America,
I need to address you like this again, hopeful and hopeless and frustrated with those who wave their fist and scream for justice and anarchy or for whatever else comes in-between.
I see them often too, those who call themselves the political justice warriors, and I see how they scream for our government to do their job.
I think about this.
I think about this the same way I thought about how the dog peed on the floor and rather than clean it, I pretended not to see it so Mom would notice and clean it up herself.
I see much of the world does the same thing, even if they don’t have a dog!
I am sorry to say that no one is around to clean up after me. No one will be around to clean up after the rest of us either, and yet, I see people screaming about this thing known as civic responsibility. I hear people firing and how they yell from their sofas and armchairs.
But the tail must have wagged the dog or the dog stopped wagging its tail.
I hear people complain but they never clean up the dogshit . . .
They never get up or do anything but yell and scream and complain or point out the people who failed to do their job.
I see people do this as if this was “their” job.
I think about this often.
I think about the race and the working class man, boots on, sleeves rolled up with dirty hands from a grime that never goes away.
And in all, all the everyday worker can do is work another shift to make ends meet and pray harder for their daily bread.
I am one of them too, a worker.
I am also too deep in the conversations and too deep in the arguments and too deep in my own debt. I am too set in my ways, which have to change.
I am in too deep and cursing the fact that one adds to two and two multiplies to four and before I knew it, my bills escalated and yes; the cost of gas is enough to make me cry poverty.
I see this and my daily pumps, forgiving my trespasses but never forgiving those who trespass against me as I only fill my gas tank up to halfway.
I say this with a full acknowledgment because war is hell and partial wars are worse because half-wars are far more costly and expensive than full, and complete, and total annihilation.
And, no. This is not to say I want to annihilate anyone. This is not to say that I would prefer to nuke or decimate and destroy another country. I do not say this because no one is really my enemy. And America, I have to be honest here because even if they are an enemy, the rocks they thrown cannot reach me because my house is far from the Middle East.
But let them cross the Hudson River again, and I promise to give my all.
I think the problem I see all too often is we treat the heart attack after it happens.
Not before.
I suppose the news machine in the Middle East looks to make the people over there hate me the same as our machine look to make me hate them.
But have to say –
War is war.
It’s not a game of who can hit the softest.
Not even the news and the mass gadgets of wild assumptions are enough to excite me anymore. I am done.
I am tired of the social media inaccuracies and reels that report some kind of disconnected truth. I am tired of the fake reports and the spin-offs that have been dragged out and beaten, or if I may; the news I see has been heavily stepped on and diluted. I say the news is like the old twenty-bags of bad cocaine that came out of East New York, Brooklyn, and made it out to a little humble town called East Meadow.
America,
My tank is nearly empty and I have countless miles to go.
My spirit is only strong enough to endure like the “little engine that could.”
Then again, the little engine that could was the same engine that “had to make it,” because “the little engine could,” had no other choice.
I am that way too now.
This is the heart of a working man or woman.
No gender needs to be specified.
But this is what the real world looks like and this is how most people live.
America, I love you.
I do.
I will never regret my love for you; however, I do believe that you have been betrayed from within.
I do believe we have created a working system that does not seem to be working at the moment.
And yes, of course, it is us who have failed you.
Not the other way around.
We run and we run and we meet ourselves at the door.
We stand with candles burning at both ends.
The butter has been spread too thin and thus, the bread never gets buttered right.
But hey, at least there’s a slice of bread and a sliver of butter to feed my half-empty belly.
At least I can feed myself enough to be partially satisfied instead of always hungry.
America,
I do not see any streets paved with gold and in all fairness to my City, I notice more of the homeless on the ground. I see them with infected needles bent in dirty veins and meanwhile, Johnny Wednesday and Sally Thursday step over their bodies and keep it moving.
I see people avert their eyes and move faster because their office says they can’t work from home anymore.
I see them, all the time, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful
I see people rushing to their prospective workplaces and maneuvering through their daily obstacle course, which begins at a places like, say Penn Station, or grand Central, or from a called Port Authority, over on 8th Avenue by 42nd Street.
America,
The right wing says I’m wrong and the left wing tells me I’m wrong too and that I am out of touch.
And maybe this is true.
Maybe I am wrong because I would rather work to make a change than complain from my couch and see nothing happen.
Maybe I am wrong because I am neither left nor right but instead, I am stationed in the middle of the chest and part of the heartbeat that feeds blood to this country.
My blood and sweat and my effort is part of what pumps the daily machine.
And speaking of machines, I am one who takes part in running the turbines to heat and cool my City. My collar is blue and my hands are stained with blood and guts and filth and grime.
And you . . .
You my love.
You, New York City
Ah, my first and only true romantic love.
New York City.
My girl . . .
My walk past the playhouse to notice the sign of a play called RENT, which helped to change my perspective of life and death or the way I count “Five hundred Twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.”
(Sleep well Jonathan Larson. You have no idea what you’ve done for me, even though you don’t know me at all)
You, my love and my greatest and most beautiful history.
My heart and soul.
My longing and my pain and my redemption.
You.
My truest, sweetest heart and my exemption from this place I call reality,
which comes to me when I dream
(of you)
My love for you has connections that root deeply and all over, from Harlem to the East River, to the Hudson, the sections of SoHo and Downtown, Uptown, and all parts, everywhere.
I see you everywhere I turn.
I view you, longhaired and wild, looking at me with the most seductive eyes, like my wild temptress whom I could never deny.
You are my siren.
You are my sin.
you are my hope and my redemption and equally –
you are my dream.
My love for you is far more vast than the endless galaxy, complex and filled with mystery.
I view you the same way (even still) and I see you just as starry-eyed as I did when I recall driving over the 59th Street Bridge for the very first time.
This is what it means to feel love
or to find love
or to hear van Morrison say, “Hey. it’s me. I’m dynamite and I don’t know why!”
America,
I am your sick and tired refuse.
I am your weak and your poor.
I am your mouse who spins the wheel and the rat in the maze and occasionally I am the rat in a cage, pent up with frustrations that are far more astounding than the average contempt.
New York,
I beseech you.
I beg you.
Put me where I am supposed to be.
Place me where you want me to go.
Let me learn my lesson.
Let me look beyond the bricks and the bones and the trash cans and the sweat and let me see the stars on quiet nights.
My God, My Father, My source and My Protector,
Pardon me for my part of my own destruction, I beg you.
Save me from myself so that I might find your grace without being blinded by the common demons who look to confuse me with lies.
Let me see myself the way I was born, which is perfect, because we are all born perfect.
We are all perfect, despite our disadvantages or so-called imperfections.
Let me be free from myself so that I can see clearly now.
And America,
Lastly, despite my faults and flaws and my greedy moments, I know it is within me to help you be greater than ever.
And so, one step, one second, one minute and one day at a time, I offer myself to you
Do with me as you choose.
I bow my head in consent.
For I am nothing more than a forgotten prince, ostracized and abandoned and looking to find myself in my own kingdom, by any means necessary
So help me God . . .
Albeit small, and albeit humble,
I have nothing else to offer you but this
Me.
Please take me as I am
I love you
Always
because there is no such thing
“as never.”
The Written Addiction 