Mommy, Daddy, I love you. But, why did you get divorced? Why couldn’t you do your children a fucking favor and work it out? What are you chasing? Why are you using us as a pawn in your black hatefulled hearts? This went on for decades. Selfishness ensued.
I have repressed the hurt.
Remember the talk we had? The last talk as a family? The last talk before you walked out? Daddy, you said, “Now remember , You are the man of the house. You need to take care of your sister and mother.”
“If you cared that much about someone, why were we used as weapons by both of you? How could you both? I hate you!”
The next year, my repression manifiested into Crohns’s Disease.
Almost as chronic as Crohn’s Disease, is Depression. Almost as chronic as depression, is the stress of shitting yourself due to symptoms of incontinence caused by Crohn’s Disease.
It’s a vicious cycle. Crohn’s Disease and stress intersect and the apex is characterized by the incontinence. Incontinence usually happens while trying to find a parking space, when leaving the drive way, when walking more than a city block, when a gas station bathroom is “out of service,” and shit behind a dumpster. When leaving a restaurant – and then right before you leave, you walk back inside (just to make sure I don’t have to go), I park my car where I shouldn’t, run red lights, speed at unsafe conditions, maximum limits, running just to not poo in my pants, before time runs out.
I feel bad.
Yet, when mi Corazon has to go to the bathroom, I can be short tempered with her. Yet, she has to see me desperate for the bathroom almost on a daily basis. I hope she does not fear going to the bathroom? I hope she isn’t traumatized.
I might have to leave her alone in the car. Is that OK?
Fuck you for judging me.
I might have to leave her alone in the car, and if someone sees this, he/she will call the cops on me.
By the way, fuck you, you have no right to judge me.
But, know this, I will never leave her in harms way. I love her.
I am dealing with physical and emotional obstacles. Crohn’s Disease, coupled with generalized psychological disorder, and occasionally losing mobility and feeling – in my arms and legs, (which the doctors tell me it’s all in my mind), makes me stronger.
I hated the bathroom, so it was poetry that I came down with Crohn’s Disease, the gastrointestinal illness. In grade school, middle school, and high school, I wouldn’t go to the bathroom for the whole day. No matter how careful I tried to hide it, so I stopped eating and drinking,
Before the parental units split up, they progressively introduced us to many after school activities, looking to find us our purpose. My mom wanted to give me and my sister, things that she never had. She had been brought up in a loveless family, psychologically haunted and scared.
In kindergarten, I was enrolled in the “Junior Music Academy.” I dropped out because they didn’t sing any Duran Duran, Beach Boys, Wham!, David Bowie, Sugarcubes. We did, however, march banging pots and pans, and dinging cow bells, and tambolines. I thought the class was lame (no! it was lame), and I was way too advanced for marching in circles around the room, banging things for the sake of making noise. I was a strange child, but I didn’t think so. But why is being intelligent, strange?
When I was about 7 years old, my parents dappled in raising a child star. I attended auditions for Jiffy peanut butter. And Purina dog food. (I hated dogs. I couldn’t give a fuck about all dogs going to heaven. All dogs, even the two tiny neighboring dogs could smell that I was terrified of them. Purina couldn’t pay me all the money in the world.)
When I was between 2nd and 3rd grade, I remember waiting in a room with kids of all ages and sizes. The walls were baby blue, with 3 glass tables – each had candy in them. All of whom were casting their wishes to be the next big star. All I cared about were the pretzels in a bowl, on the glass table.
I was a weird kid.
Growing up.
For a brief moment, I was a kid model and actor. I embodied life cereal’s Mikey, to a degree. I remember in a local fashion show, that I placed first in a modeling contest. It was at this time, when I won a cash prize and a modeling agent.
It didn’t last too long because the amount of time it took to be successful in modeling took away my ability to study and excel in my class. I was taken out of class a few times in my second grade. After my teacher suggested that I stay behind a grade, my parents tried to put me in private school.
The same year, I was enrolled in ice skating. I spent 2-3 months, but it was a failed effort. I wasn’t good enough to move onto more challenging levels. I recently tried to ice skate, and I almost killed myself. Take back 10 years, when I was stoned in Amsterdam, I was pirouetting like a champ! Go figure! The herb gave me super powers.
I remember going to the YMCA, near our house. For some reason, I remember hating it. I was not interested in sports, or, for that matter being outdoors at all. The sun hurt my eyes. Once at the pool, a lifeguard exposed himself to me. There were no witnesses. He then threatened me with a knife and told me he would kill my parents.
I was never good in sports. I remember in softball, I would swing my bat at the ball and release the bat while it flies behind me. I was teased by the way I ran. I wagged my butt. They took away my confidence. I hate them for it. I was no longer allowed to play. I was so ashamed. Hate. I was a weird kid, growing up.
My parents, and some of our neighbors, had us kids signed up for activities. My middle sister, her friend, myself, and another boy were enrolled in bowling. I was 9. This was one sport that I wasn’t good at, but given time, I could have been great. My confidence, however, was lackluster. And I asked to drop the league.
I could have excelled but my parents had stood by me through thick and thin. Sometimes, to a fault. In bowling, I had mastered the curve. I was praised, but was the last in my league to break 50 (my 8 year old sister beat me). I honestly felt that my manhood was challenged because I couldn’t throw a bowling ball.
Hate.
In second grade, we had to draw the nutritional pyramid. It wasn’t just an ordinary assignment. It was a fierce competition.
I practiced daily, drawing everything from LP album covers (Def Leopard’s Pyromania) to pictures in magazines (the dragon from the video arcade Dragon’s Lair). I had an artist’s eye. I was king of the crayons. One of my fiercest competitors in 2nd grade was also an artist. I wanted so badly to put him in his place. I was convinced I was the best.
A crayon in my hand taken abstractly from my teeth. An artist’s talent for hanging the crayon from his mouth, while deep in thought. Unfortunately, another kid in my class, my “fiercest competitor,” was noticed for his artistic abilities were before mine was discovered. That was when our future paths split and he became somewhat of a celebrity. I buried my talents so deep that I needed therapy. I still hate him. Therapy didn’t work, I guess.
Hate…
Hate…..
Hate…..
Black fucken HATE! …..God, how much Hate.
In 3rd grade, I embodied the “Karate Kid.” I really wanted to beat up the bullies. I loved the movie. I was on a mission. So I took Karate lessons. That was, until…. The wind was kicked out of me by someone 4 years older, and the “sensei” forced me to do the splits by having someone bigger sit on my back, and, not to mention that I feared the wooden bamboo whipping stick.
But it wasn’t until 5th grade that my broken, soul was ripped out of me. A group of 3rd graders who were hell bent on a mission to beat up my friends – took me on instead. I wanted to be the underdog who kicked the shit out of injustice. I was the one, instead, who got jumped by 3 stupid, YOUNGER, kids. The shit was kicked out of me, contributing to my self image as a loser.
It was humor that helped me through difficult times. The kids used to bring out the goof in me. I was proud of my sense of humor. I always wanted to fit in. I didn’t care at what expense and I didn’t have standards. In sixth grade, during a “Just Say No,” assembly, I was the Coke dealer. On stage, I was pushing and pressuring Cocaine on my fellow pre-pubescent homies.
I wore sun glasses. “Do you snuff?” All the kids, in unison would say “NO!” On the stage, I pretended that we were on the playground. Think of a child version of Dennis Hopper, only the set wasn’t on the road of a Motorcycle movie.
Up until my 20s I remained unscarred by the insecurities of my peers. However, almost like clock work, to make up for it, I fell into a funk when I turned 20. Depression took hold of my soul. I made up most of the stories that memory can re-create in an attempt to quantify my depression. Chasing these memories – deranged.
THE CHASER'S MANIFESTO 