Some poetry I wrote for a recent class

Rendezvous

Let’s swerve to-

gether; sip the

sherry dry;

Drink dreams to-

day; slip schemes

tomorrow;

Quip of lemon-

ade; drip dry

our lovely eyes.

Stick to my-

self and I’ll

stick to yours.

Spife?

Pierced by the spatula

I lay stiff

listening

as you cack-

led coldly

at my doughy remains.

Marbles found

I remember my baby brother

I remember winning

I remember me, grandma, and Bob Barker

I remember Kool-Aid

I remember OH YEEEAH

I remember losing

I remember eating healthy

I remember not eating “healthy”

I remember where I’m from

I forget that sometimes.

Pricks and phonies

We wash our words with lavender.

We eat our pies with salt.

Our souls are filled with pathos.

Mugging mills our falsehood.

Biggie, biggie, stinky-feet.

Missing friends we’d hoped we’d meet.

My love, my life, my stupid shit.

My ample, memory-laden, swiss cheese heart.

I was pooping on my grandma’s toilet

in the tiny bathroom down the hall with the ugly furnishings.

That skinny shower, the porcelain cherubs,

my general discomfort at their

toothpick painted, lopsided eyes ogling my

movements.

After generous usage of general store tissue I

pretend to wash my hands,

appreciating the soaps sandy exterior. While

watching the water’s elliptical flow over the turquoise basin

I felt suddenly watched.

While the clay babes with wings were doing their part

to creep 8 year old me the hell out,

it wasn’t them I sensed. My

senses were considering

the books I pretended to read, the characters I wanted to be.

I stood still running the water

bill up hoping that I wasn’t

fiction. Could someone snuff me with disinterest

as I had been snuffing so many others? Do I have

a predestined course to travel complete

with choreography and (final?) bows?

The evidence of my existence exists in the still

unflushed beside me. But could even they be

the dirty scribblings of a lonely unshaven grad student

with no money and alcoholism?

I am real

as are my parents

as is my home

as is my derelict sense of self worth.

I consider the water.

I consider the poo.

I consider the angels watching over me and decide that they’ve earned a show.

I flush.

I wash my hands of the flushing.

Harlem Girl

The husky gruff of the buses.

The red brick scratching the blue sky. Each its own hue, each its own texture.

They cast a feeling of nostalgia over the family-hewn street.

Her screeches purposeful, her hair-ties purple, the little girl

unknowingly paints the scenery of her childhood on the canvas of her memory.

Red street lights, blue bodegas. Abuelas in lavish lavender.

Lovely lemons lazily lingering. Soon they’re turn grey and groan

as they become fodder for the street.

She takes it all in, tracing

Her hand along the cool mortar.

Brick by brick, building a castle worth reading about

Once read.

Her work is never through, but her lips are blue from the night

And cheeks flush with red chill. Running

To her stoop, she thanks the stars

Because it’s what you do on

A day like this.

The colorless

cinderblocks

differing in

shades of grey,

They induce a dance

devoid of hue,

with placement, purpose,

and mortar.

Destructions:

Snick snack paddy whack,

Find that dog a home.

Weebles will wobble and discombobble,

But ne’er to lang t’roam.

The scent of a sniff, a whiff or a whiff,

Around and a room are to let.

Gripe will you grip and snip snip snip snip.

And smudge round the ground’s now all wet.

Keep keepers at bay in the ol’ fashioned way

With snicker and sneer an’ a lop.

Do distress the day o’ the alleycat’s May,

For she’ll stimp our your heart with a stomp.

Strum down the stairwell with nary a care

An’ frown ‘pon the backs of the Nile.

Eat kippers and kelp, do scrimp out a, “Skrelp!”

Should you find yourself out for a while.

You are?

I’ve forgotten how to c

Are about the way you treated

Me. I don’t remember wh

At it’s like to be mortar to your pestel. I

F I’d known then how to spell martyr, I could’ve used it as child’s dribble

About adult behavior. I wish I could recall the day that we ended. That

Grey-

Glum time in my life when everywhere was possible and nowhere was real. I w

On’t say I miss you though, because I can’t. How do you miss something that you never had, something

you never wanted? I will say I miss missing. I’ll say I’m glad you’re gone, and happy you’re here.

Thirteen is a hard age to find oneself.

Chapter 4- The other F word

If asked to describe your own physical appearance, how accurate do you think you’d be? How well do you really know what you look like? It dawned on me when I was in my early teens that I really couldn’t establish a solid mental image of my own face. I mean, I know what I look like sort of, but it’s only through the eyes of others that our features are truly appreciated, because we don’t know anything about them ourselves. Similarly, what does your body look like? Are you tall compared to other people, do you have large, Herculian calves that you should be aware of? These are all questions that are interesting to pose to oneself, because to me it reflects how little we truly know about our outer selves, and can probably be directly correlated to our inner selves.

If you had asked me any of these questions when I was nine or ten years old, assuming you’d gotten a hold of my fleeting attention, I wouldn’t have known the answer, nor would I have cared. I think most children would respond this manner, far too concerned with the swash-buckling pirates in their bedroom, or the jungle full of venomous snakes in the backyard. They don’t have time to consider their own waif-ish figure, or stubby fingers, let alone the grape jelly smeared all over their face from lunch. However, just like all blissful ignorance, someday they come to reckon with it. They see, or are forced to see, their own body image in contrast to the others around them. I don’t know that everyone can recall this exact moment, but I certainly can, in painstaking detail.

It was May. I’ve always loved May because it’s my birth month. It’s also the first month of nice weather in southern Ohio, because in April it feels like God’s faucets are leaking and he’s too cheap to get them fixed. Finally, as a child, I really loved May because all children knew that the end of the school year was fast approaching. In May the course work lets up a little bit, summer plans begin brewing, and even the teachers seem happier, which in turn, makes everyone happier. When Mrs. Milnes began wearing sleeveless blouses and sundresses to teach in we all knew that there wouldn’t be any homework that day. God bless her milky arms.

During the year in question, I was in the fifth grade and I had Mr. Schleup (pronounced shloop) who was by far the coolest teacher I’d ever had. His affinity for the Ohio State Buckeyes, the college football team of Columbus, Ohio, was unparalleled. He loved them so much, that he denied us the right to say the full name of their rivals the “ichagan Wolverines.” He felt that by forcing us to drop the M in Michigan we were sending them bad mojo, and that it immediately stripped them of all their power. Such was my fifth grade teacher, sacrificing the correct pronunciation of one of our fifty states, for the opportunity to deface a college football team. That’s the sign of a damn good teacher.

Anyhow, that year was full of adventure. I had my first girlfriend, Erin Everhart, who decided that we could go out, but only if I didn’t tell anyone, never touched her while other people were around, and that we’d never ever kiss, in public or private, a detail I wasn’t all too shaken by, if ya know what I mean. I also lost my very last baby tooth right in the middle of class that year, which I believe my mother still has in a baggy somewhere. Finally, as I was mentioning previously, I was forced to look at myself, and see what others saw every day.

Fifth grade is an odd time. There really aren’t attractive fifth graders. Either they have just finished their cute phase, doomed to five or so years of puberty, big hands, big feet, and a huge head, until their body finally catches up. Or they’ve never been cute, and soon enough they’ll grow up to be a swan, once they’ve regrown all of their teeth, which, being from southern, Ohio, may be less than you can count on two hands. Needless to say, no one was having their door beaten down by Gucci, requesting them for a shoot in Milan to model the latest in swishy jogging pants that year.

So, it’s May, the best time of the year while you’re still in school. Mr. Schleup has begun wearing the khaki shorts to class on those warmer of days, and even a polo on occasion, to get his annual farmer’s tan started. Homework becomes less and less, final tests are taken in certain subjects; it’s such a beautiful thing when the end is in sight. So, on one of his “Bermuda-days” we’ll call them, Mr. Schleup decides to throw us an ‘end-of-the-school-year’ party, complete with cookies, punch and everyone’s favorite: LIMBO!

Now, this would be a good time to mention that somewhere in my gene pool, someone along the way must have had a back made entirely of rubber, because one of the most interesting details about my body is my unrealistically flexible back. I can bend to a fully horizontal position, and hold it for days, as if nothing is wrong. I’ve watched full episodes of Friends like that, eaten dinner, assuming it isn’t soup, and even informed the military, should this outrageous talent be needed to end world hunger or something of equal global charity. With this knowledge in mind, as well as my incredibly competitive nature, what do you think ran through my young mind at the mention of limbo? Sheer, unbridled bliss, intertwined with the desire to prove once and for all what kind of a man I was through a display of extreme back-bending.

It started off innocently enough. The broom stick was set so high that nearly everyone made it through, leaving only the astronomically tall, or the terribly apathetic by the wayside. Soon enough the stick was held lower and lower, and eventually, only three cheerleaders, the shortest boy in class, and myself were left. It was getting to the boiling point as the broom was put at an uncharacteristically low level. One cheerleader made it through, the next did not. The final one didn’t either, making me very nervous about this next pass. The short guy, Andrew was half way under when he began coughing, and lost his balance. As he tumbled to the floor beneath the unbelievably low limbo rod, my palms began to sweat. I knew I wanted to win, and to do so, I’d have to make it through. I had no particular animosity towards the dumb, chunky-highlighted cheerleader, but in that moment, full of adrenaline, I wanted to make her head explode with my outrageous bending abilities. I did a few crowd-teasing stretches, pretending that I actually needed to limber up. With them all riled up and ready to go, I began my decent. I had a strong start, but began to waiver when the bar got to my nose. At that point I could have licked the bar it was so close to my face, but soon decided not too, as it was from the stinky janitor’s closet. At any rate, the sweat was rolling off my temples, and I used a technique not often mastered by even the best of limbo-ers. I rotated my ankles outward, walking on the inside of my feet, while bending my knees to keep me well supported. With my balance in tact, I made it all the way through reaching victory. I may not have won yet, but at least I was still in the running.

When I made my ascent I was certain that I’d surely go deaf, due to the maddening rush of screams, exaltations, and vows of love and admiration from my adoring fans. I assumed that they would bum-rush me, throwing a bucket of Gatorade, or perhaps a blanket made of flowers, as though I’d just won the Triple Crown or my third Super Bowl. No matter what preparations I had made for their awe and wonder, nothing could have helped me understand the reaction I received. Laughter. Tons and tons of laughter. For some reason everyone in the entire classroom was laughing, and from the tone and pitch I didn’t get a good feeling. It sounded almost like the kind of laughter you only produce when several others are joined in. Almost a kind of “peer pressure” laughter, knowing that even though it’s cruel, not to join in would be forfeiting the opportunity to get a good chuckle in. Baffled by their mirth I wondered if they’d ever calm down enough to continue the competition. I even spotted my opponent wiping tears from her face, tears of joy mind you, leaving me to believe that she wasn’t interested in our duel any longer. Totally stumped and mildly crest-fallen, I walked over to my desk as the crowd began to dissipate. Drinks were had, cookies eaten, and everything just went back to normal, except I still hadn’t the foggiest as to what they were so amused by. Nearly half an hour had passed when my friend, Alison Schmidt, came over and we began meaningless small talk, although isn’t everything meaningless when your aspirations of limbo stardom are dashed for no reason? In our conversing I finally made a point of asking what had been so humorous.

“You want to know why we were laughing after the limbo thing?” she wondered. She said it as though it should have been a joke that I myself was in on.

“Yeah, I made it through, and instead of cheering or anything, everyone in the classroom was laughing. What happened? Did I do something funny, or did someone else make fun of me or something?” I really was at a loss when she finally clued me in.

“Well, umm… you’re wearing a white shirt today.”

“So?”

“And, well… when you went under that last time, the stick was really low.”

“I know, that’s why I don’t understand why people laughed.” I shot back; frustrated that she wouldn’t just say it. She seemed to be hoping that she’d be relieved of the duty by simply hinting, letting my mind do the work for her.

“Well, while you were under, your shirt got kinda tight so we could see your nipples, and it pretty much looked like you had boobs. Like, because of your weight, and the way you were holding yourself, it made you look like you had really big boobs all of a sudden.”

Shock. Gasp. Wow, did she just say “because of your weight?” What weight? Was my size any more or less than anyone else’s in class? I began to frantically survey the room, my mind leaping from John’s slender hips, to the lack of breast on Ryan, who was sipping juice and flirting with Erin, my fake girlfriend. Although, were it true, that I had breasts, I’m sure Erin would dump me out of sheer jealously alone. I reeled at this concept of weight, and had truly never given it any thought before.

And there we have it. That was the moment. Gone was my ability to wear anything I wanted. Gone was the hope that what I wore didn’t matter because I had a fun personality. Gone was the bliss of ignorance. In its place were boobs, teenaged boy man boobs. I also now understood why my all of my Bugle Boy jeans had an H next to the size. It stood for husky. And that’s just what I was, husky. What an awful sounding word for a child to hear about his or her size. Why couldn’t it be a little less painful like V for Voluptuous or FF for Full Figured? Hell, the H can’t even stand for Heavy, which I’d certainly prefer to Husky.

I spent the rest of the party drinking juice, abstaining from cookies, and looking at everyone else with new eyes, eyes that saw the little bit of fat hanging over someone’s jeans, or the definition of an arm muscle. That day begin for me the never ending desire to please other people with my body, and stripped me of the ability to be content with what I had, which from then on I always felt was abundant.

Despite the shock, I didn’t cry that day, because it seemed stupid to me. I hadn’t been outside of myself to see these boobs that they spoke of, so I began to wonder if they really did exist. How beautiful denial can be, even at such a young age. I went home and didn’t talk about anything that day in fear that I’d accidentally mention my boobs, forcing my mother to lie, or tell the truth, both of which I feared. Sensitivity is an odd thing in my family. Being so full of pride, if one needs a little sympathy for something other than death, divorce, or gambling debt, it’s giving out sparingly, if even at all. Also, there seems to be a bit of a clause that comes along with it, denoting that the bearer of the sympathy is also entitled to use said sympathy as a jibe at the mourners expense at the next family function. Humor in my family isn’t an opportunity to add fun, wacky energy to a situation. Rather it is the opportunity to speak what on your mind through biting social commentary, some call it passive aggressive, I just think it belongs on Jerry Springer. Needless to say, I learned early on that if something bad happened, like a scraped knee, or perhaps a classroom full of 11 year olds laughing at your over-sized “mammories”, that you’d keep it to yourself until a college psychologist would be forced to rip it out of you 10 years later. Sounds healthy enough right?

At any rate, throughout my life, forever changed after that particularly embarrassing day in May, I gave more attention to my body that it really deserved. I spent a lot of time in residual frustration either eating, or not, depending on which disorder I had that week, and fretting over every article of clothing, begging that it would fulfill my only wish: to minimize my over-sized bosom. Although she was unaware of my past, a professor in college told me that I’d be a more compelling performer if I hit the gym a few times a week. This news acted as a catalyst for my disease, as the following summer I could always be found on the West Side Highway, roller-blading off all the calories that I wasn’t eating. After coming back to college, to the praise of many a classmate, I discovered marijuana to ease the frustration, and slowly packed it all back on, fistful by fistful of chips and donuts. Damn munchies!

Over time, and through the love of my life, Scott, I developed an amicable agreement with my body. I wouldn’t plague it with anymore crazy diets, or outrageous plans, as long as it continued to please my boyfriend. Eventually, after realizing that diabetes was a threat in my family, I even began eating healthier, and working out, putting me in the best shape I had ever been in. Regardless, my life would never be the same after that experience. Even today, despite my figure, and all the great sex, with each French fry I eat, or every piece of deep-fried calamari, I still see a young boy on a trip to K-Mart with his mother, her cart full of “H” jeans, while he sadly eyes the women’s section, contemplating his own bra size.

Chapter 3- The Devil Wears Pleated Plaid

Everyone, fictional or not, has an arch nemesis. It may be a figurative one, for example a writer might allow his fear of failure to impede his work. Then there is always the tangible type, say an 87 cent bean burrito may be considered pure evil to a man who’s had his large intestine removed. Whatever the case may be, we can all think back in our lives to a time when such a beacon of pure, unmitigated terror oozed from one source and one source alone. All burritos and diarrhea aside, in my case there was a little girl named Caitlin Quance.

How could a little girl with a mole on the outside of her nose and a flair for bowl cut hairstyles be so terrifying you might ask? Could it have been the pegged 80’s style jeans she wore everyday? Perhaps the fact that her legs did not once touch anywhere in the 12 years we went to school together? Shockingly, none of these are it. I tell you here and now it’s what was under that stylish barbershop hairdo that was so haunting.

My first encounter with Caitlin Quance traces all the way back to the 3^rd grade. I was in Mrs. Chapman’s class and we were learning how to write in cursive. I hated writing capital F’s and T’s, but give me a lower cased j any day and I’d just write for hours. By that time I had been tested for what our school called T.A.G. (Talented and Gifted), and what I now look back on and recognize as the first open invitation to get made fun of in school every single day. If you were accepted into T.A.G., by having an IQ of 140 or higher, then you were asked to come to special classes during school. At first I thought we’d be whisked away to a laboratory somewhere, clad in long white trench coats and begged by world leaders to cure cancer, or discover a method by which to eradicate doggy breath all together. As it turned out, we were actually just taken to a classroom and taught stuff one grade ahead of time, and asked if we wanted to participate in a little something called O.M.

For those of you who don’t know, O.M. is again a wide open invitation for mockery in grade school. O.M. or “Odyssey of the Mind” is an organization devoted to furthering creativity in children of all ages, and as it turns out, spans minds from kindergarten all the way up to collegiate level. The way it works is the school forms a team or multiple teams if they’ve got a healthy supply of nerds to draw from. Our school was a major hub for nerd and dork production, so we had an ample supply of teams. Once the team of 5 to 7 kids is put together, the children are asked to choose from a preset list of problems to solve. No matter what choice, a full 5 minute skit must be a part of the solution, and each problem generally had some wacky technical aspect like, “at least one team member must be moved across stage by a vehicle running on it’s own power source,” or something like that. At that point the team spends the better part of the school year meeting after class and writing, learning, and acting out the skit, as well as building whatever technical aspect happened to be involved. Then, in March, teams from all across the county level meet to show their stuff and be given awards based on the creativity and execution of their “solution.” Luckily, it finishes with a few months to go in the school year, giving the team a month or two to pretend that they’re normal school children, but truly they aren’t. O.M. creates a bloodlust for creativity; one that school can never again pacify. It’s full contact “brain on brain” warfare, and the scars may be invisible, but they run deep.

That brings me back to that little she-devil in a swishy jogging suit, Caitlin Quance. She was somewhat a captain when I was recruited back in 3^rd grade. We had a freakin’ gold mine of a team between my flair for the dramatic, Caitlin’s quick wit and snazzy dress, and finally, Alison Schmidt’s mother, who’d go to any length to win. We put together a skit that Highland county Ohio, nay, the world wasn’t ready to handle. There were palm trees and lab coats and dinosaurs… it was brilliance. We’d meet daily to practice and have some of Alison’s mothers snacks, what I’m convinced now in hindsight were baby steroids of some kind. After months and months of putting it all together, crying and sweating over plaster of Paris volcanoes and hot glue guns gone batty, we were finally done. We had a masterpiece on our hands, the likes of which had never yet, and will never again, be seen by OMers around the globe.

One Saturday morning, after a long sleepless Friday night spent in anticipation, we drove to a local neighboring high school. We got signed in and just waited in the hall, running lines and cues, until our group name was finally called. Our skit was perfectly timed to be as long as possible without exceeding the time restraint, costing us valuable points, and with Caitlin leading the way on our creative team, she pumped out more answers at nine years old for college level philosophical questions than Plato himself could have done in a lifetime. We were a force to be reckoned with, and for that we won first place. What are the spoils you may ask? Well a two-foot tall trophy for starters, and then a one way ticket to State level. We had one more month of practice time before we’d have to rumble again.

We returned home that day triumphant, and ready to embark again upon our mental, and emotional journey. We worked hard, and labored tirelessly, partially due to the adrenaline, but mostly due to the uppers I’m sure Alison’s mother was pumping into our fruit juice. We were titans among our grade school comrades and we were sure we’d win again. If only we could have known what lay in store for us on that fateful day.

State competition arrives finally. It is still a day that resides in the back of my mind, lodged forever by the terrible event that took us down to our knees, crying like the children we were. Our sound girl, Emily, botched a sound cue. We tried to bribe her with money and cookies to keep her mouth shut about it, but no. She blabbed to the only people that truly mattered to us at the point: the judges. Her big puppy dog eyes welled up and we knew we hadn’t a shot in the dark at the title. We walked that day with a creative recognition, something I like to call the “don’t feel too bad for losing” award. Broken, we were all broken. Our tails between our legs we left, knowing that all we had was next year, and that we’d tasted blood and soon enough we’d be back for more.

Now, don’t think I’ve forgotten that this is a tale to convey the scourge that is Caitlin Quance. Oh no, this is right about the time she sells her soul to the devil, and all hell breaks loose. So, as I mentioned, we’d all vowed to rejoin O.M. the next year, and to kick some major creative butt. I spent all summer between 3^rd and 4^th grade reading, keeping up on current events and quickening my reaction time to a well posed creative response question. My mom might ask me, “What’s a creative description of dryer lint?” and before she could even finish her sentence I’d be on her with “Alien Toupe,” or “over-used Brillo pad” in less than a second. I knew what I was capable of and was very much in control of the power that I harnessed. I was a beast.

Fourth grade begins, time to get down and dirty. I go to class daily knowing that some day, some 7^th grade teachers assistant will come get me and take me to the new O.M. headquarters, wherever that may be. I waited patiently, and pretended not to notice one day when Caitlin would be missing, hoping that maybe she got the bird flu or something. Finally after about a month or so of waiting around, I saw Caitlin on the playground one day. She was leaning on a newly built wooden railing, hanging out with a few of her dorky friends, a group that I longed to be a part of more than anything in the world. I approached her and, without mincing words, got right to the point.

“Hey Caitlin, when is O.M. gonna start this year?” I asked very pointedly, knowing she’d say it was just about to begin, and then she’d disclose the top secret location to me through an elaborate display of hand gestures and sub-verbal grunts. Instead however, the whole group nervously chuckled, and begin to dissipate, as if to suggest that they knew what was about to happen.

“O.M.? What do you mean ‘when is it gonna start’?” she shot back.

“Like when do we have practice? I wanna do it again this year.” I answered, fearing what her next move might be.

“Our team already started a few weeks ago, we didn’t have room for you. Sorry.” Oh but she wasn’t sorry. My heart broke. I went into what can only be described as a juvenile psychopathic rage. I felt my body surge with power as I reached out for Caitlin’s shirt collar. I lifted her off the ground with one hand and held her, dangling, over the railing, wishing that I had it within me to allow her to drop that 5 and a half feet to her death, or at least to a sprained ankle. I knew hatred in that moment, and felt a part of me fall away knowing that I’d spend an entire year wishing I could be a part of O.M. my one and only friend. I put her down gently and began to cry, alone, at the back f the playground. I had nothing, I was broken, damaged, and not a thing could change that.

In retrospect I think I just pushed her a little for not putting me on the team, and she was knocked back into the railing. But had I let her plummet that mediocre distance it wouldn’t have gone undeserved, for this was only the beginning.

So, with a full year to figure out who I was again, completely shattered, I picked up the saxophone. It was the only thing that could sooth the beast that was growing within me. At ten years old I was a prodigy, playing from the 7^th grade handbook by the end of 5^th grade. I loved my saxophone, and it loved me back. The two greatest things about being in band were this: my own collection of nerds and dorks to live among, and no Caitlin Quance, Rosemary’s baby if you will.

Two years had passed since the ‘incident’ on the playground, and I was doing the best I could to allow it to heal. Every now and then Caitlin would get a better grade than me, or finish her book first for our monthly reading and with each scholastic victory she held over me, it would rip the stitches out, one by one. If I ever needed soothing I knew I could just wait until fourth period, just before lunch, when I’d get to hold my musical prowess over the heads of many a 4^th grader and that would be enough to get me through. Band class became a drug, the metaphorical Morphine drip to the knife lodged deep within by none other than that mistress of evil. I thought I had her outdone, but not her, she’s a tricky witch she is.

Sixth grade begins. First day of class and I’m feeling great, ready to take on the world. It’s the unofficial beginning of Junior High at my school, which means we learn “college style” with multiple teachers throughout the day, as apposed to the standard grade school style, where you sit at the same desk all day long, listening to one teacher drone on about every single subject. It was liberating to feel so mature, and it had me streaming with love and happiness. And then, it happened. Noon rolled around and all those opting to be in band had to go meet their new band instructor, and listen to him lecture about practicing and what not. I, along with my fellow nerds and dweebs, took leave and began the long walk across campus to the band room. In my jovial state, I cared not for who I walked among, I simply skipped merrily all the way across the basketball courts, through the junior high cafeteria, and finally, to the band room, which was placed directly about the janitor’s basement storage space, and always smelled a bit like WD-40. Regardless, nothing was going to bring me down from my euphoria, nothing at all, or so I thought. I took my seat in the half circle, waiting to take notes about music theory, and be told what our song would be for the Halloween parade that year. To my dismay what should I discover, Caitlin Quance developed a love for the clarinet that summer, and joined my safe haven, band class.

I watched as she sat with her smug little case. That year her affinity for plaid, pleated skirts was nearly nauseating. She smiled and laughed with her girly little clarinet buddies and got so excited about the Halloween parade she nearly piddled right then and there. I hated her with every fiber of my girly boy being. Over the following weeks I listened as she squeaked her way through Good King Wenceslas, never realizing that she was always off by the end, making it difficult for me to focus on my art. I found any reason I could to despise her, be it her shiny pleather shoes or her underplucked eyebrow. I envisioned myself whacking her with her own clarinet, shattering it in two, and telling her, “Try it now; I’m sure it’ll sound the same as it did before, awful you novice!”

I kept it all locked up inside until one afternoon when the band teacher left class a little too early. We were all packing up our instruments, getting ready for the bell to ring, signifying the beginning of lunch, and I overheard her talking about me. She’d made some little jest about my clothes that day, a jest that was probably justified when I look back on it. I only wore sweats, or wind pants, at the age. I was already trying to minimize my waist line because I was getting a little tubby. At any rate, I felt it was an injustice that I certainly couldn’t wait for the system to fix, so I took a plastic piece from my saxophone, a little plug to keep it from getting anything inside of it, and I lobbed it at her. For that moment that it was in the air, I felt nothing but triumph. I felt that years of oppression and tyranny were falling all around me, and that finally my true justice had come. What I didn’t factor into the equation was that soon, it would have to hit something, and I had chosen her face as my mark. Somehow my limp wristed toss had managed to place the plastic ‘bullet’ directly under her left eye, and was thrown only just hard enough to leave a mark. She began to cry immediately, a tool that women use from birth to make men look like fools, and every girl in the clarinet row hated me the rest of the school year. If I had ever hated her before, now I knew it. Even my attempt to teach her right from wrong, by hurling a saxophone part at her face, had failed.

Over the years to follow, Caitlin eventually pulled ahead of me in every way possible. She may not have ever mastered the clarinet, as a matter of fact she quit that same year, giving me back my sanctuary. She joined cross country and was a running whiz. She joined student UN and settled things in the fake Middle East, bringing fake peace to fake countries that have been fake fighting since the beginning of fake time. Finally, in high school, she vowed to be an exchange student, something I had also longed to be. Together we became the first two exchange students from our school to ever study abroad, her in Spain, me in Denmark. She chose to learn a useful language, like Spanish, which has global implications and could easily get her a job at any New York City Popeye’s chicken as at least an assistant manager. I picked the less popular Danish, a language I still speak fluently to this day, and have had at least four opportunities to use it in the United States, meanwhile I my local deli lady only speaks to me in her native tongue. She is from Puerto Rico.

To try and get away from it all, I smugly told everyone in my hometown that I’d be going to a small private school in New York City to study musical theater. Maybe it wasn’t mechanical engineering or anything, but it was certainly noteworthy. Caitlin soon let it leak that she’d be going to Stanford to study, of all things, mechanical engineering… really. Putting the final lily on the grave of my dignity, she called me one bright and sunny spring day asking me what my plans were for late summer of 2005. After telling her I had none in particular, she offered to fly me to San Francisco, so I could sing a few choice songs… at her wedding. I can’t even legally get married yet, and I have to go enrich her betrothal with my sterling voice and hard-hearted broken spirit. Of course I agreed, and had a truly wonderful time.

Looking back on it all, Caitlin wasn’t my enemy. As a matter of fact, she was quite a lovely person, inside and out. I may have wanted to punch her on occasion, but she wasn’t the reason I was upset. In hindsight, she was one of the best friends that I had growing up. People in my family don’t really push you to be the best ‘learner’ you can be. If you can hit a baseball 100 yards they’ll throw you a party. When I said that I had been accepted to NYU for musical theater, they wanted to know why the hell I’d want to move to New York City, and how the hell I’d support myself in a life of theater. Truthfully, had Caitlin Quance never been there, terrible haircuts and all, I’d probably never had been motivated to learn anything. I would never have had the blind courage to move to another country for a year, or the ambition to move to New York, where I still live to this very day. In retrospect, Caitlin Quance gave me a part of myself that I may have never found within my family. I didn’t know what it meant to be passionate until a pigeon-toed little girl told me one day, at the back of the playground, that I’d never be half the nerd she was. Luckily for me, she was right.

A Collection of Words

Intro

All my life I’ve had a penchant for words. I’ve loved elaborate, creative words that assist the user in enforcing their vision, or aid the receiver in understanding the speaker’s intention. Words are abused in today’s society where so many are afraid to leave their small circle of fifty words for everyday conversation. No one waxes poetically anymore, they just talk a lot about stuff. People get uncomfortable around words they don’t understand, and what’s amazing is that most of them have a lexicon or dictionary in their own home, endowing them with the opportunity to discover the meaning. Intelligence is revered in our culture. It is encouraged, and bowed to, and yet, when found in a youth, is almost discouraged, scolding the child for acting like an adult at too young an age.

In the summer of 2006 I was in a musical. It was a new musical. It was in southern Ohio, the blessed land of my upbringing (I’m a fan of sarcasm…). Said musical contained a dancing cow named Wendell and was only orchestrated with music by composer Jerome Kern, who’d been dead a solid 50 years, and whose musical prowess, however brilliant in his time, was not intended for a tap dancing bovine. When asked how my experience went, I always generated the same reply: “The show went as well as any new musical, performed at a dinner theater in southern Ohio, by a full cast of non-union performers, through composed by a man who is no longer living, could’ve gone.” At this some would chuckle, others would be lost at “dinner theater.” It was never my intention to discredit the work; I think that some things just speak for themselves. As a matter of fact, had I never performed that summer, tap dancing in period costumes and wearing a dance belt, aka a man thong, for 30 hours a week, I never would have met the man with whom I now “share my life” if you will.

For a long time I took flack for my penchant for words, and muted myself, or allowed myself to speak ordinarily. I realized quickly that all I was doing was permitting those around me to choose my words for me, and also, allowing them to exist on their plane of intelligence, or lack thereof. There are many a thing that I don’t know, and when the opportunity arises to seize knowledge, my first inclination is never to bash it in the head, and tell it to stifle itself. I decided soon enough that my words were my own, however hefty, and that the listener would just have to carry a pocket-sized dictionary around or else a pair of cotton balls to drown me out.

With all of that said, I’ll start this book with simplicity. Much of the experiences contained herein have a lot to do with my upbringing, and the outside factors that made me who I am, as well as kept me from myself. The easiest way to understand my youth is this: “I’m as well adjusted as is humanly possible for being a homosexual, raised by two marines, in southern Ohio, with 5 uncles, all of whom exist in or around the construction industry, none of whom have a passion for the theater, dance, or music, as I do, and 25 first cousins, none of which, older or younger, are gay as well.” So begins my luxurious and nauseating tale.

Chapter One- Oh So Pretty

I think anyone in my family would agree that somehow, in some way, I was born very pretty. It’s common in my family to have a deep set swell cleft in the chin, making somewhat of a butt on the face. Also, due to a diet of marshmallow encrusted sweet potatoes, and homemade Smore’s at every major family function, I’d dare say we run a bit on the bigger side of the fence. Lastly, and a bullet that I failed to dodge, it seems that someone, or something with a loathing of correctly placed incisors creeps into the room of everyone in my family at some point in their life. They sneak in unnoticed and take a baseball bat to our mouth, contorting the teeth into odd shapes and sizes, leaving them more as a mountainous terrain, something one would hike for pleasure on a brisk autumn morning. Luckily, orthodontics took that hunch off my back in junior high, some of the best years of my young life… again, sarcasm.

At any rate, despite my orthodontia, I had somehow emerged a very pretty little boy, full of youth and folly. I had deep set blue eyes, but not entirely as there was, and still is, a ring of gold surrounding the pupil. This golden band did more than just offset the strained, bloodshot look my eyes took on while I was stoned. It actually served as a ruler by which to gage my demeanor. The more cheerful I was, the less the gold made its presence known, shooting bright blue beams out of my sockets at anyone who saw me. However, catch me on a bad day, and the rings would expand creating an illusion that my eyes were a murky greenish blue, still pretty, but much less vibrant. To this day this little rule of thumb still works, and has saved my husband and I many a fight.

Also as a child I had quite the frame on me. I was thin and yet quite strong. I was a very active youth and rather enjoyed running as fast as I could, or biking up a hill with the toughest setting on my 18 speed just to see if I could do it. I wasn’t really even aware of weight, not mine or anyone else’s until I was 11 or so. Also, as all children seemed to be blessed with this gift, I could eat and eat and eat, whether a full sheet cake or a fistful of dirty cookies, and still never see the weight. I am still under the impression that we’d all do better if adult playgrounds were built, and we were forced to go out and relieve stress on them daily before typing our meaningless essays or readings the latest trashy magazine. At any rate, suffice it to say that I was like most children my age, wiry and unaware of calories or carbs, and much the better for it.

The last little bit of narcissistic writing I’ll do is about my smile. Even before refined metal was glued to my jagged chompers, I had a dazzling smile. I was always seen smiling and laughing, full of imagination, completely content to sit in my room for hours, devising a plan for escape from an evil dungeon, or having full conversations with my stuffed animals, most important of which was a mint green bear that in retrospect, looked a lot like the Snuggle mascot. Fantasy was my best friend, and I needed no other. I read most every fairy tale a child can read, and loved pretending I was a part of them. I smiled when Cinderella married the prince, and I giggled at the ridiculous phrase bippity-boppety-boo. To steal from old William, all the world was a stage to me, and I was all the better for it.

Why do I tell you all of this? Why take the time to describe myself as an adorable youngster with a zeal for life? Because by the time I was 20, I would have given anything to have had the strength and determination to commit suicide. I wanted nothing more to do with life, and had been stripped of all of my treasures. I gained weight, I never smiled, and no one lived in my world of fantasy anymore. Now it’s only occupants were hate-mongers, existing only to remind me day in and day out of my short-comings, keeping me from reaching any of my numerous potentials. Relationships died, parents, family members, friends. My school work suffered and I lost my will to learn. All of these repercussions and more came from my supposed “childhood,” one that drastically turned from a fairy tale to a nightmare more quickly than hunger sets in after eating Chinese food. If we know who we are as a child, I’d surely lost grasp and spent many years rummaging through the waste of my youth, trying to re-assemble this broken child. My collected tears could fill and ocean, fears could outdo Stephen King’s worst imaginings. The collected whole of myself was somehow still in the red, and would stay that way for quite some time.

Be assured that change has swept into my life, returning my smile and svelte figure. Happiness is no longer a stranger, and yet, neither is pain. I’ve come through quite a few battles, certainly scarred, but still smiling. I hope that my life serves as inspiration for many a reader, or at least material for the $1.99 bargain bin at your local used book store.

Chapter 2- The F Word

When I was growing up, the ladies that lived next door to my grandparents were an interesting pair of people. They didn’t socialize much, something that all women in southern Ohio are well versed in. They didn’t really take much care of themselves, walking out in any old stone washed jeans they could find, and allowing banana clips and hair ties to do all of the work on their unwashed, unkempt “hairdos.” They did however have a knack for keeping their cars running well, and always knew how to re-attach any siding that may have flown off during tornado season. I didn’t see too much of them growing up, but what I did was lack-luster, and very private. I’m surprised I even remember them at all from my childhood, but something seemed to stick. One day, back when I was 6 or 7, while coming to my grandma’s to be babysat after school, one of my classmates, walked me home, and then continued on to her own home. She took one look at the house next door, belonging to the homely, muscular women, and said some L word that I had never heard before. We were a Baptist bunch, and if it wasn’t in the bible, we didn’t really say it much. At any rate, the word intrigued me and the next day we walked home together again. This time I stopped before going up the steps to my grandma’s and got her attention.

“What word did you say about that house yesterday?” I asked. Curiosity has always gotten the best of me, and it was eating me alive to hear a word that I’d never heard before, and worse yet, not to know what it meant.

“About that house? Where the two ladies live?” she replied.

“Yes, about the two ladies, what did you say about their house?” I quickly replied. I was so excited to find out that I nearly pushed all of my words together into one.

“Oh, my mommy calls that house Lezbeen. She says that only those ladies live there, alone. There’s no daddy, no babies, and that no one likes them because they are mean.”

“Lezbeen… so the house is lezbeen, or the ladies are lezbeen?” I wondered.

“I don’t know, I just heard the word, so I say it whenever I pass the house. I think it might be a bad word, because every one in my house calls them that and laughs about it,” she said. Clearly she felt a little bad for them, but didn’t want to be any different from her family.

“Okay, I’d better get inside, see ya tomorrow!” I had no idea what I had just learned. My first encounter with homosexuality was that brief, and not revisited again for another year or so.

Now, it may seem unrelated, but I have only a handful of female cousins out of the copious amount produced by my virile, masculine uncles. Two of these girl cousins, Sarah and Jenny, were sisters and lived just across town from me. When I say just across town, I mean that on a skateboard, and obese adult male, waiting for a heart transplant, on the hottest day in July, could be there in less than 15 minutes, which is most likely all he’d have left in him. Our humble township of Greenfield, OH housed a meager 5,000 people. Actually, it didn’t quite make it to 5,000 people one year in the census, so a few of the towns lesser active individuals, mostly due to the fact that they were dead, were counted anyhow, making us a full-fledged township, and giving us a much nicer budget with which to build and fix things.

At any rate, Sarah and Jenny lived maybe fifteen blocks away from me my whole childhood and once I was old enough to ride my bike there, around eight or nine, I would go and play for hours. My parents saw the immediate bond I had with them, and set Jenny to the task of taking care of me after school, because she was already in Junior High. As I’d mentioned before, I was full of imagination in my youth, and nothing served as a better tool to get it going than a perfectly chosen prom outfit, with shoes to match, on one of Sarah’s Barbie dolls. I was a prodigy. She’d coming begging to know which hairpiece to add to her Barbie’s ensemb, and I’d chastise her for putting a denim jacket over a corduroy jumper, telling her that they were fabrics that didn’t belong in the same room, let alone on the same doll. We’d laugh about how Ken was always late to pick up Barbie, and that he forgot to get gas before driving to dinner, so they’d miss their reservations. At that age I was certain that any artist in need of a jump start could go to their nearest K-Mart, pick up a few of these blessed tools, and go home able to pump out that next best seller, or create a Picasso.

I envied Barbie all of her clothing, and ill-fitting shoes. I loved and hated her for having the perfect boyfriend, and the seemingly perfect life. If only I lived in a plastic box that reeked of hairspray and red dye number seven, I’d be truly happy. My parents soon caught on, and I begged them for one of my own. I wished only to open a present at Christmas time, while wearing my garage sale original “New Kids On The Block” sweater, and find inside a serene, lovely Barbie doll staring back at me, waiting to enrich my life with all the jealousy I could possibly imagine. Well, I wore my sweater, and opened my box, and what did I get… Ken. “Who cares about Ken?” I thought as my parents hoped it would suffice. I realized a little later on that their intention wasn’t to dissuade my creativity, merely my inclination to kissing men.

You may wonder what happened to the Lezbeens next door, and why I’ve included them at all. Well, it is my earliest recollection of homosexuality that I can recall. Cleary I hadn’t truly encountered it, nor had I even comprehended the meaning of “Lezbeen” at the time. However, my heart went out to them the first time I was walking down the hallway at school and someone dropped the F word. Not fuck, but Faggot. Similarly, I had no idea what it meant, nor that it was intended to hurt my feelings, just that it was a word, that I didn’t know, and my curiosity burned again with the desire to find out.

Had I known then what I know now, I’d believe that ignorance is bliss. After my first solid year of being called a faggot nearly every day at school, I had plenty a clue what it meant, and what it was intended to do to me when hurled my way. After 3 years or so, somewhere around 5^th grade, I didn’t hear it so much anymore, despite the fact that it was definitely there. It had become numb to me, and rarely did it evoke any kind of emotion within me, save those rare occasions when it was accompanied with a forceful shove, or scribed upon my locker, etched into the metal so as to remain there the rest of the year. I attempted normalcy, asking girls out, and pretending that I cared when they said no, when in actuality I was relieved that I didn’t have to do anything with them to solidify the deal. At this point I’d gained a little weight, equating food to comfort as so many do, and I tried my hand at most sports, but as you can imagine, a grade school locker room full of overly testosteroned jock-in-training with the need to prove themselves wasn’t exactly a safe-haven for me.

I never told my parents about it all, because I knew at some point they’d ask me if it was true. They’d want to know if it bothered me that I was being called a faggot every day for 5 years because it was false, or if it bothered me because I knew they were right. Once you’ve accepted a situation, and resigned to it, asking for help five years later seems foolish. Of course the same rule applies when it’s ten and fifteen years later. It’s like a tumor that you didn’t notice at first. What starts out as no big deal soon becomes 80 pounds, and 10 years of embarrassment attached to your spleen, and going to a doctor just means that you have to explain why you waited so long.

As it turned out, Faggot was a name tag I’d wear all through my scholastic career, from 7^th grade when someone got creative and called me, “Nate Nate the Queer Bait,” and then even more so when everyone realized that my last name was Gray… think about it. It was all harsh, and each name ripped a little piece of myself away, breaking my confidence into a billion tiny particles that I’d spend years gluing back together. However horrible the jibes had gotten, and no matter what they said about me, nothing broke my spirit until I was in 9^th grade.

Freshman year turned out to be a difficult one for me. At that point I had only one true friend, named Daniel, but everyone called him Dano. We met in 4^th grade, and fate kept us in the same classes together for a couple of years and we eventually became best friends. He had a crazy spirit about him, and was truly a creative genius. Some days we’d go to his house and play video games, or discuss magical adventures that we’d heard about. Other days I’d think of stories and he’d illustrate them. No matter how bad a day may have been, or how much we hated our teachers, we always smiled when we were around each other. Dano was the first true friend that I’d ever had that lived outside of my mind, or the books that lined my childhood shelf. I don’t know if he ever truly knew that I was gay, but I’m sure that if he did, he really could have cared less.

Well, fate put us in the same class again our freshman year… gym class. It was intolerable. The name calling was at it worst, and even his light hearted nature didn’t ease the pain made by the mean-spirited boys, attempting to claim a little masculinity by taking it away from me. He tried to kid, but it just never did any good and the boys just found more ways to agonize me every day.

Our school had a pool. It was built by a very wealthy man who built us a pool and locker rooms to boot. Sounds fun huh? I hated it. Being an over-weight gay kid in 9^th grade, forced to practice breast stroking in a pair of speedos is not only laughable, it’s downright cruel. The latest locker room fad was the towel whip, and one boy had gotten so good at it he’d actually taken a chunk of tile off the wall one day. Well of course, each time I took my shirt off it was as if a dart board had been painted on my back. Points were allotted for reddest welt, drawing blood, and the ever popular “I made the faggot cry” award. Trying to keep it together, I didn’t tell anyone, hoping that it was somehow prove my masculinity to them, and they’d grow tired of it, and leave me be. No such luck. I also thought that I could just get used to it, and forget about it ever happening, again that didn’t happen either. Dano tried to cheer me up after school with a bike race to his house, or some ice cream at the grocery store, and for a while that pacified me. Fat kids do love their ice cream.

So, as the school year was winding down, somewhere around April, the boys did finally begin growing tired of the game, and it didn’t happen as often. I was relieved, and prayed that it would stay that way, and that I could finally put gym class behind me forever. But I had no idea how bad it was about to become.

The strike came from behind. I was bent over, trying to reach beyond my rolls, to put my socks on. I was a fan in those days of the calf high socks, why I’ll never know. While I was down there putting it on and turning it the right way on my foot, so the colored heel was in place, a searing hot strip of pain ran across my back. I immediately shot up and through the buzzing in my ears I heard ovational laughter. It was as though the blow had solidified a crown of supreme manhood for its creator. Once the burning subsided, and the tears fell away, I was able to compose myself long enough to identify the instrument used to break me. A belt. A boy in the locker room, obviously someone who’d far surpassed the desire to simply snap me with a towel, took the belt off of his jeans and laid it across my back in a mixture of fervor and joy. He thoroughly enjoyed hitting me with it, which even to this day turns my stomach upside down. It baffles me that such blind hatred can exist in this world, because at that point, not only had I never stated whether I was a homosexual, I didn’t even know myself.

At that point nothing Dano did was going to relieve me of my anguish, and our friendship slowly began to deteriorate. I don’t know if that helped, or hurt when I got a call early in May that year from my cousin.

“Hey aren’t you good friends with that Dano kid?” he asked.

“Yeah, why?” I wondered.

“Um you might wanna go to the hospital, cause I guess he just got shot or something.” I was sure it was a joke. In my little town, although guns weren’t uncommon, they were never used on people.

“Yeah okay Heath, whatever.” I tossed back. My family has a not all too charming sense of sarcasm that is often totally out of place. I’ve spent a lifetime battling it, and still break hearts on occasion unknowingly.

“No Nate, really, go to the hospital, he’s there right now.” he said with a bit of urgency.

“Oh, okay… oh my god. Okay, thanks.” I was in shock. Surely he’d be fine though, no one really dies at fourteen years old do they?

I got my mom to drive me over, and as I was coming down the hallway a nurse was telling Kim, Dano’s mother, that he was DOA, dead on arrival. Being the nearest to her at the time, she clutched me, and poured into me a warm stream of tears that I still feel from time to time, drenching me in my first bath of true sorrow. As she wept, my mind reeled with the news, unable to fully grasp what had happened. After a few days of mourning my best friend’s death, attending his funeral, weeping uncontrollably while I attempted to console his poor mother, I finally received word of what had happened. You see all small towns come equipped with a beautiful system of whispers and sub-verbal comments to pass along information. In less refined places one may call it gossiping. In Greenfield, it’s a way of life. At any rate, it turns out that it wasn’t any more than a statistical shooting caused by a father’s hunting gun, left loaded after a recent trip. It’s sad to say, but in the mid nineties there were quite a few of these mishaps. Regardless of its commonality, it broke me. From that point on men were nothing to me. I was incapable of trusting them, being around them, anything with them. The only male figure ever to treat me with respect in my life was gone, and with him any desire to waste any energy on men as long as I lived.

As fate would have it, that little word is what finally brought me around to appreciating men, and myself, again: Faggot. I was, and am, a faggot. This startling reality came to me at 17, while “pitching a tent” from the latest episode of Queer as Folk. I finally had some closure. I knew who I was and what I wanted. The nearest gay community was in Columbus, so I dove in. I spent full weekends partying and learning all about what it meant to be gay. I discovered that gay men are not only some of the most trustworthy friends a girl can have, but also, are almost always successful and damn cute too. I met doctors and lawyers and artists and designers. I came to realize that men in general are battered. Gay men have it bad when they’re young, but as soon as they ascertain they’re sexuality, they have a group of people to belong to. Straight men never have that “awakening” if you will. They’re left to decipher who they are from the stereotype left them by their fathers and older brothers. I began to actually pity their inability to create themselves separate of what society wants them to be. Gay men can love dresses and that’s okay, it’s stereotypical, but it’s okay. Gay men can also love football and that’s okay. After all we’re still men. However, straight men can love football and it’s stereotypical, and okay, but nothing special. Or straight men can love fashion and it’s freaky, and not okay, because they’re straight. They’re unable to create their own parameters by which to live their lives because they’ve always been the accepted ones, and now if they choose something outside the norm, they may not be so openly received. However, by being the alien race while growing up, we gay men have been given more than we ever could have wished for: independence. We have the option of going with what society wants, and loving it, or going against the grain, and experiencing nothing worse than we’ve already gone through.

I imagine the Lezbeens hearing that dirty word outside of their window. And even though in a small town like Greenfield, people generally only say it to cut someone down, I hope they welled up with a pride that only gay people can understand. A pride that might be tough to ascertain at first, but that eventually makes us stronger. And so I live my life for those lezbeens now. I hold my husband’s hand for the lezbeens. I kiss him on the subway for the lezbeens. As a matter of fact, I think we all have a little lezbeen inside of us that we need to fess up to, and love, feathered bangs and all.

Comfort

I feel compelled to write a little bit of encouragement to you. I know that the situation you’re in right now is tough. And you’re wanting life to pause a little so you can catch your breath, analyze what’s happening, and gain a little closure. Unfortunately, we have no control over time, and cannot bend it to our will like that. As a matter of fact, these situations hit our life and we have little control over anything. It’s not coincidence that lately I’ve been thinking about a certain quote in my head, something that I think all people could benefit from hearing. You’re the first person I’m going to try it out on. Here it is:

‘It is not our lot in life to comprehend the downfalls that beset us. It is only to process them, and to work through them for a better tomorrow. When we stop to judge our situations, we cease all forward motion. Live in the moment, while looking for tomorrow, but always remember your past.’

Humans are amazing creatures, with more abilities than we even realize. You have the strength to move on through this, and the wisdom to make it a positive influence on your life. That is the most valuable lesson of all. Learning to bend a painful blow to our soul into something that gives us comfort. You can get through this. You will love, and be loved again, by many more sources in your lifetime. Don’t allow this frustration and anguish to extinguish your internal light. You’re beautiful on the inside and out, and you shine all of the time. Don’t lose you while dealing with them. It is never worth it to lose ourselves because of the actions of someone else. Never. Smile today, and tomorrow, and every day after that. Smile because you breathe, and smile because you eat, and smile because even though it is difficult now, you still have the gift of life, a gift that is never wise to waste.

Reclaim yourself

"Where do insecurities come from? Why do we fear anything that isn't physically harmful? What events in our childhood etch the notion in our subconscious minds that being alone is dangerous, or being ignored is painful? We are taught to give up our strength, and to let go of our own power as individuals, forcing us to succumb to the whim of society. If we're self acclaimed, or totally aware of our emotions we overload those around us who are unwilling to open themselves up to life's truth. Is that where love is born? Finding someone on the same insecurity wavelength as you? Meeting a person who is equally restricted in their ability to open up to themselves as well as others? Maybe the traumas of our childhood will always be too much for us to process and perhaps the human mind is a big catch 22; we learn so quickly as children, but just like Ill never forget that 2+2=4, I'll also never forget what it feels like when someone doesn't call back, or how quickly the absence of attention can make me jealous. How do we re-instruct our brain, and heart, to do away with inferring doubt and fear, and to simply see the facts that life places before us?

My mother always told me growing up that I should attempt to view life from the outside in when troubles came my way. In my mind I always envisioned something like a puppet show. I would do a slow camera drag out of my own self and would see a stage of actors portraying the present scenario of my life. I'd imagine how it felt to be all those other characters on stage, and would take on their pain, and fear and suffering. I would see how my actions have left others feeling abandoned or hurt and make a mental note, hoping never to treat someone in a way that hurt them ever again. This method has served me well as both and actor and humanitarian, but there is an inherent flaw that life can never remove. As I attempt to view others in this manner, I am trying to better the situation. Some people, however, refuse to allow the situation to get better. They want to be hurt, they want you to hurt them, and they need that pain to remember that they are alive. These people will always be a stumbling block in life and nothing can be done to avoid it. These people are the people that have never asked themselves the questions that I began this article with. They are people that never want to understand the comings and goings of pain, how to make it stop, nor why it started. They only know that they hurt and if you've ever been around one, they make sure that we all know about it.

Should you find yourself surrounded by these people, you have two choices: eradicate them from your life, or hope to help them through your own enlightenment. Secondly, if you realize now that you are one of those people, fix it now, look at yourself for the first time, inside and out, and claim yourself for the rest of your life."

Match made in Limbo

"Love runs deep. Insecurities run deeper.

As spell-binding as affection can be,

Doubt has a grip that can cling through the forevers we speak of.

The hollow in my chest yearns to beat.

Give me my heart back.

Replace this void with security.

Allow me to live a day un-plagued by

Your thought.

Give my mind rest from chasing

Your memories.

I will ever admire your perfection, and humble myself before our imperfect situation."