Dear Mark

Hey Bro,
What's up?
I have to warn you now, I have no idea where this is going. I feel
like writing a long ass letter, a poem, an I don't know what else.
I just heard The Offspring Gone Away and naturally thought of you.
There are some songs that are just your songs. Maybe you didn't tell
me they were your favorites, like Gone Away, but it just makes me
think of you. Then there's Champaign Supernova, which you all heard at
your army graduation, so that makes me think of you because you
actually talked about it.
Anyway, I'm home on break. I'm attending Naropa U now in Boulder Co. A
looooong way from anywhere I ever thought I'd be, but then again,
neither of us ended up where we thought we'd end up, right?
You may have grown up to hate your life, but as a wide-eyed little boy
I'm sure you never imagined yourself in a pile of ashes.
So I'm home on break and Fur's nearly ready to deliver her Baby Girl.
I know you'll be up there watching over us all. . . or, down here,
whatever, where ever heaven is.
I was big on Sylvia Brown for a while, looking for something to
believe in. Honestly, I like some of what she says, then again I liked
what Rev. McCummin's had to say and he doesn't preach at the Methodist
church anymore.
I dunno. I dunno much of anything these days. At Naropa they teach us
about Basic Goodness. They say we all have it. Serial killers have it?
I just don't see it. They also teach about meditation. I meditate like
Charlie Chaplin by the way. Never realized just how much I HEAR!,
until I tried to meditate! Lol. They teach about mystical religious
experiences, ultimate reality, when you're one with that whatever it
is that we all have and connect to. Then I'd go back to my apartment
and feel like cutting because I had no friends to hang out with unless
I wanted to study with them. I didn't. I study alone and work and play
with others. Lol. Nobody received my memo. They have taxis in Boulder
and VIA transit, and all kinds of ways to get around. You can walk
around Mark!! Fancy that! Walking! Whoever heard of such a thing in
montrose michigan?
It's been difficult coming back here. Not because of any fundamental
difference in connecting between the family and I, but because of the
loss of transportation. Wednesday was a painful day. I felt like
cutting, thought about hanging. Last night I drank and thought about
cutting again. I kept stroking my wrists, feeling the tendons and
thinking how easy it would be to cut, how I wouldn't feel a thing if I
just caressed my skin with the blade. It felt good, like thinking
about making love or something. Something inside me says this is so
fucked up, but the other thought almost always wins, even if I don't
act on it.
I feel like you, like that wide-eyed innocence is gone and I keep
looking and looking but it's nowhere to be found! It just got up and
left! I feel like Bill Cosby, which would be funny were it not
serious. He says I don't know where I lost it, I don't know when I
lost it, I don't know if I ever had it. That's how I feel.
I think about being with you. If I just cut, just little cuts, but
deep, I could be with you again.
I'm starting to forget, no, have been forgetting, what you smell like,
what you're laugh was like, what it felt like when you held me.
How does anybody forget that? You'd think of all the people in the
world I wouldn't forget! I know you're here, that's why I'm writing.
You haven't left me even though I've tried to bury the painfulness of
losing you.
I don't try to forget now. I just remember.
I've been told to wish on stars and all I have to do is want something
and let myself have it! Um, Halloweentown anyone? It sounds so
cliched. . . course, that means it's true. Dammit all! Since when did
it become EASIER to live in a lack thought mentality than a have
thought mentality? I suppose from the time I was little really. "Want
in one hand, shit in the other. See which one gets filled faster!" mom
always used to say that. I was a kid and I took it in. Talk about some
serious re-programming that has to take place.
It seemed to be true, with bankrupcy and all, maybe it was wrong
though? It's funny I find myself writing about this now though. . .
Bella and I were walking the other day and she saw an animal, think it
was a squirrel and she thought he had some nuts, but he actually took
a poop! I said right then, want nuts in one hand, shit in the other
and see which one gets filled faster! Lol. I love that she's still
young enough to think like that. Possibility thinking a friend from
Boulder calls it. Possibility thinking. . . My ultimate dream while
I'm here is not to play or think small. Honestly, it feels like a
pathetic dream. . . that's how things go down hill though. Once I
start putting labels on them they become pathetic, boring, stupid,
dumb, etc. If I leave them labelless they aren't pathetic or dumb or
boring. They just are.
Who knew if I didn't label something it could just be, just exist? Wooooow!!
I started thinking of you on Friday May 10 when I was flying home. I
don't know exactly where we were, but we were close to Detroit and I
started to wonder if you'd come in the same place I did, walked on the
tarmac where I walked years and years ago. I wonder if you ate on the
plane like I did. Did you eat snack boxes or just get the free stuff,
the pretzels and peanuts and cookies. Yuck!! I'm sure you brought
Chinese candy and sour snakes from home in San Antonio. I'm sure you
had lemon or lime, those little containers you just dip your finger in
and eat it straight like that. Smile. They always made me make faces,
but I loved them anyway! How about the sour pickles with salt? Or Big
Red!!!! Oh man, soooo good!!
You know, I said I didn't know where this was going a while back. I'm
listening to my rock and there's something I feel like being honest
with you about. . .
I can bearly listen to rap anymore. You kind of left it to me because
I'd listen to anything, but listening to it these days is hard for me.
It brings up memories of you and I and the fact that you aren't here
anymore.
The day you left in 04, Father's Day no less, that hurt. . . but not
as much as the day they called to say you died. September 7 2009.
To think back, to see how that was such an ordinary day and I can see
the demarcation line perfectly. Before Mark died, after Mark died.
Nothing has been the same since then.
Listening to music, drinking (which I've started indulging in
occasionally), eating favorite foods even. Watching old shows we used
to watch together. Everything I do, and some things I try to avoid
doing, because they remind me of you, none of it's the same. Nothing
will ever be the same.
I don't live with all you're things around me, but I do live in what
feels like a warped sense of time. The time before. . . the time when
you did things with me and then the time after. I find myself looking
backwards, connecting dots and wondering why the fuck I didn't connect
them earlier!!! I miss you. . . more than anything in this world. I
would give up every favored show or candy or snack of any kind, in any
form, to have you back. I would give up concerts and just about
everything else to have you back in my life. In my life where I can
see you and touch you and hear your voice. Not this life where I have
to imagine and conjure you up.
And while I'm being honest, I do have one question for you. . . Why
didn't you tell me??? You know I would have done anything for you,
killed for you, died for you!!! So why, when you said I was the only
one who knew what pain was better than you, why didn't you trust me
enough to tell me that one thing?? I never would have turned you away
and I never would have called into question your manhood, because it
wasn't your fault!! You were innocent! You were just a baby! And I've
made this about me. . . I know you trust me, I know you always did. It
still begs the question though, why didn't you come to me? I would
have readily accepted it. I'm not your mother or your stepfather. I
would have accepted it, taken your rage. I would have held it for you.
Now there is nothing to hold and all I can say from here is I miss
you. I wish you would have told me. I loved and still love you
unconditionally.
That's all for now, everything's all jumbled and chaotic in my head.
I love you and miss you.
Love,
Your Lil' Killah