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just a memory

From Sessions in The Balcony:

In the heart of New York City, there is a tall glass building that stands one block east of Columbus Circle on 57th Street at Seventh Avenue. This is home to places like The Brooklyn Diner. This is also where I worked my first shift as an operating engineer.

Reaching high above street level, the commercial office building was headquarters to a large real estate company. There was a radio station. There were attorney offices and media companies. There was Continue reading →

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Love

She opened the door to her home. Her eyes twinkled from the candlelight that flickered in the living room behind her. Outside, the full moon took its place in the center of an autumn’s night sky. The stars were bright and the wind was brisk and cool. Inside, however, the dim light from her apartment and soft music was nearly as warm as the sensation of her skin.

He thought to himself, “I knew right away.”
Her eyes seemed Continue reading →

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About Someone ‘Coming Out’

Fall, 1989

There were three buildings at my place in Liberty, New York. The first building was the foremost and closest to the road with a semi-circular driveway. The lawn inside the indentation of the circular driveway was slightly overgrown. The Blacktop was cracked and bulged from the roots of a tree that grew in the lawn. This was the main building where I first made my entryway to undergo 42 days of in-treatment drug rehabilitation. This is house is where the patients Continue reading →

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this is how the virus spread

Everyone wants to ride high on the wave but no one wants to tumble. And by tumble, I mean crash. No one ever wants their ride to end. No one wants to find themselves faced down in the sand.

But hey, it comes with the territory . . .

I walked across Front Street with two small packages hidden Continue reading →

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The Blue, The Black, The White

I admit it . . .

I used to call them cops and pigs. I never saw them as policemen or policewomen. I never saw them as man or woman at all. I saw them as a badge and a uniform. I hated them the same as I assumed they hated me.

Given a safe environment, I grew up in a decent neighborhood with few to little stories about major crime. Most Continue reading →

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The Necessary Scrapes and Bruises of Life

I say we need to scrape our knee once in a while. I say we need the bumps on the head, the black and blue bruises on the arms and legs. We need the scars from a bad idea to remind us what not to do. I say we all fall. Whether we fall flat on our ass or on our face is irrelevant

Falls are necessary. We need to fall sometimes. How else would we learn to stand back up, start over, and continue? How else would we know our own strength if there was no such thing as adversity or opposition?

I remember some of my worst falls. I remember sitting in a small cell, listening to some of the other inmates singing rap songs, and wondering what waited for me the next morning. The two inmates screamed their songs to bounce Continue reading →

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Bedtime Stories For The Insoniac

The Jason Pitkin incident:

Nearly a decade passed after the small Upstate town of Liberty New York was shaken from a tragedy in the otherwise peaceful town. Almost all had been forgotten, and those who were uninvolved had their minds on their own life.

Jason Pitkin was a small, scrawny young man. He was pimple-faced and pale skinned. His glasses were thick, wire-rimmed frames, which were too big for his small bony face. His dark brown eyebrows were Continue reading →

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Bedtime Stories For The Insomniac

Just for fun: The Parole Board

 

Manhattan, wintertime, 1989

I was dressed somewhat warmly with gloves that allowed my fingertips to poke through and stood on a roof—high above Lexington Avenue and faced the downtown of Manhattan. I looked at the far off lights on the bridges that connected the city to Brooklyn and their reflection that glimmered across the East River. I inhaled the cold air to find a moment of easiness. It was amazing to me how peaceful these sight could be—even Continue reading →

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a letter

I sat on a Manhattan bound bus this morning. I pulled my hood up and with my seat tilted slightly back, I leaned my head against the tinted window to watch droplets of freezing rain drizzle down the side of the glass. I watched the street signs and storefronts pass as the bus moved along Route 17. After more than 20 years of commuting from the east, I now make my entrance from the other side of the Hudson River.
I looked ahead to see the Westside of New York City. The tall buildings reached upwards and pushed into the palm of gray clouds. There was something beautiful and quiet to this. I suppose the cold rain and thick clouds looked like a good reason to stay home in bed. Continue reading →

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Redemption

I have always wanted to feel good. Even when I behaved badly, I always wanted to feel something so explicitly pure and genuine. I wanted to feel cleansed—I wanted something to overcome and wash me away from myself.
I wanted to feel as if I were good, or healed, as if to absolve the situations in my mind. I wished for it. I wished I could find something to ease the quiet regret that Continue reading →