Here I am.
There you are.
Separated by everything,
and nothing,
for I am drawn to you…
despite the distance.

The succession of days
has spawned
obsessive thoughts .
There isn’t a moment
I’m not thinking of you…
fantasizing about you…
longing for you.

You’re no longer on my mind,
You’re inside it.

I can feel you
without holding you.
I can taste you
without kissing you.
With mere words
you carry me to a place
where imagination and actuality
are becoming deeply intimate.

No one has ever held me
the way you envelope me…
and you’ve never touched me.

No one has seduced me
the way you arouse me
and you’re miles away…

You appeal to my sense of self
and leave me fascinated with not only who you are
but who I am as well…

I already marvel at the man you are
and I’ve never seen you…

Imagine what would happen
If we were ever face to face…[sic]

Just when things got so bad, she decided that kind words and encouragement weren’t enough. She decided that saying things would be better wasn’t enough if you weren’t willing to help them get better.

She, actually, happened on my original blog the year before, just before New Year, I think. Her advice, then really didn’t hit me like it should have. I was being acted on, I have become really good at this as of late — More on this in a later post.

She is now counted among my dearest friends, since we met earlier this year. She saw past her own situation, stepped out and exposed herself to me. She sent me some money to get me started. It is really hard for me to accept charity, gifts or whatever but she made me an off I couldn’t refuse.

Since this time, we have been there to support each other. Talk each other onto or off the ledge, depending on your point of view. Lately, she has been trying to help me up on the ledge — Eric B. and Rakim plays in background — I need to take a leap of faith… Just don’t think I’m ready, I’m scared. I have been suffering from a massive loss of confidence. I know she has enough for the both of us. I know she realizes I need a bit of easing, I think she is my friend and is willing to work with me.

My gift on this day was one my “Guardian Angel’s,” Vera.

Who would have thought through our limited conversations about the people you were trying to push out of your life and the ones I had hoped to pull into mine we’d have arrived here? Then, it was so much about everyone else, our friends, our family, our work…

We worked together. Even though we flirted a bit, I never knew… Thinking back to all the times you would sit on my desk, the times you rubbed my back and neck, the times you just looked at me, smiled… On my break, “What are you bringing me back?” Always thought you were joking.

Who would have thought, today, you’d be watching me sleep and have stories of my Slumberland Adventures? My whispering, my moaning, my chuckling…

Who would have known, today, I would be so flattered by the stories about how I made you feel then? About the charge you got from being close to me, how deeply you were moved by the warmth of my breath on your neck or how you got chills from the dancing of my fingertips on your skin.

I remember the stories you would tell me about your new boyfriend and your friends approach to dating. I remember telling you about someone I couldn’t shake… I didn’t realize then you were trying to tell me how different you are to them. I never thought…

I never thought when I slipped you my number on the little yellow Post-it, you’d never call… Excuses… Then give me yours and start calling me every night, when you were sure I would be settled in the car, to talk about nothing, anything or everything.

Who would have thought I’d be coming out to see you? You watching for me in the window with your phone in hand… Running down the steps in your itty bitty shorts to open the door for me. Then the penny tour…

Who would have thought, that after all your talk, you would have blushed when we were too close with no one and nothing to keep us in check? I still giggle at you hiding your face in your hands.

Who knows how much further this will go? I know I enjoyed every second or every minute of the time I spent with you. I look forward to next time. Who would have thought we would be where we are today? I never did!

I did not have the easiest of childhoods. Most of us didn’t. I can remember going across the street to my paternal Grandmother’s, where my only aunt would crack the door with chain behind it only to say to me “We ain’t got nothing for you,” then close the door and I’d take the steps down and come home. It was like this every year.

I never really had any gifts and even when I did, they weren’t under a tree, wrapped up, as is supposed to be the custom. I started to get gifts more regularly when I started hustling in school and could buy my own.

Lunch tickets were my thing. The better to do kids were always willing to pay half to two-thirds price for a full price ticket. It worked for me. After all I hated school lunch. The goodies to be had after school from funds made and / or saved were what we wanted.

My self purchased gifts were usually He-Man or G.I. Joe action figures and vehicles. Sometimes, I’d even wrap them up and pretend. I had to remember to save up enough to get at least one pair of sneakers, jeans and shirt that I could run for a little while or get made fun of.

I grew up hating this time of year. Wasted a lot of time crying about what I wish my life had been or could be.

As I got older, things never really got better. The holidays are marked, for me, by major losses… Loss of friends, jobs, reminders of what the holidays used to be for me and finally deaths of many of the few I have allowed to get close.

I have come to realize that I have been deprived. At first, by others… Later, by myself. I had become a Grinch. My heart withering and cold… I realized that I wasn’t alone so much as I was keeping to myself.

Today, I am proud to say that I am no longer that Grinch. I am not sad this year. I don’t have much, but this year I will do the best I can for my son. I always make sure he has but the last couple of years have been extra rough, for the both of us.

On the first day… The Grinch is no more and I can count this among my triumphs.

Well I am not sure. Perhaps this is just a part of my growth. Maybe, just maybe, I am letting go of what used to make me so sad and just haven’t figured out how to be happy during the holidays, yet.

I haven’t sat down and really thought about what subjects I will cover over the next twelve days. I rarely do. I usually just sit or lay and start pecking away at the keyboard.

Perhaps, it will not be a recounting of sadder days. It might just be positive conclusions to less happy times. I could be the present day observations of my life’s journey. It will, likely, be all of the above.

Anyway, stay tuned, strap in, hold tight… This is sure to be one hell of a ride.

Seems my feelings got worse. I am typing from my written copy then I’m going back and making these comments. It turns out since I am only reading as I type, my memory is being jogged. I am remembering the times she cheated on me and wondering why I dealt with it for so long. I guess in the beginning it didn’t matter and as time went on it just wasn’t worth it.

She always says I can only bring up one person, but she admitted others to me after trying to hide it. The fact is, I have never cheated on anyone and never will.

I’m feeling it. What I thought would be is not and what I could never imagine is. She’s been gone since Friday. At 1st I was melancholy. She did not call me. Perhaps that’s what set the ball in play. I guess she doesn’t miss me after all, so why should I miss her.

I’ll not speculate. But if something did happen I hope she doesn’t hide it from me or, better yet, I can see for myself. I won’t deny I love her. I will retract however, I can live w/o her.

Everything is 4 my personal ascent & 4 my sons well–being. Someday I will be able to break loves spell and move on.

Can’t knock the way a nigga eating.
Feel my triumph, never, Feel my pain, you lying.
Live out my dreams till my heart get found.
Fuck ‘em 4 hatin’ a nigga lovin’ his life. [sic]

[From dramatizations: Mother's day – Sunday, 10 May 1998]

Now this Mother’s Day, she is likely expecting a call or some sort of communication from me. Truth is I don’t speak to her. When she talks to me, I try to limit my answers to five words or less. For my son it’s worse, he is silent most of the time. I have to make him respond appropriately.

I have never felt she was much of a mother. People who know what I have gone through have been sending me Mother’s Day wishes all day. It’s just a matter of time before my son calls to wish me the same. He did last year.

My son’s mother is pregnant. While that by itself is no big deal. Her baby was fathered by my cousin, my son’s cousin. What kind of mother would put her children through something as emotional as that?

Twitter – I Don’t Want a Cousin, originally uploaded by Dramatic. Minimee and I were talking at Parkside Restaurant on Flatbush Avenue about the instant message from the day before: Please Stop Her!

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch

Sometimes, I if I might be wrong. Maybe I am being too harsh. Maybe Minimee is picking up my disdain for her. Then again, up until two years ago, it seemed things were alright then my son took it upon himself to move out. He packed his little stuff a bit at a time and moved in with me. Small things like getting him to call her, just to say “Hi!” became a challenge. He would burst into tears. As much as I can’t stand her, trying to make sure my son has a relationship with his mother is important to me… because it is the right thing.