Looking at you, I wonder what it is that goes on behind your smile. I watch you sometimes. I seldom tell you this, but I do.
I sit quietly and watch you because in times like this words are unnecessary and they would do nothing else but interrupt my picture of you.
In some cases, something comes Continue reading
Author Archives: bennyk1972
A Note from The “Once Fat” Kid
After scrolling through a series of photographs, I came across one with me in it. Having realized that I almost failed to recognize myself, nearly asking, “Who is that fat guy?” I became painfully aware of what had happened to me.
To put this kindly; I was overweight. My knees hurt and my ankles were bad as well. My face was rounded and bloated. My stomach was round too and the tattoo of an Asian princess on my lower rib and across my stomach had gained enough weight that she no longer resembled an Continue reading
Something from The Daddy Diaries:
One day you will be older. Today will be gone and so will tomorrow.
Someday, my answers to your questions will make more sense than they do now. And someday, whenever that day may be, you will look back at this; you’ll look back and be able to see through the misunderstandings; you’ll see through the misinterpretations, and the miscommunication. Someday, you’ll look back and you’ll see through the times when I was Continue reading
Experience, Strength, and Hope
I heard these words before.
“A fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other, that they may solve their common problem and help others recover from . . .”
I heard these words before, but words like these were too far for me to grasp.
Walking through a series of double doors and into a small room, lined with chairs that were filled with others like me, I had no idea what to expect. This was not my first time in a room like this. I suppose it was just the first time I was able to pay attention. My mind had cleared enough that I could listen to what was being said. It was the first time I listened to Continue reading
Letters From A Son
I was remembering the days when I used to sit down in a little coffee shop on 7th Avenue by 40th Street. I always took a seat that faced the window so I could watch the people walk passed. I would sit and write to you and tell you about life in New York City. My eyes were much younger then and everything seemed so new. My world was very different then and the times were different too. The price of a cup of coffee was certainly a lot less than it is now. This was back before cellular phones overtook society. This was when people sat across from each other and spoke in detail about life and whatever else. Instead of looking at their phones or whatever technical Continue reading
Love Honestly
When I was young, around 19 or so, I met this girl and we decided to try and play house. This seemed like a good idea at the time. In truth, I had never had a relationship before this girl. I never really had a high school sweetheart or went through the normal teenage patterns of love or at least the kind of love that teaches how to love someone else. I never felt that sense of white-picket lust or the romanticized idea of sexual desire that is often confused for love—the kind that comes with the general novelty of man and woman, together, and happy.
At best, my attempts at love were Continue reading
To Deal With Demons . . .
It was wintertime in the year 1989. I found myself underneath a bridge that stretched over the Meadowbrook Parkway. My skin was a greener shade of pale and I was painfully thin.
I had no idea of what time it was or how long I had been sitting beneath the bridge. The gray sky was losing sunlight, and soon enough the blustery cold day would become a blustery cold night.
I was sitting on south side of the Parkway, situated up at the top of a concrete hill beneath the green, structural beams that made up the underside of the bridge. I was far enough away from the speeding cards that drove along and far enough away from prying eyes. More importantly, I was Continue reading
A Young Man and His Car
There is an experience unlike any other when sitting in the driver’s seat of a brand new car or even a new car, one that regardless to who may have owned or drove it before, the car is new to the driver sitting behind the wheel. Once the keys exchange hands, next are the fantasies that spark the ideas for a new sense of adventure. Whether the thought is small or youthfully huge, a new car brings on a Continue reading
Sessions From The Balcony: Just For Fun
Alone in the dark night and sleeping in a half-empty, king-sized bed, Marie lay quietly with a pillow covering her eyes to drown the surrounding noise the often echoed in the corridor of her Lower Westside apartment. The hour was beyond midnight and the alarm was set to ring at 5:45am with a minimum two pushes of snooze button delays, which Marie would utilize and eventually arise from bed at 6:05am.
Marie’s body curled to the side. The sheets were swaddled around her legs with left foot sticking out from beneath the covers—toes pointed towards the front of the bed; her right leg drawn in and up towards Continue reading
Holding Cell Memories
Man in the holding cell with me was a Jehovah’s Witness. He was Jamaican and he had been in the cell since Saturday afternoon. By the time I wandered into Hempstead’s holding facility, Sunday had already come and was almost gone.
As I approached my cell, the guard stopped me.
“Right here,” he said
He slid open the barred door instructing me to, “Turn and face the cell.”
And like the man said, I turned to the right, stepped slightly into the cage with my hands cuffed behind my Continue reading
