You have been everything for me. To me.
I do not forget.
I do not forget that you helped me live, gave until I cried, again and again and still now.
If you are reading this, it is sent to you. Take it personally. Know what you have done.
Against all odds, fighting what should have been if I were a lesser man,
You saved my life.
I do not forget, nor take what you have given me lightly.
You are everything to me…
and I will be there when you need me.
I thought I had been through enough to handle everything by now.
Little could make me happier, more thrilled and humbled meeting such exquisite souls.
And life goes on, and I know its beauty – from the homeless person to
your shine.
There is no difference. You could easily be on the streets tomorrow. In hours. In minutes. Life is adventure, needs to be. Security is only imagined. Everything burns, everything changes – and in change comes magick.
Jerome. That is his name. He has been living on the streets for six months, losing everything when his wife and mother died a few months apart.
I walked past, we made eye contact, he said nor asked for nothing.
Just another homeless person.
no. No one is “just” anything.
I stopped. Turned around and and walked back to him. in that half block between the streets, I pushed out the jaded person I had become… and again became who I AM.
In a few short steps, I thought of the many times I have been homeless. Living between buildings, in strange yet sheltered warehouse carcasses, on the beach underneath a sandstone bluff, trying to sleep under Safeway at 16th & Portrero.
I know. I have been here before, and carry it with me as a reminder.
His name is Jerome. I gave him everything I had – one dollar, a couple cigarettes. I sat with him for 20 minutes – or ten, or a lifetime and saw him as a person.
Take the time. Take the time to adore all and everything – or just simply say…
Hello.
Some things need to be named.
This morning a friend suggested that time would be better spent outside of my head, and at times that is good advice – but the head is still there, haunting, playing, destroying when I come back to it.
I swear it is leagues with my heart… but my heart should know better. It;s been through enough.
I reach back into my mind to find the pain that my heart says it should have, to find the sorrow, to find the…
Out of sight, out of mind. What I once was I am still and more and yet how is it that I feel as if you have passed me on for the other person who makes your life on facebook a bit more lively?
I see my demons. I reach inside and find them, learn their names and destroy them. On of them is called ‘alone’.
And I go on.
All of the dreams I have lived, found and forgotten, all of the dreams that that have made who I am today…
The life I have lived, seen, and seeked, I have become, at last, me.
It was not an easy path. I did not choose “easy”, though I could have.
We go on, knowing that we made the right choices, thinking, perhaps, of where we would be if we didn’t.
One Single Choice and here we are, knowing that knowing ourselves is more than anything we could have hoped for.
Knowing that we need to keep learning, finding, lusting after experience, finding, maybe at times, love.
I regret nothing.
I continue to dream, I continue to wonder…
and
I go on.
The people, the friends in my life, remind me that I am on the right path.
I try to hide the deep pain by surrounding it
with pain that is more visible, more present
and easier to manipulate.
I need to believe that there is a way past all
all of this pain I hold inside.
I will not try to explain, I don’t need you to understand
This is me, only me, and there are worlds that I’ve become
Far past you, far past me, and the person that I believed to be
Who am I? That’s a question that is answered every day
So I keep dreams, hold them close, make a beauty of them
some have grown, some have been lost, but none of them are forgotten…
You will never see me unless I choose to give you
and somehow, you see me, small in the corner…
And through your eyes I awake, see me and all I am
but where are you, I don’t need you – I am the strength I have to go on
But if somehow you appeared, could see all of me I hold inside
It’s not always pain, sometimes it is glory
So where are you, who am I these are questions I can’t answer
at least not now, but in time, I will be all that we seek…
The last contact I had with Jill was over the phone, and when I could barely lift my heat off of the pillow without extreme pain.
She asked me if I was working, had a good job. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS???!!! I AM DYING! Please pardon my language, but that is what I felt. Still feel. She never visited me, nor did Katherine who had a stop on the train she took every day only one small block away.
It was in those months that I saw that this “family” was a farce.
I have never been easy for you. I know that – but knowing now that you will not choose to be there when I eventually do die, that you will not offer comfort, peace, or anything I might need – well, that changes things, doesn’t it?
I don’t think you will understand this. I know you more than you choose to believe. I have studied you, and always asked “why?”.
I want nothing to do with the woman who you call my “mom”. She has done more harm than she will ever understand, and for that, she deserves nothing more than my pity.
I have a great job now. I help people through my writing. I have found a way to use everything I could not say to you, and have made it into a profitable business.
I will write a book about my 18 months in the hospital soon, and will mention you – and tell the truth about her.
I know you love her. I just cannot understand why. I think that is is only habit.
Until again, farewell.
All the times I have cried, the times I still do
I look at me, I cannot hide but I wish to see you
I could push it all away, pretend that everything was fine
but I can’t, can not be me if I ignore what makes me shine
It is all that I’ve been through, that is the thing that you see in me
Who am I to deny what we both search so hard to find
So I write, it’s all I know – it’s the only thing that’s true to me
I string words, I string love, I speak all the hurt that’s come
So sit back and know, this is only a small view
into a heart that was made with more than enough room
for me and you…
Four years. I was laying in the hospital bed, expected to die, and that is the last I heard from my adopted family.
The last brief phone touch with the “mother” who raised me was while I couldn’t lift my head off of the pillow. Her first quistion was not “how are you” are you alright” or anything close.
“Hey, ma.”
“Are you working? Do you have a good job?”
That was the last time I spoke to any of my adopted family… Until now.
The man I called ‘Father’ was always a good person, and always tried to be better. With the pure hell that “she” is, I cannot help but admire him for sticking with her – but I also see him as a fool.
No words for over four years. Leave it to me to fuck their reality.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Thank you for all that you gave me, and tried to. I will always love you for that – you let me have a beautiful childhood…
and I will never forget it.
Please know that you did not fail me – my soul was/is simply to big for your world.
Again – you did not fail. You gave everything you could, but… I followed my soul.
My heart still loves you.
Attached is a photo of me & my Birth Mother. My actual father still does not know I exist – I am the product of a New Years Eve romance. My Birth mother is healthy, lives in a small town about two hours north of San Francisco called Philo, and is very happy that I found her. She did not search for me, even as much as she says she wanted to. It was far too dangerous – think about it. She couldn’t even know if I knew I was adopted…
Dad, I love you. I always will. Thank you for everything.
—
Copywriter & Content Strategist:
Archer Marketing Solutions
archermarketingsolutions@gmail.com
CultureFlux Magazine
www.culturefluxmagazine.com
504.261.1099
I had a father, but only in title. Just as I was his “son”.
Everything I have learned, I needed to teach myself. He offered little – but he tried, wrapped up in midwestern religion and nothing that a mind such as mine could see the slightest bit of value in.
“The Talk”, the most pivotal moment in a boy’s life, came far after I knew more than him, and the sage advice he gave to a ridiculously horny 16 year old boy was “abstinence”.
He was a good person, and I still remember his smile, his laugh.
But I remember everything else, as well – far beyond anything that could warrant a smile.
No, my body was not molested by him or his wife. That I could have separated from.
It was my mind that he, *they* tried to change. My soul that they tried to put in a neat little box.
I never was able to fit that box. All the money they paid to be “The Perfect Family”, all of the cash to buy this child – they had no idea what it would eventually cost them.
I still, somehow, love them, as a bird loves its cage.
But I taught myself how to fly.
I watch, I see, I feel more than most realize. I would like to imagine that they do as well.
I see friends die, I watch in silence as their loves pass from this life, I can only watch as their family – mothers, fathers, animal companions, leave this physical world.
I have watched people take their last breath, have been witness to the sorrow they left behind as I stood by their families. They were crying. I gave my heart to them in the moment, wordless, no tears.
I have seen it, lived it, even been the one who looked into their eyes and saw that this was their final farewell to me – on both sides of death.
I cannot offer support, I don’t have the words to make it better – but know that I am there. I am there, all of me and what I have seen and lived, I am with you.
It is a private sorrow. I will not attempt to make it better – I cannot. No one can.
If you don’t see my post saying “sorry for your loss” or “I hope they get better”, it is not because I do not care.
Alone and silent, I share your sorrow… you will always remember the sting that the passing of someone dear fills you with, but eventually it will get smaller.
Do not be afraid. It will never go away. There will forever be that place in your heart that you hold for them, honor their life and influence with.
Absorb their shine, They are still watching, and are still with you. Shine brighter for them – in memory of them, in honor, in love.
I will be quiet, silent in any words. There is a place where even the best ones only increase the feeling of loss…
But please know that I am by your side – a shoulder to cry on, a heart that knows, a friend… a friend that will never leave you. A heart that cries just as loud as yours, and I will give everything I have to you if, somehow it might help.
In silence, this I vow with all of my heart.
I am scarred. Likely more than I know.
I have learned to be cautious, more cautious than I ever would choose to be. I would have hoped that death’s intimate encounter would have had the opposite effect…
This dictates my life. It has control over me.
Nothing should have control over me. Nothing.
I KNOW better, so how, why is it that I give this fear power?
Until now, this very moment, I have not understood it, not seen it, not named it.
Until now.
Amazing how a life can be completely turned around with the simple understanding of fear – why it exists, and how unnecessary, once it is seen in its thin veil.
I continue.
I am scarred, yes – but I am no longer poisoned by my own mind. In the turn of words, my heart opens, understands.
I can live with these scars.
of Petals & Thorns 