What it feels like...

my last suicide poem

the last time I tried to kill myself,  I was fifteen years old

I took a gun and tried to pull the trigger

it got stuck

so I took my grandmothers heart pills and got my stomach pumped at 333 am

I only remember that because they have a machine at the hospital

to determine the time of death

and I had to spend a week in psychrtiac treatment when I failed

I didn’t want to die or was afraid of love

I was afraid of being pitied

I was in line at the grocery store

And this mother was with her child paying for groceries with WIC

And cashier didn’t make eye contact with the mother, vice versa

but everyone paid attention to the child like pity

the mother stroked her kids’ head for social comfort, the cashier gave the child a lollipop

and as I stood with my unhealthy food, I couldn’t’ help but scream in my head

I wanted to yell at the cashier to look at the mother

why bullshit that child when you pitied its mother, which meant you pitied that child

why give money to charity when you stealing that child’s soul

but of course that cashier couldn’t see that, she thought

she was comforting herself because sometimes life is unfair and we think

of Band-Aids

and maybe it had been unfair to her

my mother got addicted to crack when I was four years old

I started learning to deal with her overdoses at five years

and she had this guy who she fucked for money

and every time he came out of the bathroom he would give me a dollar

and every time I took that dollar I felt dirty

because I knew he pitied me, he got to fuck over my mother and deny my existence

and that was pity, lord forbids the world to be unfair

every child remembers

every time I fall in love I panic, because I’ve only know dishonesty

it was more than my mother using me to beg strangers for change in my shitty diaper

because I loved her, she was my beginning, I would’ve done anything to prove it

but I hated the dishonesty of strangers, how they wanted to use, because

they’ve been used

but when they looked at me, some kid, some five year old with a mother

addicted to drugs

how they used and pissed on and then decided they would redeem their souls

with lollipops, how they gave scholarships

when I got older because I told a sad story

but they didn’t know they were stealing my soul

they were paying for a ticket into heaven without believing

and I so wanted to say

to that fucking cashier at that anonymous grocery store

stop pretending you aint pretending

stop pretending you can bullshit a child

recognize that child’s mother, look her in her eyes, then

be real, don’t pity,

and don’t act like you a good person, when you denying the innocent

their soul

why act like you a good person when cashing your judgement check

i wanted to yell

that child still gets her life

and she will love her mother, regardless

I was innocent, once, still am, but my life wasn’t romantic, and I know lies

too many damn lies, even when people don’t’ know they are lying

but I’m not afraid anymore

when I kissed his lips and meant it, I did everything to destroy possible happiness

I did everything I knew the world had decided for me

but where was me

because that damn cashier didn’t see the pregnant teenage mother in that child

she gave the lollipop and ignored its mother’s eyes

they don’t see the drug dealer, robber, they don’t’ see their children

they act like the world happens to them, when the world reacts

because I was afraid of being pitied

the world made me dishonest

but my real fear was being pitied

so what if life was unfair

people give to charities, and they have fundraisers for the kids

but they ignore the truth, like we heal on our own

they think they give scholarships

but they steal souls

and I’ve been so afraid because if I’m honest

they will steal my soul

like that kid in her stroller, where the world gives her a lollipop

like that kid who mother got addicted to crack and the trick

gives him a dollar when he cums

so where is my honesty

when I tell you my truth

where is my soul because my life isn’t suburban

I don’t get to get a soul because I’m not a Cosby kid, I’m just a Tupac video

don't let a nigga have feelings

I thought I was afraid of honesty

what I’m afraid of is pity

because it steals my identity

my mother was a crackwhore, Martha Stewart is the best homemaker

but whatever got pushed into life, we survived

I want to be in love like those stupid ass movies

but damint if I’m not in those damn movies

but the truth, I pitied myself

and after I kissed his lips, and realized possible happiness

I needed to know I was strong enough

I needed to know he wasn’t on some bullshit

my entire lie, my identity has been stolen

that kid who got the dollar from the trick

I thought that was survival

but now

I am not afraid

pity me, but you will not steal my soul

I know how the world wants to compromise

and that makes me stronger

sorry I stole your forty dollars

Maybe one day you will forgive me

my forgiveness poem

Sometimes I still think I’m that kid

Looking for a fight

I got to prove I aint weak no more

Got to prove that I’ve been hurt and not afraid to bleed

But I’m afraid to feel or heal

Sometimes I think I’m still that kid who has slept on floors with rats biting

Who picked up his crackwhore mama when she overdosed

Who ate out of trashcans

That homeless kid who slept on busstop benches

Who is not afraid to beg for change because I need to eat

But I’m tired of being that kid

With a chip on his shoulder

who hates god because god allowed my life to be so fucked up for so fucking long

but I’m not that kid

I’m an adult trying to be loved on my own terms

and I didn’t become a thief, a hustler, a bad person, because I chose it

I became those things because I needed to survive

but I’m tired of surviving

don’t need to pickpocket, seduce, be violent, or rob to have a life

I need to hold, kiss, wash the dishes, make love, to be realized

I know blood, abandonment, gangs, jails and dead bodies

I want to know life

but can I trust it when everybody I ever known has lied to me?

has used me or tried to kill me

I’m just so tired of fucking fighting, busted lips, bullet wounds, knife wounds, emotional wounds

so tired of wounds and scars, and healing

sometimes I still think I’m that kid who slept with a razor blade, who put Doritos in his crotch, always watched, that kid nobody trusted

but I never asked myself what I wanted to be

I want to be a fool

I don’t care if love breaks my heart, if I die penniless, if I get murdered or whatever

I want to be a fool

that’s how I want to die

because I’m tired of being smart, suspicious, concrete

I want to be a fool who believes that there is happiness

that I can have happiness, not the fairytale, but the truth

Funny, I’m always looking for honesty, even if I am a dishonest person

Decisions

In the city, you don’t get to decide who you are. Strangers will do that for you. It’s based on the illusion: clothing, money, demeanor, speech, and even if most wouldn’t admit--more than often skin color. One unordinary morning, I was walking home from a one night stand. I had on a well worn t-shirt, dirty jeans and dirty shoes. I was standing at the corner counting change to see if I had enough for a McDonald’s when this white couple walked by and handed me two dollars. They saw my book bag and disheveled look and assumed that I was homeless. At first I was stunned, a little insulted, but then I looked around at the other homeless people, and I looked no different. I took the money.  That same day, later that night, I was walking home from the Landmark theater haven’t just seen the new Woody Allen movie. I was wearing grey slacks, a pink long sleeve shirt, a beige sweater and a black suede jacket with black laced ups. Every corner I turned, a homeless person begged me for change. I remember that morning when the white couple handed me two dollars, but the homeless people left me alone, and that was the city, I was only my current illusion.

In the city, the illusion was a matter of survival. How one controlled it. But I never liked the games or rules, but in the city you don’t get to decide the jungle, you picked a tribe that was the closest to who you thought you were and hoped for the best. Drag queens usually hung with other drag queens. Hustlers usually hung with their tricks. The "party kids" always knew each other and the best drug dealers and good bartenders. The homeless hung with the homeless. The bohemians and wannabe artist hung out at coffee shops. You get my point. And those who were confused and were still searching were recruited like kindergarten dodge ball and synchronized to the group. I didn’t know what I was when I first got to the city. I just knew that I was young, black, attractive, didn’t always make the best decisions and I was lost and liked attention, so the city decided that I be Hustler. I didn’t get to decide me, and since I was a loner, didn’t have any friends or want any, I had to deal with the identity. But I wasn’t a hustler. I was a writer. I guess there was no difference.

Usually, when I got kicked out clubs or bars, there was a good reason, but I’m not a troublemaker --I’m just dark skinned, tall, and my voice gets deep if agitated, and after a few cocktails I’m quick with my tongue and cocky. I’m not a troublemaker, or a person who liked excuses, but being a young black men whose demeanor was a little strong and I don’t smile. I’m often misinterpreted as militant or dangerous, so living in a city where I don’t get to decide myself, I have to deal with a lot of unnecessary bullshit from wannabe authority figures trying to sharpen their existence with my ego.

Often, it has been my fault like that time I was hanging with a group of out of town Japanese businessman at a local gay bar, they were buying the drinks, I had my shirt off, and I know I probably didn’t look like the Virgin Mary, so the bartender had a major attitude with me, and every time I ordered my drink he looked at me disgusted, and somewhat if they were doing shots off my nipples, and so what I let them stuff five dollar bills in my pants, I was having a great time, but the problem came when the Japanese businessmen went to tip and I thought fifty dollars was a little too much, so I grabbed my new friends hand and gave the bartender twenty dollars and kept the other thirty, he got pissed at me, he thought the money was his and I thought it was mine, so the bartender refused to serve me anymore and called me a cheap prostitute but I wasn’t sleeping with any of those Japanese men, I was just have a good time, so he was wrong, I had money, but I couldn’t help if men always wanted to buy me drinks, so I called the bartender a jealous sick looking heroin addicted faggot that needed to be beaten, pissed on and left for dead in somebody’s alley. He had me put out.

There was a time when I got kicked out of the club or bar because I touched this drag queen tittie and it fell to the floor. There was a time I got kicked out a bar for pissing on the bar, long story. There was a time I got kicked out of a bar from swinging at the DJ, long story. There was a time I got kicked out of a bar because I refused to put my shirt back on. There was a time I got kicked out of a bar because I wouldn’t sleep with the doorman. He tried to corner me in a bathroom, said that I was too pretty, and I kneed him in his nuts. He had been sending me crazy emails and I thought he was going to rape me. But it was all part of the city. I never got to decide me, strangers did that for me, and because I was loner and liked dangerous attention, I often felt powerless.

But the last time I got kicked out of a club, there was no reason at all. I just walked in, I didn’t say anything, I didn’t do anything, I just walked in, and the door person didn’t like my face. He said that I had an attitude, said that I rolled my eyes, and I thought that was strange because I distinctly remember smiling, but I was with an older white male friend who wanted to go dancing and he was paying my way in, and I was wearing a red baseball cap cocked to the side, a black hooded shirt and baggy jeans while chewing on a straw. I immediately knew what the doorperson meant; he had decided that I was trouble. For the first time in my life, I actually felt hurt. But he took a step forward, he demanded that I take the straw out of my mouth, and when I did, he demanded that I smile at him, and the look in his eyes pissed me off, he was testing me, he demanded I apologize for something I didn’t even do. He told me I need to back down, that I need to not act so damn arrogant, but I had no fucking idea what he meant, or why he was picking on me.

When he said I rolled my eyes and I knew I didn’t. Part of me felt like I was being bullied, that I was still a kid and some motherfucker thought I was weak so he sought me out. And at first I wanted to ask, why me, what was it about me that made him want to test me, but in the instant I knew I didn’t get to decide me, he was no different than the rest of the word.

I didn’t get in the club because I didn’t back down. I cursed at him. He cursed at me. He threatened to call the cops. I threaten to kick his ass. The guy I was with, left me. And I found myself trying to gain sympathy from the rest of the strangers trying to get in the club. They had decided that I was pathetic and probably deserved what had just happened to me. Part of me felt I deserved it too. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. But that was the city, strangers with their own agendas, strangers trying to make me their victim, and in the city other people just ignore you if they can’t use you.

Living in the city, everyday a person has to make decisions, some are life threatening, to run or fight, some are trivial, to pay rent or buy an expensive pair of shoes, some are life changing, to fight the doorman at the club and go to jail or walk away, because in the city you don’t get to decide you, strangers will do that for you, but in the city you do get to decide how you respond and surround yourself with people who confirm your true identity. But the real question, as I left that club pissed, I wanted to know who I was, because I started to question my existence. I was that weak kid anymore who couldn’t be a nerd in the ghetto nor was a hustler with an attitude. If I was my surroundings, if I was that older white male who fled the minute there was trouble, if I was the loser begging strangers to understand my injustice, the loner with no friends, maybe I didn’t want to be that person anymore. As kid we don’t get to chose much, especially growing up in the ghetto, I always had to pretend, but I don’t like games, rules or groups. I always wanted to be an individual. But in the city, walking home pissed, I knew I was going to have to be more, because I was still letting other people decide me. But what was more depressing; I was becoming what they thought of me.  It’s a jungle, sometimes I don’t know how I don’t keep from going under. I was going to have to make a decision; I was going to have to decide me.

faces in A minor

my good friend tyler thinks i'm this hot person, but i think i'm more of a hot nerd, like i like reading Jack London, and i like the National Gallery of Art and i get Dadism, but more so, i'm in tune to my freak, but a dream not yet realized, i always wanted to be an actor, maybe most days i am, i'm not what people think i am, i'm everything i'm trying not to be. But if i was an actor, this is my audition. 

Episode one again

Welcome to my life. In the unforgiving city, where life is crashing and miscommunication of  the eyes could be a cramp shoot of  love or death because strangers are always looking for excuses to be touched, and sometimes in the city a smile is just a smile when personal spaces collide like spilled cocktails in crowed bars that ruin expensive shoes, the first question is where are you from, because nobody in the city is from the city, we are all orphans or runaways, most of us have something to hide or trying to be reborn  in the fast lights and casual adventures, but I got over that a long time ago, and now at job interviews I say I came to the city because of education or a relationship attempting to make my true intention generic when I know it was selfish, but the real reason, I was bored with my other life, I outgrew it like a drug that didn’t get me high me anymore, like a lover who had no more new tricks, like a job that refused to give me a raised, you get my point.

When I first got to the city, Gorgeous was the first person I met. He was an aging drag queen, probably in his late forties or early fifties who had taken off her make-up but refused to give up performing even if the audience was only in his drunk head. It was a “hole in the wall” type of bar, the toilets didn’t work, mirrors where smeared tin shields giving back a distorted reflections, the atmosphere was oblique and smoky where men nursed their drinks and suffocating boredom, young men went to hustle older men, nothing about it was polite but damp, decaying and desperate. I ended up there by accident, was tired of the club scene, and just wanted a dark corner to drink, listen to some music, and maybe find a lover for the night, a place I could get old in peace. I don’t remember how Gorgeous and I met that night, but I remember waking up and I was staring into a toilet of pumpkin piss while this unwanted attention was taking advantage of my dizziness, and when I saw the distorted reflection in that tin shield, I woke up, pushed him off me, I wasn’t drunk enough, so I told him I had to leave, he tried to follow me out the bar, he begged to give me a ride home, I declined. I just wanted to get home before I regretted anything, but it was something about his eyes that night, the mist of the middle of the morning and streetlights and the sadness of loneliness that only happens at two o’clock in the morning when the bar closes and there’s no one else. I felt sorry for Gorgeous preying on young drunk boys like vultures waiting for something to die, but I wasn’t dead, so I gave him a hug, told him maybe next time, but I knew there wouldn’t be a next time, and that’s how we became friends. I kept going to the bar, every week, the same night, and for two years he tried to cash in his lonely check, and I would always tell him next week.

The day after my first book was published, I printed up some flyers and decided to hand them out at my drinking spot. I figured I had nothing to lose. It wasn’t so welcomed. The bartender didn’t even read it, but balled it up in my face and threw it in the trash. I didn’t blame him-- he hated me since he tried to corner me in the bathroom to suck my dick. I refused him, wasn’t really into chubby white leathermen, no matter how many free cocktails he gave me. The free cocktails stopped and were replaced by his attitude. I had been going to the bar for two years, and everyone knew me, and I’d slept with most of them, so I expected they would take the flyers out of courtesy and dispose of them discretely. The last person I handed a flyer to was Gorgeous, and I remember him saying, “Now you want to be a writer.” His tone was casually mean, like I was hustler trying to get him to buy my shit, and I was, but for some reason I was taken back by his insouciant rejection, that he was questioning my existence, questioning my right to change my mind because he only knew me as the young pretty boy barfly, he only known me as the nigga he chased for two years, and I hadn’t told him about my dreams, I hadn’t wanted to be nothing more but that boy in a wifebeater and red baseball cap cocked to the side, and now I wanted to be a writer, and judging from his tone, I knew it wasn’t going to be so easy to convince the world. I was still convincing myself. But in his tone, I knew the real question; he was asking if I was going to make it. I didn’t even know if I was going to make it, I just wanted to be a fucking writer, and I didn’t know if I was going to sell a million books or just ten, I just knew I had found an identity I could be comfortable with, I could die with, but he could care less about that because niggas all the time think they can be shit, but how many of them make it, but I didn’t care about making it, I just wanted to exist on my own terms.

As I left the bar, drunk and pissed, ready to give up on a dream because a couple of bitter alcoholics who had already given up on life didn’t support me, but they were my friends, the only people in my life at the time. As I left the bar, I had the option to leave the city, my friend Sha had just bought a house in Indianapolis, and because she was always on the road taking off her clothes for famous sportsmen and rap artist, strippers make a lot of money, she needed someone to stay and upkeep her house, and the jobs in Nowhere weren’t as competitive, and she was even willing to give me her old car to get back and forth, so I had the option to leave, so I no longer needed the city, but I couldn’t help but ask myself why I was still here. Why? When there was too much crime, and every time I turned on the News somebody was getting killed, the rent was too damn high, the jobs were too scarce and competitive, and everyone I knew was jaded and disillusioned, and in the city you can’t smile at strangers, you got to fear black men, and I was getting older, no longer the young hot boy in the club anymore, so I knew I could just leave, and I could write my novel in the middle of Nowhere, I could start over again and maybe get it right. But as I staggered home with tears in my eyes, because I have a tendency to cry when I get drunk, so damn emotional, I had to remember why I came to the city in the first place. I remembered it was a two day trip on the Greyhound, that I left my home and everything I knew back in Nowhere and I felt I couldn’t be anybody there, that life was too predictable and slow, that I needed something more fast to keep me awake, that I needed something more substantial too keep me creative, that the quiet and familiarity of stability made me lazy, and that’s why I came to the city, it was to become somebody, and I didn’t want to die back at Nowhere and at least in the city if I died a nobody, I would be a somebody by default, because death in the city is more romantic than death anywhere else.

When I got home I dialed my sister, because calling home always reminded me of the past, and even if I passed out or my sister hung up the phone in my place, I couldn’t help but remember that nine year old kid in me staring into a mirror, it was right after my mother got addicted to crack and abandoned us, it was the day after my ninth birthday, and I remember staring into a mirror wanting to be beautiful, wanting a better life, wanting to be wanted, wanting to be loved, and soon I would find out that I was voiceless, and that’s what happens to kids who are abandoned, they become voiceless, they become stranded animals in compounds waiting to be adopted or killed, and I would stare in the mirror so damn defiant and demand it make me beautiful, it make me exciting and the world love me, but I knew I wasn’t beautiful, I was just another nappy headed ghetto child with a shitty life, but I didn’t want to believe that, I wanted to believe in the sun, but I knew I was nothing than the dirt on the floor waiting to be swept up and thrown in the trash, but I stared in the mirror hoping for a miracle, hoping that there was something behind my eyes that was hope. I guess that’s all I was looking for, I was looking for myself despite the circumstances, and I as I stared in the mirror and I knew one day I’d be beautiful, that one day my oily dark skinned and sad black face would be beautiful to somebody, and behind my eyes I could see me smiling.

So, everyday I wake up in the city, and I ask myself why am I still here, why am I still holding on to a slippery dream, just fucking why, and all I have to remember is that kid staring in the mirror, it’s because I want to be more, and I still believe in love. I don’t think we ask, most of us who live in this exquisite hell, why are we still here, because we think it suppose to be so damn obvious because we live in the city, and my sister who still lives in Nowhere thinks my life is so damn exciting, she thinks people in the city are rushing to movie premieres, fashions shows and their next sexual encounter but most of us are just trying to get to our meaningless jobs and back to our cramp apartments without getting robbed or touched or bothered. I know most of us have forgotten, most of us are still living back at Nowhere in our heads, and don’t take advantage of the adventure. The city is hope. The city is fucking hope. I came to the city because I had everything to prove, and I’m not leaving until I’m a better person.

I’m not leaving until my dream is realized. Welcome to my life, the first episode.

Episode 12: The Comeback kid

Looking at his seductive chiseled Calvin Klein body, so young and naked, so undiscovered like a new drug from somebody’s basement, so what if I was jealous of his high, and I’m usually not temperamental, but I couldn’t help but feel like the Queen of Hearts in

Alice

in Wonderland yelling off with that bitch’s head. Because didn’t he know that Gap had a sale on oversize sweaters back in November and Thanksgiving happened and suddenly I was feeling guilty for all that macaroni and cheese and potatoes with butter and gravy, but months had gone by, it was now the beginning of March and the snow up north had just started to melt and I was still hitting the snooze alarm on going back to the gym. I was still asleep, still waiting and begging for more sleep and fried onion rings with blue cheese dressing before summer. But he was young, so fertile like the soil you want exotic plants to grow in, and his body in that black jock strap was so divine, and that’s what I got for going to sex party without approving the guests. I had been getting away with my oversize sweaters, doing my best to suck my stomach in like a prostitute sucking dick without her teeth, binging on laxatives and it had been working, at least I had been delusional enough to think I was comfortable with my failure until that young sexy bastard rudely interrupted my laziness. I wasn’t going to take it laying down or standing up or doggy style--it was time for my comeback.

Everybody loves a good comeback. Celebrities have trained us well. We loved it when child star Drew Barrymore gained fame in E.T., then became a drug addict at nine years old, kicked the habit at thirteen years old, showed David Letterman her breasts at twenty years old, married Tom Green and then divorced him a year later, and then made two awful Charlie Angels movies. How can she not still be on drugs to marry Tom Green? We loved it when Rick James told us he was a super freak and then it turned out to be true with he kidnapped a groupie and made her his drug and sex slave for a month in which why he went to jail, then supposedly got sober and found Jesus, but cocaine is powerful drug in which he died of an overdose. We loved it when Oprah got skinny, then fat again, then got with the program and got skinny, then fat again, then made up another program with contracts and got skinny, then fat again, and now she’s just somewhere in the middle. When celebrities fuck up, and they do often, the usually hire an expensive publicists and go on as many talk shows to explain their indiscretions. It’s not so easy in the real world.

Usually I know it’s time to go back to the gym when older heterosexual women start looking at me like the witch in Hazel and Gretel. The girl at Popeye’s gives me an extra piece of chicken and biscuit as to fatten me up, the girl at the grocery store seem to hold my hand when she hands me my change, because they like the fullness in my face, it means safety, that I am manageable, that if I’m full and content I wont stray, but they don’t know I’m gay and I’m just waiting for the winter to give into spring and then it’s back to gay weight: size small.

I hate starting over. And the gym never changes. I still feel like I’m in middle school. Those damn desk attendants and trainers feel like belligerent coaches judging my physical weakness. I always feel enormous in the beginning because they’re always the gym rats, they live at the gym, and when I get undress, they are always next to me flexing their tightly wound bodies and muscles as I chew on a king size snickers and try to suck in my stomach. I never feel like I know what I’m doing at the gym. I don’t like weights. I just want to be skinny. I just want to look good in a jock strap. I want a six pack, but I don’t want to give up the six pack of Krespy Kreme donuts. Sociologically, the gym is worse than the movie theater. I hate crowded movie theaters, people see other people standing around with their popcorn and they know that the seat next to them is not taken and instead of being courteous, you almost have to fight them for it. The gym is worse. Mondays are always busy which means standing in a long line for thirty minutes to get fifteen minutes on the treadmill. And people are just rude. They watch. They tattle tale. And this is all before the shower. If the showers were just full of young good looking men slapping each other with towels and rubbing each other down with oil, I would be there everyday with my cocktail. But in the showers, lurk old gay men looking for a cheap thrill who make you feel like barrio hustler. I hate taking off my clothes to find some geriatric licking his lips as I remove my pants. I aint got nothing against old folks, they need love to, but they have to pay for it. And then there’s the shower scene. There’s nothing more that makes me feel inadequate than the shower scene. If I had an enormous dick I’m sure I’d be walking all through that bitch with my dick hanging out and swinging, but I don’t, so the shower scene means hiding my dirty little secret. I want my complete nakedness to be a surprise and non-returnable. Over the years, I’ve gotten really clever with getting in and out of my clothes without showing the goods. I’m gay and I know other gay men are looking and judging and may see me out at the club and then tell their friends. It’s political.

It usually takes about a month before I’m comfortable with the gym again. I start seeing the changes in my body and want more. It’s idiotic because I gain and lose the same ten pounds every year. But each time I lose them, I get such a rush of accomplishment. If I stayed thin all year around, I probably wouldn’t appreciate it. I guess I like the comeback. I like looking in the mirror two months later and see that fat boy dissolve. It makes me feel like Rocky.

The comeback is emotional, like a cactus dreaming of rain, I’m constantly longing to be a better person, maybe a soft magnolia simmering in a pond or some delicate iridescent flower, something opposite, and not so rough on the outside that I make anything that touches me retract with confusion and pain and then distrust.  I don’t know who that better person is, or if I would even like him, because the longing is to be better, more proficient with my failure, and not changed like the lick of fire to anything, but a functional addict who still believes he’s in control, that I can still pull it together, that I can still win, because conscious life constantly has to prove itself, that we are worthy of our existence and most days I’m not so sure.

Every time I sit down and write, I get stronger.

writing for me is not just bullshit, it’s who I am, it’s what I do, it’s what I breath, it’s what I would kill for, it’s what I would die for, it’s what I give birth to, it’s the blood in my veins, it’s my blood.

last night was the first night I went back to selling my column, and I’m not the nice guy anymore, sometimes being an artist you just want to get you work out there and then you get pimped, then you get vultures trying to pick at your bones, this one guy told me that people either want to pimp you or fuck you, these days I’m only getting the idiots that want to fuck me. It’s a hard job selling yourself, because you lower yourself, you put yourself on sale, you let fat greasy fingers scrolling through your soul, and then they throw you back and you tell yourself you’re grateful.

last night, one of the first guys who told me I was a good writer dissed me, he told me he liked me better with my shirt off, didn’t even read my latest edition and I can’t even say that hurt me, shit I got like twenty rejections in my mailbox so that was not hurting me, but it made me realize something, sometimes you have to fight for who you are, you can’t let other people decide, and I had a friend out with me last night who suppose to be supporting my career, but all he wanted was to get in my pants which was cool as long as he bought a column, but every time someone came up to me and wanted to buy a column he got jealous like he owned me, but I can’t let him decide me. I swear some trigodytes just don’t understand the hustle, act like they going to be your only happiness, but they only want to put you in a cage, and I say idiot, fuck you, you aint shit, your words aint shit to me, I will not be your procession or your fucking fantasy, you don’t get to decide me. If I’m going to fuck you, suck your dick, or give you some ass let me decide that, not you, but buy a column and don’t get in the way of my freedom.

my mother was a prostitute and not the romantic type, but the type that walked the streets and let men stick their dirty dicks in her mouth, pussy, hands or whatever. I hated her for it because I felt like she took from my innocence. I hated when she went into the bathroom with uncle rob, he really wasn’t my uncle, and every time he came out he would give me a dollar. I liked the dollar part but I still felt dirty, I didn’t know what they did in that bathroom at age five years old but I knew I felt dirty with that dollar, but I couldn’t decide her, she wouldn’t let me.

I don’t want to be a prostitute, and I don’t want to be a hustler, I just want to be a fucking writer, but trust me there is no difference, no matter what the words are coming out of my mouth, I have to learn to sell myself, and I’m learning to be okay with it, I just hope I don’t have any kids to witness my humiliation. I said it once before, being an artist is constantly being humiliated, you got the critics, you got people telling you who you should be and who you shouldn’t, you got the bullshit rejections, you got the politics, you got horny men, and you got people who actually get you, but none of that matters when you sit down and create, and that’s not why I am an artist, I just needed to recreate my world but so do prostitutes.

the thing about being a prostitute, you eventually accept selling yourself, you eventually learn to take control, niggas are crazy, and every time you lay down you know that this time may be your last, all the crumple dollars on the bed, all the marks from belligerent clients is supposedly be worth it because you get to eat and live another day. Being a prostitute is honesty, the lowest form of it and at least you know you never faked it. You didn’t waste you life at some stupid job, with some stupid boss believing you were better than the street whores, when you were just a corporate whore for less money. Being a prostitute, because of the humiliation, you have to know that there was no other life for you otherwise you just are a stupid bitch. We sell ourselves everyday, it’s just that some of us don’t pretend it to be more than what it is, that it’s the trick’s fantasy for his dollars, and it’s only the soul that’s compromised.

I’m not a stupid bitch; there is just no other life for me. So monkey dance, monkey dance.

Wild Animals

Standing in line at the movie theater minding my own business, I felt a nudge in my side and when I turned around, some anonymous male was sneering at me, “What the hell are you smiling at” he accused me. I had no idea I was even smiling, let alone I had no idea he even existed before he interrupted my chaotic thoughts-- if I should get butter on my popcorn or should I just get nachos or maybe nacho cheese on the popcorn and butter on the nachos. I turned to my annoyance, briefly explained to him that I wasn’t smiling at anyone, that it was a facial defect like a nervous tick or the elephant man. I searched his eyes and I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or looking for a fight. He seemed disappointed either way, walked away, I stood there confused and then went back to my thoughts. And that was the city, one not only had to be careful with their intentions, but also their body language and facial expressions – careful not to invite unwanted attention like a crack addict or a robber or a person having a bad day. On the streets in the city, I avoided eye contact as much as possible, like one avoided eye contact with wild animals because I didn’t want to get anyone excited and have to fight.

Before I moved to the city, life was a lot simpler, a lot less people, a lot  less temptation, and people were more polite, more direct, and said what they meant, and didn’t play a lot of games-- maybe because there were less people-- and back home everyone was so afraid of a reputation, but in the city, there are too many people and temptation around every corner, and if you use a fake name and keep changing friends, it’s really difficult to be one thing to anyone, it’s really difficult to gain a reputation, so people play games, and it makes people in the city very skeptical and distrustful, but that’s the city, you can be anyone you want to be at any moment because people have very short attention spans. It’s just too many damn people, a jungle.

When I first met him, I told him quite blankly that I don’t date, I just fuck. It was a typical male comment. He seemed skeptical. That’s the thing about men, they fantasize even worse than women, but not about love, but what they feel they are entitled: the perfect lover, the perfect possession. Actually when we first met he thought I was a hustler, he said some young black boy had told him he cost five hundred dollars an hour, but he was only willing to pay three hundred, but in my case he might go as high as four hundred. I laughed. I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. Looking at him I guess he was used to paying for sex, not because he couldn’t get it for free, but he had a fantasy in his head, he wanted a specific type of lover, he wanted a young black thug -- and him being a middle age balding red head with glasses and a hyper attitude, he would stick out like a cop in the hood. So he paid for it. I wasn’t interested in his money. I’ve done worse than him for free. I told him that I wasn’t a prostitute but that I was new to the city and just looking for friends. The look on his face was like the devil laughing. I made the mistake of giving him my number. He called me seven times in ten minutes. I changed my number. I would see him at the bar off and on for two years. He was always persistent. I liked that he didn’t give up easily but that could also be dangerous. Murderers also don’t give up easy. He tried to give me rides home, but I knew better. He tried to give me gifts, but I knew better. He was damn near a stalker, but I liked him. I felt sorry for him. I guess I needed the attention. We started slow, just head nods and simple acknowledgements, but that was it. And finally we started a conversation. I wasn’t afraid of him. He actually turned out to be a very nice guy, a good listener, loved complimenting me, and I feed into it like feeding a stray cat. I just thought he came on a little strong, but he was a lawyer, so the aggression explained itself. I told him I wasn’t the marrying kind. I liked being single. I had no fantasies of the happy ever after. He told himself he could change my mind. I knew he was about to get his feelings hurt.

It was my fault. I probably led him on. I don’t mean to be a tease, but I do smile a lot, I do flirt, I like staring men in their eyes, I like not wearing underwear, and after too many cocktails I don’t mind being touched, I let them play with my nipples, I let them grab my dick, but it’s only flirting, and after too many cocktails, I like taking off my shirt, I like showing off my glow in the dark cockring, and sometimes I’m in the mood to kiss so I kiss, it’s just playing, it’s not foreplay, and maybe sometimes I would go to the person’s house, and maybe sometimes we have sex and its good but that doesn’t mean I want to name pets with them, that doesn’t mean I want buy furniture with them, that doesn’t mean that I want to meet their parents. I consider myself fun and nothing more. It’s not low self-esteem or fear, but I never wanted anything more that just good sex and a good time. I try to be honest, I tell them upfront don’t fall in love with me, that I’m not the fantasy but they never listen.

I should have been immediately suspicious when he called me one Saturday. I hadn’t been going to the same bar we met. I changed apartments, so my routine had changed for Thursdays, and in the city if you change your block you change your circle of friends and social life. He seemed concerned, hoped that I was okay. I felt flattered. He invited me out to hang. I believed him. We were just bar friends and I was a little hesitative to make us daytime friends. I didn’t know if I would like him sober. Some people you want to keep in the habitat you met them. It’s like changing sports team. Some people should just play basketball and never baseball. I only knew him drunk and liked him that way. It was a gamble, like trying to date a vampire in the daytime. It wasn’t going to work out. Somebody was going to get burned.

He was persistent about picking me up in front of my place. I told him I would meet him at the theater but he was persistent. I let him pick me up at the corner of my block. I knew better. When I got to his car it was sparkling. It was like he had cleaned and detailed it for a special occasion. When I got inside his car, he was so damn nervous. He was dressed up like he was going to a fancy restaurant. Every time I saw him at the bar, he always had on just jeans and a t-shirt and baseball cap. I asked him why he looked so debonair and he said he just come from a party. I knew better. He was so damn nervous. He paid for the movie tickets. He tried to buy me popcorn. In the movie, I felt him put his hand on my leg. I immediately removed it. I was beginning to feel scammed. He was sneaking a date. He had lied, we weren’t just hanging out, but he was trying to change our relationship. After the movie, he was persistent that we go out to dinner. I told him I already had plans. He seemed so disappointed. After the movie, he dropped me off at the corner of my block, and then he reached over and tried to kiss me. I stopped his lips with the palm of my hand and pushed him back. If I was drunk and at the bar, maybe I would’ve kissed him back. In the real world, and sober, he was something I couldn’t romanticize. I felt like a high school idiot. He said that we were just going to hang out but his intentions were more than just getting in my pants. It was a date for him and I didn’t even get roses or chocolates or fucking flowers. He was trying to date me on the sly. It seemed cheap and cheating. If he wanted a date with me, why didn’t he just ask? I probably would’ve said no, since dating means the possibility of a relationship. There’s no tricking anyone into marriage. There’s no tricking anyone into love.

What he didn’t know was that sober, I’m a very serious person. Sober, I’m not affectionate at all. Sober, I get to the point, people annoy me. I like being alone. I spend my Sundays watching the history channel and the cartoon network. I spend my nights reading books and if I want sex, I just get on the internet and order a fuck. My life was cool, no drama, no arguments, no faking orgasms, no lying or trying to hide my try nature and I didn’t want to mess with it. At least, I hadn’t found anyone that was worth the sacrifice.

I knew it was my fault because I hated being an asshole. I probably sent mixed signals on purpose. I liked the attention. I said I didn’t want a relationship but yet after a couple of cocktails I would make out with him, but it was just drunk fun, it was just two men connecting, it had nothing to do with a future. Some people can’t handle fun, especially the lonely. He wanted something more. I told myself that I needed to be more careful, be more direct, can’t flirt so easily anymore, can’t smile as much anymore, because in the city people have their own intentions --don’t want to make contact with wild animals because it’s not so easy to get rid of it. That’s life in the city. I broke it off with my friend, because his intentions were too much for me to handle. He didn’t take it too well, had to change my number again. I had to get aggressive with him, let him know that I wasn’t playing, that he needed to leave me alone or I was going to hurt him. That’s the thing about the city; it will also make you a wild animal eventually. I guess I always knew it would end that way.

Years ago when I first got to the city, I was one of the most eligible fucks. I dated a lot. I tried to believe in the happy ever after. Back then, when everyone was still romantic enough to believe that everyone fell in love, I would say that I planned to die alone, they thought I was just being morbid, that I was playing hard to get, that I would change my mind when the right one came along. Many came and went, some were successful and beautiful and great listeners but none of them stuck, some begged, some tried to play tricks, but none of them stuck, I had meant what I said, I had no desire be in a committed relationship. In the beginning they thought I was sad or trying to ruined their idea of love, but over the years they’ve learned to respect it, stopped trying so damn hard, but first I had to become a wild animal, show my sharp fangs and claws, growl louder, not be so polite. It’s not sad really, I just know I’m not the faithful type, so why pretend, why have the arguments, I tried so many damn times and failed so it’s not sad, because in the city you have to be more than your intentions, you have to be your body language and facial expressions. You have to hide your soul. Not everybody wants the Rockwell painting. It’s not sad. It’s the truth. We all become wild animals in the city.