Further Instructions

I had a dream last night where I found myself reluctantly forgiving a person that I've secretly wanted to shoot in the skull at close range for quite some time. My reasons for this weren't completely rational. They were more a symptom of a larger problem that I've finally begun to solve, particularly here, as I'm granted relatively long periods of solitude in this kind of isolation. Still, this person is never held accountable for their crimes and continues to inflict damage on the lives of others without as much as a single thought about the consequences. But at the end of the day it isn't my place to exact revenge on anyone. I've seen firsthand that those who have wronged me ended up getting dealt with by the people upstairs. My only purpose is to keep on keeping on.

I'm fluent in the language here but have been a little out of practice. Here, there are no bodegas manned by teams of Middle Eastern men who make uniform price hikes every three months. There are no Caribbean accents permeating the urban air. There are ladybugs and bowling alleys and massive amounts of seafood. The women here come in all shades and dispositions. It's a wonderous place that I know like the back of my hand and yet don't know at all.

But I'm not thinking about the here and now. I am thinking about the man in the wheelchair in Cali, the one who writes with his eyelids, and lives each day to the fullest as best as he can. It's getting harder for him to communicate with others. But within, I'm sure he's all the more determined to do all that he can to get the message across. He is my hero, as I did my best to run myself into the ground when stricken with difficulties far less serious.

While I'm on the forgiving kick I guess I should absolve everyone: the women who lied, the clients who cheated, the editors who didn't listen until it was too late, the boys and girls who swore that they knew how the world worked when they didn't know shit, the best friends that fucked me over, anyone who ever cockblocked me, the Republicans and the Democrats, the rats and snitches and thieves and killers and most of all myself for making a bunch of shitty choices that caused me nothing but pain in lives past. I can't get to where I'm going carrying all of this dead weight. But what I'm truly afraid of is what life might feel like without them. Out.