No.
It’s just so damn hard
Crippling
Every inch of me, numb
The haze fills my head
The shell covers my heart
Aches and pains
And sadness
No, just no.
When courageous enough to candidly face my own hurt, I attempt to work through that shit. Keenly fueled with hopeful intent, I at times have lived grown and learned to stand taller over everything once coming after me, I at times have heightened to tower over everything once trying to hurt me. Everybody’s dealing with something, fucking everybody. We do what we do, and we do not what we don’t, even when our movements make zero sense to anyone else. While the while some days, we try to simply rise from beneath covers and open our eyes towards the direction of the rest of the damn world. Often it appears, factually we do verticalize properly to fill our shoes and get moving best we know how, but. But, and once every so now and then or thereabouts, no matter our desired run at betterment, well, it just, it just, it just…doesn’t…fricking…work.
I try. I try to find the facts within the many fables thrown around inside my own head, well as those falsities dispersed mid-air all around me. I try…I try to understand my own pain. I try to comprehend the many deep pains of the world. Deciphering to fathom the point, often I advance to see it, I see it, and more than see it, I feel it. I feel it and then feeling it, I metabolize the vicious struggle of our sisters and brothers, me coming to hold such contention forward of the hell I myself handle at home. In fact, I gamble to assume some the hardship of others, because, burden or not, I believe it matters greatly. If caring enough to notice, might I rise, might I speak, might I push past the all-too familiar automated response of my family and friend family members, “No, I’m ok, thanks anyway, no really I’m fine, don’t worry, I’m really ok”. Uh, yeah, fuck that noise and fuck to the no way. We are not ok. Rarely, rarely…we are rarely ok. I have heard this tragic falsehood of leave-me-alone from others, and also I myself have said similar or same things to friends and family at times.
I try. I try to smile unto the limitless opportunities of the day, meanwhile amid many said days, my heart is bleeding. My heart is bleeding and the shouts atop my positive thoughts stifle all reasonable movement within and without. Early in life I struggled, I struggled to keep going despite the fear worry and self-hatred consuming me. Once overcoming my youthful dark parts of self, I stood amid the sunshine, briefly. I struggled again, then overcame, then saw shadow tracking me once more. Finally, I thought to find my ways to the end of suffering. Everything I feared, or so I believed, then began to fall away, and my means of movement oriented me toward blissful meadows of happiness, far and apart from the shouting. The ends to attain such peaceful divinity once and for all however, I believed would require an extinguishment of my own breath. But oh well, the price seemed worth the prize. My sense and sensibility had fallen away, I had zip-zero nothing left, meanwhile in my hands I held the riches of all I had ever wanted. There I sat, chest deep and drowning within my own private pool of hopelessness. The year was 2017.
Barely do I make a speck of difference in the world, yet, I try. Chester Bennington, lead singer of the world-renowned rock band Linkin Park, well, Chester made a real difference. Chester sang intently of his pain, well as speaking publicly about his decades of suffrage, the sexual attacks against him starting when he was seven years old. Millions of fans around the world found strength and resolve in Chester’s openness, myself included. Chester created true magic, well, until he didn’t. Even today, exactly six years after Chester’s death, Chester still makes a difference. I found comfort in Chester’s music, and still do. I do not blame him for quieting the monsters in his head, no, today I celebrate the magic he created, and the gifts he left behind. On July 20th 2017, Mister Chester Bennington, poet, writer, musician, husband and father of six kiddos took his own life by hanging. Chester purposefully died on July 20th, this being the date of his best friend Chris Cornell’s birthday, Chris himself also a celebrated rock band singer. Mister Chris Cornell hung himself on May 18th the same year, just two months prior. Chester Bennington’s suicide six years ago affected me profoundly and immediately following Chester’s death, my No poem followed immediately as shared above, written in 2017.
I try. I try to face my fucked-up shit. I try to work through it and beanstalk tall enough to then help family and friends elevate themselves. I try. Sometimes my attempts help, sometimes not. I sit here in a Telluride Colorado coffee shop right now, after blasting down to New Mexico from Wisconsin four days ago, trying to help a friend. My pal Josh is in jail and I figured he needed support, after he told me for months he can’t do more time. I figured Josh needed help, if even a six-minute visitation of encouragement through two-inch bulletproof glass from yours truly. For days I searched, but to no avail…I could not find Josh anywhere in any of the New Mexico, Colorado, or Wyoming incarceration facilities. Factually I accomplished nothing, except I did get up to go help a friend, and with that, I can go home satisfied that I tried.
Today, the sum of music I will listen to will be Linkin Park, in reverence of Chester. Probably the sum of all music I will listen to on my 1,800 mile drive home will be Linkin Park. Today, and if only for today, my heart will not bleed, no, no, I will not hurt, although tears have been shed and more to come…no, no, today my heart will sing.
Josh…love you bro. Josh, please be strong in jail. Please be strong for me, even as you claim unable to be strong for any other reason. Please be strong, least please try, just fucking try. Please keep your quick-to-fight fists by your side today Josh, please do not strike back. Please maintain your expert respect with your, “Yes Sir, Yes Sir”, please try. I will be waiting to hear from you and assist in any way I can. Please try Josh, please try. Please try to walk tall Josh, please try to maintain your stature, please try to stray away from the certain trouble steamrolling towards you, please try. I love you Josh, and as you tell me often…get up, stand tall, get up, keep standing, keep standing, and walk tall-fuck ‘em all.
