I get so lonely: my last day of innocence

if you are going to read this, put on Janet's "I get so lonely" Thank you Tyler.

I wrote this for you, you who will come looking when the illusion unravels and you are used up, that you didn’t play the cards right, lost the gamble. Failure is only the beginning.

It’s funny how we think we are waiting for our lives to begin. I remember that anxious feeling of wanting to graduate college so that my “life” could begin. When did it stop? I guess I was waiting for approval. I guess I was waiting for that feeling that death was imminent. Before, I had all the time in the world for my life to begin. It took me five suicide attempts to realize that I was living, and the only beginning was my birth and the next stop was death. I guess I was looking for the fantasy, something I had seen on television, something that would tell me I arrived. I guess the mirror wasn’t enough.

Three years ago I questioned if I would make it. I wanted to know if I could turn petrified shit into seductive roses again. I wanted to know if I could turn my fucked up life around. But that’s not what I really wanted. I wanted the illusion of sobriety. I didn’t want to heal. I just wanted to learn to hide the pain better so that I could get back my friends who I’d driven away. I wanted to get back family members who I tried my entire life to prove that I was enough and when they found out my lie, that I was struggling, they turn their backs on me. But it was the only love I knew, no matter how toxic, and I desperately wanted it back. I wanted to be able to keep a job I didn’t want in the first place and swallow the thickness of resentment. I wanted to be faithful to a relationship with a man I knew in my heart I didn’t love. But I had been rebelling. And I couldn’t hide the drinking anymore. I couldn’t hide the anger. I couldn’t hide the cheating. I started to rebel and was sick and tired of being polite. I was sick and tired of pretending. It didn’t matter that I was wearing a suit and tie, it didn’t matter that I had a nice apartment, it didn’t matter that I had a cool job title, I was dying inside and everyone was just watching it. I hated my life. I hated my life since I was born. And every time I thought happiness was impossible I tried to kill myself. I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. Shit, I looked like the fucking poster for happiness, so why the fuck wasn’t I happy!!!!!

I never thought I could dream. I was never that arrogant or selfish. I never thought I could dream because I was always surving. I grew up struggling. I grew up starving. I grew up drowing. I just thought I needed to get to a safe spot on land and just be happy. But dreaming and the struggle is the same. They are both desperate, and they are both fightin for existence.

I asked god for a second chance, and said let their be light. And then I wrote a book. I self published that book. “Who is Sean: a collection.” It was stories I had written since I was 14 years old. Some were published. It was my secret. And when the book came out, I knew it was just for me. I wasn’t interested in telling the world. I just wanted something of my own. And I guess because I knew what it felt like to be the kicked dog, to be ridiculed every single day of your childhood, to have never been enough, to had never won first place, I was so damn insecure. Shit, I basically grew up the abused child who ran away, so I knew rejection. I just didn’t want to fight anymore. I just didn’t want to have to prove anymore. I just wanted a pocket of life where I could be still and die. But I always kept something inside, hidden, because it was my own. I knew I was special. I had been writing since I was five years old. I had been escaping since I was five years old. It was my thing. And when I published my book, I didn’t want anyone to take that thing away from me. Cruelty had already taken everything else. I was afraid of losing my soul. Writing was my soul.

Life was easy when I was silent. When I stayed in the back of the class and blended in with the shadows. I learned to not speak up. It was so much easier when I didn’t care. I could just fake the smile, agree with anybody and don’t cause trouble. But I was so damn unhappy. Yet, that’s the thing about love. When you’re in love you want to tell the world. I wrote a book. I couldn’t be silent. I decided to print up some flyers and pass them out at a major event. But when I got to the event, I froze.

Change is so hard. I didn’t feel like a writer. I felt like a fraud. I felt like I rushed into something and was way over my head. I was supposed to convince people that I mattered. That was the biggest joke. So I went to the bar and decided to order some drinks to build my courage. It never came but I got drunk. And then I did what I knew best, I flirted with the cutest guy I could find, I became the life of the party, we went to his place and had sex and I was back to ground zero. I got up on Monday and went to work. Nothing had changed.

One morning I just refused to wake up. when the alarm clock went off, I just unplugged it. I didn’t call into work. I didn’t turn on the television. I just laid in the bed for three days. I got up for bathroom breaks and food and water but then I just went back to sleep. And every time I closed my eyes I prayed I wouldn’t wake back up. After the three days, I went to my job and packed up my stuff. I really didn’t give a good reason. The next two months, I just drank and had sex. And when I decided that I was going to kill myself for the fifth time, I deiced to do it at a bathhouse. I thought since I was such a drunk and sex addict, it would be perfect.

So I took a bunch of sleeping pills and bought two gallons of rum. I disappeared from the world for a week. I took my ex-lover’s credit card to foot the bill. On the last day at the bathhouse, I remember passing out and then waking up crying and this old guy was fucking me, I must’ve left my door open, but I was lying on my stomach and this guy was fucking me and I was crying, and he just kept pumping harder, maybe he thought I was just moaning, maybe he didn’t even notice or care. And it all just felt so damn surreal and sadistic. I remember telling him to get off of me, and he acted like I had ruined his fun, and I just told him to get the hell out of my room, that I wasn’t in mood. I decided to fix myself another rum and coke, but I was tired of the bathhouse, so I packed up my stuff and decided to die at the bus stop. I was going to take the pills at the bus stop. When I got to the bus stop, it turned out it was only a little after midnight, and the buses were still running, and there was this young girl with her mother. The young girl was listening to her walkman, dancing, her mother every once in awhile would look over to her and stroke her hair or just smile. It was the most intimate affection of love I ever witnessed. I remember taking out my notebook and writing about the incident. I wrote:
“ a cold winter night, fat daughter feeds on popular culture, her skinny mother shivers in the breeze, but there’s so much love there. It seems to stench the air. I’m going to commit suicide. And they don’t even know it. And even if it’s not my love, I want that love. Why can’t somebody look at me like that. They are saving me, and they don’t even know it. So simple, love. So damn, simple. Even if its not your own, seeing it, witnessing the miracle, I know I can’t die.”

So I didn’t die. I went back home. my ex-lover tried to beat the shit out of me because I took and spent too much money on his credit card and it was rent time. I didn’t care. I didn’t’ care about the bruises. I was alive. He just thought I was up to my old drama again. But I had changed. I had really changed.

SO I had to ask myself would even be worth it, to love, to want that love that’s so simple yet can save nations, did I want to put myself out there. What if no one loved me, again?  Because sometimes kicked dogs become cowards, they get tired of fighting, they get tired of the bruises, or kicked dogs become raging lunatics, they run the streets looking for a fight. I was tired of fighting. So I had to ask myself was it worth it, to live, to breath, to get back in the ring and take some more deadly bruises. I had to ask myself was it worth to give up the one thing I knew I had left, and that was my soul. I had given my heart. I given my body. I given my time. I even given my hope. But never my soul. My soul I kept locked in the secrets of poetry and short stories. And then I realized that’s why I probably was unhappy. When you’re a kicked dog, you think they are kicking your soul, they are rejecting your soul, your existence. That’s why I hid it. But I was tired of hiding. I wanted to live. I wanted love.

Failure was just the beginning.

I used to believe that I wouldn’t be enough

that I was the kicked dog, that vagabond always begging to be notice

I used to think that I was wind

that I could only be loved if someone decided my direction

but the real fear was that you weren’t enough

mama

because I only believed in fairytales

I only believed in the television I so tried to escape in

I used to believe that I wasn’t enough

but I was more afraid you weren’t

because I know love

and if I gave up on loving you, you weren’t loving

and I didn’t want to be that person who gave up on you

until I realized that you gave up on yourself

can’t save a flower that wants to die

can’t save a soul that doesn’t understand its body is connected to this space

can’t start a life on a fractured illusion

those who are whole love whole

but my begging was so rotten and nothing was going to grow

people say they know love

but they don’t need love like a child’s desperation to explain its existence

and everything I have to do

to love myself

is give up on love

and I can hear it now,

how they going to want to say it doesn’t have to be that way

but they don’t know love, maybe they know entitlement

maybe their mothers wanted them

I fell in love with sitcoms growing up because it was so scripted

so controlled

when all around there was chaos

everybody wants the fairytale

nobody tried to understand the nightmare

and I’m not angry anymore, but this is a poem everyone has to read

my entire life I’ve been dishonest

I tried to pretend to be normal but now that I’m dying I don’t want to see me

I still want to be dishonest

and I watch me fading everyday in the mirror

and everyday I keep thinking someone is going to save me

but I know the truth --I have to give up on love,

and I know what they are going to say,

because they are so damn programmed

but they don’t know they are killing me,

and I don’t need to be their survival story

I see the road ahead and it isn’t pretty

and I don’t need to be their fucking Oprah story

everybody wants other people to be a happy ever after

because I know love

and it takes a fool to know love don’t love nobody

I know how it feels to wait

and I know what they are going to say

because they never let me have my life, and that is what is killing me

I can’t save myself, save that person without saying

love isn’t happiness

and anger isn’t self-hate or something to pitied

but life means wanting your existence even if god didn’t want you

you are still entitled to you existence

even if you were cheated

I always wanted to die

I never felt like I belonged here

been trying to kill myself since I was eight years old

and I know what they are going to say,

that I shouldn’t think that way,

that I’m a victim

but I believed in love and now I’m not turning back fuck it, fuck everybody

and I know what they are going to say,

keep believing,

I used to think it was about how much I was to sacrifice for the illusion

how much I was suppose to prove for me to get into heaven

knowing that I never believed

I will never give my soul again

Comments

[Tyler]

Wow!

I just have to say that I'm glad you turned that corner in your life, learning to love yourself, recognizing the power of your words, and the value of your experience. This is the most raw piece you've written. It's also the most revealing. Thank you!

[anthony davis]

I started reading your blog two months ago and I must tell you that it is truly relevant.You lay yourself bare in a way that is so revealing and you give the readers of your blog a glimpse inside of yourself that is so raw and gritty.I do love what you write and I must say that you are damn talented.I am also glad that you also turned that corner because yours is a voice that needs to be heard and your stories are ones that need to be told.I will admit that I was first drawn to your blog because I was a bit intrigued or should I say captivated by the sexy brown boy with the deeply intense,bright,beautiful eyes but I am so glad that I took that chance to check out your blog .Keep up the good work and much love to you.

[Yusef]

MY goodness...thats all i can say about that...whoever the universe decides to send you as a partner...is in for a real treat.