Everything Fell Where They May

Understand something.
Everyone has their own science.
Everyone . . .

Everyone has their own way of seeing and understanding and processing information. We all learn in a way that makes sense to us and to some people, the easy things are difficult for others.
Everyone has their own pathology to which I say yes, I have mine too.
I have my own science.
I have my own chemistry which is flawed and perfect or perfectly flawed and yes, I have details and characteristics that make up my own unique and personal description.

I am who I am.
I used to hate this. No, I used to hate this more than anything.
me. My reflection in the mirror.
The sound of my voice.
The look on my face in pictures and photographs.
I always saw the invisible things no one else saw or knew about. yet, to me, I was both obvious and transparent.

In all fairness to me and myself, I do not believe that anyone else in this world rejected me as much as I have rejected myself. Hence, the growth factor and the pain factor and again, everyone learns, everyone processes and understands information in their own way. It has taken me more than five decades to understand this.
Everyone retains information in their own way.

It is not fair . . .
Life, I mean.
It is not fair to be hurt or judged or touched or cut or made to bleed.
It is not fair to be openly and outwardly shamed or ashamed of who we are.
I know shame all too well. He comes to visit me often.

It is not fair to be a victim or to be preyed upon or to be victimized. Therefore, it is unfair to be used, discarded, and above all things; it is not fair to be hurt and left with the invisible scars of a theft and a deep-rooted pain that refuses to heal or go away.

I have these pains.
I assume I am far from alone with this.
I assume that you above all others can understand and relate. Then again, I am me and you are you and we are both the same because of course; you and I have been here (together) like this for as long as time allows us to remember.

I know that you are intended for me and that I am the same for you. I know this is true because how else can time and space and distance happen and somehow, we overlap and we connect. And we we re-connect constantly and in all fairness; something about you and I never seemed to part.
This is more than cosmic.
This is more than being kindred or intended.
This is more than fate or destiny.
This is something big or huge ad so, nothing about this or you can be happenstance or an accident.
At least, not to me.
I have dreamed of you.
I always do
And I always will.
But again, there is a reason why I come here, every day.
This is more and bigger than the two of us.
No one else is here now, except for us, which is why I feel the need to open up more.

I know there is more to this place. And when I say “this place,” I mean the world.
I mean the world outside of my view.
I know there is a world that exists outside the boundaries of me or you or the people we know and the lives we mingle with.
There is more to life than us and our circle of influence.
I know there is.

I know there are more things to do and more places to see and yes, of course, I know this is true.
I absolutely know the world is a big and beautiful place with beautiful people and with all kinds of stories and backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs.
I know that decency is still real.
I struggle at times.
I often mistake kindness for weakness or better yet, I frequently mistake kindness for manipulation and so, I have become a terrible skeptic and a worse critic than those who poison and crucify me with their own judgments.

I know there is more than what the news tells us.
I know there is more than a line that divides us down the middle and separates us between good and evil, or should I say republican and democrat, or liberal, conservative.
We are more than the difference between Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, or Buddhist or Hindu and of course, the list can go on.
Beautiful people are everywhere, especially in ugly places.
Some all them saints
Some call them angels
I call them beautiful

I know there is evil in this world.
Of course, I know.
I have seen enough evil to outlast my time in Hell or Purgatory or to whichever place that will take me or condemn me to; I know cruelty exists.

I have seen bad things. I have seen hard things.
I have done the worst as well and so, therefore, I make no claims to be better or better than anyone else.

I have witnessed crimes and cruelties and hatred which are no longer blinding to me because time has awakened me and caused what I have seen top be eye-opening.

I, myself, have no business or right to teach about hate or hatred.
No, and if honesty is to be honest; then I have to be honest about my ignorance and my arrogance.
I have to be honest about my own crimes and my own sins. I have to face the fact that at some point; I will have to stand and answer for what I have done (or failed to do.)
I have to be honest about the contagious nature of hate and how I grabbed hold of this. I used hate as a cloak. I wore it to protect me, a weak and powerless excuse for a tiny man.
I had no choice. Or so I believed.
I used my hatred as a self-contained breathing apparatus.
Do you understand?
I used hate and aggression and violence like a gas mask. I used this to avoid my fears and devastation with common, personal and self-destruction.
yes . . .
I wore my hatred like a mask and admittedly, I became the worst of myself.
I stole.
I broke each and every one of the seven deadly sins.
I say this humbly and with confession, I say this with true sorrow.

I became my hatred. I became my excuses.
I became my rage and I allowed this to flow through me like a toxic waste.
I gave up too.
I let my hate beat me because my fears always seemed to out-compete me.

I allowed this to fuel my small attempts at the greatest revenge.
But against who?
Who have I avenged?
How has any of my cruelties or acts which I justified helped me or served me for a better purpose or future?

I have met with people who gained physical satisfaction when they returned fire and either figuratively or literally, they were satisfied after destroying their attackers or their enemies.

I can say that I used to have enemies.
I used to have “a list,” so-to-speak.
I have had more than one attacker.
And what did this list do for me?

I saw a man who was mean to me when I was a kid . . .
He was mean and manipulative to me in my younger years. He abused his power and he manipulated me for 11 months.

This man allowed his position to give him a gross and a perverse sense of control. In my opinion and experience; he abused me like someone ripping the wings from a fly while all its friends and family flew off to be well.

I saw this man as someone no different as any other perverse or pedo-like attacker.
And no, this was not the physical sort of attack. But I am sure he would have obliged if he moment was offered.
However, the mental abuse that came from someone in control over me, or from someone who has power over anyone in a mental health facility is dangerous.
This can leave behind a lifelong scar that runs far deeper. These things can become far more intrusive than the surface thinking allows us to believe.
I cannot call me better than him/I have sinned in many ways.
Not like this man
But I have sinned too.
Prisons are filled with criminals and not all have the same crimes, but all will face the same punishment.
And so, I say that imprisonment is a bitch!

I saw this man on 32nd street of all places.
“Is that really him,” I thought to myself.
“Holy Shit! That is him.”
(By the way, this is one of the reasons why I have an appreciation and a strong admiration for the author Lorenzo Carcaterra and his book turned movie, Sleepers.)

I was not a child when I saw this man.
Not anymore.
I was not little or thin and nor was I afraid and nor was I incapable of imposing myself or my will; and lastly, I saw this man during a time in my life when I literally trained myself to be numb and heartless. 
e could have died and I would eat and drink plenty while witnessing his death.
And that would have been fine to me.

There was a crowd around us.
There were others in the room and to be clear, the room was a place where I was commonly seen . . .
and so, this was not a place for me to impose my will.
This was not the right place for me to get my revenge. At the same time; if there was ever a good place to see this man, it was here at an A.A meeting.
I was sober in name only. I was being investigated for certain crimes and I was on probation at this time. Also, I was in the middle of an assault with a deadly weapon charge. This was an assault with the intent to cause severe harm or death, and this is the way I lived at the time of this interaction.

Going forward, I am changing the names at this point to protect the less-than innocent.
I hope you understand . . .
I do this here because parts of this story are not fit for the public eye or publication and no; I am not proud of the way I was.
not at all.
I am not proud of how I was and at the same time; I understand exactly why I was the way I was.

I was going to 12-step meetings for no other reason than the fact that I knew I could do better.
I knew I could be better.
But how?
How do I get rid of these things that hurt me or curse me?

I went to these meetings because I really wanted to believe in good. I wanted to believe that there is purity and wholesomeness.
I wanted to believe in goodness and justice and that yes, there are loving people in this world
There are selfless people who do not keep track or keep score of their good deeds.
There are people who enjoy their random acts of kindness.
I wanted to believe that there are people who do good; not because they have to but because this is their life.

No angle. No scam and no con and no need to impress the judges.
No, this is just life for people like this.
However, in the so-called comfort of anonymity; I found out that bad people are everywhere.
Tis includes Alcoholics Anonymous.
And me?
I was a bad person with the contrast of goodness inside of me. Perhaps this is why I hated life and I hated myself and more; this is why I hated anyone and everyone who reminded me of that thing we call “potential.”

I hated anyone and everyone who reminded me that I felt unlike anyone else.
I hated that I believed that I was so impossibly different and distant and more; I hated anyone and everyone who reminded me of my sins, my lies, my pains and of course, I hated the world.
I hated all things because the world was cruel and self-serving. I hated the world because like any kind of opportunist, people would gladly steal, rape, kill and destroy if this meant no one else would know, no one would find out, and they could get away with it, rich, paid, and free of taxes or any backend fees.
I have see this happen/
So have you

I saw the world through these eyes and so, yes, I was murderous. And yes, if given the chances and the circumstances were appealing enough a man like, say, “Danny,” would have been met with a violent and bloody consequence.
yes . . .
Danny.
We will call him Danny for this entry.
I would have slept soundly and fine after the worst of all dismemberments for hurting me the way he did.

I used to rehearse what I would say to Danny.
I literally practiced this.

“So, Danny . . . you like to fuck with little kids?”

“What’s that Danny? I can understand you?”
“Is the pain too much for you, Danny?”
and of course, I remembered to bring smelling salts to keep Danny from losing consciousness.

“Just admit it . . .”
“Admit what you did to me DANNY!”
“Admit that you like fucking with the heads of little kids!”
“Say it Danny!”
“Say you were wrong!”
“SAY IT!”
“Say you are sorry.”
“Beg me for your stupid pathetic life!”

You cannot imagine the slashings i would perform at this event. But wait –
to alter this to a less-violent description but to hold my contempt and deliver an appropriate and the emotional content and results; I advise that yes, I would be slashing him with a razor.
I would slice his face after each question, feeding from this like a lust-addict and finding please from the way he pleaded for his life.
I would do this and become drunk and enjoy how Danny begged me to stop.
“Please,” I imagined him saying.
I would have made him beg.
I would have loved his cries because to me, they would have been fuel to my fire.

None of this happened.
However,
I was willing to make it so.
more than willing, in fact.

Yes, I rehearsed scenarios of revenge.
I rehearsed what I would say and how I would react to the unthinkable responses from Danny.
I envisioned and imagined how I would respond from anyone like Danny who hurt me.
This was more than a story about one man or one person,  This is about those who stained me or cut me as deep as they did.
I remember swearing things like:
“I’ll show you what it means to have scars, Danny!”

And parts of me would allow Danny to live disfigured and brutalized. Other parts would have killed him. But ore parts of these ideas would allow Danny to survive so that when Danny walked around, he would be feared for being so horrid.
But more, I wanted Danny to see himself in the mirror. I wanted him to hear the reactions from people who saw him.
I wanted him to survive so that each and every day he lives; Danny would know that I am the one who did this to him.
I am the one he hurt and crossed.
I am the one he abused.
Or worse and more perversely; I am the one who acted like the hand of God and I am the one.
Yes. I am the one who punished him.
I am the one who punished him worse than Satan himself. And even in this regard; I wanted to leave Danny in an unthinkable way.
I wanted to mark and leave him so ugly that even the demons and the dogs of hell would look at Danny and find him repulsive.

I saw him . . .
There he was. Live and in person.
Danny . . .
Holy shit . . .

I asked Danny if he remembered me.
He said no.
I informed Danny that I swore if I ever saw him in the street that I was going to kill him.
I told Danny, “I swore I was going to bury you under the cement.”

Danny answered in his true fashion.
“I’m sorry you have been holding these resentments about me Ben, but I don’t even remember you.”

I felt myself shake.
But that was unacceptable.
Emotion has no place in hate and revenge.
I had to be cold, or colder.
Otherwise, how else could I be brutal enough to get my way.

I stopped Danny from speaking.
I told him, “And the way you just answered me is why I swore that I was going to kill you, dead!”

Danny acted as if to be tough and not afraid and he said, “And yet, you didn’t do anything to me, Ben,  so I guess I’m safe.”
I looked at Danny with eyes, bloodred and hateful and I growled in the angriest sense of the word.

There was too much emotion. No. If I was to be the person I trained to be, then I needed to be colder.
There was a roomful of people.
And so, in front of everyone I explained his safety in the voice, which I had rehearsed for years.
My teeth were clenched and my jaw was locked tight.
I calmed myself down to the smoothest form of evil and I said, “That’s because there are too many witnesses.”

Danny had no idea who or what I became and nor did Danny understand that I trained myself to be this way.
I trained myself to administer pain without emotion, just like a butcher to his slaughter or a fisherman when he guts his catch despite their pain or their life.

Everything fell where they may . . . 

I am not that way and nor do I support that lifestyle.
I do not condone or nurture and champion the victimhood mindset.

I supposed it was safe that I saw Danny where I did.
He was small to me.
He was bigger than me when I met him.
He was weak.
But Danny was stronger than me before.
Dany had power, not to mention the legal ramifications Danny could have imposed on me or how his position at the mental health facility could have impacted my court case. I was remanded to this treatment facility.
Had I been thrown out or responded to his as an abuser, Danny could have responded in-kind and caused me to serve the alternate prison sentence for somewhere close to 1-2 years.
Danny held a position over me and toyed with my mind. He used my past and my abuse as if this would be his own personal form or mental masturbation.

He should have died for this.
At least, this was true in my eyes.
But the one thing I learned is that no matter how dead Danny or others like him can be; their crimes and their scars remain.
Therefore, I would rather deal with my scars now than kill someone and still feel their life as it haunts and hurts me from their graves

 I admit to the shortsighted or closed minded part of me.
I admit to the part of me that fails to think outside of the box.
I admit my scars and background and my history often confuse me and cause my failure to see the greatest, bigger picture.

I know there is more to life.
I know there is more than meets the eye.
I know that life comes with hidden treasures.
I know that the blindness from our hysterics and the untrained eye can be unaware of such beautiful things.
But be advised –
beauty is everywhere. . . .
I know there are simple, soft and gentle things in this world.
I say they act as proof that beauty cannot be destroyed.

There are small and simple things, like say, a perfect shell on the beach.
I have collected many of them.
I have collected shells with colorful swirls and tiny details that were once a home to a little sea creature.

But there is more. Much, much more.
There is more to us and there is more to the world.
There are mountains and lakes and rivers and seas.
There are nighttime’s and skylights and views of things.
Say, for example, like the time I was staying over by Hollywood and standing on top of a rooftop in Los Angeles California.
I saw the sunset.
Man . . .
this was beautiful
I know I have not seen much. I know there is more out there.
I know that my focus on people, places and things can either promote a better life or on the opposite side; they can hurt and degrade me like Danny did

Someone asked me once . . .
“What would you have done?”
They asked about Danny
“If I could have gotten away with it you mean?”
“Yes.”
“You mean if there were no witnesses in the room?”
I was asked, “Yes. What would you have done”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” I explained, “but whatever the outcome would have been, I’m sure his remains would have been horrendous and if you knew the truth, I’m afraid you would see me as disturbing.”

I often wonder if anyone understands what it means to be hurt.
And I mean really hurt.
I mean cut deeply with an invisible, emotional scar that never heals or goes away.
And when I say hurt . . .
I mean hurt down to the core.
I mean left with a pain that never goes away and an itch that cannot be reached or scratched.
And so, when I say I wonder if anyone knows what it means to be hurt, I also wonder if anyone knows what it’s like to be pushed into a transformation that results with an insanity that can never be calmed or satisfied 

I do not think an interaction would be necessary to meet with Danny or anyone who holds memories like Danny.
But, if the interaction came about and due to circumstances beyond my control; yes, I would handle this much differently now.

I saw someone who I used to feel a similar contempt for. And too, I swore that if and whenever I saw him again, I would let him know who he is and what he did and why he has to pay.

I saw him
I felt nothing
I walk away.
I felt nothing.
No concern.
No regrets for not responding

No anger.
No resentment.
Just peace.

I want peace . . .
I want to see the beautiful things in this world.
I want to be gentle.
I want to see the small or the tiny delicate things in this world and hold them as close and as dearly and gently. I want to hold them as close as my body, mind and my soul allows me to hold them
(and I will never let them go)

I know why I am who I am.
I know why I was who I used to be.
I know that I am not the same.
I also know that who I am tomorrow will not be the same as who I am today.

I thank God for small favors.

I suppose people like Danny should be thankful too.
But no.
That has nothing to do with me anymore.
The person I am training to be doesn’t think about revenge
That job belongs to someone else
And that hate belongs to them too

And to be honest . . .
they can have it
I think I’ve bled enough

you know?