Good Or Bad, I Was One Of The Ones

Up early this morning. But then again, why would this day be any different from the next or any other?
I am always up early.
But today was different.
The rain was misty and damp to say the least.
Spring has sprung.
I know.
But yet, somehow, the winter is afraid to lose its grip and embrace the warmth.
I get that.

I find myself stuck with another one of those, “impasse” feelings as if to be lost at a crossroad between the past, the future, and the decision to go either left or right.

I had another one of those dreams again.
I woke up to realize that there’s no use falling back to sleep. So, I stood up. I got in my car.
And I drove home.

Maybe I have already told you too much.
Or maybe I have told you nothing of substance or worthy enough for you to see where I’m coming from.
Maybe my confessions fell short and the priest was just an imposter in a uniform, recording my plea so that he can testify against me in the court of law.

Maybe I overplayed my hand which always leads me to worry or fear that perhaps I overstayed my welcome.
I have done this before.
I’ve failed to get the hint more than once.
If anything at all; my greatest fear is to find out I meant nothing at all.
“It was all a lie”
Do you know what I mean?
 
These dreams . . .
They come to me at times like this.
And my fears?
They seem to magnify and multiply the shreds of my irrational concerns.

I suppose my fears can be just as crippling as any other disease.
Then again, not all diseases are deadly from a literal perspective.
In other words, I can say the disease of chronic insecurity kills us from a figurative point of view. 

And worry?
Worry can be an action.
Worry can build and create wars that never needed to happen.
Worries drop bombs in preemptive attacks that scream from tiny, insecure warriors who fear the demons at the tribunal for their war crimes.

Worries can degrade us, destroy us, and cause us to self-destruct. I know.
Worries can explode in ways that promote our worst possible assumptions.
I believe these are called self-fulfilled prophecies.

I am humble now. And small too.
I am weak, if you will, which is fine as long as I am here.
No one can hurt me here.
Not even me.
Not even you.

The dream is not much different from my childhood ones. At least, the core of them are similar.
They are based upon humiliation or exposure. Take this for example; I am afraid of the worst exposure.
And I have been exposed by once trusted people who barked about secret truths. And they loved this too.
Pain is fun when it belongs to someone else, I suppose.

My youthful embarrassments are not as degrading.
No.
Those dreams seem to be like when I was in the second grade and they sent me to the nurse’s office for “emergency pants.”
Purple corduroys.
Not cool pants to wear at all.
I might as well wear a sign that said, “Hi, my name is Ben. I sit in Mrs. Rowan’s class and I pissed my pants. Be sure to ruing my life from here o in!”
 

I was exposed after the lunch aide paraded me around the cafeteria for wetting my pants.
I tried to defend myself.
I said that I spilled my milk. But the cold-hearted bitch found it necessary to point out to everyone that I never opened my milk.
What a bitch!

I have had other exposures like this. Some were more shameful and sadder and personal, like, say, when the realization arrives as you mature to know better.
And then your eyes open to a new brand of humiliation.

I tell you that realization is not always kind nor friendly or beneficial.

By the way –
I have overstayed my welcome before.
I have been “the one” who found out that not only was I the last to get the joke, but the joke was on me the entire time.

I am bad with these things. I am bad at “getting the hint,” and so, my old survival methods were to assume that I was not welcome; and since this was true to me, I could never welcome anyone. I could never let anyone in or let anyone be close enough to make me be the fool again.
I reuse to believe that I am the only one who thinks this way.

My assumptions often go back to the idea that one thing is like all things, and too, I believe that some things never go away or become forgotten.
Some wounds throb like a lifelong heartbeat.
Some of those pains can linger, like the insults of bullies or the unwanted touch from an unwanted hand or the forced entry of someone cruel, who found a weakness and took their knife and showed what it means to be brutal and opportunistic.  

I had stayed with someone and thought that love would conquer all. This was before I realized that love is not love if (or when) that so-called love is based on a lie.

I chased and I chased and I tried and I tried.
I ran after this person until I realized that lies from either side cannot make anything true.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
You know?

I understand the mathematics that say a negative number times a negative number equals a positive.
But lies are lies and in this case, no amount of lying can prove to be positive or compiled into a petty lie that we would rather be true.

A lie is a lie, no matter how hard we pretend.

I tried to turn the other cheek and let my denial take its course.

But the obvious elephant in the room grew too big, too loud, and all of this became too huge for anyone to ignore.
Eventually, all the impurities rise to the surfaces.
And I
I am impure to say the least.

This dream was more of a nightmare.
I was being escorted out of the house.
But the house was not mine and unlike yours or anyone else’s.
Suburbia though.

But not my suburbs.

I heard her voice.
“This is why everyone hates you!”
These words came from a past loved one who turned liar and enemy.

Everyone was waiting on the front lawn.
This was far worse than pissing my pants in the second grade. I can tell you that much.

“You are going to rot in hell!”

I was being taken away in handcuffs.
I tried to beg for you.
I tried to call for you.
I tried to tell you how I loved you, but your family was there to run interference.
“He’s not our fried anymore.”

Everyone was there from my past to my present enemies and down to those who I had hurt or harmed.

The front lawn of the home was filled with people from my past.
I saw the man from the subway. He’s the one who took the fight to me, yet I managed to cheat in this regard.
I don’t know what happened to him after.
I just left, and I fled quickly, up the stairs and happy to make my way out to the 42^nd Street exit.
This, of course, was in a pre-terrorist age before 9/11 and before cameras perched like technical witnesses with photographic evidence of every turn and at every corner.

I saw the man with a cut face.
From the right cheekbone to the righthand corner of his lip.

I saw the man who knelt and cowered and pleaded at the point of a .357 magnum as it aimed at his head.
I saw them and a list of others, bleeding or emptied from their wealth, and eager to grab their vengeance.

I saw an old roommate who lied more than I did and yet, his crimes are equal to, if not worse than mine.
And somehow; that son of a bitch gets clemency and me?
I get the chair.

I heard someone say, “You’re gonna die alone.”

I was being walked to a state trooper’s car.
I was trying to resist but my dream legs made it too hard for me to walk, or move, or pivot and make my escape.

I woke up alone and scared and in our absence, I saw the consequences of myself. I felt the repercussions of my past and my hate and my rage. 

Bless me father, for I have sinned.

It has been a lifetime since my last confession, and my fears are that the devil is gaining and the deal was already made. Signed by yours truly, of course.

“What are your sins, my son?”
What’s the devil giving out for treason and betrayal these days?

“I’m hearing the jury is coming back with guilty verdicts and the sentences are something like, three eternities to life without the possibilities of parole. What do you have for me, kid?”

I have my confession

“Do you have true sorrow for your sin?”
I think I do.

“I can request a stay of execution and ask the judge to grant you a spot in purgatory for a few millennia’s, providing you are willing to turn state’s evidence and relinquish your soulless past.”

Can we get that down to a three-flat with an 80% that includes my time served and time off for good behavior?

“I don’t know, son. The stack of evidence is thick”

Shall I throw myself at the mercy of the court?
“You can try. But I think The Man with the gavel has seen that plea before.”

Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?
“Only God forgives, son.”

People are imperfect.
The world is unfair, and unless you leash your tongue or crucify your flesh on a daily basis, it is within you to sin. 

I asked the clouds, “So why do I bother to try?”
I suppose I do this for the same reason I dream.

One day, I hope that something is going to give.

I know you are out there.
somewhere.