A Cold Day in April

Here, in this familiar place of awkward frustration and regret, my only response is "I knew better but hoped for better." I could always just return to sender the ill intent of well-done liars. But I didn't. I take full blame for my aggravation. Lets align what shall happen from here on out: When goaded with nonesense wrapped in pity-parties, send them to church. "Pray for your troubles!" I'll say, and honestly I will pray for them after all. I own no stake in the fate of others, nor should I be willing to burden anyone with my rationale. I have just one first name and one last name, like so many others. I am powerless. My strenght is in my resolve, and today I resolve to cease fighting. Repeating the same action hoping for alternate results has a particular definition. Man Down.

Wild Ride

Its a wild ride from the hereafter to present times. In my personal hereafter I don't know what the ground feels like, I'm encumbered with the tasks of tasting air and forgetting sins. Digging my toes in my own dirt is a hobby i no longer condone, didn't serve my present presence any good. Id just have to keep cleaning the old dirt off after I just remembered that I cleaned it already. Like worry and a rocking chair, that old dirt just wasted my good time energy. And repeatedly sullied my hands. So instead of travelling with old habits, I'm inhaling different strategies one atmosphere at a time. At first like any new tasks faced with probable failure, the old familiar soil seemed a bit more comforting. Maybe just another taste of horror to bring flush the regresses of my days behind me.. Repeating old actions basically sums up simple math of how two sums in error will always equal a whole defeat. And stubborn heads in summation require many bumps. Somewhere down my red brick road: I had enough. I had enough of Enough and wanted extra. Into the extraordinary I gasped full speed into mistakes, errors, mishaps, and stubbed-toes. Never stopping because of fear but stopping often because I was tired. At some point it'll all have to fit, my puzzle piece life. Dirt and all. Gasps and all. All in all, its a wild ride.

warm.

I would regard you like a long awaited weekend. 

The evening still and warm; my favorite.

Your tease of a cool breeze and tender starlight would get me everytime. 

A subtle dance of swirled ice cubes and cheap bubbles and man I'd swear I was flying 

And nothing was wrong. 

You were my last great love affair.

Rudely the sun rewinds on it's dutiful time piece. 

I'm searching again for my favorite moments. 

But something is missing!

Simply I've stumbled, tumbled, and rolled belly up into a maze.

One end holds my fear. The other holds what I love. 

But what I fear is what I love and to love organically is to be fearless;

So which way am I to land while still strangely hung up on that wistfully perfect moment? My favorite. 

drip.

Oh baby I just wanna drown in your unselfishness, swallow up your insecurities and let your weird ways carry me in rhythm to the beat of your drum.

Let the waves of obscurity cease at the crease of your wonton smile.

If I can't breath that's fine don't worry! 

I don't want to miss a second of being submerged in whatever abyss I find you in. Slowly through the darkness of unknown comfort yet trusting grasp, the rising possibility that 'everything will be ok' buoys me past the break of despair to be met with confident love and affection. 

One deep breath of cool crisp circumstance shoots like lightening from bow to stern, propped afloat my own stream of constant indifference. Finally! 

 If this is all fear has to offer then I suppose it was all very worth it.

That Ol' Thang

Just when things seem to be proportionately swell: [job(s) are pleasant, people in my life loving, bed warm and belly full] 

off in the horizon, just beyond the river bend and downtown boogie ave comes blindsided slaughter of euphoria. Death. 

Having barely navigated the jungle of grief these past 9 months and seeing that comforting EXIT sign like turning down my block after a long night- I find myself completely lost in sadness again. 

Hold up. 

Not lost like "How am I gonna survive this" lost. 

But "How do I make it out THIS time?" lost. 

"Do I have enough gas left?" lost.

"Why am I back here?" lost.

"How many more times.." lost.

"God I am not strong enough." lost.

This whole experience of loss in two's is new and quite frankly the worst. I have nothing in my past to compare it too, and to ask people of their own experience makes it hurt even more. Their genuine and often unrefined emotions about the losses of loved ones stings like a paper cut I'm reminded of under hot water. Years later and the scar is still seen and felt. 

I fear that this not only will break me but also will repeat itself. And THAT will bend me to splinters. 

Of course I am rambling. That's what grief does- I'm spilling over with wayward, forceful emotions that are engaged without a destination. Their tenacity is intimidating and often wonder if this is at all my reality or have I finally cracked. Reality so damn full of hurt and unattainable salve that this must be a movie and I am just dreaming in playbacks. Reruns of "Worst Case Scenarios" staring me in a visionary nightmare. 

Nah Fam- it's just me and facts.

Of course I'm projecting like a mutha, but like the fitty-11 stages of grief I'm just treading water through all of them. Keeping my head barely above water, but still not falling under. The waves will come, that's a promise. I'll just keep kicking? 

To Find

As things normaly go: 

What is missed is searched, and what you find is a discovery. 

So when I find something familiar in an unfamiliar place (usually unexpected but profoundly in need) the question of "Why This; Why Now?" is answered in the discovery itself. 

Something like seeing the lesson in all things green in equal magnitude. 

Those days when I cant love myself- love finds me. When I can't find laughter, I'm suddenly surrounded by it. 

Or on the dreary side: a tidal wave of friends loosing friends isn't me wishing to deal cards with the devil. In grief there is a feeling of overwhelming hopelessness and sadness- in these seemingly historic lows of existence comes a flush of (wait for it) purpose and joy. 

I sound crazy; that's how you know it's true.

Just as being swept off your feet is a reminder to stay grounded while dreaming, a scrape and a bruise wakes you up from the present cirsumstances of a nightmare. 

How nice that neither scenario stains too deeply that it cannot be rinsed new.

Passengers

Been a belaboring few days.

Tense shoulders and back, achy joints and a horribly busy mind.
Did the very things that normally cool down my overheated countenance but I was still scrambling for an answer.

This burden of frustration was getting heavy. It stunk and seeped all over all my nice things.  I couldn't bleach the stains, and not enough Tide rinses to handle the rest. I felt ashamed.  More than anything I was just tired. Tired of this heavy-metal, cumbersome "whatchamacallit".  I just wanted to be free.

So now-
Laying in stillness and all its splendor I finally have a clear moment to see the gold that shimmers all around me.  And some silver too.
I dropped my luggage of sickness at the doors of Choice and opened the door that read "Humble". With Humility the next door read "Acceptance" and it was a heavy drag but with some sweat I emerged. With one final grunt, I found it.
Love.
Love wrapped me so tight that I couldn't fight my way out of it, even though that wretched misery was starting to feel familiar.
Now I am ok, pleasant. No exaggerated worries to grimace at or wacky grins to laugh at. But this love all around me has cling to my hardest components and soothed every callous from carrying that unnecessary luggage.

Lesson Learned: when Lost, look for Love.

Make Room.

Grab some room, by all means. Occupy a small space I've saved just for you.
I'm sorry it isn't too pretty.
Some days I just can't keep up but it is always there for a stay or for a while.
It fits just perfect in all nuanced disbelief and off color swirls of chaos. On my side there is a white rag for defeat, and your side an obnoxious reminder of whom lays near me.
Some mornings you smother my mind.  Some Days you're so heavy I have to unload you somewhere. But at night is when I handle you best.
When we are both winded, depleted, in complete deficit is when I can wrestle you till the very end. At night, I win.
And all I have to do it try.

Pain. Not the choice

When thought of, it would be safe to assume that something accidental would be the culprit. A bump, something sharp and sudden, or sneaky and burning. Never an intent on breaking skin or hearts. No?
If it all were caused by careless accidents, then how do we heal?
That is the enigma; healing from accidents is nearer to nature. Safer to understand that the causation was not direct but off-aim. Yet lucky to be struck, I suppose. Easier to heal from a wound you know of.
What horror films and justice academy's are tasked at would be: when there is no accident at all. Just intent.
Pure, intensively activated intent to cause vengeful and specific Pain. Pain could be used as a mnemonic device for Participants Are In Neutral.
Neutral to the neighboring events to take place at the hands of a soul-less (NOT careless) beings of nightmares. Not hiding in your closet or under your bed: closer than your forgotten thought that you remembered a moment ago.
That Close.
Rose tinted world views easily hide the snarls of guilty bastards that gladly swarm in your oasis.
Pay Attention to the waves you didn't wake.
Pay Attention In Neutral.

Just a little bit of Sometimes

Dreams deferred don't often start that way but do end as such. But what about when a person reaches that same fate of reusability?

From a promise or a premise of endless enjoyment and distraction becomes a distant memory. Racked in used-up emotions that were tacked onto a wall of imagination. What then?
Whom or what do we miss most; the promise or the dream? The anticipation or the ante-up?

Juaquan.

Often I want to scream in protest of this heavy laden burden of Grief in loud, Capitol letters.
Sometimes I do.

I'm tired. I'm a little more gray, a little more quiet, and little less hungry, and a little less patient because I am without my boy.

Many times my answer to what people ask me is "I don't know". I'm just a little more cloudy and apprehensive. And afraid.

A quiet THANK YOU.
The many faces I saw at my brothers wake and funeral mass overwhelmed me and my family with strength and love. Any other moment I would've denied all available access to my wounds and pain. Protective of what is breaking me to pieces I suppose? But that day, somehow I knew I needed something.

Thanks to your imminent care, we got through this. The hugs, consoling, your precious presence slowly helping to rebuild my broken heart.

"We" will be ok.

RIP Tay-Tay.

Dear [ ]

Never a moment in most of my life (sober or not) have I felt so lost for words yet full of emotion. This mix has my level of uncomfortability at a rapid high where I just want to stop writing, but I reluctantly push on.
Yes, I suffer from alcoholism and I am in my third and highest level of treatment.  I am well aware how life has been set awry by my addiction and for that I'm sorry. But even before I could even spell the word addiction or alcoholism life with you has been war. A losing war to your constant judgement and criticism. I don't understand what is wrong with you? I'm ok with who I am but you refuse to allow me to remain ok with who I am. Why are you so focused on what I do whether right or wrong? Regardless you fail to support me in anything that you don't like as if it is you that is living it. I need for you to release me, I'm not you. I'm not in your womb. I am my own, not property of your ghosts or dreams.
The sad part for you is that I will run from you on my own if you chose to believe that you have any reign over my existence.  My plans don't revolve around you, but they don't have to experience your absence either.  My biggest fear is that you wish me to not succeed in sobriety so that I will always need you to rescue me. Finally I can say I feel safe in my environment of sobriety without you, and that is great. All you have to do at this point is listen, whether a second or an hour.
I never wanted your advice.

I see now why comfort is so important to me and why I yearn for it.
You were so protective over me that I never was allowed to rest in my own desires of what comfort is. You worked so hard to provide your idea of comfort while stripping me of mine to make it "ours". It took active measures to be comfortable at home, probably why I drank, and why I wished to never be home. It was not my comfort, it was yours. (8-7-18)

My Favorite Holiday To Hate

Elizabeth F. Jeudy CHRISTMAS: My narrative on my favortite holiday I’ve grown to hate. You are my gifts; I don’t need anything more than breath, but appreciation always woulld make me smile but I am willing to pass that on to those who are more than difficult to convince of their worth. That’s OK with me. When you are accepting at receiveing less because you’re already convincingly full of the non-tangebles, you accept the purposeful empty cards with whistful good wishes. You accept and say “Thank You for your thoughts”. While you have past due payements on adult responsibilities all to make sure the others in your life are pleased. My pleasure never mattered to me much, because it came not from my own selfish endeavors but from seeing those corny smiles from my family and friends. But I’m not being honest; the gifts I did receive were never what I requested when at long last asked “What would you like for Christmas?” I just accepted the last-minute thought-less gifts as at least something; at least I was a thought for just a moment. “No, take them and be grateful” was the constant speech I gave myself to appear merry and joyful. Those gifts to this day from a decade ago of dealing with this habit have remained in my closet untouched. I was always an earner, maybe a lull in times but when I was on, no one could stop me and I then looked forward to spend that little fortune on my clueless family to show some shallow grattitude of “LOOK WHAT I DID, LOOK WHAT I HAVE SPENT MY HARD HUSTLE MONEY ON JUST TO SHOW MY INKLING OF LOVE ON THIS HOLIDAY that I grown hate”. GOAL: Met- GOAL: Ignored. I am often not lonely but I will admit, these holidays will be a lonely set of joyless folly. I am so polite that these faux-kindness gifts and and Thank You’s are soaked up like well wishes often were, reminicent of War-Time propaganda; believing the best just to have something to believe in. I wished and prayed for recognition deeper than a summer rain puddle. Why doesn’t anyone get it? I smile so that you can smile back. I don’t frown so you can smile back, and force my smile for the same damn reason. God; I just want my smile to be organic, recognized, appreciated and pleasant to the eyes that matter. Please, I need a rescue from this nonesence holiday that breaks my bank account and subsequentially my heart. But after all it is Christmas, and all that Ho-Ho-Ho Jolly fun-time Opiate of December is abundantly annoying just knowing what is and has been essentially in store for me. So easy to swallow, so easy to succumb, so easy to smile. Merry Christmas.

Don't call Me

Beautiful? I may be, that's what my daddy call me.
My ebony defined me, as a perfect shade of brown beauty.
Am I perfect? No, perfection is exhausting, also nonexistent.
But I'm present and damn, am I present!
I am a present.
As concerning as I may be, it's still not enough to a " maybe".
But beautiful? I am me.
And no, u can't stop me.
As I stare at the daunting amount of books that will be useless in 13 weeks?
I weep. For what can blossom from weak roots
rooted in weak roots of "Just read me, these books".
Melanin of all shades, parades of all parades
And when I stand , All will Say
"Hooray"
Hooray for the struggle
Horrray for Bondage
Horray for the sisterhood
Horray for brotherhood
Horray for the OURhood.
The term UNSTOPPABLE will not define us but will promote us in our own desire to stand in the fire
Of preposterous words and
falsehoods absurd.
Now stand.
Stand for you.
Stand For us.
Stand for your country.
Stand for their county.
We will overcome.

Untitled

Even shadows have the company of darkness.
While even my own silouhette escapes its duty of being by my side.
Inside the spirit wages a war vs flesh; desires vs needs and the casualties are extraordinary.
Love dies.
And to be revived love needs the power of itself to believe in itself.
To AGAIN be raged in agony against itself due to the duality of LOVE
L- for lust
O- for observation
V- for vindication
E- for for evolving

A joke.

Maybe I should laugh.
When hypocrisy wears the everyday  mask, pretends to be liberal while conserving views about who I should be.
Trying to change my mind on who I can be.
maybe I should laugh.
Watching ABCBSFOXBETBSMTV exploit a culture as a fad, cut divide and reassemble reload rehash reply and redeem something then know nothing about..
A song, an artist, a figure, a race, a style, a genre, a problem.
Maybe I should laugh.
When I see my dignity being mocked, threaded away as comedy.
Do I look like a joke?

Vulnerable.

I deny myself.
I deny my issues slight and large.
I deny those caring for my tender heart beat.
So when I claim to be ok, I abhore you to question it.
I've been fighting since I could spell it but the love... The LOVE is real.
All I ask is to "hold me. My lack of confidence may be my undoing. And the last word I want to hear is "YOU'RE STRONG" because I am NOT.
I'm weak, I am so vulnerable. Please be near me and don't inundate me with your nonsense while clouding my own difficulties with petty crap!....." Is what I want to yell.
Sad clowns always have a reason to smile.
I have reasons to smile.

Something Nice

Long days, dripping with sweat and resentments.  I'd rather be on a beach without either, but I am an adult with adult responsibilities completely lacking of affordable downtime. 
One thing I want is a form of comfort in one verse or another; one tone or another; one word or another. Tell me something nice please.
Tell me something as cliche as "Everything will be alright",  because even that will have me look up. Wipe the sweat from my brow and ask why do I feel that working so hard towards a goal I can't touch is my journey?  Tell me something as nice as "Tell me something nice".
But words like "I give up on you" or harsh moments of desperate silence seem to finish those sentences of wondering what exactly did I do? In those words "WHAT DID I DO"
For you to consider me regrettable
For you to consider me forgettable
For you to consider me umentionable.
But when that fan hits some shit I'm the first person to come to mind to clean up the mess you're responsible for. How convenient for you to claim no blame but watch me attempt to make it better and point while saying "I got her".

I'm a fool.

Dear Indigo

My dear indigo child, ageless on your aging yet wise in all wisdom. If we could all be like you! Regardless of things maybe worth regarding, you were quick to disregard the regarding of your regards because you disregarded them! Such bravo and courage and courage and bravo. Bless us all with your continuation of the road less traveled.  I admire you.  Happy birthday Victoria! 
Love,  your cousin

Heart and Art

All this trouble I've been seen and I've squandered all opportunity to write it down. Instead I chose to have pointless conversations with pointless people with pointless answers because they are pointless people. "I promise that this bottle is the last one" while on my way to remake the same promise with another last bottle.