The Promise Land

           

I’m starting to figure a lot of things out. And trust me, I still have plenty more to learn. But in this moment, something new has begun.

 You see, we all have been lost at some point in your life. Hell I’m still trying to find my way, but we all know the feeling when every road seems like a dead end. We get stuck in a rut. A routine of sorts. And not a good one. We become scared of everything. We are scared about money, we are scared about love, we are scared about the future. All those things are scare the shit out of me and in some ways still do.

But being scared is okay.

 Fear naturally triggers the flight or fight response in us, and most the time we chose to run and hide. Avoid the problem. We paint over it like it is some ugly bathroom wall paper from the 1970’s. If we can’t see it then it must be gone. But it’s not gone. It’s still there growing and growing and we continue to hide and hide and hide until life seems like the scariest fucking thing to face.

But we must face life. We must.

We must not run any more. We must not let our fears in life control us. We must very literally fight for our life and our happiness. When you plant that first seed in your mind that you will no longer settle for anything less than what you want, then you can truly achieve anything. However, this is not an overnight thing. I think we all can agree that we wish it was, but it is not. It’s the long hall you are in for.

It’s the long haul I am in for.

We only get one life, so why not make it the greatest life you can make it? The reason I tell you these things is I myself have been stuck in a kind of rut. A routine, and not a good one. But today I made the conscious decision to break free from my fears and doubts and to live the life I want and the life I deserve. I hope you make the same decision my friends. I have been told that the grass is oh so much greener on the other side. I have decided to call this side of life The Promise Land, and I hope you join me very soon.

The Rite of Spring

The Rite of Spring

Everyone talks about the fallen soldiers of war. Yes. It is a tragic thing. But why do we not talk as much about the fallen children of war? The fallen women? The fallen elderly? 

Every war has three sides. The good side. The bad side. And those stuck in between them. I was stuck.

School was canceled the day the bombs fell. We were lucky. We knew it was going to happen. The day before we left like there was going to be a tomorrow. Teachers still gave their lessons and assigned homework even though it was going to be the last thing they ever taught and they already knew the homework would never arrive in the "turn in" bin. There was one teacher who did act differently on that last day. Professor Watts. My English teacher.

I had Watts's class at the end of the day. I always looked forward to his class above all. When I found my seat there was a haunting silence in his class. Professor Watts sat quietly behind his desk, looking out the window. After what seemed like a hour he finally rose from his seat and walked to the front of the class. He finally began to speak.

"War. War is an ugly thing children. It is the vicious offspring of hate and politics. Now, you all are to old to fight in this war. And I myself am too old. But we still must take a beating. This beating will stay blind from the public, but not blind from you and me."

The whole class sat quietly listening to the sad monolog Professor Watts was giving us.

"In War men can take almost anything from you. They can take your belongings. Your family and friends. Your homes and your clothes. They can even take your life if they so want to. But, there is one thing they can not take for only you can have it."

We all seemed to lean in wanting to know what this soft spoken man was about to say.

"They can not take your knowledge my children. For only you know exactly what you know... When the bombs drop, and the dust settles, we may never see each other again. But you must never stop learning. Never stop reading and never stop exploring, for you mind is the only thing that is truly yours. But what are you supposed to do with this information? Well, you must write. Write every fact, poem, story you ever think of. Let the world know who you are and what you all have experienced.”

We all sat there silently. What were we supposed to say? We all knew that by tomorrow most of our homes would be nothing but rubble. We knew that even some of our classmates were going to be rubble by tomorrow. Professor Watts knew he needed to break the silence somehow, and jumping into lesson was not going to be how he did it.

He just sat back down at his desk and began flipping through a crate of vinyl records he had on the floor. A gentle smile broke across all of our faces. Professor Watts would always play us music on Friday after his lesson. Even though it was Wednesday he knew it was one of the only joys he could give us all one last time.

Watts came up from under his desk with a single record in his hand. He set it down on to the old phonograph player as we quietly waited. He set the needle down and wonderful music of Igor Stravinsky pour out of the horn. The song was The Rite of Spring, Watts’s favorite song. We all knew this song now by heart.

Watts lowered himself back into his chair and closed his eyes as the music played on. We all did the same and closed our eyes. I closed my eyes. I eventually drifted off to sleep and slept for the rest of class. I woke as the needle began to scratch at the label of the record. Professor Watts put the record away and stood in front of us again.

“I love you all. My God be with you and your family tomorrow. And never stop learning, and never stop writing.”

As he finished speaking the bell rang and we all filed out and went home.

The next morning the bombs fell. 13 of my friends died including my sister who was smothered from the rubble of our own home.

When the dust settled I found myself wondering the flatted streets that were once full of life. I found myself back by my old school. As I was about to continue on my meaningless drifting I paused for a moment because music was coming from the school. Absent mindedly I followed the tune.

The music was coming from Professor Watts room. It was Stravinsky. Somehow the record player survived the bombs and The Rite of Spring was coming out of the bent horn. I peaked my head into the room and saw Professor Watts standing against the front board. He was silent and did not move. I leaned back around the corner and pushed my ear to the remainder of the wall to listen to the music.

I closed my eyes again but this time I did not fall asleep. Instead the fresh memories of this morning’s horrors ran through my head. I stood in the same spot for the who record. When the needle began to skip against the label I leaned back around to watch what Professor Watts was going to do next.

He stood still for a few more moments then fell to his knees crying. He became a crippled mess on the floor. This image scared me above all. Professor Watts was always the strongest person I knew. He always had the answers and always made light of the dark. And now the dark was eating him whole. I ran from the building and did not stop. I did not return to what was left of my home, my family, and my life. I ran. I never saw Professor Watts again.

I never said it but I love you too Professor Watts. I guess I took your advice to never stop learning and writing. I write this for you were ever you are.

So it goes…

I Was The Weird-O

I was the weird-O. I was the creep. I was the trouble maker. I was the insane one. 

People just don't get it. Even when I was young I knew I was scaring people off. I did not care. I did not care if I had any friends. Even in grade school I never felt like I needed to change for others. I gave no fucks about anything. I would run the halls, with my skeleton mask on, just yelling my heart out. I would bang on classroom doors and kick trash cans over. It was not long before I got kicked out.

I was 10 when this happened. I did not even tell my parents. If I can even call them that. They were the reason I acted the way I did. They did not give a shit about me so I did not give a shit about the world. 

I grew up on the back streets of New York. At a young age I got heavily connected with the Mexican drug ring. The Mexicans were the main source of dope for most of the South side of the city. They thought it was funny having a 13 year old boy run deals for them. But I mean fuck it was a good idea for them. They never had to do the deal and no one expected a little boy to have bag after bag of dope taped to his chest. And I did not care. I liked it. I finally had friends who did not care just as much as I did.

I grew up to be a young man doing this day in and day out. I never went back to school, never had a real job, never saw my parents again. 

In was 1997 when I finally saw how fucked my life was. 

My friends Juan and I were running a deal together. This was a new customer so we always went as a team for the first deal. Juan was about my age and he was raised in the drug world just like me. He was just as crazy as me and I loved him to the moon and back. He also had a huge love for Elvis like me. The older guys in the ring always joked around with us about this but who the hell does not like the King? On my 16th birthday Juan gave me this big massive belt buckle that said "Elvis". I wore it everyday and slowly got the nickname King. 

Anyways Juan and I show up to this parking lot in the shipping district of the city. No one was here yet so we just sat on the hood of the car enjoying a smoke together. Headlights finally rounded the corner and 3 black vans roll up to us. The vans parked in a line about 50 yards away from us. Juan and I just looked at each other in complete wonder? We were selling this guy 10 grams, so why did he bring an army with him.

No one got out of the cars for a long time. We all just stood there in a quiet hush. Finally all the doors the the vans opened at the same time. Out came about 15 men all dressed in suits with sunglasses on. Even though it was 11 at night now. The men finally approached us for the deal. A short haired man with several face tattoos rose among them to do the deal.

"Whats up homie!" Juan yelled making us look like the idiots we were.

"Do you have the product?" the man asked us. I grabbed a small bag from the front seat and tossed it to the man. He looked inside, smiled, and closed the bag. "Pleasure working with you," he said as they all began walking back to their vans.

"Hey what the fuck!" I yelled at them. "Where the fuck is our money!" The men all stopped and the tattoo man spun on his heels. 

"Oh. I almost forgot." He reached into his shirt pocket, but it was not money he was grabbing. He pulled out a 9mm M&P handgun and sent 2 bullets at us. One for me. One for Juan. They both landed. We fell to the ground and the men left. Later I found out it was a rival gang of ours trying to send a "message" to us.

My eyes finally flickered open, I was still laying in the parking lot of my back. I ran my hand across my chest trying to find the bullet hole. There was not one. I sat up quick and ripped my shirt off. There really was no hole. But I knew I was shot, it knocked me out. Then I realized where the bullet hit. It hit the belt buckle Juan got me and stopped the bullet. The bullet was still in the buckle. I began to laugh, I was alive! Thanks to a belt buckle!

"Holy fuck Juan! Look at this crazy shit!" I leaned over to Juan to show him the buckle. Juan was not as lucky though. Juan's limp body was laying in a lake of his own blood pouring out of the back of his head. "Fuck! Juan!" I crawled over to him tenderly touching his cold face. I was shaking and crying all over him now.

That night I realized everyone was right. I was a weird-O. I was a creep. I was a trouble maker. And if I was not already I was going to go insane. Nothing ever mattered to me. Juan was the closes thing to family I had and now he has a small hole through this head. What the fuck was I living for anyways? What the fuck am I living for now?

The Air Was Poison

It was October 31st, 2022 when the first of the bombs fell. Halloween night. I don't know if I should laugh or cry at this. I laugh because on a night filled with fake horror we were shocked with real horror. I cry because just about every child that was out on the streets died almost instantaneously just from the first flash. I was lucky that night. I was a mile under the surface of the Earth at work. Once every square foot of the Earth surface was covered with buildings, they started making homes and factories underground. A mile below it was a whole new world.

Living underground was hard. You slowly loose your mind with out the sun. But we could not go up onto the surface. 10 years later and the air was still poisonous. One sniff of the heavy yellow smog and your heart locks up and its a painful death waiting. 

At first the underground world was chaos. There was no government. No laws. People stole from each other. People murdered each other. And there was no one there to stop the madness. Slowly things changed. We built stores. We built hospitals. We built a new government, because the last one did not work so well. I mean, the president dropped bombs on his own country because he knew he was a fuck up. Instead of facing it everyday he decided to murder his people. What a good idea. 

In the underground world I got the job of a "surface sweep". My job was to venture to the surface and search for anything that would help us underground. I had a crew of 6 and I was the captain. We first rose up in the country and have been working our way into the city.

It was October 31st, 2032 now. Me and my crew got up on the surface and realized we had finally reached the first block of the city.

"Smith and Peters, you take the West block. Edwards and Walker take East. Gray and James take the South street."

I sent my men out and made my way up North. I did not know it, but I took the worst street. It was a residential street, lined with small homes on both sides. As I walked down the block, I slowly became sick.

The ground was littered with blacked candy bars and melted plastic pumpkin baskets. Near each orange hardened puddle was the horrific remains of each kid. Some were pills of bones, others were just shoes, because the hell hounds must have gotten to the bones first. In the middle of the street I fell to my knees and cried. 

What the fuck was I doing? This world is over. We destroyed it. It is only a miracle I still am alive. But for how long? We can't grow food underground and the water supply is low. Also there is a roomer of a major leak in the surface letting the poison fall into the underground towns. In the next year we all will be dead. 

My tears streaked the inside of my gas mask. I had a family once. I had a home, and a dog in the yard. They are all dead and gone. My happiness was dead and gone. So why am I not dead and gone. 

I rose to my feet, and turned around. My crew was slowly approaching me with arms filled with junk they found. I took a deep breath, and unlatched my gas mask. The men dropped what was in their arms and ran to me.

"Don't do it Paul!" 

I pulled the mask off my face and let the poison fill my lungs.

"NO!"

So it goes...

Micky from Queens

I did not know what racism was, or that it existed, until I went into grade school. I grew up in Queens with my mother and my little brother Sammy. I was always told my father was gone on work, but I later learned my mom did not want to tell me he was beaten to death by a group of men in white hoods. My mother was still pregnant with Sammy and I was still in diapers when it happened.

My mother was a strong women. She hid the cruel world from me and Sammy for as long as she could. God bless here for that. My childhood was filled with lies but it was all done to protect me. It did for a long time. Until I had to go to school with the white kids in New York.

I knew white kids existed. I knew Mexican, Chinese, and Indian kids existed. I just never knew people thought we were 'different'. I only saw another boy or girl to play with on the playground. I never saw them as better than more, or worse than me. My mom wanted the very best for me and Sammy. So she worked like a dog to make up for my dads death. She was the greatest, and he work paid off.

She was able to enroll me in a private Christen school when I turned 8. On my first day, my mom walked me to the school so I knew where it was. As we got closer to the building I saw kids running from all directions to the biggest, most wonderfully fun looking playground my 8 year old eyes had ever been blessed to see. I went to go run with the other kids when there was a great yank on my arm. I turned and realized my mom had not let go of my hand and tears were watering in her eyes.

"Whats wrong momma?" I asked confused as to why she was so sad. She whipped the tears on her sleeve, but it did not help. They just kept on rolling down her cheeks. 

"Micky. I need you to know something," she said to me. "In this world, people have grown very cruel and very mean. People will treat you badly, but you need to know Micky, you are not a bad boy. They are the bad people. And what did momma tell you about bad people?"

"Stay away from the bad ones, and find the good ones and love them forever." My mom used to repeat this to me my whole childhood. Stay away from the bad ones. Love the good ones forever. As a kid, these words did not mean too much to me. I had never met a bad person. Now that I have grown old, I realized how right my mom really was.

My mom leaned in close to me and hugged me tight.  "I love you Micky, and your brother Sammy with all my heart."

"I love you to momma. Don't cry anymore today," I said to her. Almost every night, after I was meant to be in bed, I would tip toe down the hall and see my mom crying at the kitchen table with bills spread across the top like and ocean of pain. 

"I won't cry anymore today Micky. Just for you."

I kissed my mom softly on the cheek and ran into the school. Thats the day I found out people did not like me because of my skin color. They did not even know me, and the first thing the white kids said as I walked into class was, "hey look! There is a nigger in our class." I had never heard that word before, but I got used to the name calling really quick. I no longer was Micky from Queens. I was Nigger from the ghetto. It broke me. I no longer was human among them. I was a creature.

Her Grace/ Sad Little Room

Her Grace

Start out early in the morning

Up before the sun

Start out moving slowly

Wait, and it will become a run

The sky is gray and smokey 

The walls have grown old and thin

The wind pierces through your skin

Through the harsh cold day

You see her as she moves with such grace

She has so much grace.

***********************************************

Sad Little Room

The moon-whitened walls,

sunken in the hollows of the house,

sit still like water

in a frozen autumn night.

The idle bed jammed in the corner, 

molded in position,

Sits like a loyal dog.

Waiting for his owner to return.

The great wooden desk,

pressed under the lonely window,

has experienced a whole life

with the drag of my pen.

I look at the sad little room

void of color. Void of feelings

I live and work with in these 4 walls,

like a caged animal scratching at the lock.

So it goes...

Our last Christmas

Grace was my other half. She knew me so well. And she was always down to get high.

I met Grace back in high school. We sat by each other in chemistry. We always got kicked out for mixing the wrong chemicals on purpose or lighting our cigarettes with the bunsen burner. We decided to drop out together that year and move in with each other. Neither of our parents even noticed that we were gone. They were never in either of our lives. So fuck them, we did not need them. We had each other. And we had dope.

getting high was all we seemed to work for then. I had a job at local drug store stocking shelves. When I was alone I would always grab money out of the register for so I could score that night. Grace never said how she got her money, but I knew she was selling herself. I did not care though. Once we were both home, in our shitty studio apartment, nothing else mattered. The outside world was gone, and I was with the girl I thought I loved. 

It was Christmas night when everything broke. 

We never got each other gifts. We said it was because we did not need to buy our love, but it was really because we had no money for it. Every dollar we made went to buying just enough food to live and heroin. I worked late that night at the drug store. It was 11 when I finally closed the front doors. I was so tired I did not even raid the register for a quick dollar. I just wanted to go home. On my walk home the streets were empty and a heavy snow was falling. I felt alone on that walk. I never felt like this, but there was a hole in my chest on that walk. All I wanted to do was see Grace that night.

When I finally got home Grace was waiting at the front door for me. When I walked in she hugged me and gave me a soft kiss on my cracking lips.

"I have a gift for you!" Grace said.

"What? I thought we promised we don't do the gift giving bullshit," I answered.

"Well its more for both of us!"

She grabbed a small cigar box of the dinning room table. She lifted the lid and there sat to brand new needles filled with heroin. All of a sudden the itch to get high came crawling up my spin. 

"This is something special," Grace said as she picked up a needle to examine it. 

"Reggie says this is the strongest shit we can buy in the states! He swears by it!"

I leaned in and kissed her deeply on her lips. Then we both fell to the floor wrapping our arms. I then felt that lonely feeling again. I felt like I was going to get sick.

"Wait!" I yelled as Grace was grabbing a needle. "Lets go one at a time. Just to be safe, because it is so strong." Grace smiled at me and handed me the needle. 

"You go first then. I will wait until you come down," she said. I smiled at her and sent the needle sinking into my skin. 

Reggie was right. This was the strongest high I had ever been on. I was out for a while. But right when I went under Grace could not wait. She doped herself up right after me. 

I slowly came to. I was laying on my back looking at the ceiling. I waited for the swirling to stop in my eyes and then I sat up. There in front of me laid Grace. White foam bubbling out of her mouth.

"Grace?" I said as I shook her shoulder. "Grace! Grace wake up!" I grabbed her and shook her with all the force I had. "Grace no!" I let her lifeless body fall to the ground as I scooted into a corner. 

I could not look at her. My eyes filled with tears as I hugged my knees. 

"Why did you not wait Grace! Why!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was alone. I had nothing. I loved Grace, but she loved getting high more than she loved me. I knew this now. I got up and ran out of the apartment. I raced up the 6 flights of stairs in the building. I throw the door open to the roof and ran to its ledge.

I stood there, watching my breath in the air. The snow was still falling and it must have been 3 in the morning by now. I stuck my middle finger up to the sky as I yelled, "Fuck you! Fuck all of you!" I stepped back from the ledge and fell to the roof of the building. The cold snow flakes landed on my red face. I was alone. I was so alone. I pulled out my cell phone and called Reggie.

"Reggie? Do you have any more of that stuff? I need to get high."

So it goes...