I was working at Red Lobster about three years ago as a fry cook and dishwasher on the evening shift. Anyone who has ever worked for a restaurant full of college students can tell you what the environment is like. During work the guys discuss their weekends of getting loaded and they brag about what waitress they had sex with the night before and many of them are not shy about naming names. Most of the ladies aren’t much different except the fact that they are a little more secretive about whom they tell their business to. I was the only black man working there at the time, which doesn’t matter too much to me except that everyone comes to me looking for a good hook up on pot. I ignored them for a few months but after a while I started to calculate how much extra money I could be making if I went back to a little small time hustle on the side and it wasn’t long before I was their guy. (Don’t act surprised about this little sliver of information because I have put these things behind me now but at the time getting money as quick as possible was usually my only concern.) I have given you a little insight on the atmosphere during work, but a few more months down the line and I am now knee deep in their world. Behind Red Lobster there is a Brown Derby and at least seven people would run over before, during, and after work to get a case of beer or the liquor of their choice. So everyday after work became a party, and after a while nothing seemed to matter so much. I was making money and I had a decent job and I had a woman that loved me down to my dirty underwear and I was content with things to a certain degree.
One Friday I went to this huge party at one of my co-workers places and I sold my pot and I had a few beers, and things were going how I expected them to go. One of the girls I worked with introduced me to a cousin of hers and I assumed she wanted to get high because this girl was the type to always want to get something for free. We talked and I waited for the begging to begin but it never came, she just wanted to get to know me, and right then and there I should have left, but my spider sense wasn’t tingling at all. There was no small voice telling me to check my watch because my girlfriend is sitting at home alone expecting me any minute. I can’t even try to blame the alcohol in my system because I never get that intoxicated but that night I was unfaithful. Not only that but I sat and enjoyed the entire party, sold almost a half pound of pot in four hours, and let her drive me to her house as if I was a single man. I had sex with that woman and I passed out in her bed until the next morning.
What do you say to the person you care about when you’ve cheated on them? Do you try and cover your tracks so that they never find out the truth and in the process dig a hole of lies? Or do you tell them the truth and deal with the consequences like a man. I knew what I should have done but instead of taking the road less traveled, I took the trail of the guilty and I lied to her, I told the best lie I could develop in the twenty minutes it took me to get home. In my heart I believe she knew the truth before I ever started talking.

I have one of those prepaid phones and only like twenty cents left before I have to refill it. Normally nobody calls my phone anymore but this evening a dear old friend called me out the clear blue sky. Her name is kept secret to protect the innocent, I’ll call her Tory, we used to date in high school, and she was my first love.

Before tonight it had been almost eight years since I heard her voice and it just warmed my heart to know that somebody out there is thinking of me. I knew Tory before I ever knew what love was but we did care for one another in a way that most teenagers never take the time to investigate. She is the kindest, and most sincere person I have ever met and she holds a love for God in her deeper than I have ever been able to reach. I found her in the sea of Facebooker’s and Myspacer’s last year but I haven’t tried to get her number or call her because mostly all she ever talked about was her wedding plans.
However the other day she asked me for my phone number on the Internet and I gave it to her but I didn’t expect her to actually use it for some reason. When she called tonight she told me that I have been on her mind off and on through the years and that I was always very special to her. It is comforting to know that I didn’t actually kill every relationship I have ever been in and that somewhere this sweet woman still has a soft spot in her heart for me. She also told me that she wouldn’t be able to call me as often as she would like because she is a married woman now. I indicated that I understood but that I wouldn’t let our relationship become inappropriate because I respect her, I also told her that I have thought her fairly regularly since I left St. Louis. I told her that her calling me tonight makes me smile and I advised her not to be a stranger because at some point I want to catch up on old times even though we can’t talk all night on the phone like we used to. I didn’t have time to rattle off everything I wanted before my phone died and that is probably a good thing because I could have very well embarrassed myself over the telephone.
Sometimes when I’m bored on the computer I will flick back and forth through the picture albums of friends and given present condition, when I come across her pictures, I wonder what my life would be like if we had stayed together.

I spent the first six months of 2008 in the Greene county jail and the next six in and out of programs and institutions trying to get all my ducks in a row. I lost my girlfriend of four years and I lost my home and almost all my possessions. At one point I just wanted to cry and at another point I just wanted to lash out and hurt everyone who had left me deserted in those cold cells to rot. I’ve gone through points where I didn’t want to do anything at all and I’ve gone through times when it seemed like no matter what I did I could not fill the hole in my heart. There were days when I felt like a ghost in a graveyard and moments when I would just sit at home in the dark and do nothing but drink cheap beer and wallow in defeat. I felt like I was defeated by life and I didn’t know how I wanted to proceed. Who will hire a convicted felon, and who will believe me now, I have said plenty of times before that this is the time for change but I always remained the same.
I sacrificed so much to ensure that things were taken care of at home and I risked it all not even knowing what I had then. Looking back I was a fool, but not for trusting someone but just for the fool hearted mistakes I made. Six months confined with your thoughts will put your whole life into perspective and somewhere between the third and fourth month in jail I decided that this time would be different. I decided that with or without help or possessions I would overcome. I was released from jail on June the 29th after being whittled down and humbled in isolation. It was blue skies that day and it seemed like every breath I took inflated not only my lungs but also my spirits, I was free again. It had been nearly three weeks since I had received a letter or a visit and so I didn’t really know where I wanted to go first but my heart led my directly to my loves house. The last time we had spoken to one another I had told her that I was probably going to prison and that I would be released sometime after thanksgiving and so my presence that day was sure to be a welcome surprise. My chest thumped at what felt like a thousand beats a minute, as I approached the front door, but I didn’t know what to expect, even as I knocked on the door, I prayed. For the last few months I thought about how I had spent at least a year of the past three years locked up. My lifestyle never really bothered me before I knew her but over time I realized that she suffered a great deal because of my stupidity. So as I knocked I was nervous, even though every letter I did receive told me that she loved me above all, I just hoped that it was still true. When she opened the door, her eyes sparked to life and her smile stretched from one ear to the other. I was overwhelmed with emotion and it took nearly all my strength to keep from stumbling backwards off the front porch as she rushed into my arms again.

You know what really burns my biscuits? You know what really revs my engine? You know what really lumps my oatmeal? You know what really drives me banana sandwich? You know what really grinds my gears? You know what really ruffles my feathers? You know what really smells like fish tacos?

When somebody says they forgive you, except every time you disagree about something, they dredge up your old mistakes from the murky depths of the past, so they can throw the proverbial water balloon in your face. I ask myself how far down this road must we go before I am truly forgiven? I ask myself why aren’t my present actions good enough to satisfy the flaws in me? I walk the line to overcome the doubt and I tip toe through the eggshells in order to rip away any lingering suspicions, that the change in me is real. They claim to have put the past behind them and they claim that we can move on but the truth is that they judge me in their heart of hearts. I wish they would speak their minds, instead of putting me through the whole rigmarole of “I forgive you.” Our relationship has boiled down to a steady diet of proving ones worth in order to maintain a certain peaceful balance that is both superficial and circumstantial.
No diamond is perfect, no matter how beautiful it is cut and shaped, still most of us value it not based on it flaws but simply in the strength of character brought to it by it’s imperfections. We search for clarity and often times we can only see through the dim mirror because of the disdain we harbor for one another. It has become a test of my patience to try and figure out people and their motives. I don’t know whether or not I am too sensitive or if I am just finely tuned to right and wrong because of my relationship with God the father. 1st Corinthians talks about real love, it says that love is patient and kind and that it is not easily angered and that love keeps no record of wrongs. No matter how scarred and stained people may become love will never fail us. People will fail you because it is in our nature but love will stand the test of time and I am inclined to believe God. I just wish I could get past the point when my emotions take over my ability to reason and correctly divide between what I feel and what I know to be true.

Why do men die over red and over blue? I can tell you right now it’s not because somewhere deep down inside these boys believe it’s worth it. They fight for what they perceive to be their family and that family just makes it a point to wear the colors on their crest. The Crips in L.A. will blow your head off your shoulders, if they feel like you have in some way violated their neighborhood, which carries a meaning of, “stay out” to all trespassers. The Bloods have spread all over the country and they will bleed for one another, but you’ve got to bleed just to get in a gang so prevalent and spastic as this. Gangs don’t trust a whole lot of people but many of them would spend a lifetime behind the concrete walls of a cell before they would violate their code of honor. Everyone in the ‘hood’ believes that snitches have their place lying in a ditch, so really it’s like the only choice for these gang members boils down to life or death. Will you let the circumstances eat you alive for the rest of your life and will you continue to watch your mama suffer or will you choose to do whatever it takes, by any means necessary? Their lifestyle is stiffly rebellion against the prewritten standards of a society, that chooses to place some men at the top and leave others drowning in the gutters. They rebel against the law that says thou shall not kill and thou shall not steal and they write their own books and their own laws. Laws like though shall not snitch, and don’t ever talk to the police. Not for no reason but because somewhere along the rocky road, in Americas stained history, men grew up with signs that read “Whites Only” and standing behind every brother like Martin Luther King Jr., was a man teeming with hatred for someone who hated him for no reason. They wrote rules like these because they figured out that they would always be black and they remained in slums because some of them started to believe the hype that they were second-class citizens. Some of them lived at a time when white police officers blasted black men down in the open streets with high powered water hoses and are even now still quite suspect of the authority put in place to protect. Gang members, I believe evolved from the bloodline that refuses to be taken for a fool, they are derived from the gene pool of slaves that chose to run and risk death than live under the thumb of an oppressor, so there remains this definite separation of peoples. Not just a separation between white people and black people but between Negroes and Niggas. The Negro told himself that one day we would rise above all this racial discrimination and hatred and grow to maybe even like one another. The Nigga told himself, “ The hell with society, if they don’t want us then we don’t want them. If they refuse try, then we’ll rob them suckers blind. They told themselves it’s us VS. Them.” Then their came crack cocaine, and that changed everything. Crack, was viewed by gang members, as a way to get rich quick and inside the poor population the dope thrived. Junkies were known to sell their souls for another blast and sons stole from their mothers to satisfy their addictions. From the east coast to the west coast crack spread across the nation. Young black brothers fed their families (both gang and biological) with the money made off of crack, and set in motion a stereotype that some black men have still yet to crawl from under. The mind state is simple, why work a nine to five everyday, only to bring home a couple hundred dollars a week, when you can lounge in the comfort and the protection of your projects and rake in a thousand dollars a day. It goes back to the attitude of rebellion, why would someone who hates the way the system has oppressed them for generations adhere to an economic status quo. It’s hard for a man to turn away from money when he has never had anything before and knows all to well the pleasures money can bring. Forget that the Bible says that money is the root of all-evil, what about the evil of watching your people be mistreated day in and day out. What about the evil of poverty?

The truth hurts

I guess I should start by posing the question, “Would you rather know the truth or be kept tame in a stew of lies?”
Sometimes I feel like a simple lie would be easier but all of us who have ever loved someone, knows how the truth can be surprisingly less painful than hearing a lie from a loved one. After so long, knowing somebody, you just kind of expect him or her to posses the kind of character, that won’t allow them to hide anything from your eyes. A lie can be like a dagger in the side and all of a sudden the trust has crumbled and then it’s gone. Your relationship becomes a game of chess and soon it seems so easy to allow yourself to get lost in a workday and often times we don’t even do what we used to do. Lies compound lies and after a while the time you spent loving one another affectionately, is wasted wiping the mud from your feet and covering up incriminating tracks. You wake up wondering, “How did we get here?” If you’d known that this thing would break her heart you’d have told the truth, but at the time the truth seemed to be rat poison, compromising everything. We have all heard the saying, “ The truth will set you free”, but sometimes it seems like we’re just damned if we do and we’re damned if we don’t. What ever happened to the love relationship, was it all just a myth to begin with? Are we all chasing some unattainable goal, or is there some real reason why man and woman choose to join together? Is monogamy a fallacy or is it possible for two people to come together and choose to remain faithful to one another in every respect. In my experience, youth and fidelity go hand and hand. Others marry their high school sweethearts and live happily ever after, or so they say. Maybe I am just to sensitive and need to realize that nobody goes his or her whole life through without drama of some kind. Is it how we arm ourselves for battle that makes the difference between life and death in a relationship? What is the difference between destructive lies and heart piercing truth?

Circles

It has been said that a good man draws a circle around himself and his immediate friends and family and protects those inside. A better man draws a slightly larger circle, and a great man encircles his entire community at large and does everything to see to it that those within have the fullest life possible. It has been asked, “What kind of man are you”!
I want to be the kind of man who has no circle to draw but that does whatever good is necessary for those I can, freeing myself from the burden of hoisting every other persons pain up onto my shoulders, lest I fall. Without me knowing it many are watching what I do and how I respond to the trauma of life, and whether or not it is right they judge my actions. They judge because deep inside of them they want to bear witness to great men, even though many of them are to cowardice to accept the weight of greatness. I think there are many who would be willing but they allow circumstances to get in their way and others simply don’t want to be brought to shame. As far as my knowledge will go there has been but one man good enough to lift up the weight of the world and bear it unto death, and that man was Jesus the Christ. There have been others who claim to be good but the bible says that no one is good except God.
On the other end of the spectrum there are many evil people. Men like Adolph Hitler, whose minds are warped outside of human reality and men like Osama Bin Laden who have little regard for human life. Our lives are something to be protected but at the cost of others and religion is something to be respected but not if it is to back someone into a corner and make them choose between life now and eternity with ones beliefs.
I am the kind of man whom matters very little outside of that invisible circle that has been drawn for me and I believe that if I were to die tonight I would be remembered for a miniscule amount of time. After a while people would fight all the mess in their heads to recover thought of little ole me. So how exactly does a man go from, “a nobody”, to “a somebody”, from forgotten in the depths of mother earth to, written about in the pages of history? How exactly does one transform their character into the pedigree of champions? How does one go about erasing that old circle, big enough for a house and a dog, and marking out one that stretches in all directions as far the eye can see?

mid/late march

Is it strange for a young man to desire to have a family? I mean, I look around and my brothers and sisters all have these precious little ones to care for and I walk around feeling sorry for myself because I am alone. Shouldn’t I revel in my youth at this point in my life? Shouldn’t I be to the point where I just want to go to parties and drink till I am lost in the excitement of the night? I think that I started my wild life at such a young age that I am wore out from all the long nights and now I just wish that things would settle a bit. I want to shop for the groceries and be up late at night with my crying child. I want to be mindful of an anniversary and bring a smile onto the face of my wife. I want to celebrate the birthday of my children and watch their eyes light up on Christmas morning at the sight of their brightly wrapped gifts. I want to be a provider for more than just myself and grow old in the arms of some wonderful woman. I want to dislike my in-laws and attend PTA meetings and this is getting weird. What brings a man to the point when he no longer desires to wake up in the bed of a stranger? What causes him to become bored at the thought of spring break and stare into space when others speak of their trivial weekend exploits?
Tupac Shakur said it best, “ A young heart with an old soul, how can there be peace. How can I know who I am when there are two inside of me. This duo within me causes the perfect opportunity, to love and live twice as fast as those who accept simplicity.”
And although he said it best I don’t know if I can when the war. I battle daily and at this point, I am sick of myself. I’m just tired of making all my decisions based on the condition of my heart. I feel like I’m missing out on so much in my life by keeping everyone at arms length. Somewhere buried inside lays the fear that I might crack this fragile heart of mine. I can’t remember the last time I even hugged a woman or felt entirely comfortable lying down in my bed alone. And it’s strange because, although I push others outside my circle, I truly just want someone to let me care about them and allow myself to be comforted.

I grew up with two people in my life that I would do anything for. They were by no means the only people I would stretch out to help but they were the ones who I would choose to spend my free time with and till this day I would call and want to just be around. These guys are my cousins Aaron and Brandon, and I want to tell you just a little bit about these fine gentlemen. I was the oldest of the three of us but Brandon was the closest to me by three months. Growing up Brandon had it easy as far as we were concerned. He was a little bit of a cry baby and sometimes when he would spend the night at either of our places he would complain about how he wasn’t quite so comfortable there. I can remember on several occasions how Aaron and myself would try to scare him into peeing his pants after staying up all night watching movies. He turned out to be the only sane one in our little trio. Aaron had a spirit of adventure and would easily become bored if he had to sit in the house and do something us regular people did often. He just had to go out and get into something and many times that made the stays at his place very memorable. I can remember many near tragic accidents that happened to me in particular because of his wild schemes. One time we were swinging on a tree rope in the hood of East St. Louis and I fell like 15 ft. flat on my back into a mess of broken 40 ounce bottles. I was cut and bruised and I almost blacked out a few times. Another time I was chasing a ball into the street and a car came flying down the wrong way of a one-way street and hit me. I panicked and froze up like a deer in headlights and wound up inches away from the tires running over my head. I was completely under the vehicle but I wasn’t scared just shocked. It was all the hanging out with my cousin that got me to thinking at a very young age that God must have some kind of plan for my life. We were bad kids, I mean every single time our mothers turned around they were either rushing me to the hospital or being forced to clean up our messes. Still I would wait all year long for the summertime to come back around the corner so that we could spend that ever so cherished time again.
Now we are men and the time we spend with one another has grown short. Aaron has spent four years of his adult life in the penitentiary and since being freed, his girlfriend has given birth to a healthy baby boy, making him a father. Brandon has spent the last few years working a decent paying factory job in the union near St. Louis. He wed his high school sweetheart about a year ago and since is now the proud father of two, a boy and a girl. I, on the other hand, have returned to school and am searching for that adventure that used to be so prevalent in my life. I am searching for the fellowship I used to share with those two men in the faces of new friends but nothing seems to hold a fair comparison.

So there's this girl in my English class that is goofy and weird and a great person in all respects and she is my friend now and that is good. Then there is this other girl in my Psych class that is very sexy and at times I don't know what to say to her. She doesn't show up to class on time and we for the most part don't have anything in common but the possibilities of something happening with us is on the verge on all my thoughts every Tuesday and Thursday. I think she has the perfect set of eyes and her skin tone is extraordinary. I notice everything about her and that drives me crazy for at least an hour or two after class but I haven't really done anything about it because in the end I want the next relationship I enter into to have some meaning.It's not as if I think she's not my type physically but on other terms I think it would be a stretch to say that we would make a good couple. I know I probably don't have any guys reading my blog but if there are, have any of you ever known something like this. I don't normally stress about women. I quote the mundane saying there are many other fish in the sea, but I must admit that there aren't many fish as exquisite as she. She rides her own horses and she works out on a regular basis. If you were to rate her body on a scale of one to ten you would be forced to give her at least a ten.
On the other end of the scale she doesn't show up to class on time and is currently failing psych, a class I don't seem to ever budget into my time but am still making an A in. I don't take her for stupid but I do think it's dumb to pay for a class that nobody is forcing you to come to and not put forth as much effort as you can, I mean at least try. I can't say that these facts have derailed me from wishing I was her pillow.

Goodbye

I never wanted to say goodbye in the first place, ending our four-year long relationship was the hardest thing I ever had to endure. I have, on several occasions since our relationship ended, thought I saw her walking down the street or at the mall but it wasn’t her. It would seem that I see her face in every other woman I meet, most of the time it is harder for me to disassociate the memories of all the things we have been through together. I think of her when I’m not supposed to and when I’m not trying to and it just eats me up sometimes. Three weeks ago I saw one of those monkey like teddy bears at Wal-Mart and it took me back to a time when we went to the carnival and I won her something similar and surprisingly the emotion behind it stopped me in my tracks. I avoid going to places we used to eat at because I don’t want to think about her anymore. Does anyone know how weak it makes a man feel when he can’t seem to overcome something so small? It was a large portion of my adult years that carved out an empty space within once she was gone. It always seemed so cliché to me when I heard somebody say how a person can take a piece of you when they leave. I always thought that I would be ok, but I’m not. I struggle most days with the fact that I know she is never coming back and that at this point I don’t even want her anymore but a sour smell still remains. The first month after she left I cried and the second month I fumed but in the months to follow I prayed to God. I never wanted to say goodbye but in the end I never got the chance to end things on terms I could live with. I have questioned everything I thought was the problem in hopes of finding a remedy for why I can’t hang on to love.
My routine is probably the saddest thing you’ve ever seen, I get up in the morning and I look in the mirror and encourage myself. Not like a mantra or some self help chant but I try to remember that I am a good man and I do deserve love no matter what kind of mistakes I have made, and as if I could communicate with her very heart from afar I tell her goodbye.

I don't know freewrite

It's hard to admit but I am a double-minded man. Some days I wake up and I can be the most gentle person in the world. The most kind and humble man and generous to those whom I barley know. I can be full of words of encouragement and joy so that all who come in contact with me can feel, see, and know that I would never do them wrong.
Yet on ther days I am full of deciet and wickedness. I don't neccessarily mean to be so nasty sometimes, it's just that when I feel that I am right about a certain situation or vindicated in my actions I can stretch to the other extreme. I can one day tell someone how much I love them and the next be seen swearing about how stupid I think they are. Isn't that a little crazy, to have such strong feelins about a subject in one way or another and then feeling the complete opposite the next week.
I want to do good mostly and so if you were to ask me I would tell you that I am a decent man. I work hard not to quarrel with others and to be a gentleman when I feel that need. I don't like to take shortcuts when I do anything because I have learned that it often requires you to do more work than initially planned. I love to complete what I start and I do love the feeling you get when you give to someone. That feeling is likened to how you might feel when you make an infant smile or when you get the opprotunity to do something nice for your spouse. I love to give because I am immediatley rewarded and maybe that takes away from my point at hand. I am a good person but who am I trying to prove it to.I am a double minded man in that I am so introspective that I do truely know everything I need to do in order to attain what I what but sometimes I press on in a direction feeling like thier is no escape.Why?

My Dreams

As a child I had the most fantastic dreams. For a time my subconcious simply wandered about when I slept but at about the age ten I learned that I could control events as they unravled in my mind. This knowledge was a breath of fresh air at least pertaining to going to bed as a young boy.Now when I slept I would walk myself through a day at school or I would imagine myself as some rich entreprenuer, living the good life. In my dreams I could never die, No matter what disasterous situations I managed to build for myself. In my dreams I even taught myself to fly, and that is how, even to this day, I travel from place.
I know what most of you probably do, I would assume you just think about where you want to be and travel at the speed of thought. You probably think Im wasting time or something but it's just fun if you have a big imagination. I love being able to exit out of the real world for a moment or two in my dreams without the use of drugs or something.I wonder if any of you have dreams about.

Have you ever

have you ever had one of those days that makes you wish you never even got out of bed at all. At the end you look back and you still can't quite figure out how you wound up so sore and mentally depleted. Somewhere along the road something precious has been snatched from you but you've gone to far to retrace your steps and you realize the chances of recovery are nil.

Have you ever failed to make a choice for fear of history repeating itself? Ever had that eerie feeling of Deja-vu come to fruition?

Have you ever had the words, " I love you " on your lips, only to let the moment of opprotunity slip away?
Your heart is unlocked
but your tounge is chained
Your spirit is full of courage
In your mind the fear remains
Because a "Yes" is like sugar
And a "NO" is hard salt
Rejection slices through your viel
So all can see your flaws and faults
The akwardness of silence
Allows a doubt to slither in
You stutter and you stammer
Tryign to find somewhere to begin.

That's just a little freestyle anicdote for all my fans out there. LOL

Cathing up

I should be bombing my psych class right now but I'm not and for the most part I don't really know why. My world has changed so much in every tangible way and in every emotional way as well.It seems that true change is definitely a slow fade. I hace met my own needs at the bottom of the scale pretty well, things such as food water and shelter. I have set goals toward other needs such as this pursuit of higher education and a career in the future, but all of those things are very basic. Yet the other needs I tend to neglect and I think have not been regarded because something in me says that they are unattainable. What does a man become if he chooses to bypass all of his deepest core desires and overlook his wants because they go agianst his beliefs in God? Is he considered to be a 'good man' to his peers or his he seen as a blacksheep throughout his culture? That's how I feel about my life to this point, I feel as if I put myself through unneccesary strain because I refuse to adopt the same beliefs as a large majority of the young people. I don't drink because I used to and I know where that leads you. I don't get high on anything because I watched people throw thier lives away in a bottle of alcohol and crack cocaine.
Everytime I do something God pays me back quick. One time I stole a pack of cookies form the store and then when I got home I didn't have the keys to get in the house. I had to call the locksmith and it cost me like 65 dollars to get them to come open the door for me. That was the most expensive pack of cookies I have ever bought in my life.I just want to do the right thing but often times the lines are blurred between the right and the accpetable. These days so much is accpetable but it is wrong and I try not to straddle the fence on issues. I just dont know sometimes, I mean I like women and I like to remain stimulated but what does HE want from me. The bible says that the man who looks at a women with lustfull eyes has already committed adultery in his heart. Folks I will struggle with that one til He takes me home.

03/14/09-

I don’t have any Idea what to say I think that most people love me and my heart can only take so much trouble. It is very hard for me to explain the way I feel because maybe I don’t really know. I think so much about me and what is going on in my own personal life that I don’t have time for anything else and I think that is why I have failed in most relationships. Everything is a two way street I don’t even want anything special from the people I know but something in me is so green I just tend to get my feelings hurt too easily and I tend to wind up saying all t he wrong things to all the wrong people and I don’t even want to go on. If I could do anything I would move back to Long Beach California and start all over and try to push all these poor thoughts out of my head and start trying to get into a mindset where I can live. Truly live and not worry about fast cars and diamonds for the girls and what seems to be trendy now. I just want to finish school and make a little money but enough about me what about you darling sees. I don’t know if I’m even doing t his exercise right or not. I know there aren’t many rules to free writing but to just be continual and I guess that feeling that you’re not really getting much accomplished will soon vanish like a puff of smoke and I can learn to be a little more creative but what other purpose does it serve other than a warm up of sorts. I need. I need so much of this writing class that it hurts. I don’t think I do well.

What's In The Way

Lying in the road this morning was a dying calf mooing for the entire world to hear. I being a concerned citizen slowed my vehicle. I didn’t want to hit the poor creature so I simply went around it but as I made headway it seemed to grow larger in the rearview mirror. Maybe I’m too sensitive but something was tugging at my very soul saying, “Go Back”. I slammed on my brakes but not out of necessity but because I was upset. I knew I had to go back for the beast and at least try to help but I was running late already. Against my own will, being pulled by the will of some other I went back for what’s in the way, for what’s blocking my path.

Oreo's- 03/13/09

A few days ago a lady friend of mine told me I was the "whitest" black man she knew. When I first heard this I laughed, but later that evening as I reflected on her words I let myself become offened. Being black nowadays isn't about skin color but it's more about culture and peoples predetermined perceptions of what that culture should be. I wonder if, as a black man in america, I should speak poorly and use more slang in conversation than proper english. I ask myself, does a shirt that fits, or a pair of pants that fails to sag, take away from my culture or does it add to it? I guess I got upset because the greater part of me would hope that when people in the world saw me, educated, well spoken, and humble, would not assume I was playing some "Uncle Tom" role. I would hope that those who knew me and all of the wrong I've done, like pushing dope on the hopeless, and using women as I willed, could see the genuine change in my heart through my actions. I hope that those who knew me would understand that I choose to seperate myself from those who live like what they see in the media.
I saw my friend again yesterday and i brought up her comment again jokingly, saying " Gal Ima start sportin' a gold chain an git me a gangsta grill. Shorty Ima putcha out on the corner next week so you could make me my paper to pay fo all dis lavishness." Then I watched the reaction written all over her face.

03/12/09

I woke up this morning and found a long letter goodbye on our nightstand and was simply frozen in bed. I can't say that I was shocked, I just didn't want to move, I didn't want today to be the day when she finally wrenched away. Feels like I've known this day was on the brink for quite some time now but I just never did anything to stop it, and maybe there was nothing I could do. There are no tears this morning, it's just sort of hard to breathe and I feel very groggy all of a sudden. It's time to pull that dusty mask out of the closet and dawn my power tie for another day at the office, although working this job is the last thing on my mind now.

Three cups of coffee later and I'm still half asleep attempting to review her last words to me in my mind. Part of me is frustrated because of everything I have sacrificed to make things work for us, while she takes the cowards way out. Another part of me is still too tightly connected to let my heart say goodbye. Still I reluctantly head out my front door on my way to write my sports column like I have done everyday for the past two years. Oddly I decided to stop at Panera Bread this morning to get a muffin and a more powerful cup of coffee, and as I was headed in, there was this couple headed out. Being the gentleman that I am I held the door for them and they went past me they locked hands, and thier simple display of affection for one another tugged the cloak away from my heart and I was at once vunerable again. I let out a long heavy sigh and for a moment I could be still and then the comfortable fear eased itself into position, while I scrambled to pick up what was stripped from me in those few seconds and I continued to walk into Panera as if nothing had happened. If someone were to have been watching me they would have noticed nothing so I simply ordered and sat in a table towards the back. I was already a few minutes late for work by this time so I thought to myself what's a few more minutes, if it will allow me to center my thoughts, if it will provide me some sense of calm.

in class

I walked into Robert’s office that morning to find it in shambles. File cabinets forced open and papers strewn about it such a way that my first thought was that there must have been a robbery. I asked my partner about his office and asked him why everything looked so cluttered and unorganized and he said simply, “ I have had an impossible weekend.” I didn’t really know what to say to Robert and somewhere while lost in thought I offered to help clean his large marbletop desks.
Tasha pried the engagement ring from her hand and hurled it at Jack.She was tired of being placed second and third on his list of priorities and it was time to follow her heart. As she retreated from their home Jack gave chase but stopped in mid stride when he saw the hotred flushed look on her face, that he had long ago learned, meant stay away from me.
Stinky Eye- 1. That look you get from another person that says you’ve violated some unspoken trust. 2. The look!
One thing I will never get used to is this Missouri weather. Yesterday it was 69 degrees and today it’s 3 below. I spent the whole morning getting dressed oblivious to the outside temperature and I dressed in shorts and I open my front door and am meet with wind and snow. Some times I wish I could simply handle the cold weather so I could enjoy the outside in the wintertime. I waould love to go sledding with my children one year but mostly I just stay inside by a warm fire. Icesickles outline the bumber of my car.
This is my one and only problem, Mrs. Esterhouse. She must have something against me. The fellas have been telling me that ever since like 1963 she’s been teaching at Normandy middle school. My dad said that she even taught when he was going to school there and she hasn’t changed at all. Still grumpy for no apparent reason and nobody has ever seen her smile. The last horribly difficult test she handed back graded said Gotcha in big bold letters at the top.

03/10/09

Most days she walks around feeling tense, on gaurd, as if bracing herself for a blow that might break something. I can sympathize with her because I can imagine how much energy she waste generating those stone walls of protection. I know how time-consuming it is to craft an impenetrable facade so that nobody can peer through and find out how vunerable we really are. We are strong, yet we have allowed the weak to trample on us time and time again, and thier are bruises. This morning I watched her carefully apply the make-up to conceal the scars, she hid the black eye with sunglasses, put on her lipstick and smiled. My heart, it weaps for her, 'cause she can't bring herself to the point where she can pack up the kids and move into the shelter.

03/10/09

There should come a point where I ought to stop allowing these old feelings to eat at me. My emotions have run wild long enough, holiding me under the water of despair, and it ought to be time to let it go. Why then does my heart retain this smallest bit of self condemnation off in the niches and invisible nooks? It comes to me after short burst of frustration and anger, but when all the dust settles I remember it was that same flaw in my character that broke her heart in the first place. Some nights I sit, think, and cry wondering will I ever change. I sit to keep from pacing and I think about every relationship I have managed to burn to the ground with selfish attitudes. The tears come because so much of the rest is bottled up or buried under regret that they simply have no place to receed to anymore. I is more than just male ego, I mean, my greatest fallacy was in thinking I knew what it meant to love. Now hindsight is twenty-twenty but it still hurts when I look back, it burns a crease right down the center of things. It's like a line drawn through smooth sand and still here I am just standing.Behind me as far as the eye can see, is a winding trail of failure and part of me just can't take that first step over the line.

Polly want a Cracker

Phillip R. Moller

I feel this essay speaks true to the educational process and our involvement therein. How the system seems to almost reprogram us like a computer, and instead of teaching us how to think simply teaches us to repeat.
I agree with the fact that the process of becoming an educational parrot is not a quick one. It takes years of systematic programming to become a parrot of any stature. Inside the cage is a lonely place for anyone whose brain has outgrown it but it is a place many of us feels comfortable. We have been taught that this cage is our home and that it is where we ought to be. Although we’re far from happy there we don’t know how to survive in any other place or climate. For some of us parrots, honey nuggets and crackers are all we have an appetite for, and for those morsels we will recite, rehearse, and repeat all those key phrases we’ve been taught until it’s time for the shade to be pulled over the cage.
In many ways I see where Polly is coming from. I skipped right over the second grade and soon after I sprouted my first set of feathers. I hadn’t made friends with any of the other parrots in my class because all the other parrots in the first grade were still pink and had shown no signs of feathers. I was different to them and they were strange to me. For many years I excelled in the structure of the school environment because I was willing to conform to what administrators told me to do. For a long time I actually wanted to be that bright, beautiful parrot. As a parrot my mother commented on how well I scored on test and she place all my high marks on the refrigerator of our home with pride. Her praise and positive reinforcement was most times the highlight of my day. Consequently I unwittingly strived for a time to be the best parrot I could be.
Although I was comfortable with the way things were in my elementary and junior high schools, by high school I had almost completed the metamorphosis from bright, outstanding parrot into a chameleon. I no longer wanted to standout in any way; I just wanted to fade away into the background while I figured out who I was. It had been almost six years since the death of my father and a year since I had seen or spoken to my mother. I had lost that positive reinforcement and the guiding light in my world and at the time I had nowhere else to turn, so I turned inward. I went from worrying about how to become book smart to trying to figure out how to keep my anger in check and deal with the real world outside of that gilded cage.
The writer of this essay touches base with me when he or she talks about needing to be that parrot again. Figuring out that although being a parrot was contrary to their new system of thinking, it serves a purpose. Not only inside the realm of the educational system for me but in life. I can relate because although I had lost so much as a child and consequently derailed my life I discovered that I could not simply drown in my anger and fear. I could not throw away all the lessons I had learned simply because I felt a certain way. I had to rediscover the parrot inside of me and use it for its advantages and leave behind what I disliked. I had to weigh the pros and cons of conformity and develop my own way of getting the job done that would appease all parties involved. I don’t know what it took for the writer of Polly want a cracker to come to terms with things being the way they are but for me I had to reach into my heart and pull out all the junk.
Each of us posses what some would consider an inner person, a soul, the human spirit, which causes us at times to reflect on what we have become? That driving force provides us with the motivation to think about where we want to go and what we want to do. It also asks, "Who are you?"Are you a saint or a sinner, a lost dog or a confident prowling lion, a caged parrot or an eagle soaring free?

03/09/09

The Five Senses


I would rather be in sunny California with my family. I have a brother who lives in Long Beach and I continue to put off seeing him year after year and now it has been at least eight years since I saw him last. He is 16 now living three blocks away from the beach and four blocks away from his school but nobody there to teach him to be a man. I would rather live in the land of milk and honey than in the realm of ice storms and other dramatic weather occurrences. I want to submerge my feet in the hot sands on my way to the cool ocean where I can spend a lazy afternoon swimming like the fishes do. I can’t imagine ever coming back to where I am now after leaving California. If I was not there then some other place as equally warm and serene. I choose Cali because my family is there and I have already missed so much of their lives because I have been so busy doing my own thing. I miss the fact that the worse weather there was El Niño and even when it did happen to rain everything would wash away momentarily. I want to go somewhere nice for once where I might feel like just another person in the mix rather than a black eyed pea.
In this place I am surrounded by all the beauty the world has to offer. Southern California offers one a bright sun and a warm climate much of the year and a diversity in culture than could hardly be considered second rate. I can remember being there once and having more friends who were Thai and Cambodian than whites but they too are there. I had friends from all nationalities and those memories have stayed with me more than any other kind of visual stimulus. With the diversity in colors of skin came the different kinds of foods. I distinctly remember there being one of those combo joints with Chinese food and a Dunkin doughnut. I can remember a place in Compton than sold fish tacos and in my mind’s eye I see a Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles place.
If I were blind the state of California would still offer me so much to listen to. I hear the loco gangster wannabees in their drop top rides riding down the streets bumping loud music and rattling their trunks. I take a walk down the boardwalk and I hear the sound of the ocean waves like background music to and orchestra of people. The ocean sounds like gentle cymbals and mighty drums all at the same time.
As a deaf mute I heard that the only place I could enjoy myself was on a beach and if I wanted to be treated well as they tend to treat people I should want to move to America, To the Hollywood hills. They say that the sun feels like a paraffin wax on the skin and the sand feels like a gentle soothing massage.
Only one sense to dare now and I can smell all the mighty fragrances of the land and the people. The Spanish mom and pop shop smells like Mexican candy and Carson Street smells like home. The scent of the women breaks up happy homes and draws men into lustful desires. At least some men who have learned to follow their nose. I can’t possibly leave out the smell of growth. Fresh cut grass and the freshly ripened
Oh I forgot about the way the mangos taste. The fruits that never make it to Missouri ripe and so they remain for those blessed with the fortune of the coast. I can taste that sweet nighttime air and I can taste the sweat of life from the hustle and bustle of the world around me. This should be the city that rarely sleeps.

Sing

She hasn't sang her songs
Not in many years
She cries in her sleep
And I wipe away the tears
She holds her head high
And puts on a good face
But when she lets down her guard
I know her heart aches
I need to be strong for her
But I don't know how
Inside I'm going crazy
No one can save me now
And when I'm gone
Who will be there to wipe her crying eyes
And hold her when she's lonely
Or unmask her disguise
Who will fill that empty space
Who will let her laugh
Who will carry her away to
A warm drawn bubble bath
Who will stop the pain
And set her heart free
When her entire life is
Wrapped inside of me
Tonight I close my eyes
And wait for death to come
Listening to the wind
And bathing in the sun
I search deep within myself
To find where I belong
Then she takes my hand
And sings my favorite song
I try to peer into her heart
To find what's underneath
I rip through her hidden terror
And leave a piece of me

I wrote this poem back in 1998 and I guess Im posting it to see if the readers can notice any sort of differences in my writing now than when I was 13 years old. I think it's important to feel like your maturing as a writer, at least for oneself. See I never wrote anything to try and impress someone I don't think. I have wrote things to ladies when I was a little younger and a little more naieve. I like to write and it's wierd for a black man to like to write. I mean I don't see a lot of men like me inerested in writing short stories or poems that don't just turn into raps. I never wanted to be a rapper really but it would seem that's where there is a lot of money to be made and so thier is some kind of attraction to it. But mostly I just wanted to tell stories but I don't (for myself ) feel like I am good enough to make money thier either so I simply write for the love of writing. I admit before I started school this year there was a long sabatical from writing anything. It would seem that life outside of this sort of setting doesn't afford a man to do much pleasure writing and other things block your mind from flowing freely but I still love it, it seems.
Today I volunteered some time to the Salvation Army working at thier thrift store from about noon til four and I found pleasure in doing good. It's odd how much my life is changing and how my thoughts about life change with it.

03/06/09

I felt as if he could sense my fear, there seemed to be some sort of nervous tension in the air. I was afraid but I hid my fear under a banner smile. Trying to put forth some sense of togetherness. I had never know anybody who did drugs and so this was a whole new world for me, to do something just to take your mind someplace new I could relate with. But to damage brain and hurt yourself in the process I couldn’t wrap my young mind around no matter how good it might make you feel. I don’t know what else to feel when I am around him now but fear. I don’t want to say the wrong things to him afraid that he might have one of those psychotic breakdowns and try to kill the whole family the way you hear about on the news some tragic nights. I just keep my distance now but the ocean between me and my stepfather hurts. It takes me from one end of a bright and hopeful spectrum to another end and on the other end it is dark and refuses to sparkle at all. I walked on eggshells in my own home trying not to upset anyone but even the best I could do was never enough for him. If someone where to ask him about me he would say that I was in dire need of some discipline and he would be sure to note that he was not going to be the one to instill that in me.
My step father was a paramedic and an alcoholic for years. I can remember coming home from school one day and he and my mother had been in our kitchen fighting and she was bleeding from her nose but I was too small to do anything about it. When my mother saw we were home, she was ready to leave him but she never did. At least not physically, she remained but over the years it seemed like she merley tolerated him as her provider and simply thier she remained. I could not be consoled on the issue I did not consider him to be much of a man and so I acted out. I don't know if it was for the attention or because subconciously I thought he would just leave it I became a problem but there he stayed and throughout the next several years I hated him. He would tell me to do chores and I would promptly ignore his so called authority. I can remember after the first few years he sought sobriety I thought it was all a joke. This in my mind was a madman who used to drink all the time.There was a bottle of Bacardi Rum on top of our refrigerator at all times and the trash can was always full of empty Budweiser bottles. This was a man who was double minded and dangerous. He was a paramedic and certified to train people in Akido, a form of the martial arts. This was a man who wrote poetry and still who could not use words to an affective degree when dealing with my mother or when he was drunk. This was a man who on one side of things wanted to build a family and on the other chose a career that kept him on base for days on end, while we( or at least I) welcomed the break from him.
It had been three years since my father died and in retrospect I never wanted anyone to try and replace him because nobody ever truely could.

03/05/09

Love is a funny thing. I can't see it or touch it, it is quite untangible and yet I know with all my heart that it is real. It is like the wind in that I can only bear witness to the evidence of something so beautiful.
Still some nights I wonder where is God when I need him the most.
Father, I am drowning but you choose to let me flounder and struggle in the deep waters of my aching heart day after miserable day. Just when I think all is well, the lingering consequences of my decisions manage to wrench another tear from my tired eyes. Father I search the skies for you but you hide you face from me. I shout into the dark, sleeping city,"where are you?", and all I hear is the echo of my own lonely voice. Tonight I found a quiet chapel to confront you with my pain and I waited all night for you but Lord you never showed up. The emptiness there was so frustrating as I sat staring at an empty cross, questioning everything I have come to believe.
I pour out my heart to you only hoping to be heard. Withou you I am a man dying to be filled by another. Withou you thier is a void as wide as the sky and as deep as the oceans. This cavity no man, woman, or addiction can ever relieve. Lord if you have ever cared about me enough to peer into my heart, you would know that all I want before I die is to feel the kind of all encompassing love you posess. God I have known some hardships in my life that have thrown me from the good road you laid before me and all Im saying now is that I want to know you again, please don't leave me now. The past year of my life has taught me a great deal. I don't think I ever learned how to give or to love properly because I was always so concerned about myself. I have done everything for myself since I was 16 years old and so I always had to make sure that I was taken care of because nobody else ever has. Still in the past ten years I have failed at most of the relationships I have tried to build and I know thier has got to be a reason behind that. I think it's because of my need to always have more and more, my greed, and my selfishness. In the past six months I have realized that I want Gods help to try and rebuild my character because my regrets just eat at me. I want to be the kind of man that God responds to but nothing seems to be working but I am patient. It's just so hard cause I never learned to trust anybody as far as I can see. So how do you expect me to trust in you, whom I can't see, when you wont even speak to me in that still small voice I keep hearing everybody talk about in church.?
Spiritaully I am torn and I don't want to keep feeling like this. This is my written cry for help God.

Im stuggling trying to wrap my mind around some of the things the bible offers me to eat. Somethings don't sit right in my stomach and I try to address them with God but he remains silent. Most christians would agree that it would be pretty foolish of a man to have gained the whole world and end the end lose his eternal soul. I can't say that I completely disagree I just feel different than others about issues we should all agree on. Ecclesiates chapter 11 verse 7 says, "Light is sweet and it pleases the eyes to see the sun. However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all. but let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many."
When I reflect on those words I think about all the things I've been through the last year and a half and I am grateful to be alive. Still I can't tell if these are dark days or not, maybe I exist in the light which is in him or maybe I'm just so used to not having anything that I have settled for the menial things when God has really called me to do bigger things. You'd think I would know what God's will is for my life but I don't and it causes me to question my christianity on a daily basis. I am told to ignore my emotional needs and resist sinful temptations. I have denied myself my hearts desires but it pangs me to do so and I don't know what sin is sometimes. It can become so trivial and it can cause a man to tip-toe around on eggshells in fear of the Lord.
Verse 9 in Ecclesiates says," Follow the ways of your heart andwhatever your eyes see but know that for all these things God will bring you judgement." I think to myself, does God himself want us to be miserable in this life. Does God not care about my emotional well being. Maybe I'm not getting the full scope of things with him and maybe I never will.

Most of all I wonder why God would create in me this deep desire to be loved and never intend to fill that burning need. Corithians says that love is patient and love is kind, it is longsuffering, it keeps no records of wrongs, etc. All my life I have searched out the meaning of so much and nothing could be as simple as showing love to someone. It may be difficult most of the time but doable. I write and I write until I can't think of a single thing to say until the silence itself poses a question. It says what happens when all the hustle and bustle of life is gone and i have planted many fields and I have started many businesses and aquired much wealth throughout my life and I come home to an hollow cave of a house, a cell. When there is nomore work to be done and i have deticated myself to loving others but nobody ever came into my life personally. How will I cope when the vigor of my youth is gone and no one comes to visit. Can a man endure to the end without love. Can a man be filled with the love that is in jesus without ever have being loved by the world. What good is it to be rich, to gain the whole world and lose your soul?

03/03/09 Journal Entry

Each and every dollar I spend inches me ever closer to an unattainable goal. All my efforts are poured into an attempt to cover up what's inside. My prideful attitude is a mask to conceal the shame. Subconsciously I think about wheather or not my smile is bright enough to hide the sorrow in my eyes. Still all these memories rise up out of thier graves and take me to a place where there exsist only panic to pierce my heart. Where peace is replaced with doubt and the burdens on my heart tighten thier grip and squeeze.

It would seem to the keen observer that I am standing at a crossroad with many difficult decisions to make. I am learning how to be alone finally but I am still quite uncomfortable. Sometimes I see her in my minds' eye, living without me, living the life i thought we were meant to share. In my daydreams I see her happy and I suppose that is all I ever wanted. I survive not in misery but not happy either. There is a certain sorrow in simply living for today, in living only for oneself, and without a tangible love to call my own I am constantly uneasy. I am at a loss about what to do with myself on those rollercoaster nights that always seem to leave me charged to make a change, yet emotionally drained. I have told myself on more than one occasion that I am tired of being alone but......

Sometimes I lie in my bed visualizing the day when I will feel more than the thump of my own beating heart. In the morning thier are no children to take to school and at night thier are no more parties to attend, it's just me. I am standing at an open door, between my hopes and dreams and self-denial. I remain at it's edge uncertain because behind me lies a wake of failure and pain and I don't want to hurt anymore.

Dear Lord

Im sick of living my life feeling like thier is nothing to gain
Im tired of opening my heart to get nothing but pain
Lord, I need to believe in love but it's so hard to trust
If things don't start to change for me I think my heart will rust

Lord even with the best of intentions I still struggle with sin
Even seperated from the world thiers still a struggle within
God its so hard to believe in something I've never seen with my own eyes
'Cause all I've seen are people and all I've heard are lies.

I am like a pendalum swinging between love and loss
wondering why you sent your son into this world to die upon the cross
Lord I feel so ashamed that my life feels so worthless
Throughout the past few years I've been searching for a purpose

God I am living in the darkness I seem blinded by the light
"I've done so many things wrong I don't know if I can do right"
Dear lord please talk to me, don't you hear me when I pray?
I can't do this on my own, Father please show me the way.

Phillip R. Moller
Instructor Anthony
English Composition
19 February 2009

Literacy Narrative

Even as a child I grew to the point where I felt like I was traveling on a road to nowhere. Engaging myself in meaningless task in which the end would be fruitless. Consequently I became bored with schoolwork and its system of do’s and don’ts shaped by a lazily aimed process of trial and error. Still by the time I was twelve I had skipped a grade and managed to make B marks on most tests without studying. I was the child whom most teachers praised saying how great my potential was, while in the same breath remarking on my lack of drive and motivation for anything other than being a class clown. I guess somewhere along the road I had learned that of whom much is given, much is expected, so I simply cradled the fence between standout and average. I would never say so, even if asked but in the back on my mind I had given up on having high hopes.
I was nine years old when my father died. We had met that very same summer in May. It was like the answer to a boys’ prayer and I thought maybe it was going to be the beginning of something special, like a wish come true. At first it was as awkward as meeting any stranger can be, but over the weeks and months that passed we grew to love one another. He was my best friend and in retrospect he was my only friend. Knowing him allowed me to crawl out of my shell of daily introspection and overcome my need to be as unnoticeable as possible. By the end of the summer I did not want to go away. In the end I went back home and to school, but now I possessed a new attitude and if you could have heard the song in my heart you would know how I felt. Almost like the way a man carries himself after a near death experience, as if even the air is sweeter than yesterday. As if the winds have suddenly shifted and the sea is calm and you can finally put away your oars and allow the tide to take you home. Three weeks later he was gone.
I took the news as a sour medicine but oddly enough it would be months before my emotions would finally bubble over and allow me to cry. My initial reaction was that sick sinking feeling you get when plummeting down the roller coaster tracks, it was simply a bitter pill to swallow. Illness was followed by an inconsolable anger, a fury I aimed at God. In the presence of my friends and family I was corked champagne and I could no longer pray to God with humble reverence. All my life I had been taught to regard God with the utmost respect but now when I found myself alone I would engage in shouting matches with God. Battles I knew I could never win but that allowed me to unclench my tight jaw and release all of the pain I was willing to part with. I ranted and raved and asked question after question while he remained silent. In my heart I could not believe it had been greater to love and lose than to never have love at all. For a long time it seemed like nothing would ever extinguish my destructive emotions and I feared I would house the sorrow of his death forever. In my day to day activities his memory distracted me and in many ways prevented me from finding joy in things I once found very pleasing. My prayers became fewer and further in between as my thoughts about death increased. One particular night I can remember lying in bed, my eyes shut tight but sleep never came. Inside there was an emptiness that made me feel like I was always hungry and a cavity in my heart as tender as an open wound. Thoughts pulsed in my mind at a sporadic and frantic pace until I couldn’t handle it anymore. When I opened my eyes tears leaked down my cheeks into my ears and onto my pillowcase. After a few moments I sat straight up and gathered as much air into my lungs as necessary to regain some sense of control. That night I wrote a letter to my dad.
I told him how much I loved and missed him, and as the words spilled onto the page hot tears pooled in my eyes once again. Only this time I would not be distracted, not by blinding tears or the overabundant feelings of unfulfilled hopes and desires. I wrote with tenacity as if I was being kept on a timer or as if I was writing at the speed of my thoughts. I wrote as if my father would one day read my words; I never skipped a beat as my feelings flowed freely. I wrote with zeal until my eyes became heavy and I finally slipped into unconsciousness. Sometime that night I realized that I held so tightly to my hurt and pain that my heart became bitter and was poisoning me. I realized that ejecting that raw, uncensored whirlwind of emotion was like a soothing antidote. The pencil and paper was a syringe and the message I spewed was like morphine. Each word relieved the pain for but a moment, and through the night I became a junkie on the search for a fix. The next day I was surging with energy and I knew without knowing that the therapy I induced upon myself the previous night had left a stain in my attitude. Even though I still hurt deeply over the loss of my father it had become a bit less painful. Within my words I found solace and before I left for school that morning I prayed. I told my fathers I was sorry about my poor attitude and how much I loved them.
Where as before I really had no particular motivation to do well in school, now I was filled with an overwhelming need to make my father proud. Not all at once but overtime as I became more confident as a writer I started to enter into poetry contests and to share my thoughts with others openly. Within a year of my father’s death I had won my first junior amateur writing contest and I beamed with pride. Over the years my writing has evolved however the reasons why I write remain constant. It is a source of relief, a fountainhead for my ideas, a weapon for my soul, the truth in my heart, and always a letter for my dad to read.