The rain fell hard last night. I could hear the raindrops hit the rooftop which kept me awake for a while. And so, I laid back and looked up at the ceiling.
I thought about the hours and the days and even the minutes I spent elsewhere, looking at life with all too much confidence that nothing is threatened because tomorrow would always be there, —until it wasn’t.
This is how things go when we are young.
We never seem to think that age is real until it creeps up on us.
Age is something that happens to old people.
And one day, we turn around to realize that decades have escaped without leaving a sign and much of our dreams have all gone deferred.
There were times when I swore that I would have another chance to say my thoughts or tell my feelings.
As for love, why love?
Why let love or lust steal my youth?
Why allow someone that station in my heart, which is so true and to deep, and if at all, why allow someone the scalpel for my throat or the dagger for my back?
I put too much off. I took too much for granted.
I trusted no one.
I never realized that moments and time can dwindle and that even the best of times can fade from reality and suffer the shadows of lost memories.
It is not cold where I am. It is neither hot nor cold, to be clear, and I am in what I assume is more like the slack, which is the same as being in-between the tides that go in and out.
I am neither high nor low.
Same as the body pauses briefly between breaths, I am in that same momentary pause and sifting through my moments as if to be assigned another moment of awareness.
I am clear and unmuddied and yet, I am distant too, like a mode between conscious and unconscious.
I have no pains at the moment and no thoughts of despair. Yet, I have no great expectations nor am I holding the flavor of long-awaited victories or triumphs that nearly broke me.
No.
I am laying back with my head on a broken pillow, looking upwards, as if to see through the ceiling and staring the imaginable version of a starlit sky, —the Universe is more than “just” expansive.
we are all part of something infinite and vast to the point where lightyears exhaust the stars to convince them to stay where they are, —too tired to move more distant, and too far to dare the approach to move closer.
I survived this way.
I endured.
What I mean is I’ve had to find some kind of way to understand my presence. I’ve had to find a way to teach me how to live while otherwise dying alive.
I’ve had to find a way to defy the mental distractions and settle my insecure disputes (somehow.)
I have had to teach myself ways to negotiate the obstacle course of everyday life, and yes, I have had to teach myself ways to turn a blind eye to the invisible scars which root deeply and all the way down to my heart.
I am not in what I would call a favorable position. My conditions and the surroundings and the politics of my environment are unfortunate to say the least.
My beast comes in different versions.
None of which are ugly by any means; and as for her, his head demon, she was far from ugly, until I saw her truth, which is what leads e to where I am (with you)
Then again, this is why I am here.
This is time in Purgatory.
I am segregated and separated in the SHU or the Separated Housing Unit and more to the point and in the most simplest ways; I am otherwise in solitary confinement, alone, and doing what I can to keep myself sane.
I’ve had to count the cracks in the floor. I’ve had to trace the outlines of my imagination, —and aside from the birdbaths I’ve taken in my sink, and regardless of how many times I’ve cursed the walls, resentful for all my losses; my time out of the hole has been minimal at best.
Hence, I feel the need to justify my sanity by acknowledging that yes, I am insane.
I have held the handle of different knives for too long. I have opened too many wounds and set too many traps to blow apart the limbs of innocent bystanders and claimed them to be nothing more than collateral damage.
I’ve seen blood spill and done nothing about it, which incriminates me worse because I knew this was wrong. And even further, this makes me equally as guilty because standing by and doing nothing about the wrongs is equally as guilty as if it were me.
I was a witness and also a working part of the wheels.
I was there to stab the backs of the common inmates around me and I was wrong to claim ignorance to the crimes.
It is nothing to endure. It is nothing for me but more of the same. In fact, to dare the cost of freedom or to dare to stand when it is easier to fall is far newer to me than sinking into submission or satisfying the beast and agreeing with his predictions that degrade me at my source.
I can feel the dampness outside.
I am laying back, listening to the rhythm of the raindrops which scatter on the rooftop, like dying Kamikazes whose parachutes fail to open and yet, like the Kamikaze, the raindrops fall to their deaths both willingly and knowingly because to them, this is their fate.
I don’t know what my fate is.
I can only assume that this is it for now. I can only assume that where I am is where I am intended to be, which does not mean that this is not subject to change.
Anything can change.
Anything can happen.
Life can bud like a brand-new flower, and I can be healed or redeemed and feel the grace of sunlight one more time.
It can be hard inside this place. It can be enough to make me crazy or enough to cause my hallucinations to become audible and like the unwanted sound from the inner voice, I can lose myself.
I can lose my mind. I can fall deeper and sink further.
I can die each and every day here.
And who would know?
Who would care?
Would anyone notice my remains or how I have left a slight indentation in my seat? Or would everything about me disappear when I am gone?
The faucet was dripping last night. I could hear the spot of water that fell to the bottom of the sink.
“Splat splat, splat.” says the droplets from a dirty faucet.
I could hear the wind howling outside and I could hear crying, which came someone further down along the tier in a cell that I assumed was only a few away from mine.
They make places like this to break people like me. They make the walls harder and the bars stronger.
There is no way to break out from here.
But still, I must try.
The Devil is on the guest list this afternoon. I am told he wanted to sleep in this morning and that he would make his rounds a little later today.
But no worries, I can live without the Devil being around me
At least, for one day.
How did I allow myself to wear this mask, to know the flow of blood, or to understand the violent appeal of sinking steal into someone’s belly?
And how did I become so thirsty to understand the outrage of revenge?
Hate breeds hate.
Contempt leads to contempt.
And love?
Love in prison as I risky to say the least.
Love is brave and daring here because love brings us to have feelings and feelings lead to emotions, which expose vulnerability.
I could die this way, hurt and broken, and exposed to the serpents.
How did I allow myself to slip so far from the golden rules and, above all else, how did I allow myself to become so emotionally murderous that I could take life without thought or concern?
Was it that thankless to love someone without conditions?
Or was the thought of loving unconditionally too frightening because true love is charitable?
True love does not account for the give or take, and real love does keep score. Love does not engage with the mass distractions that remove us from our strengths or bury us with weaknesses.
Love builds.
But yes, love can destroy us in every way possible.
I do feel love.
I am frightened to say.
But I do love.
I do care.
I want to break down the walls around me.
I want to destroy this prison.
I want to scale the walls of this dungeon and by any means, even if the razor wire at the top of the prison walls destroy my flesh, —then so be it!
Let them cut me to shreds.
Let the local demons bury me alive.
Let them kill me each and every day because if and when they do, then I can rehearse the moments when I regained my composure.
I can reenact the times when I found the strength it took to stand up and be reborn, or born again.
They’ve kept me here in this cell, and I have allowed my incarceration to take place.
There are no victims in purgatory –
Only volunteers.
I fell asleep . . .
But I woke quickly from a dream.
The stage was set.
the chairs were set out in front of me as theater seating, but the lights were on me. I could not see the members of the audience.
I arrived at the center stage.
overhead, the house light took on an outline around me in the shape of a great circle.
The house was quiet.
I addressed the audience as more of a soliloquy as if to be speaking to myself, but to speak more to them or to myself or to the God above or to God as I understand him.
“What do we want said most that’s not been said already?”
“What do we want the word to know?”
“What do we want them to see?”
I spoke in a poem.
“Here and now,
I find myself broken
and moving in uncertain circles
climbing upwards
and clawing my way,
just to reach the ground level
as if the world below
has done all it can
to keep me from my life
above ground.
How does one keep alive
when all else divides us
between life
or dying alive
one moment
after the next”
I never did readings.
I never read my poetry at an open house.
I never dared to expose myself like that, —and yes, maybe I should.
Maybe I should risk it all and dare the truth and come out, right here and right now, and scream at you, “Goddammit!”
I want more.
I want the dream.
What I have is simply not going to do anymore.
I have outgrown this prison.
But the warden refuses to let me move to the next level.
And the Devil?
He knows this bothers me.
Hence, this is why the Devil laughs because although he offered me the deal—the beast himself laughs out-loud because he loves when someone gives him the chance just to say, “I told you so!”
Yes, you did Satan.
You told me from the beginning.
I know.
But this isn’t the beginning anymore.
The Written Addiction 