Life is short. People say that a lot. Perhaps because there’s some truth to it. It feels like a year or so ago when I was twenty-one. But it’s been ten years. It actually feels very strange to think about where I am now, and where I was then. Some people are good with words, and I don’t think I am one of those, and I don’t prescribe that there’s much meaning here for you or a reader. But maybe writing it out, will help me later if I look back. It seldom does, as I have before looked through old journals and ramblings on folders long since accessed, but here it goes anyway, because I need a reminder. A reminder not to give up, or to give in to feeling helpless and meaningless. Lost in a sea of humanity. Such poetry to lament, heavy words, that become me. Heavy words become me.

I don’t think we ever forget a love that we had for a person. We might think we have for a few years, months, days, whatever measurement you want to give it, but then if you dream, if you can dream and you have that dream, that reminds you of the love you felt when you were with that person. You remember. But, the person doesn’t exist anymore, and when I say that, I mean that version of you. They’re gone. The person you were when you loved that person, the person you loved, that version of them. They’re gone too. We grow. We forget, then remember, tuck away until a dream pulls it out from your memory. We fall in love. We fall out of love.

I like to pretend I am a song-writer. I like to pretend I am an artist. That I can draw pictures. I like to think I am a grown-up. But every time I dig deep into the worldly topics and politics that grown ups dabble in, I feel like a small child that is sad and terrified, and all too often angered and frustrated. Therefore, the normal action is for me to avoid the world. Hide away, until I can figure out a better way to cope. In the news, it’s always death and destruction that I find myself pulling through. I forget the good reads, the hopeful advancements in all fields of science. The good reporting. The perseverance. The internet, a wealth of information at my search. Plugged in and connected. Connected, even if you try not to be.

When I was in high-school, I was into Harley Davidson apparel. I wore a hat with the logo on it for almost the entire year. I thought it was cool. I thought it showed that I was into tough things, that maybe it was a reflection of the tough life I had. We children dress ourselves in the strangest things to reflect what’s going on inside. If only I felt I was a strong hero, I would have worn a cape all sophomore and junior year. Truth is now, I can’t stand the Harley Davidson themed clothing and marketing. I don’t like muscle bikes. I like speed bikes. I like dirt bikes. But I don’t like, or shall I say, the history that goes with Harley Davidson or muscle bikes as such; as pointed out to me by the late George Carlin, these Harley Davidson and Indian muscle bikes associated with Hell’s Angels, not glamour or tough. Violence and drugs. But if I was dressing to reflect my past and the fabric that was my history as a kid, violence and drugs… That was a part of my childhood.

I have a job that assists in the investigation of people, entities, subjects involved in certain fields of crime. Sometimes, I might get to do some of the digging. I also have a problem that is called PTSD, although, I think I have a very good handle on it, while I am awake. Picture, a convenience store on a corner in a high intensity drug trafficking area, high intensity financial crime area, adjacent to a gas station and a Days Inn. I see this picture on Google Earth Maps, and I am brought back to thinking, “I wonder about the stories of that Days Inn. The drug use, the crime that takes place in the rooms.” It made me think of my experience in a Motel 6. The night as some say, “Shit went down!”

My family and I were living in the Motel 6. The family living in the room next to us did a lot of drugs. Or so I remember. I actually don’t remember what is real and what I made up. Most of my childhood is like that. I still feel this way, that it’s all one big dream and I might wake up. Wake up and my parents aren’t dead, I have my life together in a happy little manner, perhaps I am in love and married with children. But no. That’s not real, and at this point in my life I don’t even know if that’s what I would want to be real. What is real are feelings.

The feelings I get after I dream, when I wake up. The toughest times in my life now are when I wake up and when I try to go to sleep. I need medication to help me wake up, and go to sleep, the same medication. What can I do to change it? Write a song, a poem, draw a picture. I am afraid of people and love. I am afraid the world will keep tumbling into an ugly unbreathable and unbearable heartache. You won’t find uplifting banter here today Sir. Only thanks that I am warm and feed. I have technology and a working vehicle. I have friends and family that help me and love me. They love you. So stop worrying about it. Stop waiting for the world to end.

I want my life to be, not waiting on bad and to believe that someday, most of us; humanity, won’t just be taller children.