I wrote this poem last summer. I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it after it was written. I remember coming up with lines when we were bed training our oldest son. I remember laying with him and thinking about how funny he was in the car when I played White Zombie and the song "Super Charger Heaven," and my oldest threw up devil horns and sang "Devil man, Devil man!" with such 90s conviction. I was just trying to get him to sleep and started thinking about being an addict surrounded by other older addicts. People looked older than they actually were and were still fucking alive doing what I had just found myself doing. I felt like I was in this hive of vampires and here we all were trying to escape this inevitable pain until you saw your proverbial elder statesman of drug abuse who wasn't that old but looked like Gary Oldman in Dracula. It was horrifying to me because I thought...is this a forever kind of pain? Like a vampire will I experience an immortal fatigue to doing this and wind up in this subterranean hive to succeed the addict who came before me?
I am really proud of that poem. It was published on Christmas Eve in Terror House Press and then republished by Better Than Starbucks. I guess I kinda peaked with that poem. I still try to write a bunch and make sure that more stuff gets out there...but thinking back to that and seeing this and more specifically how it resonated with the publisher of Better Than Starbucks...I felt a creative peak might have been hit. Man, its all SO fucking weird to me. I write a lot but I just don't think for one second that anything I say has any impact on anyone at all. When I came across this? It was fucking cool and I wanted to hold onto it for my kids. Just to show them (like the book) one day...hey, I did a few things with my life and I think they're pretty neat and I hope you think so too. I have been SO anxious about the book a lot lately. Like, can't concentrate just totally consumed by fear and anxiety. When I wrote that poem, it was because I was laying next to my son thinking....I fucking hate who I was and what I saw...I hope he never sees that. I was driving with my kids today so my wife could do school work and Patti Smyth's "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough" came on and I sobbed. Because I remember hearing that song a lot when my parents divorced...and I asked myself "when am I ever going to stop feeling hurt? Does broken go away?" Meanwhile I was reacting to a feeling from 1992 and living in 2020 with my two kids in the car. Does the hurt ever go away? I can still hear it and remember it. It is awesome to feel like my voice exists now, but I guess I am afraid that the voice won't go away once it goes on sale in September. Because now that voice is asking...did we sell enough? does anyone care? That's why I refuse to go back to social media. I am the kind of person, I don't know what my own voice sounds like when its out there...I am just a little kid screaming because I am so mad about how I feel. When my oldest son screams it makes me so mad, why? Because I remember that internal scream and immediately wonder is he screaming because I fucking failed him. This book? Its literally 5 year old me screaming for nearly 400 pages. Does anyone fucking see me? Can anyone fucking hear me? Does anyone fucking care? When my son screams I immediately kiss him and try to calm him down. I see you, I hear you, I love you...please stop screaming. Please stop it hurts my ears...and I'm afraid you'll wake up the lethargic demons in me that are all waiting to tell me...you can't do this, you suck, you're a terrible human being, no one loves you. Please stop screaming...I love you, they're wrong, I can do this..I can fix it..please stop screaming...no one heard me but I can hear you. Through my kids I just keep seeing this poor little kid who is tired of screaming...I hope someone can hear him. As for my son? I am so proud that he can scream and know that Daddy hears him. He has a daddy who wants to hear him...even if he wants him to stop screaming. I never did. Maybe that's a teachable moment.
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