everyone i knew and called a friend would ask me that question, or more obnoxious still they'd paraphrase it to sound original and thought i didn't know, they did this whenever i'd speak of myself as though i didn't count when compared to others or was less-than in the scheme of things. it always drove me insane when they'd get all concerned and exaggeratedly caring anytime i said something of a non-warmfuzzy nature. i thought i was the exception to this infinitely old and widely accepted piece of wisdom; see, i knew i loved and cared for my friends and no one would dare say i didn't, i just didn't give a fuck about myself is all. it was perfectly fine logic to me and therefore i didn't care one lick what some fucking guidance counselor or parental figure thought or believed. i started to think twice about my quick and ultimately juvenile rejection of the aforementioned topic - especially when people started leaving over the years, whether taken by violence or swallowed by apathy (usually their own) and drug addiction - each one left an empty place inside of me. now let me be the first to say, that emptiness and depression is a very selfish and childish way to look at the situation when it includes someone you called a friend or comrade dying. to see only the void they filled inside of you during your time together, to see that place as barren and desolate, then to feel resentment for being cheated and to say, "they were stolen from me... what am i to do now?" a manner such as this shows only one thing: that the grief they have is for themselves and the loss of some joy they could not find for on their own, a joy which the person could find and could share with others. they shed what some people in the south call crocodile tears. it's a shameful thing and wrong as wrong could be. i am guilty of it as much or more than anyone else. i do not feel like that about my father, but i remember feeling that false grief at a good many wake, all the while wanting to scream like the spoiled brat i was, "what about me, what about my loneliness and my pain, he's dead and gone but i'm still her and now i'm all alone, feel bad for me, coddle and comfort me." such a bastard thing to think but still it's a lesson. i can never honestly say how deep my love or my hatred runs for my father, never got the chance to express to him the extent to which he'd hurt me. yet, once it's dissected, a person can see it's another entitlement issue; moreover, a foolish one from a kid who knows not everyone gets lucky enough to have a dad that sticks around, let alone keeps from beating 'em if he does stay.

i have never been shot at by enemy soldiers, unless you count eighteenth st. king blvd. crips and that was an accident and they apologized later. my life has been saved by the courage of a stranger in the face of certain death, saved and preserved by the lessons learned second-hand and conveniently taught far from a real war (or police action a.k.a. disaster), i've graduated from the school of hard knocks by listening to the advice of old sailors who would've went down with their ships but were too fat not to float, by the deaths of my dearest friends and the memories of a misery we shared which in turn lightened the overall load, by one judge who could see through my bullshit and my hard-as-a-coffin-nail act - who also had the common sense to send me to prison. all these things i appreciate now, but when they were lessons still being learned, i couldn't find enough hours in the day to bitch about how much i despised life and the moral of the story. being ungrateful never got anyone anywhere, at least not anywhere they wanted to be.

i didn't love myself a year ago, not even as a young child can i remember finding satisfaction or contentment with my place in the world. whether it was my physical attributes, social status (or lack thereof) or my family and their amazing redefining of the dysfunctional family.
i took pity on myself and lamented at the harshness of god and pondered what was it i did to be so cursed. this self-pity and need to "re-define" (lie) myself to gain approval from others brought me more pain and confusion. i am happy with who i am these days and who i am becoming, happy with what i do each day and what i choose not to do, the people i choose to associate with and those i choose to associate with even when everyone says they're delinquents and hooligans (when really they're the best out of the lot) and finally, i'm happy with what i see each time i look into the mirror, not physically but the rest of it, it's getting steadily more worth being proud of - i'm not necessarily everything i dreamed, but i'm certainly better off, luckier and more blessed than some.

i missed the chance to stitch up the lacerations that zig-zagged across the soul inside this dormant and untested collection of flesh and bone - i missed the opportunity to lay down my resentments and rise lighter and wiser for such sacrifices - i allowed fear of failure and self-doubt to hold me back from being the man i wished everyday that my father would see, a man without excuses or regrets and one of a deeply held ethic, that is who i wanted my father to see when he finally met his son. i missed the chance to be the better man without being spiteful or prideful or rubbing that fact in, simply showing through action that truth. i passed again when the opportunity to be generous and forgiving came, by denying a second chance to a very lost and very lonely old man i could have gained closure with if I�d have allowed myself to be loving and kind, but i was too filled with pain and hatred. i do not know what else to say, what to do or who to talk to that might understand. my brother had a relationship with our father, i did not, joshua sees my old man in a different and much more flattering light due to that relationship.

right at this moment, i feel a longing to apologize - to my father, for always blaming him and never taking my share of the responsibility for the canyon that grew over the years and divided us. it's true that he dug the first trench, deep and wide, by failing in his duties as a father and husband. it would be easy to blame him for it all; however, i have made no effort of my own to fill that chasm and to step across that imaginary line we've drawn to embrace my father and stand before him as a man of the highest-caliber possessing profound integrity and self-respect, just by making the first move and trying. as a man who can swallow his pride without losing face, for the sake of a very lonely child, still locked up inside somewhere, wishing as hard as he could that his father would just come home and make everything alright. a child that will never get that wish granted, a child that will always be angry because he didn't come. a child that grew darker and more twisted over the years of waiting, then finally jaded and without any hope.

there is a certain kind of irreparable damage that solitude will inflict upon a child over time, on any child from any type of family and then, the damage continues on in the man or woman they grow into, it makes them less than they might have been. there are only a few times in our lives when the chance to change that, to at the very least say you tried and have no regrets as such, i do not feel sorry for myself that i missed mine - i feel sorry for my father that his son was too selfish, vindictive and hateful to just let it go, to do it while it still could have had a real positive effect upon both our lives.