to lose weight. I went to the gym and cut down on my eating, but every time I stepped on the weigh scale, I didn’t’ feel good enough. I thought losing the weight would make me good enough. I had ask myself, why wasn’t I enough before.

Every time I try to quit drinking, doing the drugs, being promiscuous, I have to ask myself, why wasn’t I enough before. What is my fantasy of sobriety? Will I be enough? And when the next person don’t applaud or give me the love I think I need, will I just run back to the bottle, sex, drugs?

I have to love that addict. I have to love that person who passed out on the pissy mattress and cried all the way home. I have to want to give him a hug, clean him and tell him it’s going to be okay. It’s not the end of the world. Rock bottom is not the end of the world. Death is the end of the world. I don’t want rehab. I want to be REALIZED. Like i told my sister, i don't know where i'm going, i can only tell you how i got here.

I went through hell. I deserve it to be REALIZED. I deserve honesty. I’m not pretending anymore.

I had to teach myself portion control. Life wasn’t going to be just salads and fat free. I could still enjoy but understand limits. Some addicts, after they stop, they become societal anorexics. They overdose on their sobriety and become reborn Christians or finger-pointers. They still don’t love themselves. They still never learned to love the addict within. It never goes away. That hunger, it never goes away.

I was a great addict. I was a great hustler. I was just eating all the wrong foods. It’s funny, I used the analogy of Soda: all that artificial ingredients they put in soda, never makes a person full. They could drink soda all day and not even know it. That’s like drugs. It’s not supposed to make you full. The food doesn't make you full. It's learning to stop. It's learning to live.


It’s not the alcohol. I’m fighting myself. I’m fighting the delusion I can’t get full. I’m fighting that eight year old in me crying in the mirror, wanting to be somebody, be beautiful. BUT I am somebody. Somebody is reading this. Somebody is seeing my soul. I AM SOMEBODY. Funny, it’s that eight year old who is the addict and he is so fucking convincing to a thirty year old. Such a smart kid.

A home cook meal from grandma makes me full. Water makes full. My lover lying in my arms on a lazy Sunday makes me full. Seeing something I wrote, makes me full. Sometimes I need to get away from it all. I need the silence. That why I do rehab. I need to exercise the demons. They don’t go away. The demons they never go away. I tried the 28 days of sobriety. I always failed. The most I made it was probably 7 days. But I need that failure. I needed to try to be better.

So with rehab, no longer afraid. So I keep trying. I keep failing. I not afraid of the failure anymore. I was an “A” student so I always been afraid of a bad grade. I’m not afraid anymore. I keep trying. And I’m not doing it to get some applause or encouragement. Because with addiction, what happens after you fail? I always have to pick myself up. I always have love me again. And I will keep loving me. I will love that damn addict. I will believe in him, because one day he will get it right. I don’t care who leaves. Everybody has their limits. I don’t. I have to love me. I have to survive everybody; who gives up on me. I’m not giving up on myself. That’s the problem with addiction, what happens after you fail? That’s the real fucking problem. That I’m a failure, and I’m cool with that. That I am weak, and I’m cool with that. Somebody is always calling me, telling me about the new drug and I’m weak, so what happens after I fail? I’m not a role model. I’m just a kid. WE are all just kids. When did the fuck we grow up? I’m not afraid of the failure. Next week I will try to be sober again. And then the week after that I will do it again. And I will keep trying, because I can’t give up. That’s my new addiction. I can’t give up. I will keep trying. I’m not afraid of the failure anymore. I’m going to beat this. I’m going to win.
I have to or die.

0.1: The law of Attraction, i want

The Universal Law of Attraction states: We attract whatever we choose to give our attention to--whether wanted or unwanted1.

I want to be the best writer I can be, to keep pushing myself and never feel as if i'm good enough but worthy enough of greatness. A real artist isn't really appreciate until after death, because that's when the fight is over to explain. I want to be a real artist. I want to be published. I want to see my books in stores. I want to be on magazine covers. I want to do book signings and readings and have peoples ask me questions. I want to be legendary. I want to be respected and admired. I want the world to know how brilliant I really am. I want my family to accept my phone calls. I want those people who decided I wasn’t going to be shit, was a lost cause, to choke on their mistake. I want to wake up and like my life. I want others to be jealous of my life and not pity it. I want peace. I want to stand on the shore and watch the sunset and the ocean, and not fear the water, believe that I’m safe and not drowning.

I want to be honest. I want to forgive my mother. I want to evolve my loneliness. I don’t want to be so damn lonely all the time. I don’t want to be angry anymore. I’m tired of fighting and surviving. I don’t want to fight anymore.

I want enough freedom to form my own shape. I want to feel as if I’m enough. I want to enjoy sex. I want to be in love again and trust it and not fight it till its death. I want to not feel so guilty all the time. I’m tired of apologizing. I want to be a man. I want independence. I want stability. I want to be a man. I want to grow up.

I want to evolve, get past my party boy days and become the artist and writer I know I am. I want to be great. I want to be somebody, have a name and it be more than just a cute face, or nice body or dick print, but a name that demands respect and sincerity. I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Daddy Issues

My best friend Terrence back in high school used to always say, “Here comes Michael with another one of his sobb stories. Let us all get the damn Kleenex.”

I knew he meant no harm, besides his life seemed more dramatic with the abusive alcoholic father. I was still jealous because at least he had a father and a mother. I lost my parents at a very early age. When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be a kid. Even before the abandonment, my mother had her drug issues. She was never responsible. I took care of myself. At eight years old I had a job sweeping the parking lot at the local liquor store. I used to constantly worry if I was going to eat. It didn’t get better when I got into the foster care system and was passed from one negligent relative to the next. I ended the insanity when I ran away at 15. I had my first apartment at 16. I forged a fake I.D. that made me 19 and they didn’t check credit. My senior year in high school I had three jobs because I needed to pay rent, for prom, my car, the senior trip and all my club dues. It was overwhelming. My loneliest day was when I moved myself into my college dorm. I packed my car and drove the three hours. I carried my stuff up to my room. I saw all the parents. It hit me like a brick. I was alone. I so wanted to be rescued.

Ten years later…

When we first met the sex was great. He was so attentive and nurturing. He made me feel safe. He went and ruined it when he asked me out on a date. I hesitated but accepted. I knew he was older but I didn’t really think about it. On the first date I found out he was twelve years older. The first date he paid for everything. When he took me home he told me he had bought me a new wallet. He didn’t like my old wallet because it was falling apart. I tried not be suspicious and thanked him for the considerate gift. I did need a new wallet. The next day as I placed my IDs and credit cards in the new wallet I noticed it had a hundred dollars in it. I felt sick. I knew I might have to break up with him. The next date he said that he was cleaning out his closet and saw a couple of shirts he thought I enjoy. The shirts still had the tags on them. I felt myself getting weak. The sex wasn’t so great anymore. I started to notice his age. I suddenly didn’t like his middle age body. The forth date I decided to break up with him when he decided to find me a better job and set up the interview. I stopped taking his phone calls. He didn’t understand. I tried to explain to him my past. I had major “daddy issues.” It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate his kindness but I got weak with nurturing men. I needed to break up with him before it was too late and I got dependent. He wasn’t the first.

The term "daddy issues" is an informal slang expression from popular psychology that refers to any of a number of difficulties stemming from an unsatisfactory parental relationship. It’s applied to those who experience difficulty as an adult in romantic or sexual relationships as a supposed result of a poor upbringing. According to typical usage, a person with daddy issues may be promiscuous or seek excessive or inappropriate attention with significantly older partners in an attempt to rectify childhood parental trauma.
In the beginning, I didn’t think I had a problem. I knew I had an attraction to older men but I thought it was because they were stable and the sex was better. It wasn’t so rushed. I felt men my own age were too immature, had sex with their egos, didn’t listen and just wanted to party.

First, there was Charles. He was twenty years older than me. Sub-consciously I was looking for someone to ease the pressure, loneliness. I didn’t know I was setting myself up for failure. We started off as friends. It was more of mentor relationship. Soon came the sex. He said I made the first move. I don’t remember. I remember I felt conflicted. I didn’t see him as a lover, therefore our relationship felt like molestation. It was weird. He treated me like a child with all the damn lectures and allowances but then he get naked and fondle me. It was so damn confusing.

As our relationship progressed, I became more dependent. Charles was like “daddy issues” quicksand. The more I struggled to escape, the deeper I sunk. I ended up living with him. I didn’t work. He was my only source of income. I figured it was okay because I was still in college. Nothing changed when I graduated. I couldn’t seem to find the right job. I wasn’t really looking. I knew I had a problem when I found myself lying on the kitchen floor crying to my best friend in Chicago that Charles wouldn’t give me the keys to his car. I kicked and screamed, and promised to run away. My friend Sha just laughed on the phone and told me to grow. She said it didn’t make any sense for a man to act like two year old child. It dawned on me that it was his house. It was his car. It was his money. I had no security but completely dependent. I owned nothing. I knew when the relationship ended all I would have were the clothes on my back. I couldn’t understand how I gotten myself into such a precarious situation. I was a smart kid. Yet, my daddy issues were pathological. I loved the dependence. It was all I ever really wanted. I was living my dream that in reality was a nightmare. My friends didn’t understand it. And Charles could get abusive. He always had some awful comment or a way of making me feel stupid. But I stayed. Even when he came home that day and went off about me not loading the dishwasher correctly and started throwing dishes, I stayed. I was stubborn. When he touched me, I would go cold but I stayed. He would finally have to rid himself of me. Charles found a new lover. He was younger and also had “daddy issues.” I went to live with a friend. We never spoke again.

I vowed it would never happen again. Yet, I had a pattern in my relationships. I attracted “caregivers.” There always seemed to be somebody trying to rescue me. I wasn’t so willing to pay the price anymore. I knew being taken care of wasn’t romantic. It was Stephen King’s book “Misery.”

I wasn’t willing to give up my identity again. When I met Tom, I was convinced he was different. I was living on my own. I had my own money. I was completely independent. I met him in a club and he wanted to buy me a drink. I turned the tables and bought him a drink. We started dating. I wouldn’t let him pay for dinner. I knew Tom was fifteen years old, I was 23 and he was 38. But he was different. He wasn’t like most of the older men I dated. He liked going out. He wasn’t materialistic. His apartment was as simple as my apartment. I felt as if I could build a life with him. I felt as if I could contribute. After we moved in together, he lost his job. I made enough money to take care of us both. We seemed happy in the beginning. He found another job. I thought I was over my “daddy issues.”

The age difference started to get to me. I felt he owed me more than what I was getting. I stopped paying rent. I always thought it was a volunteer thing anyway because it was his name was on the lease. It was my post adolescent vanity. I thought he should worship my youth. I thought he should be the caretaker since he was older. I still needed my father figure. And it started to happen again. Tom took care of all the bills. I didn’t ask any questions. He cooked and cleaned. He even washed my clothes. He did my taxes. He fixed things. I ended up quitting my job. I acted like a child because I knew I had my safety net. Our sexual relationship changed. Tom was a very good looking man and had a great body. I was sexually attracted to him but my need for a father figure conflicted our relationship. The more dependent I became on him, the less sex we had. Soon, we had no sex. I told myself it was because he was boring in bed. I told myself it was because he had no passion. It was me. I took a good red-blooded man and made him my Daddy. I didn’t want to have sex with my daddy. That was not my childhood fantasy. When I was kid, I dreamed of someone coming to rescue me. They were going to take me to their mansion and I’d get to play and not worry. No where in that fantasy did I think I would be having sex with that rescuer.

After too many hard earned lessons, I knew for my sanity, I needed to stay away from certain type of men. I had dreams and I wasn’t willing to give that up again. I wanted my identity. I wanted my independence. It wasn’t that those men were bad men or that I was opportunistic lazy black man. I loved them all but I couldn’t be a whole person with them. I couldn’t be a man. I liked sex. I didn’t want to have to cheat. I needed to feel as if I could make it in the world by myself. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I needed to let that childhood fantasy go.

I remember I used to say to Charles, if I got a job, I wouldn’t need him. It didn’t make any sense for another man to take care of another grown man. I didn’t understand I wasn’t supposed to need him. I will always miss the things I didn’t get because my father died when I was five. He never taught me how to ride a bike. He didn’t teach me how to fix a car. He didn’t get to teach me how to dress for an interview. But mostly, he didn’t get to teach me how to be a man. My “daddy issues” were just a crutch. I didn’t learn anything but how to stay a child. I was still alone. The only difference, I was now a man and could take care of myself.

My secret celebrity crush

I am a big fan of the show "Heroes." I think its some of the most interesting television right now given the crushing of Reality Tv. I also like that it doesn't take itself too serious. But mostly, they have a very diverse cast which is always great to see. My newest celebrity crush is MOHINDER SURESH played by Sendhil Ramamurthy . He kinda of reminds me of Michael Jackson and the Thriller album. That slightly moistened curly hair and curious anglo nose. He is damn sexy, sorta playboy with a intellect casualness. He is the Indian boy next door, so damn hot. I went to school in Texas which has a really big Indian/Asian population and I've seen some really hot Indian boys in my day. I've actually dated a couple, but he is hot!!!

Sendhil Ramamurthy (born May 17, 1974) is an American actor, born in Chicago, Illinois. He plays the Indian geneticist Mohinder Suresh in the NBC drama Heroes.
He was born in the US to Indian parents, both of whom are physicians. His parents are from Bangalore, India. He has one sister, who is a physician, doing a residency in a combined internal medicine and psychiatry residency program. He and his sister were raised in San Antonio. In San Antonio, he went to Keystone School and graduated from there in 1991. He is married to actress Olga Sosnovska; they have one daughter. [1]

Sendhil Ramamurthy, imagine saying that in bed. LOL.