I have seen it. I have seen it all. Or at least, so I think I have.
I have seen everything.
I have seen the sun come out after the rain.
I have seen the sun go down and I have watched as the gray skies overtook the heavens. I have heard the calm before the storm and witnessed as they came in quickly and silently, as if to prove that something serious is about to happen.
The world is always taking place.
We know this.
I know that time cannot stop nor be rewound or interrupted.
Nothing stops the hands of time. Not life or death.
Not the blasts from a nuclear explosion.
Not the brakes on a car when the driver overestimated their safety.
Nothing stops.
I remember what the next day was like.
And this is more than one “next day.”
I remember the day after I saw death for the first time.
The sun came out.
Nothing stopped.
I remember the morning after waking up in the worst of place. I was held here against my will, obviously, and I was corralled with the worst of people.
I was in the den of real thieves, all of who smelled as if showering was far from their schedule.
I was locked up with so-called men, all of whom were locked in the same room as I was and perhaps their details were different, but either way, each and every one of us were waiting for the time in which we stood before the judge.
all rise . . .
court is now in session.
I remember the way time refused to stop while I was in an emergency room.
I was there as a specialist and watched a woman weep over her son.
She did not speak English.
All she could ask me was one thing.
Why?
“He’s a good boy,” are the words that were translated to me.
But heroin and fentanyl are unconcerned about things like good boys, bad ones, or anyone otherwise.
The head nurse came over to me and woke me up to reality.
She told me:
You have to go.
You are on call!
Snap out of it!
Someone else is going to need you.
That boy is dead and there is nothing you can do about that now!
Someone else needs you now.
There was a time when life or pain or both did not phase me.
I was unmoved because I trained myself to be unmovable. Therefore, I learned to endure and be someone who lived without feeling, which is a lie, because there is no such thing as unfeeling.
There are always feelings.
They may be buried.
They may be distant.
They may be brutal
They may be painful and outraged.
But they are there
I met a man in Brooklyn who had to see me in a bad way.
I liked this.
I did.
I liked this because I was different back then
I regret to admit to this because out of all that things that I trained for, and out of anything I trained myself to be; the last thing I will ever be proud of is being unfeeling and some kind of monster.
I was cold to the touch and lifeless in the sense that if I die, then I die.
And if you die, then you die.
And such is life and such is death and to feel or weep or to be vulnerable to the source of things, like say, love and kindness was not something I would allow.
And I am sorry.
I am.
No one has permission to be a butcher or to be mean and cruel.
No one has the right to pass the torch with these things, just because life was mean or cruel to them
No one has the right to become murderous,
No one has the right to betray others because they were fooled and betrayed and felt the disgust of being humiliated.
No one has this right and yet; I am guilty.
My traumas, although real and although valid are not permissible and nor does this make any sort of justified homicide and nor does this account for a permissible suicide.
There is, was, and there always will be reasons and excuses and beliefs behind my actions.
However, nothing wrong can make things right.
No matter what the reason is; accountability remains and like I was told when I was urged to find God or finding my higher power: May you find this now.
Accountability, that is.
We are all accountable.
There is no way to deny the truth.
Facts are facts and opinions are opinions and in the end, right is right, wrong is wrong.
Heaven is Heaven and Hell is here, live and in person.
I know this the same as I know the marks on my skin.
I remember sitting in a funeral home at a wake of an old business associate.
No one was so moved.
Death was somehow this normal thing to most of them
There were some, of course, who wept.
Like, say, his wife, for example.
I knelt beside her in front of the coffin because she wanted to bring me in front of him.
She mentioned out loud, “look who came to see you.”
She spoke to his body, laid to rest, as if her husband could hear or see or know that me, his “young friend” came to pay my respects.
The wife bowed her head in prayer.
I acted in kind and bent my head forward, chin tucked down, and my eyes closed with a humble sign of significant respect.
Hail Mary . . .
Full of grace . . .
The Lord is with Thee . . .
She prayed
My eyes were closed and I prayed along.
I heard her begin to wail in the worst cries of all possibilities.
Next, she began to climb into the coffin.
I looked up to see this.
Then I noticed a large man, perhaps the largest I have ever seen, big as ever, and yes.
This was not good.
Their name ended with a vowel and perhaps, yes, there was an uncomfortable presence of so-called organized crime in the room.
I looked up at the large man, perhaps like a deer noticing the headlights of an oncoming truck.
The snarl I received from the large man was menacing to say the least.
I apologized.
I offered extra apologies later on but I was told that perhaps the words “sorry’ are not becoming of a moment like this.
it was recommended and seen as better that my silence would be better, as well as my absence and so, I left the funeral home shortly after.
The hard facts of life are as follows.
Tomorrow is still going to come.
The sun will go up and down.
This will happen no matte how much we want to right the wrongs that hurt us most.
The moon will do its trick and change in phases, just like us.
I am not full like the moon and nor am I shaped like a thumbnail when the moon is only a quarter-full.
However, I am still here and still witness to the world around me.
I am still bargaining for my life and pleading with a God as I understand him.
I am looking to find some kind of salvation or clemency and forgiveness of sin.
However, whether I am absolved or not or found innocent until proven guilty –
Excuses are excuses.
Right is right
Wrong is wrong
And no excuses are fit for me or you or for anyone when it comes to hurting someone.
No one can justify hurting the undeserved or making them pay for crimes that someone else committed.
And so, you have a past.
Yes. I have one of those too.
I have secrets.
I have sins.
I have skeletons in the closet, or so they say.
I have several, in fact.
They are hiding and hanging like the dead tales of crimes and mistakes from my past.
I have bled on those who did not cut me.
And I have tortured those who never hurt me.
I apologize
I have reasons why this happened.
But reasons are excuses and excuses do not mean that we are justified.
All can do is understand “why,” because these are the reasons that map our past to a level of understanding, which is supposed to teach us and train us not to go backwards and ever be that way again.
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
It has been countless years since my last confession
and with all I have left in my soul;
I don’t know where to begin.
I am no different from the prodigal one.
The son who went missing
I went off and I squandered everything and worse, I lost all you have given to me.
I am hungry.
I have no where to go
I have no one to love me
No one to save me
No warmth for my hand
No one to meet me halfway
And no one to feel what I wished I could have given had I been true from the very beginning.
Blessed Father,
Look upon me as the good thief who hung on the cross beside The Son of Man and pleaded, “remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
The Son of Man looked at the good thief, St Dismas and said:
“Today, you will be with me in paradise.”
Blessed Father,
I do not know what paradise is.
I do not know if I could ever pay what I owe or if my soul’s bankruptcy leaves me soulless and headless or meaningless.
I do not know about these things
I have too many marks and too many stigmas and too many crimes to plead innocent.
And nor can I plead innocent by way of temporary insanity.
But I am trying
And I do believe the fact that I am here and the fact that I confess with true sorrow and the fact that I want more for myself are things that please you
I believe this because I believe the biggest of all sins are to waste the gifts we have been given
So, yes
Hell might be here and the demons might be on the road beside me; and I might not be worthy to gain access anywhere else.
But I am here.
I am chopping away, one change at a time
And of course . . .
let the chips fall where they may because again,
my redemption has nothing to do with anyone’s response
(but yours)
Amen
The Written Addiction 