Please excuse the rant but writing helps me feel better. This is for two men who are special and dear to me. They are friends but more they are both soldiers of their own battles:

I would like to address the overdoses

Two different men from two different towns told me about two separate events but both with the same outcome. And to both I said this we need to use this to sharpen our pencils because the rest of our life hasn’t been written yet.
And yes, this is sad. Yes, this hurts to see. And yes, there is an entire world out there that has no idea what’s going on.
And they’ll talk about the issue in Continue reading →

I was never one to enjoy being along. Perhaps, this was because I couldn’t stand my own company but nevertheless, I found myself alone, high as could be, often times wondering what my life would have been like if I just turned right instead of left.
I was in my bedroom and I could feel something terrible coming for me. I knew there was something on the way but like a child with his under-the-bed monster, I had no idea what dangers awaited me.
I weighed next to Continue reading →

It was my last day on the farm. I was about to embark on a new journey and about to enter into a new, unknown chapter. It was a morning like any other. Like usual, the sun came up over the mountains the same way it did for the 11 months of my stay. I was a dorm supervisor. I was a leader and senior member. I was someone with a respected name and position, a friend to many, and a brother to some. It was strange to think how this would be the last morning I woke up in the dorm. This would be the last time I had breakfast with my housemates. This would be the last time I had to answer to the daily regiment and follow the house rules. It was strange to think that after this morning, I would be released to a Continue reading →

It was long ago but then again, long ago is where all of our old memories come from. We were much younger, of course. And this was me. I was young, crazy, and wild, which, with all three ingredients being equal, the combination was dangerous. I was one of the loud ones from the town. I was one of the mischievous and the troubled, anxious to live as fast as I could, and ambitious to dare it all and defy the odds. And his was fun to me. It was fun to defy the Continue reading →

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The sameness between most is the attitude you see in any punk kid off the street. They all think they have it. They all think they’ve found the edge, which makes them an outlaw of some kind or a gangster in their own mind. And you can tell when the attitude is real or just an act from a rookie. You can tell by look in their eyes and the things they say.
It goes back to an old saying about tough guys which says, “Those that do, don’t and those that don’t, do.” What this means is a tough guy never has to warn anybody.
A gangster doesn’t have to brag or draw attention to himself; instead, the real outlaw sits in silence enjoys the wealth of his anonymity. The real ones are the ones you would never know were Continue reading →

It was the last winter of my former self. I was in the basement of a corner bar in a little strip mall next to the 7-11 store at the corner of Front Street and Merrick. It was late and somewhere after 1:00am during a cold, mid-winter rainstorm. I was not too far from my home where my mother and father slept. My brother, the hall of fame athlete, the rock star, the hero, and a name that was amongst the most popular of my town was elsewhere in the world. He Continue reading →