MY LIFE IN MY OWN WORDS

The phone rang I was asleep on the couch, whispers of soft melodies in my ear. I had fallen asleep to one of the music channels on cable. It rang again; I was in and out of consciousness, as I had only rested maybe two hours the night before. It rang and it ran, finally I managed to reach over and slowly open one eye to attempt to see the caller on my display. It was coming from my son’s mother’s house. Dam, I said to myself! I let it ring again and I quickly thought what if it’s Michael? Rarely a call from him, he is not allowed to, he has confessed to me, but when I pressed talk and I heard that sweet sounding melody that is his voice, I was suddenly awakened. “Daddy” tomorrow is heritage day, he says to me. Can you help me please? I heard his mom in the background yelling, “Don’t even get me involved I want nothing to do with this. What do you need Buddy? I asked. Well daddy you know the homework you and I did a couple of weeks ago about my heritage day and where you come from. Yes

The car is totaled, unrepairable. My parents can't seem to catch a break.The car payments go on but now there is no car. Now is time to deal with the Insurance company , legalized mobsters they are. In the business to collect money but not to pay it out.His injuries are substantial. Might have some broken ribs and there appears to be some blood coagulation near the upper neck area the Doctor mentioned it might be a tumor that might have been exasperated due to the impact. He is all bruised and in allot of pain.He is able to get around but yet can't drive and he finds himself short of breath frequently.I will keep you posted thank you for all your comments of concern.

On Wednesday I got a frantic call from one of my brothers, Dad has been in an accident! He said. Where is he? I asked. He is being loaded into an ambulance, was his answer. Shock waves of fear thundered through me. I feared the worst! Selfishly I have to admit I said to myself , my God I don't need anymore bad news in my life I just can not handle this stress. I dropped everything grabbed my keys put on my runners and darted out the door. Traffic was heavy; rush hour is the worst possible time to be out on the road. What the hell was he doing out? I kept asking myself. I hope he didn’t have anything to drink, that was my greatest fear. My dad known for having more than his share more often than not, I just drove and I was stunned, I truly felt numbed, I was mortified by the possibility that he had caused the accident under the influence of alcohol. My brother calls me back on my mobile and asked where I was, I am five minutes away, I said. Well they just took dad away; I feared the

I wish to go away. Run from my problems and hide for a day. Forget all my worries and leave them behind, forget they exit and freedom is mine. Alone on a journey, a journey of hope, a trip full of wonder and not the end of a rope. Peace is what I am after. Happiness ever after. Depression my worst foe anxiety it has its hold. That is what I fear and I fear it the most, is there no escape to a land with the most. I fear for my family, I fear for my friends, I think of my problems, will they ever end. I raise my cup and I make a toast, I have one drink and feel I want this, I want this the most. I dream of a land so far away, a land full of wonder and a land without hate. . Is there such a place? Is there any hope? I stay optimistic but I want one more smoke. It is killing me, that I know, but I long for the drink and I long for the smoke. I want to get away leave it behind, the pain the suffering but mostly the wine. What a dream, a dream to be hold, a dream nonetheless, and a dream to

I just close my eyes and your mine. Our struggles are over and we, have stopped time. I just close my eyes ,you are in my arms, I can feel your moist lips, they are caressing mine. Your warm supple skin, the touch of your fingers, sends shivers down my spine. I just close my eyes, yesterday is now, and you are still by my side , the scent of you lingers inter fused with mine. My love came too late, even after you were mine, but my soul was pure and my heart was kind . I just close my eyes, and you are in my life ,for just one moment, one more moment in time. I just close my eyes and you hold me, with all of your might, keeping me warm on a cold winters night. I just close my eyes and my heart skips a beat, I dream, a dream , that I soon want to keep. I Just close, my eyes and you are lying on my bed. In my day you are my light and in darkens you hold me tight. If I never awake from this dream , I would dream for a lifetime , if that was my dream. If I lay down to sleep, and never awa

My parents, my father in his late sixties, my mother not far behind, my dad retired an earning a meager pension, my mother still working day and night,just to make ends meet. Reality is setting in. No savings to speak of and other than the equity they have built up in the home they live in there is nothing. Still paying for a mortgage at their age is challenging at best. I offered to drive them yesterday to this retirement community my dad has been looking at for a while. A couple of hours driving in the countryside I thought, great way to spend an otherwise lonesome day by myself... Disappointment in my mothers face was apparent. Disillusioned my dad was. Facing the truth is always tough. Facing your mortality is even more. A trailer park I thought. I remained optimistic and asked the sales woman allot of questions. Not a word from either one, what do they expect, what do they want? I asked myself. Realizing that even this venture would be too costly for them we drove back. Tears fro

I had a terrible night's rest ! I might have slept perhaps three hours, maybe four. I wanted to share a dream I had last night, I want to share it, well because I have never had a dream quite like it before. In my dream, I am an older man maybe ten fifteen years from now, it involved my ex wife and our son. You see I have always had this vision a dream or more like a desire, I have always wanted to move away. Away from the hustle and bustle of the city life.Away from all the sorrow and dreariness’ that seems to be rampant in our surroundings, just leave it all behind and start a new life.A littl eplace out in the country , just like the one in the photo. In my dream I had a friend or knew someone I am foggy on those details, in my dream I knew someone that had sold her ranch. It was an amazing place out in the countryside. Sprawling grounds, rolling hills of lash green. Enchanting and mesmerizing sunsets. Beautiful! if I had to describe it in one word. The house was this big old V

My head pounds, my thoughts irrational, I feel the walls closing in on me. I need help! I am so alone. My heart aches for comfort. My body is in pain, broken! I feel, like a fine porcelain doll with a hairline fracture, worthless! What am I to do? I cannot sleep I hate the daylight but the night skies frighten me. I live in a house full of people, but they are all strangers to me. I am alone. I feel such bleakness; I have isolated myself from all who knew me. I now need them around, I feel detached, and confined .Solitude is a debilitating state of mind. I don’t know what to do. My life once fruitful and full of promises, it is now infested and decayed. My head is pounding, exasperation followed by a forbearing wish to delight. I cannot, I stop myself. I cannot let myself be happy. Content at the very least I should be. Blissful I am not. My head still pounds those dammed fucking pills do nothing. I have a migraine.

Four years of my life, I gave to you, forty-eight months, two hundred and eight weeks, one thousand and sixty days I spent with you! I will forever enshrine, preserve, and conserve the memory of our first night in Muskoka. One of the most beautiful places on earth and yet I was in heaven. The day we spent around the Cottage, I cherish. The allurement of this sanctity is captivating to put it mildly. The fresh aromatic smell of the pines and the scent of freedom from the everyday city routine were unforgettable. Your encouragement for my visit to your most sacred place will never be abandoned. Then the night arrived, we made our way to the dock by the lake. Candles a blanket and our warm embrace were all the necessary elements that we required for this memorable evening. I have never in my life have ever seen such a more astonishing and breathtaking night. The sky was as clear as glass and the stars perfectly aligned. We lit the candles, huddled under your warm blanket, and held each ot

You do not have to ask me again, I naively answered .After all, I have known him for almost half my life I never gave it a second thought. You see I have this job opportunity and I will, have a place to live, however, I just need somewhere to sleep for a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, he said. Just pack your bags and come over, I said. He was living at his parents about two hours away from his hometown .He had moved away after his separation to deal with some personal issues. His kids live with their mother. He wanted to come home,I sensed. I want to get my life back in order, you know, move back closer to the kids; try to make a go at it .No need to explain, we had not been in touch much throughout the years! Nonetheless, he was still an old friend and friends are supposed to help friends, which I still believe... Therefore, the couch is yours as long as you want it, I said. He gave me a hug and said you are truly a great friend I don’t know what I would do with out you , as his e

Busted flat in Baton Rouge. A long country drive is good for the soul . Just get out of the city; I do this occasionally, by myself, only because there is no one to share the ride with. I pull out an old CD, Janis Joplin’s greatest, skip to track five and I am instantly transported back in time. Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train and I feel as faded as my jeans. Those words resonate through my mind like if the song was written for me. Baton Rouge is right here, right now for me! Faded I feel, actually more like transparent almost invisible. I feel my foot heavy on the gas and I wonder ,has anyone ever felt this but me? I listen to every word. Every word is telling me their story. The sun is bright and I feel it burn through the windshield, windows down I feel a cold chill in the air. I stare at the road ahead into the horizon. I imagine this is the place, she sang about, I slip on my shades to cover my eyes from the blinding rays. Once more, I feel the pedal sinking deep i

It was not an easy decision to make, but it had to be done. I could not live with it any longer; my conscious would not allow it. Right or wrong, they are my parents. No matter what has transpired through out my challenging life, at the end of the day they are, my parents. Maybe they did the best they could. I try to convince myself. Maybe it was all they knew to do. After all, how can I neglect their sad and troubled upbringing? My mother at the tender age of nine, was sent away to live with another family from time to time. As were her other sisters’ .She cooked and cleaned for them and in return, they offered safe shelter, but very little if any of monetary compensation. I do not blame my grandma for this, I know now she had little choice. My mother and her siblings did not know it then, but this heart wrenching decision from my grandmother, assured their survival. Both my parents’ victims them selves, victims of failed marriages and broken homes. My mother herself witnessed and suf

My true companion, I give her fresh water, I clean her litter box. A small price to pay for the love and attention she gives me. My son and my cat the only ones in my life that bring me joy and happiness . My cat I do not ask anything of her and she asks for nothing back. She cuddles next to me she knows when I am sad I can sense it. She seems disturbed when I am not well. She paces and apears to cry; I feel she wants to talk to me. She probably is. She lies on my favorite blanket, dander all over . A small price in comparison to the love she provides. I have given her a good home. She was a stray; they told me at the shelter. Now she is the queen of her castle. I have no friends and very little close family to speak of, she is my friend my roommate and my only solace for my lonely days. She sits by me when I write and when she tires, she falls asleep at the foot of my bed .She watches over me and me over her.In my restless sleep I reach for more medication . I sleep in late , she sit

Depressed and saddened I lay on the couch this beautiful sun filled day. Early spring yet it feels like the death of winter in my heart .Covered in sweat I lay and fell into a semiconscious sleep .There I lay , the CD ended while in my comatose state .I could hear the heartache in the songs and felt comforted by them .Day mares are the worst for me. I am used to the night terrors. I expect them; it is a part of my nightly ritual. I sometimes wake with screams of terror or tears of despair . I have become accustomed to it, a small price to pay the Sandman for the luxury of a couple of hours of rest. I pay a heavy toll for the temporary ceasing of my dreary days. The day mares, oh Jesus, .the day mares, they are more like an irruption of anxiety, an encroachment of my rights to heal. I lay there, aware of every sound experiencing all the torment, al the abomination that has been my life. I wake my self and feel lethargic, drowsy and debilitated .As I look around I see daylight, I try to

The skeleton in my closet! Lord I pray for forgiveness, I pray for my shame.I have asked you many times to help me , I sometimes feel perhaps you have forgotten me or forsaken me.Judge me Lord not for what I do but for whom I have become , a person of deep and great understanding.A person with great respect to my fellow human beings. It is there in my closet, it haunts my nights and torments my days. It is responsible for the pain and anguish in my life. I loath it, I despise it. I know enough to know most of us have one but that still is no alleviation for me. This skeleton has ruined my life, it has brought me to my wretched despair I feel deformed and disfigured. I begged for help from a friend but she was not a friend, I sought out support and found there was none. I asked for medication and it did not dissipate or disperse the evil. It is disintegrating my very existence. I am feeling dangerously despondent and somewhat critical and yet I sometimes welcome it, I sometimes call for

Why is our country at war my son recently asked? We are not at war! I answered. Then instantaneously it hit me, we are at war! Funny how, unless we witness the devastations through our own blind eyes we just extricate the thought and abandon the memory. Make it dematerialize we do by simply changing the channel, which is easy for us to do. Ignore it; tune into some inane, mindless innocuous production, what ever it takes just to make it disappear. My eight year old seems to be more aware of his surroundings than I am. How can I be so benighted? Am I that bewildered? Contrarily, I am fighting my own war and have no time for any other I try to persuade myself. Yet even with my own self-inflicted ignorance, I cannot forget about the senseless butchering and slaughter of young lives. I hear it every day and yet I need to be assiduously prompted by a child to recall the atrocities’ going on in the world today and yes "fuck we are at war"! I say to my self. Then I have to ask why?

Daddy you are like Baloo and I am like Mowgly! Then he hugged me tight, as I read his favorite book. I sit here thinking, why. Why are these memories of my father reading my favorite story not real? Have I forgotten them? Will my son also forget? I am not so sure that I have forgotten .Those memories are not present simply because they do not exist .I have few memories of my child hood. Some are happy but most are sad .I remember times with friends, playing outside and feeling free. I remember times of sorrow, a drunken father a mother in tears and a house full of shattered dreams. I remember the floods, which ravaged our lives in the low-lying area, where our little rented house sat. Flooding was part of our meager existence. I remember neighbors taking me in their arms away from the dangers of the rushing water. I remember my little bunny floating on the surface of the lake. To a child that's what it was. A lake, in our back yard, transformed by the constant tears from Mother Nat

I feel angry sometimes, I sometimes feel bitter, I loath my existence . I pray for death to arrive soon. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, my only companions. Love hope and faith, they are my adversaries. The bottle, oh the bottle . If I could just, have one drink! That sweet scent! Oh, the burning, as the alcohol warms the coldness in my soul and sooths the yearning in my heart. If I could just ,have one drink! Afraid I am not, loneliness not even considered, when the bottle is at my side. That sweet, sweet aroma, men’s greatest invention for the adolescents still longing for the their mother's bosom . Just one drink, my shakes will stop my nerves will calm, my head,oh my head, my thinking, it would all would be so clear. If I could just, have one drink! The intoxicant, the catalyst to my every dream and desire. Rationality not even questioned. Will I live? Will I die? Who cares as long as the bottle is at my side! (Think twice my friend)

I witnessed my son almost having a nervous breakdown. I try to search for the right words to express how to describe his emotional state , all I have is my own life experience with this debilitating state of mind. Through the sad and heart wrenching tears that poured out of this little child’s eyes all I could do to try and console him was to hold him tight tighter than I ever have in our lives together. I could feel the gentle and warm teardrops running down my face as our cheeks were pressed against one another. All I could say was Buddy I am sorry. Why Daddy, why is my life so hard? Can you imagine this from your child? Why does everyone seem to annoy me these days? Why are my parents not together? this question brought about a deeper sense of frustration from him and generated waterfalls of emotions .Why does everyone around me yell all the time Daddy you and Jack and Marianne( my brother and his family) and my little cousins are the only ones that don’t. Why does my mother’s famil

Sometimes life teaches you a hard lesson. You can work all your life to achieve a comfortable standard of living , to achieve a certain level of success!, and in a blink of an eye poof! it's all gone. How do you measure success?.Well, I think success can only be measured when you are at a point in your life when everything you need is exactly everything you have! Success means accomplishment, and accomplishment means, Triumph! Now I am sure we all have different goals and accomplishments we have yet to achieve.We all have a different way of measuring our level of success.During a conversation I had with my Dad recently,trough tears he told me that my Mom was heart broken when she heard I had gone to the the Good Will to purchase some well needed clothing.After all I lost 40 lbs this past year and frankly nothing fits, but sadly I am a bit cash strapped and so I went shopping at the Good will. Shame never crossed my mind. I hope someday people can see beyond what is in front of thei