the gift

Every year, on my birthday, I check to make sure it’s still there.

Every year, it is, and my heart is both torn and comforted.
It was the first thing I ever knew, and over the years has become a part of me. I think that without it, I would be lost.

Every year, for my birthday, I take it, wrap it up in pretty paper, and give it back to her, but I could do that a thousand times and it would still be here inside of me. It makes me who I am… but I do wonder what it would be like if it were gone.

Inside is the very first thing I was ever given, and something I carry with me even today. Even more today.

I didn’t have any words to voice what I felt, couldn’t make sense of it as the heartbeat and smell and warmth that let me feel that I would be safe was ripped away and I was torn out of the arms that for fifteen minutes kept the cold of the world away forever.

I would take it out, put it in a small box, wrap it up in pretty paper and hand it to her. Inside is something bigger than she is or can ever be, but something that over years and years made me stronger than I ever could have otherwise been. It takes a lot to hold the pieces together for so long.

She would open it up every year on my birthday.
Inside would be the baby’s pain.

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an empty victory

I avoid the mirror, the bloodshot eyes stained from the tears brought by years of frustration, 
I look instead inside, searching for an answer, a reason. 
Some sort of justification. Anything. 
The energy it took, the agonizing pain I forced myself to get past or swallow or get through, the stench of my own flesh decomposing, rotting away on my legs…
So many times I could have stopped fighting, so many times I wanted to. 
It wouldn’t have taken more than a few weeks until I went away, and if the pain got too unbearable I had the pills stashed. 
An hour at most, into one last dream – 
and then nothing but a name
forgotten in time.

But I had hope. I believed that things could be better.
That they would be.

How wrong I was.

So now, I search inside
for the passion
the rage
the anger
that i have found 
and hold so dear

I search for the love,
a reason,
a purpose…

but these past months
the deeper i go
the less i find and
the less i find a reason
to go on.

Seven years since I left the hospice, seven years fighting against the current, trying desperately to make it to calm water… 
and for what? For THIS fucking life? This life, where loneliness eats away at my heart, where I seldom know where the next meal is coming from, where I can’t even pay my bills.
This is not what I fought for. Not what I lived for – and I can’t help but think, at times, that I made a mistake.

But here I am. If it was a mistake, it’s already been made, and it’s far too late to give up now.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll sell some jewelry, maybe I’ll soon finally be able to buy a car so I can not only do the things I need for my business to make it grow, but escape this city and just drive until I find a place – a beach or forest somewhere, alone, where I can find my heart again.

Maybe.

pain and beauty

It happens when we get older, and know things that might have been better left unknown. We’ve had far too much time to build walls, now

and I miss the pain and beauty of love.

Through the Brambles

As the clocked clicked on, 12 hours, 24 and further and ticking up to the door of 36 hours, I thought that somehow, the herbs I’m taking specifically for easing the withdrawals were doing far more, far better than I had expected them to – that I ever *dreamed* they could do.

I began to feel only the most minor of miseries after the 24 hour mark – energy draining, my mood faltering and becoming less optimistic and focus slowly starting to disintegrate. I felt some of the pain in my calves reminding me that it’s still there, and in a strange way I found comfort in that; here was something I knew.

But where was the rest?

Then, 32 hours after my last dose & after watching downloaded movies to the point where I couldn’t tolerate it anymore, I laid down in bed, propped my back slightly against the pillows & did my best to read more of “Look Homeward, Angel” by Thomas Wolfe. I just finished another book that morning and now desperately needed something to occupy my mind. I was tired, knew I should probably try to sleep, but the signs were coming on stronger then & felt I needed a place for my  thoughts to go and calm down a bit before sleep was even attempted.

Not being able to enjoy reading with a mind that wasn’t really seeing the words as any more than black scratches on paper, I gave in, got out of bed, stood up and did dome minor stretches of my legs, torso & arms, poured more coconut water into my thermos to do my best to stay hydrated. I brushed the dog hair off my feet, gave Rubes a hug and got under the thin top cover above the comforter, making certain that all the pillows were placed perfectly for the best comfort available, which under any other circumstances would have gently carried me away to dreamland within a matter of minutes…

This time, however, I wasn’t so fortunate. This time, I’m paying. a debt, and sleep is only *one* of the things I must give to the collector.

Not three minutes after I breathed the deep & final ‘sigh’ and waited for my mind to drift off into it’s odd ideas & dreams, my right leg twitched violently bringing my knee in the direction of my chest. Not to be outdone, both of my shoulders shot up in a convulsive manner – as if they were tying to say “Hey, don’t look at me – I don’t know what the hell that was”.

I’ve been here before.

I find it humorous, those that post “you can do it!” on my Facebook page. Humorous, but appreciated. They don’t know what I’ve been through already.

They don’t know of the pain that went on for months in the hospice, pain that even the morphine couldn’t touch. They don’t know that I wondered if the pain would ever even cease before I died, or every day would be like this until the end. They have no idea how many times I thought of taking away the pain myself – taking away everything.

I’ve always kept a stash of 500mg or more of morphine, secreted away but close enough so that I didn’t have to get out of bed if I couldn’t.

They don’t know how many times those pills sat in my hand as I stared at their round & oval shapes, trying to justify taking them, trying harder not to.

No, they don’t know any of that because I didn’t tell them. It wasn’t their business, and the last thing I wanted was a bunch of common bullshit attempts to cheer me up. Certainly not then, and most certainly not them… or most of them, at least.

But I digress.

This won’t be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it will end. Like cutting away and climbing through blackberry brambles that have grown over a path, getting torn, flesh getting ripped & stained with blood & juice but persevering, knowing that once I make it through this dark thicket, leaving the parts of body & mind I don’t need anymore draped & dripping on the thorns…

Once I make it through, I’ll find a clearing of indescribably clear beauty –
And I’ll find me, waiting, and smiling.
9-23-24-16

was

it cannot be said that
I did not try
with all of my patience, understanding
and all of my heart

but as much as I could only see the present
and dream the possibilities in our future

you could not trust or
learn to see that
I was not your past…

so now that is all that I am.

Until again… or if never.

After many months, maybe nearly a year – an email sent to my adopted dad…
I will never be able to say everything I feel to him, but I try.
I don’t want to hurt him… just want him too see me… for once.

to believe in me for once.

 

A Hard Road…

this is the road I have chosen. It has been destruction, wanting, searching, beauty – and the knowing that they were all who I needed to be – who I am.

 

We tried, didn’t we? Unfortunately we carried our past with us – our expectations, our beliefs in who we “should” be to each other, and in that gained nothing.

Do you know what my only regret is? It might surprise you. It is not any of our endless battles, not the pain I cause you or the pain I let you cause me… my only true regret is not going to the symphony with you when you asked me if I wanted to… was itevery Thursday, or just one a month?

I don’t remember – only that it was on a Thursday.

I still hold animosity towards Jill & Katherine. That is my own challenge. I need to somehow forgive.

I will.

Do you remember the time driving home from somewhere, crossing the bridge on 52 when you asked me about my search for my Birth Mother? “I don’t know why you’re wasting your time, she’s probably dead anyway.”

Clear as day, still. After all this time.

I have grown. I think you might be proud…

After all, that’s all I ever wanted, but couldn’t seem to achieve. Every single passion I had for life was ripped to shreds by your questions, things I hadn’t thought about.

It took me years to realize that most times, passion is all it takes – everything else falls into place after that. Just get started, screw plans, and follow your dreams.

Dreams are more important than anything we could ever make tidy or explain…

I am still alive because of my dreams. ONLY because of my dreams.

Life is good for me now. I have the most incredible girlfriend I could ever wish for, and am in love with my life – though I am still fighting to get a few cash clients for my copywriting/content strategy business. I know it well and WILL rock it, just need to push the fears ingrained in me aside and KNOW that I can.

I can change lives. I already have… for the better.

I wish you the best. You always tried, and I appreciate that.

My birthday is in seven days. I am spending it, for the first time (save for the few minutes when I was brought into this world) with my Birth Mother. A gift from my girlfriend, who is driving me up to her home.

This will be the best one ever – and yes, I am including the train rides to Del Mar. I still talk about how much I loved those.

For that, and so much more – thank you.

You are a good person, dad. One of these days you just might be fortunate enough to have a bit of sense knocked into you. 😉

Until again,

~ Casey

1.23.99 twisted

1.23.99

Of course.

It comes with me everywhere now,
how could it not
in the life I have chosen
to live?

In the pain that was handed to me
on a not-so-silver platter when
I began this fresh life
in an indescribable anguish
and lonely had such a different meaning
for me…

After trying so hard to be like them
I found that I wasn’t at all
so I always searched
for the sorrow
for the passion
for the madness

and the ways to make
all of these go away.

I frequently ended up
giving the drugs power over me.
It helped when nothing was inside.
I could justify the thoughts I had
the absence of feeling
with the drugs

So they became all that I could trust…

but
the fuck has always been mine.

The Fuck is my power
The Fuck is my control
and up until recently

the only control I felt.

I let so few of them see the sickness
and then, only a bit, as even I still don’t know
it’s full depths.

The ones who saw
always came back.
Of course they did.

They were selected for what I could see in them.
Certain ones. Certain women
Something in the eyes, their movements,
a wicked smile, a wanting, a yearning,
a hidden emptiness behind the lust in their smile
the taste of their sweat…

and they always came back,
wanting more of me – more of my flesh,
more of my cock, more
of what maybe they could see in my eyes
before I even dared to realize that it
was there – before I had an idea of
how sick it might be…

but that was years ago,
and as I let it come
as I looked for it in others

it grew.

It Grows.

Still never able to be fully realized
never able to give
never willing to give

the rightness hasn’t been there in the way
it needs to be,
save for so very few times, and those times
only made me want more.

Always more

always someone who can be for me
so much more than a body
as that’s never been enough to satisfy
this hunger inside of me.

Anyone can offer a body
Flesh is only flesh
but if that is all they are willing to offer,
that’s what I will take,
that’s what I will use,
and that’s what I will control
because I have that need and

I know that I can.

 

And perhaps someday
there will be another
who I might finally unbuild these meticulously constructed wall for
and trust deeply enough

to show the pieces of me

that even I am afraid to see.

To go so far past the flesh
the sweat
and the sweet juice of the fuck

to go so far past the body
because that is far to easy and
this hunger won’t be satisfied
until I lay down with a woman and
in love
in trust
in passion

she is willing to abandon
her soul to me.

I will take it
and in my sickness
I will tear it apart

in my sickness
I will consume it, piece by piece
until it is my own, and we are both broken
and lost.

Then, slowly, I will bring it back
carefully mend it
putting it all back together, piece by piece
like shards of a strange dark puzzle
making us whole again –

in my love making her soul
so much stronger and returning it to her with
almost every piece

pure and shining like the stars
her soul glowing and white and strong and nothing
but peace inside …

keeping the bruised parts
the parts where the pain came from
the parts that twisted her
made her afraid
and made her hurt

away from her, inside of me
keeping my own shadows company…

so that maybe,
just maybe
she doesn’t have to feel them

for now.