I’d like to show you something.
If I may, that is.
Then again,
of course . . .
you wouldn’t be here
if you weren’t interested.
Here. See?
This is small
or maybe not much
(to some people)
but this is all I have,
or so I believe.
Or maybe this is bigger
than anything
I have ever dared to share
or show anyone before.
But this is me,
here, now.
This is me, alive
and me in a nutshell
and essentially,
this is me in a way
that you have never seen before
or maybe you have
and maybe my mask or disguises
fail to hide me as much
as I think they do.
I say this as if to undress
in more of what I consider to be
a figurative sense – and yes,
I say this in a sense
because as far as I can tell,
I have never dared
to show myself
like this — at least
not really
or so I assume.
But maybe you see me anyway
or notice that I am exposed
or that I expose myself
perhaps
to make you more comfortable
about how you seem exposed
or uncovered (in a sense).
Or, maybe I have showed you these things
and perhaps
my redundancy is too repetitive
to realize that I have been
screaming about my whispers
for years now
and the world is tired
of hearing about this.
But either way,
here we go.
If you look
there I am, see?
I am that boy, small
scared
timid
and hopeful.
I am that child
happy to share
and eager to be cooperative
in what I would call
an uncooperative world
and still, I would
have been fine to play fair
or take turns
or share with the rest of the class.
But the scars hurt me
and the pain changed my mind
about being selfless
or weak.
I am grown, however,
and I have grown fully
at least I can say I am fully grown
in the physical sense.
I am still growing though—
at least I hope I am
on an emotional level.
What you see
is the outer shell
of that child
or the boy I was
prior to being this man,
and I am the sum
of my miscalculations
and my
inaccurate assumptions
and I have amassed or become what I am
which is this, as I say
pointing figuratively
within.
And who I am today
is the sum of the person
I was before this.
Or
so I thought.
I am this body
built over years of time,
experienced, and hopelessly
hopeful
that somehow,
another trick will turn the page
and I will find my way
and evolve and be fine
before my sun goes down.
I am still him, too,
the child, the skinny kid
who could hardly read
and hardly add
or fight my way
out of a wet paper bag.
I am not tough, by any means
I never have been
and maybe I never will be
which is tough enough,
if we think about it.
I am not brave, at all,
and somehow,
I think it is fair to say that sometimes
the bravest thing to do
is live, or maybe it’s brave
to be alive
or to laugh or smile
or dance and celebrate fantastic things.
It’s brave to dare
or to enjoy things
like the smell of honeysuckles in spring
or the smile of someone beautiful,
or the song from an ice cream truck
as it makes its way
around the corner.
I am that boy, the one over there
who dared to dream
about lifting the weight of the world
yet, I am not strong
nor have I ever been strong,
if there is such a thing
as being strong
that is.
I am not tough . . .
Then again,
I don’t know what it means
to be tough
or to be tough enough
to stand tall
or to stand on my own two feet
and be unafraid
or to be true to my own true voice
and say, yeah
this is me.
So, who are you?
Are you mine?
Could you be?
I am the kid who stuttered
when reading out loud
in class –
picked on and shamed.
I am the one
who could not concentrate
or add the common numbers
because somehow
there always seemed to be
something subtracting me
from the world –
Do you understand?
There was always
some kind of division
that divided or conquered me
and therefore,
the math of my fears would multiply
and grow to quickly for me to figure out
how to pull away
and be happy.
I saw myself as one of those
worded math problems,
like, as if to say,
if Ben left the train station at 3:00pm
and the girl of his dreams
wore a necklace with two butterflies
and a song from Carly Simon
came on at 3:15
before Nat King Cole
sang, “When I fall in love
it would be forever,” at 3:25,
how many apples
would Ben have to eat
before he could be better
than his past?
I’ve been laughed at.
I’ve been bullied
and beaten.
I have been hurt,
betrayed and belittled
and yet—I am that boy
who still claimed
to have an unbroken soul.
I know this is in me –
as if to reverse what took place,
as if to be unmolested, unshaken,
unbroken, and ultimately
somehow,
I am that boy who
moved up
each year despite
the fears
and despite the aches
from my growing pains.
I am more than my lessons
which taught me some tragic ideas.
But hey, at least I learned
(a little).
I am good too
and adversely,
I admit to my misery
or to my temptations
and to my selfish,
self-centered bullshit.
I admit it.
I hurt good people
and I will have to answer for this
to which I openly agree—I have been
just as unfair and as evil
as my assumptions
of how the world had treated me.
And do you know what?
That’s bullshit!
And yes,
I say assumptions of how the world treated me
because I humbly recognize
the deception of perception
tricks us into blaming
people, places, and things.
I am not alone when I say
I blamed others
for things that were all matters of the heart
or perceived threats,
problems, or preconceived notions
to which, in the end,
I mistakenly believed
there are no such thing
as happy endings.
See what I mean?
It’s bullshit.
I woke up on a bathroom floor
one afternoon
because I assumed
that life was over anyway
so,
I might as well
end this myself.
I failed at that.
I failed at a lot of things.
I have failed people, and yes,
I failed myself at times
and I have lost on more occasions
than I can count
but somehow
I know that my story
is not over.
I am alive . . .
. . . still
and perhaps
I have some votes against me
and maybe
I have a few enemies at the gates
which is only as worthy
as my investments in them.
Yet somehow,
still . . .
I am still here, alive
and somewhat well
and you?
You, my most special
and beautiful love
and friend . . .
You are more beautiful
than my words can define
You
your butterflies
your light
which beams from your eyes . . .
You are more beautiful
than ever
brighter than the sun
more meaningful to me
than the moon
and thus; you are peaceful to me
like an outgoing tide and a full moon
at midnight on a beach
that no one else knows about —
except for you.
I am no longer
willing to be the sum of my past
or the outcomes
which I used to believe
were the only things that could
define me
No.
I am the one,
here to defy the arrows
that I once used
to shoot down my own dreams.
And as for my dreams,
I refer to them like a song
I once heard, by The Pink Floyd
so, please, just like the song describes
“point me at the sky
ad let it fly.”
There’s a song I listen to sometimes
and I do this when my heart is heavy
Or I am scared
(like that little kid
after a beating)
It’s a lullaby to me
to listen to when I am awake
and alive.
(so I can dream)
But either way,
this is me.
alive and well
and me in a nutshell
and still writing
until the hour of my death.
So help me God.
The Written Addiction 