in a nutshell

Growing up, I kind of had the best and worst of both worlds.

 

The neighborhood I lived in was tucked into a wooded corner on the very edge of a mid-sized city.  In such, I got to play and explore in the woods all the time when I wasn’t at school, but, being a small neighborhood, there weren’t really any kids my age to hang around with.  This was both a blessing and a curse as the years went by, and eventually I attached myself to an older guy who had moved from the other side of the county.  That is a different story though, and one I will tell later.

 

Since I was so far away from the schools for the city I actually lived in, they sent all the kids in my neighborhood to Pontiac schools (the city next to us).  Pontiac is an industrial town (cars) and has a big mix of people living there.  All was good until I got into the high school, but that’s when things really started to get ugly.  There was a lot of gang activity, violence and stupidity.  Very few people were there for the education.  Although I didn’t get caught up in the gangs, I did fall into shit that really changed how I viewed the world around me.  Much of it having to do with that guy back in my neighborhood and his influence on who I was.  I didn’t really care about school to much, although I kept going because I had to.

 

On the last day of my 10th grade year two buddies and I were jumped while waiting for the bus because we were white long-hairs.  We got off pretty lucky, but it left a pretty bad taste in my mouth and I refused to step foot in that school again the following year.  In such, I transferred to another school district, attending an alternate high school.  There I got my GPA up and stayed out of trouble the best I could.  I was one of their top students, but mainly because I was one of the only people there that hadn’t been kicked out of the local school’s for being a disciplinary problem.  It took a year and a half, but I ended up completing every single class they could give me that was at my level or above and had to find a different school.

 

I found myself taking night classes in what was then my 3rd school district.  Four nights a week, four hours a night, one class each night.  The shit was truly a joke.  After the first semester I was only one class short of graduation (which caused me to graduate one semester late than what I originally should have but that was fine.  After screwing off for two years in my first high school, a single semester wasn’t bad imo).  I took a drawing and sketching class my first semester there, and then the second semester I took the same class again, but as an advanced student.  The perk to that was running into the teacher over the summer at a concert … she was stoned as hell.  She knew I had enough on her to get her license pulled, so when I took her class the second time, I was rarely there and still got a B.  :-)

 

I went to college for a little while after I graduated, but, at that point I was pretty deep into drugs and was dealing with my depression (although I didn’t know what was wrong with me, only that I was miserable doing just about everything).  I quit attending most of my classes within the first few weeks, and only ended up passing a single class, an intro to business course.  All of the students were dressed nice and there I was, all black, long hair, stoned out of my mind and acing the class without any trouble.  It seems I excel at things I enjoy … go figure.

 

It was that last semester of high school when I turned 18 and was introduced to the goth/industrial club scene in Detroit.  I had never been to Detroit before, but walking into this run down hotel in the heart of the city and finding my way up this crumbling stairway was in and of itself an experience.  The black and white murals which covered the walls showed dark scenes depicting the seven deadly sins and the rhythmic thump of the music could be felt deep in the concrete structure beneath my feet.  I didn’t look like I belonged there, but, upon walking into the place for the first time, surrounded by the freaks and misfits of society, I knew I was home.

 

The years pealed away so easily while lost in the illusion of that place.  City Club was the epicenter of a movement, but whatever the direction was, I don’t think we ever really knew.  We could all feel it.  We know it was start there, but in the end, nothing did.  We were all growing old waiting for something … anything; but all for not.

 

We only grew older.

 

The millennium came and went, the music changed, yet we stayed the same.  Our dances evolved, new faces came and went, yet we were all still there, counting the days until we could go again and speaking of the ‘glory’ days of the scene.  Some escaped into lives proper and fitting to the society we dwelled within, but not a part of.  Some just disappeared one day, never to be heard from again; no longer a face in the crowd.  Some died; by their own hand or the cold hand of chaos, the end was the same.

 

After so many years living on the edge of society and drinking it all in, I too had reached a breaking point.  An old friend, turned lover, turned goddess.  I was so entwined in the excess of all that was, that I failed to realize just how bad my actions could hurt another.  I made the mistake, one night, of kissing a girl while I was drunk and it caused a HUGE scene that eventually made it into someone’s blog … a blog the girl I was seeing was subscribed to and read the following morning.  She was out of state for training (she was in the Army) and called me in tears.  She asked me what happened and I told her the truth.  To this day, when everything is silent around me, I can still hear her heart break.

 

That was the beginning of the end.  I moved out of the apt I was in and into a house with some friends, which made my commute to work about 30 minutes.  My car died and I couldn’t afford the work to get it fixed, so an old friend gave me her van since she was moving to California.  The van was broken into that night and when they attempted to hotwire it, they fried out the electrical system.  In a rage, they broke out all the windows and slashed the tires.  Shortly after, a buddy had his car impounded and said that if I paid the impound fee I could have the car but it needed a new alternator.  I did and replaced the part, but it left me broke and I couldn’t get it street legal.  I still had to get to work, so I put the plate from my original car onto it.  Little did I know that I had blown a fuse and my tail lights were out.  Got pulled over, nearly arrested.  300 dollars in tickets.  Missed work.  After that, the girl who gave me the van sold me her 86 Grand Marquis for 800 bucks.  I gave her 200, which was all I could spare, with the goal of paying her the rest when I could.  I had been in that car many times and although it looked like shit, it drove like a dream.  I drove it to work the next morning without issue, and then the damn thing broke down on me while driving home.  I called her from the side of the highway and, laughing, asked her to guess where I was.  She was stunned, and more so, was dumbfounded by the streak of bad luck that had fallen upon me. 

 

4 cars in 3 weeks if you can believe that.  I lost my job, had to move out of the house since I couldn’t afford my rent anymore.  Ended up with another buddy, in another town, with the hopes of being able to walk to a future job.  Nobody was hiring.  What made it worse was that he quit his job after I had been there about two weeks, so neither of us had income.  We were hungry, living on rice, no work to be found.  I sold a lot of my things in order to survive, but it was never enough to get anywhere or do much of anything.  Then, the eviction papers arrived.

 

With nowhere to go, nothing left to my name, it was time for some hard choices.  I was at the recruiting office about a week later and started the process.  I needed to detox before I went to meps, but, they didn’t have to sell me anything.  I WAS going to join the navy and get out of the situation I was in.  It was just a matter of getting clean, and picking a job.  Seven months later I was on a plane to Chicago, and the rest, I guess, is history.

 

Ing

Why am I drawn to you?  What is this feeling I have that you are suppose to play a part in my life?  You are beautiful, alluring and seem to contain much of what I have been looking for all my life, yet, I can not touch.  I think that is a good thing for now, for without friendship, without trust, there can’t be anything else.  The rest is carnal; the ape that we once were coming to the surface.  Be that as it may, I want to hold you in my arms and tell you these things as whispers shared between only you and I.  Although I want to scream it at the moon, I must only think in whispers.

What is the role you are to play in my life, and why does this feeling tell me that it shall be more than what I ever dreamed possible?

 

Two days and no demons to do battle with.  I’m not so cocky as to say this current spike in my depression is over, but, at least for now, I am at peace.

 

Ocean of Causality

The shadows crawl within me, blocking out the light of hope.  With claws and fangs hidden beneath pale skin I walk the land hidden by a mask of flesh and plastic smile.
Yet I know the truth of my condition, even if those around me do not; and those who do, run scared once they understand the full reality of my condition.

I am insane.

There is no other logical explanation that I can find.  I am a crazed lunatic with just enough sense to realize my sickness, but not enough will to do anything about it.  The shadows have consumed me.  My consumption of the past a hindrance to creating a stable mind, and I am lost unto myself.

I regret many things.

Yet try as I might, I have not the strength today to deal with the delusions crawling through my psyche.  I grasp at ghosts in an attempt to find some sort of stability, yet I fail.  I try to convince myself that I can do this alone, yet more often than not I fail in the attempt; thus finding myself once again reaching for somebody to hold me up.

I have spent a great deal of time gazing upon the water, attempting to find patterns within the chaos.  There are times I believe I see them, but the patterns do not hold true and I am once again stuck at square one.

To say that there are patterns would not be right, however, there is repetition in the waves, just not in the same place nor from the same directions.  In such, although it seems like a pattern, it is not.

 

Much like my life, it is nothing but chaos; just another wave in an ocean of causality.

 

The night sets in again.  Long, endless and dreary.  It falls upon me like a weight, for I know that with the coming of dawn, I will still be me.  The masks I wear are incomplete, never fully able to reflect the outward appearance that I wish to show.  There isn’t a mask for confidence.  The mask I wear keeps most people off my back; keeps them at bay so that they don’t vocalize their worry.  This is the mask I wear the most.  With plastic smile I walk through my day, faking out the world into thinking all is well.  They see it, they know it, and they expect nothing less.  Truth be told, the man beneath the porcelain facade is a crumbling creature with little left to keep him sane.

 

In the end, the mask comes back on.  Light does not exist within this soul, and only shadows remain.

I lived far too long in a world of excess, so much so that now during these dry times, I crave like an addict.  This is a test, and one I shall surpass.

I must stick to my own rules and resolutions, for there is nothing worse than failing oneself.