I used to scribble words in little notebooks. . .
I never thought much about writing, as in to be a writer or anything like that. I never thought that I would look to do this in an exposed setting. I never thought about telling anyone that I write because, out of fear, I never believed that I could write something meaningful enough to be valid.
I admit there was something beautiful about my quiet anonymity. There was something nice about having a secret escape that no one knew about.
Only a few knew.
No one could judge me here.
No one cared about my grammar or the lack thereof.
I wrote poems. I wrote sentences and left my thoughts on little pages. Whether I saw myself as tortured or mysterious, I could write my thoughts without fear.
I could be me.
There was no fear of you or anyone else. More importantly, I never had to worry about the critics. I never had to worry about the open interpretation or the people who look to either ruin or destroy an artform that frees the soul.
I remember sitting, longhaired, and young as ever. I had one of my outfits on, and yes, I tried my best to brand myself. I wanted to be cool.
Or if anything, I did my best to appear desirable.
Life was too routine for me.
Get up. Go to work.
Come home.
Go out with the same knucklehead friends.
Act like I was fine.
Act “as if” nothing bothered me.
You’d have to learn to be quick too.
That is if you want to survive in this world.
Learn to keep your guard up.
You’d have to learn sarcasm as a first language,
and get a thick skin because life doesn’t work very well for people who can’t take the heat.
I knew this because I had thin skin.
I knew this because I was vulnerable and gullible.
I wanted to believe.
I was sensitive, or so I was told.
Or maybe I didn’t like people’s bullshit.
Does that make me sensitive?
Maybe I never liked what I saw, which is that people can be severely unkind.
People can be cruel and cold and emotionless.
People can do this with a smile and have lunch and be over themselves before finishing their appetizer and before the second course.
There were times when I decided to break the cycle. There were times when I decided to break the so-called chains and resist the need to be out or part of the crowd.
I think I would have been happier with someone like you.
But you were nowhere to be found.
Perhaps being alone is not so bad.
Maybe being alone is better than feeling alone when you are with the wrong people.
I was misled by the commercialized version of beauty. I was just as misled by what it means to be beautiful. And worse, I knew this was wrong.
I knew that I had love, and I had my own taste.
I knew the beauty of the entire body and yet, I never dared to say this in fear that I would be laughed at or ridiculed.
I was never comfortable in my own skin. I was always too afraid to stand on my own or to say my truth.
But let me ask something.
Who would want someone like this?
I was a coward and hypocrite.
This is true.
Was I a liar?
I was nothing more than someone looking to survive but didn’t know how.
Understand?
I knew this from an intellectual stand point.
I knew what I wanted.
I knew what I liked.
I knew that I had fantasies, and I knew that beautiful to me was beautiful to me.
As for that, nothing else matters.
Nor should it.
No one else is there with me when I look at my reflection at the end of the day.
The only person looking in the mirror is me.
And if this is so, then why try so hard to please anyone else?
Why struggle and look for peace with the wrong people when there are billions of others to talk to? We live in a sea of billions and somehow, we waste so much of our time with the wrong ones.
Why waste time with the wrong ones?
There are countless others who do not speak with sarcasm and there are more around to safely confide in or share myself in pieces at a time.
I used to write about the world and the way I saw things.
I still do.
I used to write about my hopes and chances of finding someone meaningful enough to love me as I love them.
I wrote about the different seasons in New York.
I wrote about the colors of autumn and the absence of warmth in winter.
I wrote about the rebirth of spring and how spring became summer, only to re-enter the autumn months and so, this is life.
Cyclical.
Always moving and always changing.
There will always be critics. There will always be crabs in the bucket who try to pull you back, or pull you down, or to nip at your heels to keep you from escaping or breaking free.
There will always be an enemy of the soul. But don’t worry when they growl or do or say a mean thing.
This is their job and the best they can do.
This is all they have.
I just want more.
I used to keep my notes on pages of notebook paper because I was afraid to share them.
I hate the critics and the educational snobs.
I remember seeing an old schoolteacher who told me that my writing wasn’t even English.
I remember thinking how I was not the scrawny little boy anymore.
I remember thinking, “Say something now,” but he was meek and somewhat apologetic about the ways he was.
The younger version of me still wanted to make him bleed.
But maybe he was bleeding too.
Only, I didn’t know it.
Then again, he is human.
No one among us can escape the fact that we have all said unkind things. We have all been in bad moods or we have all experienced times when we are not at our best.
I can say that I have said the worst things at times like this.
Horrible things too.
I think there is beauty in the word anonymity.
I still like the idea that there is no one who can touch me when I write anonymously.
No one can hurt me or put me down, at least not when I am here.
As tough as I tried to be, I know that I was always scared.
I was worried that the curtain would be pulled back and thus, I would be exposed. I would shown beneath the lights, naked, and with all of my vulnerabilities clear and open to being laughed at, humiliated, or seen as stupid.
I still hate educational snobs.
I hate the condescending smiles and words of support from those who congratulate me the same as they would congratulate a toddler for not going to the bathroom in their pants.
I remember sharing a walk on the beach with a girl . . .
I could tell she wanted to get away.
I could tell she was saying how nice it was, just to be nice.
I remember thinking as if I was like a special needs child who offered a loved one my awful drawing to be put on the fridge at home.
I’d write about love and beauty and the amazing séance of how a girl can walk through a door for the first time and smile with a silly joke.
And just like that, I knew I was hooked.
At the same time, I was writing for me.
I was writing about comfort.
I was writing about the need for an unbreakable and safe connection.
I was writing about the need to separate from the social governments and the “creators of cool.”
Living in the mind of a prison is not living at all.
I suppose writing was my only way to escape or feel better
(or be free).
I might have been unknown and unheard.
In fact, no one knew these things about me.
I might never be known or reach an audience.
I might be hated by some.
I might be the scoundrel or the villain in someone else’s story,
and, I might be the reason why educational snobs roll their eyes or think they are better.
Or I might be me.
I might be doing the best thing possible, which is no different from when I was young.
I come here to leave my words behind.
I come with hopes that, somehow, this can build me a castle of hope and one day, I can cross the bridge and get passed the threshold and know what it means to live
. . .or be alive.
The Written Addiction 