Breaking Through the Ice

Sometimes the thing that holds you back is something that you thought was there to help you. I have felt a state of fury and frustrating, building bars around myself, pacing back and forth like a caged silverback gorilla who longs to run through the forests of the mountain that he grew up on. My loved ones have noticed and have become frightened of the bars of searing cold of the ever growing cage.

I took it upon myself to do something to change, both for myself and for the ones I love. It was suggested that it could be a misstep but the risk was worth it. It’s been two days and the icy bars are starting to melt already. I smiled and enjoyed my morning for the first time in what seems like a year. I am writing again, which is another big step for me.

Sometimes the things that we perceive as helpful or needed really do become a crutch and eventually a prison inflicted upon ourselves. Sometimes just changing one piece on the board of life can alter the whole view of the game board. For now I am hopeful and for now I will stay the course.

Trauma by Proxy

In everyday life we see everyday people. Sometimes someone stands out of the crowd. Maybe it’s on purpose, maybe it’s on accident, maybe they can’t help it. Thing is we never really take the time to figure it out, why there is a change in the code. People nowadays have moved far from cookie cutter happiness to non conformity comfort. But since non conformity has become normal, then what is abnormal?

I work with the abnormalities of the world. The unwanted masses in the form of children. It’s been my lot in life for eleven years. So many lives have passed through my hands, when I think about the actual number I want to cry. Some of them are born into being abnormal and can probably someday be normal. Some are born poisoned and abnormal, they may seem normal in appearance but inside they are wired backward and upside down. They don’t understand they are different, they only know that people treat and tell them they are. Then you have the ones who have been raised by the broken and taken in to protect them, they are themselves broken. The system tries to use the tools at their disposal to find them solace in normal, the best most ever pull off is abnormal, some may even pull off fake normal.

Working with the broken, poisoned, and abnormal and being the buffer between them and all the world causes damage. I used to think I was normal at some point. But now I consider myself abnormally broken but trying. I haven’t suffered the way these wonderful little people have, I have only tried to help. But one does not pull so many out of the fire without getting burned.

I once sat for hours with one of my precious little ones after he passed in his sleep. I stared at his cold little hand and it caused a fissure so deep in my soul that I think it might never fill. I have saved a little one from death because no one knew he was dying and no one believed he was hurt. Seeing his face smile at me in the hospital filled the fissure a little.

I guess what I am saying is, normal and abnormal are relative terms. Everyone has a relative way of looking at what is normal and abnormal to them. I perceived myself as broke and moderately abnormal but I found someone who loves me for me. So life may be out of the norm and you may feel broken but there still might be a reason for you to keep soldiering on, because life’s traumas can also be followed by life’s surprises.

“Trauma by Proxy” by Rio Martin

It’s Been Interesting

Life has been a series of ups and downs. Finding my way as a single father. Getting back out there. Struggling with being broke and working two to three jobs. The world is a tough place and depression is easy but I fought it off every step of the way. Occasionally the beast would take hold but I fought it off.

But I have found joy in another person again. She is sweet, kind, and wonderful. She loves me for who I am, short comings and grumps. She loves my boys and they adore her. She is coming to live with me very soon. Am I nervous? Yes. Is it exciting? Certainly!

I am looking at my future and I am smiling, which it feels has been some time. I love her and I am hoping for the best. Advise I would give others. Past pain is always there, it dulls over time. Memories always surface and can be vicious and bitter sweet. But life works out in weird ways. I wasn’t looking yet and neither was she, but we found each other. Life.

So fellow peeps fighting the good fight, cheers to you! Fight on, love on, and drink and be merry.

To the Beat

  

As the beat of the bass thumps against his eardrums by way of his ear buds he pecks nervously at the keys of his work computer. He has squeezed all of his life’s works into the spare minutes of the day. Stealing these moments back from all the pieces of his soul he has literally cashed in to the job that pays the bills for him to buy the clothes that he can show up to the work that he steals time from to do what he loves in order to survive doing the job he hates with every bit of what’s left of his deteriorating soul. He gnashes his teeth as his brain escaped enough of work in order to put together a semblance of what might be considered something creative. His badge hanging from a lanyard catching on the edge of the desk as he bends forwards to stare at the keys because he could never afford typing classes because he was always working in order to eat and pay rent. He took classes to make his paperweight degree happen, not to make life easier. He faked it the best he could to get the jobs he could to survive. He destroyed his body with malnutrition nuggets of food because it stopped his stomach from hurting and filled the void he created in the mixed up make shift life he had created. He would compare it a Frankenstein that could walk through public without torches, just sideways glances. He just shoved his hands further into his hoodie pocket and turned the volume up on his ear buds hoping to drown his world out with the discord that erupted around him daily. Eat this and you’ll lose weight. Drink this and you’ll feel better. Join us and we’ll have your back. Voices and images pollute his mind on rotation with no sense, rhyme or reason that can be seen by the monster in his shoes, but somehow they make sense to a lizard brained beast that steers the monster. His fingers fall like bombs onto the keyboard as he feels his back sweat against the desk chair in the stale air of the office with no windows in a life with nothing but walls and misdirection. He remembers her smell and how she tasted and tries to hold onto it while he stares at the QWERTY letters that he frantically pecks away at. Stories live and die on this machine. They spring to life only to get saved into oblivion. Maybe their time on an limbo stick will end and they will erupt again into life breathed into them by his fingers. His sore and tired fingers. He slows down as the creativity flows from him. He sighs, ready to hit save and do work he needs to do for the life that he has outside his words. He thinks of her smell and taste and then stops.
“To the Beat” by Rio Martin

Pacifier in Purgatory

Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of my situation. Not a day goes by that I don’t have regrets about actions or how things went. But I also feel hope about the future. I also feel happiness at times and glimmers of a new life ahead of me. But these feel like speculations in life when I do nothing but try to simply speak my mind for one of the rare occasions in my life and I am met with disheartening distrust and malice. I hate confrontation with people but at the same time my base instinct calls for me to gnaw on the bones of my enemy in search of the delicious marrow in the middle. I am at a cross roads.

I have seen people who have chosen every path here and I still have no idea which is the best for me. I am dying on the inside from swallowing hate and anger. It turns into a septic pill that sloshes around the insides of my soul darkening the edges that I thought I had just cleaned. Old fears sit like boxes in front of the damage. I move them but them they fall back into place like stubborn Tetris pieces. my arms grow weak from scrubbing away the shit. I grow weary.

My Two Sons

This is a sitcom I am currently putting together. Let me know what you think?
My Two Sons
Int. Day. Kitchen
A middle aged black man is sitting with his two teenage adopted white sons at the kitchen table as they are eating pizza. Several pizza boxes are scattered about the tall kitchen table. There are moving boxes all around the counters behind them. The boys are both taller than their father with shaggy sandy hair and even though they are two years apart, they look like twins.
Big Bro: (Standing at kitchen table between Lil Bro and Dad holding a piece of pizza) So, I get the front room right?
Dad: (Straightening out the pizza boxes on the table) Um, no, you are still rooming with your brother.
Lil Bro: (Mumbles incoherently with a mouth full of a breadstick)
Big Bro: Well if that’s happening, he’s got exactly five chances.
Dad: Five chances?
Big Bro: (Looks right at his brother, whose looking up at him) If I catch him masturbating five times, I’m out.
Lil Bro: Hey!
Dad: (laughs) Look, I know he masturbates a lot. But the front room is for lounging.
Lil Bro: (angry) I don’t masturbate a lot!
Big Bro: I have caught you more than once. (Takes a bite of pizza)
Dad: Me too.
Lil Bro: Yeah, well, I have caught you Dad.
Dad: (Leans forward) Well, you barged into my room without knocking. This new place has locks on all the doors. There are two bathrooms. You guys have yours and I have mine. Just don’t waste water. There’s no point, just do what you need to do, we’re in a drought.
Lil Bro: Fine, I am so over this conversation.
Dad: Just worried you might get early onset carpal tunnel or something.
Big Bro: (laughs) Tennis Elbow!
(Dad and Big Bro laughing hard)
Lil Bro: You guys suck.
Big Bro: (Tries to compose himself) Sorry, we’ll try not beat you up so much. (pause) We’ll leave that to you.
(Dad and Bro start laughing almost to tears)
Lil Bro: I hate you guys.
Dad: (wipes his eyes) Awe, sorry. We’re stopping now. (He looks at Big Bro) Right?
Big Bro: (he nods to Dad and smiles, then he reaches over and grabs another piece of pizza) Five chances bro. (then he walks away)
Lil Bro: (Leans over and puts his head down in defeat)

Sorry

My work and life have been crushing me. I hope to find some time to write this weekend!!!

Fist Shaped Kisses

Photo by Mad Otaku
She slaps my face and I don’t move

My cheek flares in shades of red

Her hand cuts through the air

The sound of it cracking into my skin

Echoes through the halls of the small apartment

I stand there like an unmovable oak

She swings again

Her hand was closed

Her rings raked my soft skin

Currents of crimson streaked my face

I would never hit her

I was raised better

She wasn’t

But love makes you do stupid things

Trying to prove how much you cared

By bleeding on the kitchen floor

I can’t even remember what started it all

I think I made chicken

I think it was lemon chicken

She doesn’t like lemon chicken

I think I knew that

But I forget sometimes

Her left hand’s knuckles crack into me ear

The ringing is intense as I stumbled

She called me names

I could feel my eyes deceive me

They begin to well

I loved her smile

I loved her soft touch

I loved her sweet words

At least I think I did

I haven’t heard them for years

I have not heard much aside from how I failed

I have not heard much but my shortcomings

I brought home my money to see it disappear

I made the food to see it get destroyed

She stands over me now

Mocking my tears

Calling me less of a man

I could crush her throat with one hand

But I take it

I take it for what I thought was love

She throws the plate of chicken at me

The plate busts my forehead open

The hot blood fills my sight

Tears mixed with blood

The taste of iron and salt on my lips

I rise to my feet

I walk away from her

My movements are sluggish

She shoves me from behind and I stumble again

A bloody handprint on the wall

I make it to the bedroom

She is right there

Telling me I am scum

Telling me how she should have fucked my friend instead

I pull out a suitcase I haven’t used since our honeymoon

I empty my two drawers

I put my six hangers of pants into the case

She tells me I’m a fuck up

She would be better off

I grab my hat and coat

My hand reaches the doorknob

She falls silent

She grabs my arm

She asks me to stay

I turn my swollen bleeding head

I stare at her hard enough for her to break her hold

I turn the knob and the evening sun burns my eyes

But for some reason

Some strange reason

I am smiling

“Fist Shaped Kisses” by Rio Martin

Insomniac Padre de los Niños

Life drains from me drop by drop as I stare at different parts of my room. TV holds no interest. The rest of the house slumbers. I lay here on my bed with no feeling of being tired. I would love nothing more than to sleep but I just stare. I see images in the acoustic ceiling. A clown is paying his loanshark who is actually a shark.

Pandora streams music into my ears in the hopes that it inspires sleep. But all it does is inspire the words that I write here. I would say that life brings my currents state but I am doing fairly well. I simply don’t sleep. I simply lay here. I tried turning my phone into a white noise machine. It is peaceful but I often imagine being on the beach I hear with my toes in the cool wet sand with a cold beer dangling from my fingertips. 

Is there a solution to this or is madness an eventuality. Will I become a victim of duality? Who is Tyler Durden? Will I find out someday soon? I could shave my head but I think I would get cold. Fighting people at night seems daunting, though being knocked out could be conducive to sleep. Consciousness suddenly being flung from your body by blunt force trauma as you collapse on the floor of a basement with the sound of a butcher dropping a side of beef. A cold slap echoes through the ears of those who witness the event. 

I am trying to find a place in this world where my tires will catch and traction will be achieved but until then the engine keeps revving and the gas burns away with little to no distance achieved. So I will listen to my music in the darkness. Letting it claim me and hope for sweet release to eventually find me. Sent by some greater force who felt pity for the tired father who worked through sickness and hell for the last week. Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead! The darkness swallows everything, but my eyes never close.

Sorry

Been busy as hell and the universe is not helping. I will try and write something tonight. Erg.