Tag: Love

The Real Me.


When I was fifteen I lost my virginity in the bathroom of the Exxon gas station across the street from Union Station to a guy named AJ that I never saw again. I had just met him a few minutes before, in the bathroom at Union Station, next to the food court. I don’t even remember what we talked about or what he looks like. It was quick and dirty and painful, and all I got out of it was the experience of having been fucked in the ass for the first time. I mean, I guess he was kind to agree to wear a condom, and he didn’t shove it in without lube, but that was about as much consideration as I think he gave me during the process. He was 23 years old and he knew I was only 15. My introduction to sex and relationships with men was quick, dirty, and painful as I was bent over a sink losing my virginity to some random guy in a public restroom. We said we were in a relationship for the two weeks we chatted on the phone, only to have him abandon me, never to be heard from again. So began my clandestine promiscuity.

I never bothered to look at the root of my sexual behaviors until now. I never thought that they were unhealthy or uncontrollable, but looking back, I definitely wasn’t in control. I was wagering my body for kindness and love and affection. I realize now that random sex with strangers was my way of coping with all of the trauma and stress I had endured during my childhood. I would not let anyone in too close because I have been so terribly devastated by people that claim to love me. The few that did really love me found a way to abandon me somehow. That’s why I’ve never really given myself fully to another. I didn’t want to be hurt any deeper or abandoned or both, but look at me now… Alone. Still. And that shit hurts.

I used to brag about how I had a fake id when I was 15 and was hitting clubs at that age too, but that shit was rooted in pain and separation. I felt like an outcast at home, at school, and at work. I was constantly trying to be the version of me that people liked so that they wouldn’t mistreat me, and going to a gay club with gay people, like me, made me feel seen. I could be myself and not worry about castigation, being made to feel disgusting, or told I’m going to hell for being attracted to men. I could relax and try to discover more about this lifestyle of which I had no knowledge. 

I was GREEN but had a phenomenal poker face and a noggin full of stories at the ready to throw off any bouncer that might question my identification card. I memorized addresses, dates, id numbers, and even created back stories for the “character” on the id I was “pretending” to be. I used my own name though. I knew that the less I had to falsify the better, and I had just gotten a debit card with my name on it for the first time, and nobody in 1998/1999 thought a 15 year old would have a debit card. It all worked to my advantage. I had to have variety when it came to id’s just in case one got burned or confiscated or lost. I used addresses of relatives or other people I knew and would just change the city or state as needed. I knew that once I got into the rhythm of the story that the details would come to me. I literally created a fake college background because when I was 15-17 I was pretending to be 19-21 and in college. I used my same birthday but changed the year to 1978 when I was 17, so that I could be 21 in 1999. I even got fake id’s for a few of my friends. By the time I graduated from high school in June of 2000, I had several phenomenal fake id’s (for the times), was extremely popular at “Jenny’s” and “The Mill” (2 old DC Gay Clubs), and had already had sex with close to 30 guys and had had sexual “experiences” with twice that many. I was still only 17. 

Cars, motels, hotels, parks, alleys, bathrooms, clubs, stairwells, parking garages, and occasionally a bedroom were the places I got my tutelage in sex between 15-18. My family made it clear to me through the entirety of my adolescence that I could NOT come to them with this gay shit. So I had to figure it out on my own. Television and movies weren’t kind either, and the internet was basically a startup in 97-98. The Union Station food court bathroom is infamous now too. There are probably still boys seeking sexual refuge and men preying upon them in that bathroom today. Right now. Cause I was one of those lost boys who’s entire sexual identity has been predicated upon the experiences I had in the Union Station food court bathroom, and the Exxon across the street, when I was 15 years old.

I remember the first person in my family to call me a faggot. It was my youngest aunt. We’re only eight years apart. She was part (mean) big sister, and part (mean) aunt. In my earliest memories of her, she wasn’t kind to me. It was like she resented me for some reason that I could never identify, and this was even before my parents died. I think maybe she resented my sister and me because we took her away from OUR parents. She was a kid, so mostly I don’t blame her for the resentment, just what she did with it. After my parents died and my sister and me moved into the house with my aunt and grandmother, my aunt would almost yell at me everyday. She would find something to nitpick and she led the charge in labeling me “annoying” when I was 7, a word that still triggers me today. That word would be used to justify the mistreatment of me by everyone in my immediate family including my own sister. It was, however, my youngest aunt who started saying it first. She would also mumble “faggot” underneath her breath in the beginning, when other people weren’t around. Soon she began to say it with impunity and even allowed her friends to pick on me and call me sissy, faggot, soft, girly, and anything else they could think of to get a rise out of me. They would pick on me and push me around and when I would go after them I would get into trouble, like I was the one who caused the issue. Then there was the time she called me a “fucking faggot” while she was washing dishes because she had asked me to do something and I refused. I called her a “ho” after she called me a ‘faggot” and she told my grandmother and my grandmother washed my mouth out with soap. She knew that she could get me into trouble easily and would often weaponize my fear of her brother (my abuser) against me. They all did. I NEVER had a voice when I was a kid, and it’s sad reliving these painful memories, especially since that same aunt became one of the closest people to me later in life. It’s like how do you hold people accountable for doing some fucked up shit to you that you never got over, but also love them, and be around them? I buried my pain for what I thought was the greater good, and the shit has been tearing me up for 32 years. My family really broke me, and now I’m the only one that can fix me and the shit is hard and I’m still so damn alone. I can’t remember the last Christmas or New Year I didn’t spend alone; last couple of birthdays too. 

I remember the day I started to change who I was around people. I was in the backseat of my abuser’s MPD Detective cruiser. I was about 10 or 11 and I had asked to stop at 7-11 for a Slurpee. I knew that the only way he’d stop is if I offered to treat everyone in the car, so I did. My grandfather would always give me money back then so I always had a few dollars in my pocket. My abuser’s partner was in the front seat of the car and my cousin, my sister, and me were in the backseat. He made me give my sister and cousin the money and let them go in to buy the Slurpees while I stayed in the car. Then “Weak” by SWV came on the radio and I started singing. The song was new back then and everybody was feeling it. Before I knew it, my abuser had reached back and punched me in my chest. He yelled at me to stop singing that “girl song” and told me that I better not sing anymore songs by females that came on the radio. I was hurt, physically and emotionally, embarrassed, and holding back the tears as best I could. I knew that day that I would have to change who I was around this man and subsequently around everyone, in order to survive. His partner sat there in silence. Maybe because he was in shock or maybe because he didn’t care, but he never said a word. I buried the pain of literally having the life snatched out of my voice by this man like I buried the pain caused by my aunt and the rest of my family.

My first love, and the only thing left on this earth that loved me back was music, and he tried to take that from me too. They all did. My family constantly told me to “shut up” when I would sing around the house, even if I was in my own room. I successfully auditioned for and attended an elite musical program in high school too. I even got a solo my junior year during our Christmas show and my grandmother only showed up outside to pick me up after, and the solo was dedicated to her. They never pushed or even supported my pursuit of and love for music. Singing was my only refuge. It still is.  All of my attempts to love my family in my adolescence seemed to go unrequited. Then I met “AJ” at Union Station, and across the street in the Exxon gas station is where I surrendered my innocence, and he took it. 

Then when I was 16, after my “first love” (not AJ), I met “Triple D”. He was 25 when we met and 26 by the first time we went out on a date. We also met at Union Station, but not in the bathroom or in a sexual situation. By the time I graduated from high school the following year, he had already put me through a whirlwind of emotions and disappearing acts. Everything would be fine and then I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks or months and then he’d just pop back up like nothing ever happened. He would mess with other guys too. That went on until I was 25. Back and forth, breakup to makeup to breakup again was our pattern, and he never really even acknowledged me in public either. He knew he had no business dating me when I was in the the 12th grade, especially since he was an administrator in another school district. He’s some of y’all’s frat brother too. I’m not even trying to blow that man’s life up either, but this pattern that has permeated my life since I was 15 has got to stop. 

I learned early from the death of my parents and the unrequited love of my family, that abandonment was a part of life, and I baked that in to every one of my relationships. Most folks proved me right too, but some relationships I definitely sabotaged because I didn’t want them to hurt me, so I found a way out. I felt like I could hold on to a semblance of power and control if I remained promiscuous and never gave myself fully to another. Like, no one can hurt me if I don’t give them all of me, right? WRONG! I got lost in all of that. The me that I was trying to protect got buried with my pain underneath the facade. I knew that on my everyday face I could mask the pain by being the person that people liked and didn’t find “annoying”. I drank a lot too, for years, just trying to cope. So, in an effort to protect myself, I began to poison my spirit with sex and alcohol. I traipsed in and out of love affairs and sexual liaisons convinced that I was looking for something, but all I was doing was numbing the pain and tainting my soul. I never had an STD either. I prided myself on not having unprotected sex, and had not since 2002 and by the time I had reached my 30th birthday in 2012, I was still STD free. I was still fucking randoms though, but in beds by this time. I had gotten so used to being negative that when I got my test results on March 29, 2014, I couldn’t speak. 

I had been working undercover in vice for the 6 months prior buying drugs and doing human trafficking operations, but had just gone back to patrol on midnights while I began planning my move to Los Angeles which wouldn’t happen for another two years. I got off work about 0600 and arrived to my doctor’s office at Providence Hospital to get the results of my routine bloodwork. The office didn’t open until 0800 so I slept in the car until then. I only remember being in the exam room and hearing the news, then I remember being on Central Avenue in Largo stopping at the liquor store. I bought two bottles of wine and then I went to my youngest aunts house and rang her doorbell. It was a Saturday morning. She was still asleep and her oldest daughter answered the door. I asked my cousin to wake up my aunt and have her come downstairs and talk to me. When she came downstairs moments later, she was calm and measured, exactly what I needed her to be. At this point in our lives we were extremely close. She was closer to me than probably any other relative in my family. Our relationship had changed right around my junior year of high school after my sister had left for college. We started being kind to each other, and when we did, we grew closer as each year passed. We talked 2-3 times a week, and hung out regularly for several years. By the time March 2014 had arrived, she was more like my sister and best friend than that mean and scathing aunt she was to me when we were younger. I had never confronted her with the pain she caused me though, even now. I had never held her accountable for the ways she contributed to the terror I had suffered during my childhood, mostly because I didn’t want her to stop loving me. I was afraid to tell her how deeply her words and actions toward me as a child cut me, partly also because on March 29, 2014, as I sat on her couch in her living room, and told her that I had tested positive for HIV, she held my hand and my head while I cried. Then, a week later, at my first visit to an ID doctor, she held my hand and my head while I cried again, and for that I will forever be grateful. We don’t talk now though because of how I’ve had to hold my family accountable for the tyranny and abuse I endured. I had to stop loving her too. I  buried that love like I used to bury my pain in order to see things more clearly and in order to heal.

Gratefully, now I am undetectable and healthy. I stopped drinking about 4 years ago and recently stopped having random sex too. It took me all of these years to see how I had used them both to cope and that these coping mechanisms were destroying my soul. I had let the emotional and physical abuse from my family push me into a sexual deviance that threatened my very life and I used my career as cover. I let those closest to me believe that I got stuck by a needle at work so I could shift the blame for my choices just a little bit. The truth is, I have no idea where I got it because I can’t even remember most of their names. I hadn’t had unprotected sex in 12 years when I found out I was HIV positive in 2014, and felt like God had betrayed me. I cried for weeks, but mostly shouldered the burden of my plight alone. I felt like I had already been through enough. I didn’t even tell my work partner at the time and he’s my cousin. I didn’t know who to trust, especially on the Metropolitan Police Department. I still don’t. My cousin had never really shown up for me anyway in a meaningful way, so I wasn’t going to tell him and have him disappoint me. I contacted my sexual partners (that I could reach) and shared the news. I also told my best friend(s), and my grandmother. 

Ironically the virus forced me to grow in ways I didn’t think possible before 3/29/14. It forced me to examine behaviors and trends in my life and lifestyle and to determine if they were still working, but mostly it taught me to have some compassion for myself. I began to let go of some of my own judgmental and manipulative ways and to face myself. I’m still facing myself. I want love, commitment, kindness, and passion from a relationship. I was too afraid to allow myself to want what I really wanted because when I was 15 what I wanted wasn’t possible. Gays couldn’t get married in 1998, then there was the end of the world scare in 2000, and all of those years spent in church being told that my very being was an abomination. I had no idea when I was 15 years old that I would ever even make it to 39. My parents didn’t. So I was reckless with my body and my spirit. I’m not reckless anymore. I’m not afraid to face myself or any of you, as exactly who I am anymore either. I’ve done a great deal of work on myself, learning to let go of my anger with the past, but not burying it anymore. The only way to surmount any obstacle is through confrontation, not retreat. I’m now ready to confront any issue, any obstacle, and any trauma as the real me.

June 8, 2000 at Houston’s in Georgetown

Proof


I watched  U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester give a speech the other day related to the insurrection in 2021, and she was carrying a blanket during the speech. At the end of the speech she said that the blanket had a marking of her ancestor registering to vote in 19th century. She said that she brought it as “proof” that her people have been at this for a very long time. That “PROOF” part really stuck out to me though. 

After mulling over my piece “16 in June” more, I had to question WHY I still have a love letter from my first love in 1999, or 3. Like, why have I kept them for so long? What was I saving them for? What am I saving them for? And when I honestly answered that question out loud, the first thing I could think of was “Proof”. Proof that someone loved me or at least professed to. And his letters weren’t the only ones I’ve kept over the years. I even found a letter from my high school girlfriend. But why do I need proof? Wait… Do I STILL need proof? Like How do I grow from here? 

I got rid of the shit. Right then! That day. Burned it and poured vinegar on it too. Pictures and all. Deleted numbers too, all of them, immediately after I processed this unhealthy attachment to past love. And from HIGH SCHOOL? Like nah. I’m 39. I gotta let this shit go. I’m making room for something new. Someone new. So I did, and I am. It’s a process though, like everything else in life. In the past I let my impulses guide me through so much of my love life that I never really took the time to examine what I really want, and I what I really need from a partner. But let me say this… I need a man who is nurturing and loving. FULL FUCKING STOP! 

“Nurturing and Loving” is the bare minimum, and if you don’t offer that, you are not the one for me. I don’t wanna fight, because I have spent a lifetime trying to convince other people that they should love me back, and I’m done. Done done. I am worthy and I always have been. It took me all this time to truly understand the depth of worthiness and how pervasive the fear of unworthiness can be. It’s like a poison seeping into your life that takes a lifetime to kill you by constantly making you feel inferior. I am not inferior! I am the manifestation of dying mother’s wildest dreams, and I will show all of you what a little black gay boy from D.C., orphaned at seven, who has surmounted every obstacle, every abuser, every hater, every eviction, every doubt, and EVERY denier of my greatness, can and WILL DO. 

And if you let me, I will seep into your life like medicine, and make you feel something deeply to make you better. All better. Because you are worthy too. You are worthy of having all of your dreams come true, and you will discover like I have that choosing our own happiness first means knowing that we have to be our own most important person. No one is above you. Not one.

I wanna walk through life with someone who sees me and knows me and protects me and my feelings. I want someone to answer the phone on first ring or text me right back even if I ask something trivial. I want someone to know how and when I eat tomatoes or eggs or sushi. And someone who takes care in the way they address me and treat me, even when I am wrong or when they’re mad; a man I can trust. I want a man who wants children and to start and build a family. I want as many children as we can afford. I want to know someone deeply. Every scar, inside and out. Every fond memory and some of the bad ones too. Every doubt, every fear, every kink, every year of the rest of our lives together. And I want him near. Like, here with me now; holding me and loving on me and just being in my space, and in my face affectionately. I want a man who can receive love and opens his heart to change and depth and letting go. I want to be married and build a life, a future, and a space to always share love unconditionally, indefinitely. Tenderness is always sublime. I just “wanna be in love. I wanna be loved. I want him by my side. I want him to hold me. I want his whole heart, and for him to have mine.” 

Different Choices


I lost my family 32 years ago and never got another one. I realize now the latter is mostly because of my choices. I’m gonna start making different choices now, because I do want a love and family of my own. I’m choosing to start working toward that goal immediately. I know now that a family is the thing that I want more than anything. A part of me thought admitting that would somehow weaken me. It doesn’t. I feel more empowered now. I know I can survive alone, but I don’t want to anymore. I want to share my love and life and future with family. My own family.

I guess Imma just let the universe send me a new one when the time comes.

I Hope You’re Reading This


I used to dream a lot. Dreams have revealed things to me that I didn’t even know existed; in me, in the world, or anywhere else. I learned about two weeks before my parents died in December of ’89 that I needed to tuck away something that was only me and only for me. My mother told me that as she filled out her insurance forms increasing them to the maximum amount should something happen to her in the future. Future. She knew then that she didn’t have much of a future left. She sensed it. She dreamt it. She knew. She probably also knew that there was or would be nothing she could do to shake the fact or feeling that she was about to die. So she trusted her gut and protected her children the best way she possibly could. Motherfuckin insurance. And she did good. She was a D.C. Cop at the height of the crack epidemic. And her husband was a crackhead. Yes, my father, a marine corps veteran, construction business owner, 33 year old married man was smoking crack in ’89. He was smoking crack and bringing crack whores home while my sister and I were asleep and my mother was at work. What he needed was therapy after his upbringing and the military. That’s not something that black men or most men did back in ’89 anyway. Anyway, then in 88’ his mother, the woman who birthed and raised him, the woman who saw him in a way no other person had, died. An aneurysm. So he graduated from being an amazingly loving father and moderately controlling, loving husband, to a Motherfuckin crackhead that did crackhead shit. Then when he smoked his life into a shambles and my mother’s and my sister’s and my life (even though we ain’t really know it yet) into another shambles he climbed through my upstairs bedroom window like a fucking crackhead and was in the house when we got home that day before my birthday back in ’89. My mother had a migraine that day so we got food from McDonald’s on New York Avenue, and after all these years that spot is still there. People didn’t understand or respect how debilitating that kind of headache could be back then either. I get botox for my migraines now and I still suffer through at least 10-15 headache days a month, and on those days I have to take another medication just to manage them. I recently had a dream that helped me understand more fully what mother was feeling. She was only 31. Her name was Cynthia. And she was the only person that ever really saw me. I’m 39 now and I’ve only just in the last year begun to see myself for who I really am. I spent so much of my life after that day back in ’89 tucking pieces of myself away, that I couldn’t see me. And I had to do it. I had to tuck away the original me so that I could survive this life. And two weeks before my father, the loving, crackhead, womanizer, grief stricken, marine corps veteran, who needed some fucking therapy, shot and killed my mother in front of my sister and me in our living room and then killed himself a few seconds later, MY MOTHER WARNED ME. She told me to “keep something for me”, because she had given her whole life to everyone else and still felt lonely. She felt like there was nowhere to turn, no one to talk to, and no one to actually help that day. She knew that her death was inevitable. And that’s been the hardest shit to swallow. Because I want to help her. But I can’t, and I couldn’t. And that shit is so damn hard to swallow all these years later. And what I now realize I did for most of my life was tuck away the the thing that was most sacred to me. ME!

I hid underneath the impressions, reactions, and other learned behaviors and practices of my peers, and mostly my family. I became my interpretation of who I thought they wanted me to be. I gradually tucked away my identity and became this other person because I thought that if I could be who they wanted me to be then they would love me. They would finally hold me and support me and SEE me the way that I have so freely and meticulously loved, supported, and seen them. All of THEM. It didn’t work. One by one I pimped my kindness and generosity out like MPD pimped me out when I was working undercover back in the day. Except I didn’t get my fair shake in return. Almost never. So I settled for 75 percenters. People that mostly loved me back but were either incapable or unwilling to love me at the level I loved them or was willing to. As I got older I began to settle for even less, particularly in romantic partners. And I wasn’t the best catch either with all of my repressed emotional baggage. But I took care of them. Every last one of those boyfriends and girlfriends that I had. I looked out and I was ride or die. Hoping that they’d see my devotion and want to really see me. But I couldn’t see me. So it was impossible for me to love someone fully or for them to love me fully until I could actually see who the fuck I was, absent anybody else’s opinion or feelings or love. I’ve always felt like something was missing with ALL of my loved ones. Family, friends, pets, all of THEM. I realized that I needed to do some research on me. I needed to investigate my behaviors, and choices, and beliefs. I needed to impeach my own character and dissect the Rodney that I actually am and not the character I’ve been playing since my father made the singular crackhead decision to orphan my sister and me. I guess misery does love company. An aneurysm orphaned him a year and half before and his mother was the only person that ever really saw him and while my mother was surely a close 2nd, the death of my grandmother rocked him and the ripples are still rippling. So my crackhead father put a bullet in my mother’s skull and then one in his own skull while his nine year old daughter and (ALMOST) seven year old son watched, and while his niece stood on the front porch. And because I didn’t want to make my father the villain (and apparently no one else did either), I made him the hero. And that shit is hard to fucking swallow too, because if he’s the hero in a story where his crack induced rage caused him to murder my mother in cold blood, in front of his own children and then cowardly take his own life, then that means that my MOTHER, who couldn’t defend herself because of his crackhead strength and her debilitating migraine, was the villain. And that shit is so fucking hard to swallow, because I did that part, with a little help from my family. I made my mother the villain for not protecting us better by protecting her own life, until I had that fucking dream. That dream that made me feel what it would be like to have someone murder me in cold blood in front of my children and I couldn’t defend myself OR THEM. That was 6 moths ago. I see my mother now too. I see the woman she was and the struggles she faced and how strong she was to be able to give so much love to everyone in her life knowing that when she needed someone to love her and protect her, to SEE her and defend her that no one would be there. So she gave her last breath to my sister and to me. She made arrangements as best she could and she trusted that surely someone that she had given so much of her life and love to, surely someone who she had opened her home to or sacrificed her own needs for would be there to protect her children should she die. Sadly she was wrong. My mother and I are the same in more ways than I ever knew until that dream. We both just wanted to be loved back. Not even first. Like no bullshit we would give our love freely and first. And all THEY had to do was be grateful and love us back when we need it. I wish my mother had loved herself more than she loved me. I use to wish that she had lost her memory and abandoned us and would come back one day. I wanted that for her. I wanted that for me. Because I know that whatever she had done, wherever she had gone, she saw me and she loved me, so I could forgive Anything. I just couldn’t forgive her for dying. Even if she did die for me. And this keyboard might have water damage, but Imma get through this. I didn’t realize until I was 38 that she knew that her death would prepare me for everything that life would throw at me. She knew that I would hold on to me, some fucking how, and make it through the storms of life. And she’s been in my heart and in my voice and in my head the whole time. She’s been preparing me for each obstacle by making me remember that whatever this life has for me, I am prepared, and the worst day of my life has already happened. If I could survive that day and the aftermath, I will be prepared to survive and thrive after any loss or devastation, and even if nobody ever loves me back. I am strong, agile, and fortified. I have been tested, and know that I will be tested more as I maneuver the storms that life brings, because I love the me that I actually am. I am also vulnerable, sensitive, and easily hurt. I am loyal, dedicated, and relentless in pursuit of a goal. I am capable of loving my mate/partner/spouse and family with no equivocations, and I want to. I want to share my life with someone who likes and loves the me that I actually am, and I love them for exactly who they are. I want to build a life and home and raise a family and have a successful career. I want to be inordinately wealthy and change the world in a positive way for everyone, and to be recognized for my work. I want to travel the world and universe and live long enough to see the technological and humanitarian advances of the next millennium. I want to PERFORM. I want to share my story and the things that I’ve learned with the world. And I don’t want to be lonely or alone. I want a deep love that shakes my foundation for the better and outperforms any of my expectations. Someone who considers my feelings and reassures me of his love. And I want peace and harmony for everyone. I’ve spent a lifetime hiding myself, and other things. I’m tired of hiding and fighting and focusing on what I have lost. I’m ready to embrace the me that I actually am and I can and will continue to love myself first and the most. After all, my mother sacrificed her own life for the me that she always saw and loved. I’m just glad I can see and love me now too. I gonna take some time getting settled in to the real me.

Look at that joy. I miss it. I miss her. But I’m so grateful for her sacrifice.

I’ll Never Not Hate You Again


I’ll never not hate you again. Because I loved you. Maybe not first, but as soon as I could. But when I loved you, you hated me. You hated what you thought I’d become. You hated the thought that I’d become more than you. Now I hate you too. Because you broke me. You broke me in half. You broke me in two. You broke me in, too. Into this world of hate, lies, love, and condemnation. Now you can’t condemn me without condemning you. And you can’t even look at me without hating you. I can look at me now and see what I’m becoming. Still broken in two by all the hatred you infused. Half boy half man, and both hate you. The difference is, now I can do what you never could. I can become even more than what you thought I would. A real man with a voice not dumbing down to bums. And I can even hate you without fear of bad conscience. Cause my conscience is clear and yours is cloudy after all you have done. Knowing it was you where all of this hatred came from. I’ll never forget you or the way you taught me to become a “man”. And if the only way to win is forgive you and forget your sins, I’ll find solace in this and the fine point of my pen. Because you broke me I’m free. And free to never not hate you again.

Come Undone


In a week or two I’ll have to delete your number. In a month or two, your email. In a year or two most traces of you will be gone. But now you’re the new “compared to” no one else could don. It took five years to get here. We knew the time would come. Five years of love, hate, and a friendship come undone.

There’s nothing left to say anymore. We’ve said all we could. There’s nothing left to pay anymore. We’ve paid all we should. I broke your heart! I’m sorry! But I told you I would. You were in love and I wasn’t. I’m sorry I held you hostage, still in search of love. I know that was selfish. And with you I fell in love platonically, because for me there was no magic.

The friendship is over now too. We finally saw all of the signs. No more traces. No more spaces. No more twisted lines. I’m sorry you weren’t enough for me and I wasn’t enough for you either. I always thought love would be just enough. I used to think that if I tried harder, you could have been the one. Instead it was five years of love, hate, and a friendship come undone.

No More Gentlemen


So… Today while at work, I’m chatting with two of my colleagues about random things. One of which is having a text conversation with a guy she recently met who lives in Los Angeles. They must have been discussing when they’d see each other, and then he told her he’d buy her plane ticket to Los Angeles from DC. Not really knowing this guy (having only met him once), she was a bit reluctant, but thought “hey what’s the harm”. Then I mentioned to her that I used to live in L.A. briefly and have been dying to get back there. We decided that I would go with her and we’d get a hotel room so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable staying with the guy. Soon thereafter we kicked it in to overdrive and started looking for flights and hotels. Eventually we found a flight and a hotel that were reasonable priced for the dates we discussed and My colleague called her friend to let him know what we’d found. He told her that he would purchase the ticket for her in the coming days and they got off the phone. Shortly after he sent her a text that said “I’m tired. You should come cuddle with me.” We both looked at each other like… WTF! How did this get there? Then I told her something that I learned some time ago. That is… “All men come for something.” She sent him a few more responses and then in the end she told him how disheartening it was that most of the men she meets seem to be so quick to get women to sleep with them, and that she wasn’t that type of girl. This made me think many of my own experiences with men, and dating.

Let me be the first to say that I’m no angel. I’ve done things that I am not proud of and have been involved intimately with guys, probably sooner that I should have. But I’ve been wondering lately… Are there No More Gentlemen? What happened to dating? Has the information age taken us so far from taking the time to get to know someone before sex that we just can’t go back to that? We’re now a part of a generation where emails, text messages, and pictures are our primary means of communication, and I believe it has pushed true romance to the back burner for the sake of our own impatience. Many of us, (yes this includes me) seem to have been lured into the phenomena that is the INTERNET. I wish, more often than not these days, that we could go back to having dinner, going to a movie, and then parting ways without any sexual expectations. I wish that we could go back to controlling our sexual desires in hopes that we’ll truly find something meaningful in a lasting relationship with someone, rather than just enjoying the immediate gratification of sex. Where are the gentlemen? You know… the ones who take the time to get to know you, meet your friends, ask about your day, and actually listen when you tell them what’s going on in your world. What happened to the talks about your hopes, dreams, and goals in this road of life? What happened to career and family ambitions? What happened to marriage and the sanctity of it, and fighting until your last breath to preserve it? I read something on Twitter recently that said “I’m single because I don’t make permanent decisions on temporary feelings.” That tweet struck a chord with me, having been single for over 8 years now. That’s pretty much the bulk of my adult life. But I just won’t settle for a date without respect, a life without love, a love without passion, and a home without heart. I guess, to some degree, my colleague and I are the same. We’re both disheartened that there seem to be No More Gentlemen.

But I’m still waiting…

Stay


Will you just Stay?

Even when the path ahead looks a little bleak

Even when we have a fight, say you’ll still speak

Speak to my heart with your words, my soul with your passion, and speak to my mind with your own

Promise me you’re here to Stay and you won’t ever leave me alone

Even if I snore sometimes, or pass gas in my sleep

Even when I’m moody and sound angry when I speak

Even when I get sick and need you to Stay with me

Even when I’ve lost myself, help me to get back to our beat

When I yell for no rhyme or reason, just hold me close to soothe my soul

All I really want to know is if you’ll be with me through the cold

When I cry myself to sleep some nights, don’t turn the other way

Wrap your arms around me to take the pain away

When our children get here and sometimes we disagree,

Tell me it’s not about you or me, we’ve got to do what’s best for our family

When the world is against me, please Stay by my side

Remind me that you’re not leaving, and you’re here to ride or die

When we’re old and gray and wrinkly too

Say you’ll still love me the way that I love you.

Resentment


“I’m crying, can’t stop crying, can’t stop crying.”

I had a dream last night. In it I was being chased and attacked by a Rottweiler, of which I was desperately afraid. In an adjacent room was my grandmother, my sister, and my aunt watching me as I was mauled with every misstep by this Rottweiler. They all sat there as this dog and me destroyed the house. My grandmother said nothing. She made no moves, and didn’t even bother to acknowledge my cries. After it was over, I was lambasted and ordered to leave the house. My grandmother started screaming at me for “destroying” her house. I started screaming back because I had literally just evaded what could have been my death. I screamed “WHAT ABOUT ME!” This dog just tried to kill me and she just let him. She just let him maul me. She watched me in excruciating pain and agony and did nothing to protect me. She did nothing to stop him. Then, in my dream, my aunt jumped up trying to push me out the house and we started fighting.

I woke up, looked at my clock, and started crying. This is why…

“I wish I could believe you, then I’d be alright. But now everything you told me really don’t apply to the way I feel inside.”

I woke up this morning in hysterics, crying bitter, semi-sweet tears. Bitter because of what its taken me over 20 years to figure out, and semi-sweet because I’ve finally figured it all out. I’m told often, almost weekly, and sometimes even daily, that I appear to be very angry and aggressive. My disposition, my voice, and even in my writing seems to convey a sentiment of anger or aggression. It comes out when I’m driving and I have a bit of road rage. It comes out when I have bouts with authority. It’s even expressed through my constant change in mood. I hear it so often that I’ve grown to accept that its what I exude, and although its never been my intent, I AM ANGRY! Before today, I was absolutely unsure of exactly where it came from. Therapists have told me that it’s a direct result of post traumatic stress syndrome stemming from the loss of my parents at such a tender age in my development. I was almost 7. But today, this morning, before the sun came up, when it was still dark outside and only an occasional car could be heard from my bedroom window, at 5:15 a.m. I awoke from my dream, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, rocked me to the core, and now I know why.

“Loving you was easy, once upon a time.”

It started immediately. The day after they died was my seventh birthday. My uncle had taken my sister and me to his house after we were briefly questioned by MPD. He had an apartment uptown on 13th street around the corner from 4D. I can’t remember if his new bride was there that night or the next day or at all. But the next morning; Saturday December 2, 1989 was my birthday. I remember that he gave me Cap’n Crunch (my favorite) cereal for breakfast. Afterwards, he took me into the bathroom in this tiny one-bedroom apartment, sat me on the toilet, pulled out scissors, and cut my rattail. My father started letting me grow a rattail a few months back. I guess now that he was gone, this uncle needed to show me, a seven year-old, on my birthday, the day after my parents died, that HE was in charge now. He told me that only sissy’s wear rattails. Slowly my uncle started weaving his ideals into fabric of who he thought I was going to be. I remember one night after I’d just finished dinner, I was stuffed and my stomach was in knots. and I began to have what I thought felt like a stomach cramp. Now, I was a little boy living in a house full of females, and far too often I remember hearing talk of pads, and tampons, and “periods”. I quickly learned exactly what it was, its symptoms, and its effects. But anyway, I had just finished eating, and I remember my oldest aunt and my cousin being there. I started walking around the house holding my stomach, and like I’d heard the ladies in the house say before, I said, “I got cramps, and I feel like I’m about to come on”, jokingly. My aunt overheard me and said, “little boys don’t say that.” At that very moment I glanced over to my other aunt, the youngest, right as she looked at me with disdain, and mumbled, “faggot” underneath her breath. I quickly looked away from her trying to pretend that I didn’t hear what she said. Then, my older aunt said to me, “you better not say that again or I’m going to call your uncle.” So, with fear in my eyes and heart, I shut down. A short while later, while still feeling the pain in my stomach I walked towards the bathroom and mumbled to myself, “It hurts. I feel like I’m pregnant.” But I didn’t realize at the time, that the other person mumbling in the house was standing nearby and overheard me and announced it. The older female immediately got on the phone and called my uncle. OMG! I’m in trouble now, I thought. But my stomach really did hurt, and I hadn’t said anything that I didn’t learn from the women around me. “Why do I have to get in trouble?” Shortly after, the uncle arrives to have a “Man to Man” talk with me about men and what they should and should not say. After his tedious monologue, I shook my head and let him know that I understood and walked away. I remember thinking “Whhhhew! I’m glad I didn’t get a beating.”

Time went on, and occasionally I’d still, unbeknownst to me, say things that “little boys don’t say”, but there weren’t anymore “Man to Man” talks. The “Man to Man” encounters became “Man beating little boy ” encounters, cause there weren’t gonna be any faggots in this family. But it seemed like every time I got a beating for whatever the surface reason was, I’d think to myself… “Everybody keeps calling me a faggot though, and you’re trying to beat it out of me, while you and the rest of the people around me keep saying it.” I knew I didn’t say it. I hated the word. It was an epithet that rivaled “Nigger” in my eyes, but I couldn’t control people saying it to me. They said when I was at school, and they said it when I was at home too. Everybody in my immediate family, at some point, used this dreadful, pejorative epithet to castigate me, and not one of them ever protected me from the others.

“Why did I deserve to be treated this way?”

No one stood up for me; not even the very person who stood beside me while our parents died in front of us. What had I done, at 7 years old, to be treated this way? I mean… Yeah I was nosey. Yeah I had a smart mouth. Yeah I got into fights in school. Yeah, I talked back to the teachers. Yeah I was running around, and always into something. But then again… Isn’t that what “little boys” are “supposed” to do? I was a FUCKING child! And I’m sitting here typing this shit on the verge of tears yet again because now, I’M A FUCKING ANGRY ADULT! Did they ever stop to think that I was fighting in school and a smart ass because I was being ridiculed? Did they ever stop to think that I was always into something because I needed some attention? Did they ever stop to think that I was nosey because I was all alone, and even amongst my childhood friends I was still called “faggot”? Did they ever stop to think that I needed someone, anyone, to show me the love that I had lost? Nope! Not one of them considered what obstacles in life I faced as a child. All they knew was that I was their faggot nephew, brother, cousin, grandson! When I got in trouble in school for talking back or fighting, there was never a question of who was to blame. It was always me! And how do I say, “well they call me faggot everyday,” or “they pick on me because I’m smaller than everybody else”? I didn’t even want to acknowledge that word because I hated it so much. I didn’t want to be embarrassed even more by allowing myself to dare utter such a word. I didn’t want them to look at me and say “well, you brought it on yourself, because you’re a FAGGOT!” So instead, I took my punishment. I took the beatings, and the television restrictions, and the suspensions, and even an expulsion. I took it all, because I wasn’t gonna let them see me sweat. NO TEARS!

“I know you’re probably thinking, what’s up with” me? I’ve been crying too long. What did you do to me?”

I fought back! That day when we were in New Jersey, walking back from the store, you called me a faggot, and I called you a BITCH, and I meant it! But I wasn’t gonna tell anybody what you said, because I didn’t wanna face it, so I lied. I told them you called me Mother Fucker, and still got my mouth washed out with soap. No one stood up for me. Then when we got back to DC I got a beating too. But who cares… right? That day, around Christmas time when you were washing dishes, and you told me to leave you alone, I got smart, you called me a faggot, and I said Santa Claus was calling you when he said “ho, ho, ho”, I meant it. But I wasn’t gonna tell anybody what you called me, because I didn’t wanna face it, so I lied. I told them I never said it, and still got my mouth washed out with soap again. Then later that week, I got another beating. That day we were fighting after you told me to leave you alone and get out of “our” room, you called me a faggot, and I fought extra hard that day even though you were a little bigger! I wasn’t sad. I was bitter! That day you were taking me to Camp Schmidt and I left something behind and ran back to get it, I got back in the car, and you told I ran like I faggot, I REMEMBER, and I’ll never forget it. The Christmas in the 5th grade that I didn’t get until February of the following year because I talked back to a teacher, I haven’t forgotten. The time I accidentally locked your keys in the trunk of your car, you told me to figure out how to get them out, and then told me that if I scratched your car, you’d kill me, I won’t forget that. That day you dropped your keys on the sidewalk while we were walking back to the house at Fairfax Village, I ran  back to get them for you, and you told me in that same teaching voice you used with me before when you said “little boys don’t say that”, you said, this time “stop running like a faggot”, I remember that too! That day I got suspended from school in the 7th grade for fighting, you took me back to your apartment and beat me for hours, trying once again to beat the “faggot” out of me, I haven’t forgotten!  That day in the 8th grade after you’d picked me up from school shortly after your son was born, you told me that I better not ever be a faggot, cause you aint no faggot, and my father damn sure wasn’t a faggot, I haven’t forgotten that either! The time, during my junior year of high school when you allowed my therapist to tell you that I needed Paxil for depression and anger management, and then bought it in bulk, I didn’t forget, but I damn sure flushed it all! I didn’t need medication to manage my anger, I needed you to love me. The time in the 6th grade when your husband punched me in my face, blacked my eye, and then threatened to kill me and my sister, I haven’t forgotten. And I’ll never, ever forget how my own uncle went over to talk to him about his attack on me. Huh??What the fuck was there to talk about? My father and even my mother, for that matter, would have killed him. But maybe my uncle and your husband just sat down, talked, and compared notes on beating my ass… huh? The many days I cried myself to sleep, the days I listened to music and sang loud enough to wake the dead because you’d hurt me again, the days I used to change my clothes in the hallway at Karate School so that the other kids wouldn’t see the bruises, and the day I finally showed you all that you couldn’t destroy me. I haven’t forgotten any of them, and I never will.

“I only give you a hard time, cause I can’t go on and pretend like, I haven’t tried to forget this, but I’m much too full of resentment.”

I pressed on through life, making my own way. With a hardened heart is how I dealt with everyone around me. It’s how I deal with people today. My heart has softened in some areas because on the surface I’d moved passed the details of my childhood under your “tutelage”, and the dynamics of some of our relationships have changed. But just as soon as I scratch away at the surface, it comes back, and all of it comes crashing down. I’m grown now! You people can’t do to me what you used to do. These days I don’t let you. I don’t let anyone! I can’t go on pretending like I’ve forgotten about all of it though. It’s just been eating away at me for so long. So now, you’ll have to face it, because I’m tired. I faced all of you, everyday from the time I was 7 years old. I faced the shame, the ridicule, the physical abuse, and more than anything I faced the fact that not one of you were in my corner. Everything someone else said about me, you took as fact. You never fought for me.

“I thought I could forgive you, and I know you’ve changed. As much as I wanna trust you, I know it aint the same.”

I really did think that I had forgiven this, and that I could move on without having to address it with everyone, but there’s no way I’m gonna keep hurting myself and my future by carrying it. We’re cool now; no beefs, no arguments, and we even talk all the time, but this was bound to come out one day. Who knew that it would take two years of these dreams about fighting and arguing with family for me to figure this out. IT WAS YOU! You’re the reason I’m angry. You’re the reason I’m bitter, and guarded. You’re the reason why I push people away. YOU! When you should have been caring for and nurturing me, you abused me. You tarnished my innocence. You beat me down over, and over again. You never protected me, and you knew all along what was being done, but stoic and unaffected, you let it happen to me. YOU! And you never, not one of you, ever apologized.

“I’ll always remember feeling like I was no good… I know you didn’t wanna hurt me, but look what you done-done to me now. “

When I started my first relationship, I remember him telling me, at sixteen, that I was too much to handle sometimes. My doing too much eventually pushed him away. Then came the next one, who dogged me. I guess it was easy because I was sixteen then too, and he was nine years my senior. When number 4 came along, I was still only eighteen, but he was the one who showed me a love that wasn’t easily broken. He was my protector, in a way that none of you ever protected me. He wasn’t comfortable with his sexuality, but he never shunned me. Even if every gesture I made, or word I spoke made him cringe, I never saw shame in his eyes. He protected my physical being, and more importantly, he protected my feelings. He never told me what to say or how to say it. But guess what…? I pushed him away too.  I felt like I was no good for this man who showed me love no matter what. I thought he was tired of me, and maybe he was. I knew I was tired of doing everything I could to push him away, so I finally just left him. You see? Look at what you’ve done to me now. I’ve spent the larger part of my adult life single. I never let anyone get too close because my expectations are too high. Since you never loved me the way you were supposed to, I look for it in people who can’t ever measure up, and they shouldn’t have to.

“I may never understand why…”

I may never understand why I’ve had to endure this, but at least now I know where it came from. At least now I can work on fixing what has been broken. For so long I’ve just been doing what had been done to me, but I can no longer continue to perpetuate that cycle. My greatest defense has been my offense. After years of having my family beat me down I turned it around, and I’m angry. I’m angry because I don’t know what to do with what you’ve forced me to become. I only know that I’m done carrying the anger that you gave me. I didn’t deserve it, and shame on you! But now, I know that I’m going to have to save myself from myself, so that I can heal.

I Can Love You


I can love you from mountains men can’t climb,

I can love you from places where there’s no space or time.

I can love you in light and darkness just the same,

For my love is so powerful in cannot be tamed or contained.

I can love you underwater, 10,000 feet deep,

I can love you without oxygen, because you’re the air that I breathe.

I can love you up close and a millions miles away,

I love you in the past, future and especially present day.

I can love you so deeply and strong, and with perfect aim,

I love you so much, I can love you passed your pain.

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