Somewhere here there is a poem
Yesterday I skated with my brother down Contra Costa at 1 am. We stopped in the Target parking lot to smoke half a cigarette. Drawing the smoke down my throat and into my lungs felt disgustingly unnecessary. I tossed the rest of the pack, 3/4ths full, into a concrete trash bin nearby. They made me feel a little better throughout the year, but they're just no good anymore.
We spent the next hour skating in the center of empty streets and sitting on sidewalks, discussing our family's history. The moments I've felt most alive have been with my brother. They are when I pick out the parts of my past that I've left behind, events that actualize my existence and remind me that yes, I did live that and no, I can't be numbed and forgetful anymore.
What I remember of elementary was motherly teachers, Nickelodeon on channel 31, video games and the arguments of my parents. Middle school is a muddy mix of imagery. Coming out and feeling solidly suicidal and accepting that as a pattern for living. I had come to know too much about confusion and loneliness, but never knew enough about why I had to appropriately deal with it all. Talking to my brother surfaced the physical violence between my parents, and nights spent away from my father with an aunt in the process of divorcing her abusive husband. I had even forgotten that my aunt had been married to him just a little over a decade ago. His face and name are abstractly placed in family gatherings throughout the year. I had blocked out more than I realized.
Looking back at those memories is like trying to learn about something you never believed in for most of your life. I want to ask my parents more about what happened, but I don't know how. I know that remembering those things are important though. The seemingly unexplainable depth of my depression makes sense if it is rooted into things I have buried impossibly deep within myself. I feel I have been wronged. I am angry and I don't know why. I know only that I've always wanted to talk about these things, but have never realized the extent to which they actually have affected me.
I wonder if I am never fulfilled with the guys I date because I search for something in them that I must first find within myself. There is a need for something that is loving and that feels right, but how can anything feel right if the concept doesn't even exist within the realms of my possible emotions? Is my fixation with the physical aspect between us (whoever us is) a result of my minds unwillingness to rediscover, unblock and deal with what it does not wish to? Is my consistency with failing romantic bonds connected to my retreating past? I fear that if I cannot eventually answer these questions, I will not be able to live a life truly outside of what I have known.
We spent the next hour skating in the center of empty streets and sitting on sidewalks, discussing our family's history. The moments I've felt most alive have been with my brother. They are when I pick out the parts of my past that I've left behind, events that actualize my existence and remind me that yes, I did live that and no, I can't be numbed and forgetful anymore.
What I remember of elementary was motherly teachers, Nickelodeon on channel 31, video games and the arguments of my parents. Middle school is a muddy mix of imagery. Coming out and feeling solidly suicidal and accepting that as a pattern for living. I had come to know too much about confusion and loneliness, but never knew enough about why I had to appropriately deal with it all. Talking to my brother surfaced the physical violence between my parents, and nights spent away from my father with an aunt in the process of divorcing her abusive husband. I had even forgotten that my aunt had been married to him just a little over a decade ago. His face and name are abstractly placed in family gatherings throughout the year. I had blocked out more than I realized.
Looking back at those memories is like trying to learn about something you never believed in for most of your life. I want to ask my parents more about what happened, but I don't know how. I know that remembering those things are important though. The seemingly unexplainable depth of my depression makes sense if it is rooted into things I have buried impossibly deep within myself. I feel I have been wronged. I am angry and I don't know why. I know only that I've always wanted to talk about these things, but have never realized the extent to which they actually have affected me.
I wonder if I am never fulfilled with the guys I date because I search for something in them that I must first find within myself. There is a need for something that is loving and that feels right, but how can anything feel right if the concept doesn't even exist within the realms of my possible emotions? Is my fixation with the physical aspect between us (whoever us is) a result of my minds unwillingness to rediscover, unblock and deal with what it does not wish to? Is my consistency with failing romantic bonds connected to my retreating past? I fear that if I cannot eventually answer these questions, I will not be able to live a life truly outside of what I have known.