squeezing out some darkness

090617

it only takes one time

mom says it’s over…no more bullshit from you, son

you’ll soon be an orphan when the truck comes at five

no more hugs at bedtime and no more gentle wake up kisses

a cold cot and three meals a day with all the other dregs

my brain twists itself into a fucking knot…a starter knot

because the knot   will keep twisting and getting stronger and 

more complicated.

now i don’t know anymore.  my silence overwhelmed me and i 

don’t know who to trust…or if there is really such a thing.

i trust no one and no thing.  i am ten years old and we move to

the suburbs.  i begin to create a new chris.  the old chris is going away.

the old chris loves his mommy and daddy and baby sister.  the old chris 

loves his kitty and fred the dog and even gormorker…gypsy.  

the new chris is a gypsy, in reality and he wanders from friend to friend

and uses his perceptive and naturally mimicking and desperate nature to change himself into 

whatever or whoever he needs to be to fit the situation or the manufactured

friendship.

some chris’ make some really great friends in high school and  even has a couple of

girlfriends…but they never work out because the girls always sniff out the lack of genuineness. 

but the guys stick by me because most of them also create alter-egos and we all dance in a 

circle of lies and hurt and sarcastic humor and it is a comfortable place.  we play sports and tell

jokes and i make about six different chris’ for my six best friends.  it works and it tells me that this could work forever and i don’t have to worry about my deep hurt.  but it’s always there and it always drives me from the most powerful part of my soul.

years go by and i have so many chris’ that it’s hard to keep track.  the best ones

are great friends and sometimes are very close to the real chris.

that real chris is still there…but he is trapped in a very deep well and he is covered in 

suffocating water and is constantly fighting to stay above the water line as he looks

up at the opening of the well.

and he sees his friends and his girlfriends peering down into the well in order to get 

a glimpse of chris.  even his wife does this.  she does it the most.  chris claws his way 

up the impossibly slimy walls of the well but he cannot get up.

my mother doesn’t visit the well.  she thinks she knows me.  she knows very little 

about me and most of the time i don’t care.  i give her a chris she can live with so 

she doesn’t feel guilty about making a monster…she did make a monster…i am a monster

sometimes i hate myself and i want to kill the monster…literally kill it.  i could kill it.  it would be 

oh so easy.  i hate the goddam thing and i do my best to keep it at bay but it feels like the fucking thing wants to shred its way out of my skin and hurt something or someone.  the monster is anger.  it is pure hurt and anger and fear and that sense of betrayal that i felt kneeling on the tennis courts praying to God that i would be okay at the orphanage because i

really believed my mommy was never coming back to get me.  hurt and hurt and more hurt and

how could i ever believe in anyone ever again when the person i loved most in life and in whom i

placed my total trust betrayed everything i ever believed in about her and just chose abandonment.  abandonment instead of parenting.  cast off like a broken piece of furniture.  It only takes one fucking time...one crucial moment in a life to break a heart and break a person and yeah...it only takes one time.

I am a thing that once was loved and cuddled and kissed and tucked in.  but not anymore ever again.  maybe the physical act but never again with sincerity because the chris i manufactured that day when mommy finally picked me up was wise and did not want to be hurt again.  EVER again.  i never want to be hurt like that again because it 

ruined my soul that day and it told me that i can never trust anyone with all of my heart and intimacy and the monster came into being.  

can you trust me?  maybe.  you have a lot of time to prove yourself.  i’ll toss you a chris to interact with in the meantime but the chris at the bottom of the well has a hell of a time reaching the opening and it may take a while.  

this is your warning.  only a couple people know me.  really know me.  sometimes they have to climb down into the well and be with me down there and hold me.  i made a dry space down there with a fire and a place to sit or lay down.  i was able to do that when my twisted brain began to heal.  beth helped me heal.  even mom helped me heal.  the dry place is spreading.  when i drink, it shrinks and sometimes i fall back into the deepness of the well.  but when i am sober the dry place grows and i think that maybe someday it might cover up the deepness of the well and stairs will appear on the side of the wall.  

hope is a great thing to have.  i lived for many years without it.  God made no sense to me.  he still doesn’t most of the time.  but i am learning.  i don’t know what he is doing or what he wants with us but i want to know and i will continue to invite him into my life and my thoughts and actions.  i am patient in that regard.  

i love you, whoever reads this.