Meth is one fuckin’ hell of a drug, incase you didn’t know. I remember people that I didn’t know always coming in and out of the house. They didn’t stay very long at all. They were so strange. They would knock timidly on the door, my dad would peek through the peephole to see who it was, then he would unlock the deadbolt lock, the regular lock, and the chain lock. That’s a lot of locks for just one door. I thought they were unnecessary. He would let them in and relock all the locks behind them, then they would go in his room and shut the door. I was always curious what they did in there, but I didn’t want to go to the door and listen. No one wants to really get in trouble if they get caught do they? I didn’t think so. It was just so mysterious, they would make sure all the blinds were closed. They always seemed so paranoid and every little noise seemed like it would pick at their ear drums.

Some of the faces started to become familiar, some of the people I never saw again. Didn’t make any difference to me. They could have been in jail or overdosed for all I cared. It took me a while to realize that my dad didn’t only sell drugs, but he also used them as well. I didn’t really just have an epiphany that brought me to the colclusion that he used them. I witnessed it. He left the door just a little bit open one day, on accident i’m sure, he seemed in a rush. It was as if I was supposed to peek. I was curious what was going on in there. Always wondering what consumed most of his time, because it sure as hell wasn’t spent with me.

I sat quietly on the floor hiding behind the arm of the couch, just at the perfect angle facing his room that I could see just perfectly. I could see the bed, occupied by him and the mysterious stranger who’s face I had never seen before, who’s face I wouldn’t ever see again. We will call him “Figure A”. I saw Figure A examining and what seemed to be weighing out a little bag that had was occupied with these little white crystals. I could see my dad mixing a little bit of water in a bottle cap with some of the crushed up crystals. He took a syringe out of this little box that he had hidden under his bed, a box that I had never seen before, and that I would probably never see again. I didn’t see it ever again. He took the syringe and filled it with the stuff that he was mixing together in the bottle cap, and he handed it to Figure A to hold as he fastened a belt tight around his bicep and flicked the veins in his arm where your forearm and biceps connect so he could find them easier. He took the syrings back from Figure A and inserted the needle into his veins as he held the belt tight secured by his teeth, he then pressed down the syringe injecting the deadly concotion into his body. I stopped watching after that. It was enough for me as to what went on in his room. I sat on the couch and watched Mighty Morphin Power Rangers until the night was over, I never even noticed when Figure A left, or hear anything else, I tuned the rest of it out. This was still my life at the age of seven. It is a memory that I would like to forget.

I remember coming home from school one day and the cops being at my house. I don’t know why, but my uncle Jason saw me and my sister walking down the street and jogged over to meet us and walk us over to our grandma’s house, she lived across the street and three houses down from our house. We went inside and my grandma made us some tuna sandwiches then I sat down on the chair by the window facing my house and I watch the cops take my dad in handcuffs, and a box of stuff that I assumed contained that little box under his bed that I saw him slide back under his bed on the night that I would like to forget. My house had been raided. My dad was being taken to prison, I wasn’t going to see him for a long time, I learned this later.

8:28 pm  •  22 February 2010  •  1 note

I wasn’t, and am still not, an only child. When I was three years old my mom had my sister, Brittany, Then two years after that, my brother was born, Aaron. I’ve never really been that close to them, but I guess we were when we were really little, me and my sister anyway. I’ve seen pictures of us playing together and looking cute, like typical family pictures do. We weren’t really a typical family though. We were poor, we lived off of foodstamps and low income family support. My parents didn’t go to college, or even graduate from high school for that matter. My mom worked at a this factory on an assembly line that made windshield ice scrapers. That’s a pretty lame job if you ask me. I’m sure it didn’t pay that great either. My dad worked in the kitchen at T.G.I.Friday’s and he sold drugs on the side. That’s not too bad, right? Both of my parents were high school drop-outs, worked minimum wage jobs, and sold drugs. That’s normal isn’t it? What am I kidding myself. That’s not anywhere near normal.  Nobody really knows what normal is though. Is it what you see on T.V.? Where they all wake up at a decent time in the morning. Then the mother makes everyone a nice, sit at the table breakfast with eggs and bacon, maybe some pancakes or waffles. Then she packs up their lunches, tells them to have a great day, and watches out the window after them as they walk to the bus stop to catch the bus for school. In the meanwhile after breakfast, the father is upstairs looking through the closet to find the perfect tie to match is nice, iron-pressed, crisp, white collared shirt to go with his $500 name brand suit. That was definitely not my family.

My family was more of the type to wake up half of an hour before we had to be to school, dig through our pile of clothes that we were too unorganized to put away after my mom brought the clean clothes back from the laundromat so we just threw them on our floor and we could find something that we hadn’t worn to school that week, we didn’t have many outfits. Sometimes we had breakfast, but if we didn’t have any pop tarts or bread for toast with peanut butter and jelly at the house, we were still poor enough to be eligible for free food at school, so we would just eat whatever cafeteria food was for breakfast that morning, and we learned to like it, because it was breakfast, and it was all that we had. So we were thankful. Then in the meanwhile while I’d walk through the neighborhood to school with my sister (my brother wasn’t old enough for school yet), my mom and dad would be fighting about there not being enough gas in the car to get to work, or about who was going to go drop my baby brother off at my grandma’s house so she could babysit while they were working until I got home from school, or about anything really. They fought a lot. This was my life up until age seven.

9:02 am  •  22 February 2010

I was seventeen once. Fuck. I was six once, for that matter. I was in love once or maybe even twice, I was out of love more than once or maybe even twice. I’ve been in and out of a lot of things actually. Friendships, relationships, houses, towns, and states even. But that’s life, right? Let’s just go back to the “being seventeen once” part. That’s where this story is going to begin.

I was living in a city by the name of Topeka, Kansas. “Top City” as we called it. TOPeka, It’s the capitol as well, so the nickname fits pretty well if you ask me. I went to a very diverse school called Highland Park High School, “The Highland Park Scots.” Typical school mascot, with typical school colors (red and green). It always made me think of Christmas. I don’t really like Christmas that much. It’s cold and snowy. Cold and snowy don’t really mix well with a kid who doesn’t like cold weather. Especially not a kid who was usually upset around that time of the year when everyone is flaunting and bragging about and showing off their $200 gadgets and gizmos that they recieved Christmas day when they finally came back from the two or three weeks of school break for the holidays, when said kid didn’t get anything anywhere close to being that expensive. Jealousy rules people. Jealousy and greed, those are some pretty fuckin’ deadly things that exist in this world. But I was over that by the time I was seventeen, I just didn’t really like the cold weather that much. Growing up with a poor family makes you not rely on materialistic things to be happy. I’m pretty grateul that I was raised like that.

I was born in the town of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I didn’t live there long enough to create any memories or connections with anybody there at all. My parents had decided to move to a small town in Ohio when I was just a year or two old, so that they could be near my mother’s mom, my grandmother. A town so small and I was so young that I don’t even remember the name. We will call it “The Place I Used To Live When I Was A Little Kid”, Ohio. I don’t really remember much except for that we lived in a small two bedroom house that was very compact, and the backyard was small but just the perfect size that I could let my imagination run wild. The coolest part was that when we moved there, there was already a the most perfect treehouse in the most perfect tree right in my backyard. It the typical treehouse that you might see in a movie, or read about in a book, such as this one. It was a little worn down and used, and the paint might have been chipped and fading a little bit, but it was my pride and joy. I was about six years old. Wow, that’s almost sixteen years ago. Time really does fly, doesn’t it? When things seem like yesterday but they were really months and months, mabye even years ago. Its crazy how cliche expressions you hear actually make sense when you ponder on them for a bit.

6:57 am  •  22 February 2010  •  1 note

WARNING:

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A BOOK WHERE EVERYTHING YOU READ AND EVERY TURN OF THE PAGE MAKES LIFE SEEM EASY AND TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU. SOME OF THIS MAY SEEM LIKE IT IS NOT REALITY. SOME OF THIS MAY SEEM TO BE MAGICAL AND DECIEVING. SOME OF THE CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK WILL SEEM TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, MAYBE EVEN SOME SO EVIL THEY SEEM TO BE VILLAINOUS. BUT THIS IS NOT A FAIRYTALE!!!

This doesn’t even necessarily have a happy ending yet, even though I believe it will. This is still being written. It won’t be over anytime soon, but it will keep you on the edge of your seats until you get to the very last letter, of the very last word, on the very last page. But then it will make you think what happens after. I’m sorry to warn you that there WILL NOT be a sequel to this book. You only get to live once.

People sometimes do things that they regret. People make memories that they won’t ever forget, even after everything fades away. Things live in your hearts and minds, speaking metaphorically of course. You can try to pick and choose the things that you want to remember, and things that you want to forget, but sometimes it doesn’t always work out like that. You look back on the things that you want to forget, but can’t, and sometimes you dwell on them. Even if it is painful. Even if it hurts you, you still choose to dwell on it, because once upon a time it didn’t hurt, and once upon a time it was real. THIS IS REAL. You can take the things that you choose to remember from the past, and dwell on them, and you can share it with people, and tell them stories. This is MY story. The way I remember it, the way I want it to be told. This is a story of life, tragedy, and love. 

6:08 am  •  22 February 2010