All truth be told… in the end, under the false facades, the bravados, under the masks, the hurt, pain and injury — the heart of it all is love. People, that’s all we are: human, fallible, and prone to fuck up. You live, you learn, and as Alanis said once: you laugh, you learn; you lose, you learn. It’s all learning, it’s all life, and if you’re not learning still and things aren’t happening to you and you think you got it all figured out, put together and good, I bet there’s something plaguing you too. So while, yes, I have to harden my exterior and protect my friends, family and self, I won’t stop trying to do for others, but I learned to not overextend my hand. Just because I can, don’t mean I should. ‘Why won’t they help themselves?’ is a good question to ask myself. I can still be genuine, I just gotta be a better judge of character.
As for love, I learned a lot from this, this is that one that tears a heart open, “I sow myself shut, my weakness is that I care too much, and the scars remind us that the past is real, I tear my heart open just to feel, I’m drunk and I’m feeling’ down, I just wanna be alone” [ed: Papa Roach reference] – lol I’ma stop, my mind links music lyrics always… It did hers too… I loved it. I loved our love, our journey, and what I learned? Love them as they are, know when it’s too far, when they’re just along for the ride and not enjoying it. But don’t stop loving ever, she taught me, “Everything is love”… it never registered until a long shrooms trip one day with her and it clicked like a lightswitch, everything is love. The world, you, me, us, our actions, all can be boiled down to love. Love drives the pain, the passion, the hurt, the destruction, the death, the chaos, the greed, the good intentions with bad outcomes and vice versa. The using, the foolery, the friendships, the kinships, the bonds, I could go on – the root is all love.
As I cry into the paper, I feel hurt, but I know it’s all love and I’d “recommend getting your heart trampled on a couple times” (again, a shout out to Alanis, lol). I know real love, I do, and I learned about an amazing woman who became my best friend, lover, partner and wife, my twin flame, I learned her inside and out, I pray she finds the love she deserves… and remember: we are NOT the sum of our worst actions. We are love.
“Take me back to the night we met…”
For those of you cultured enough to know of Lord Huron, this song has always been important to me, I didn’t know why, but now I do. In my life, I tend to get warning signs in many forms, the main one is song, as music has always been my life. I think back to the night I met her, the love of my life, my partner, my twin flame – or so I thought. What I didn’t know was the long ride, the great, the terrible, the dark and light, the long, strange trip I’ve been on, this wonderfully heartbreaking journey of love. This is a feeling I remember clearly and I’ll never forget, one I feel now even as my heart is breaking for the love I feel towards her… It’s been a long time coming and the signs were all over, but like these niggas in here who conned my love, adoration and kinship, I was fooled by the only one who should’ve been true.
I don’t put the blame on her, “It’s prison,” as I said before, prison is a toxic, oppressive, corrosive arrangement, it’s not one where relationships thrive. 4 years is a long time to give to someone… 5 years 2 months left… Again, I can’t fault her, because anything that’s meant to be is bound to stay. I’ve been fighting a losing battle from the start. I tried to force someone to stay who wasn’t built that way. She did her best and I wish her well. I hope she finds a love that lights her face up, that warms her heart and gives her everything she dreamed and more. I wanted that with her, but I made choices – no, we made choices, compromises, we gave it our all. Unfortunately, we met our match, life hit real hard, we won’t get back, but I wish her well.
Take me back to the night we met…
(It’s funny, as I write this, I’m hearing, “I wanna dance with somebody, with somebody who loves meee!” lol, it’s lovely how music hits, 101.9 in Portland is a staple for me, lol. Now back to the sad boy shit.)
Take me back to the night we met, and then I can tell myself what the hell I’m supposed to do, and then I can tell myself, not to ride along with you… I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you… take me back to the night we met…
I met her on a cool winter night in October, she pulled up in a little blue Kia and parked outside my house after talking on the phone for HOURS, the flutters I felt that night I feel now describing it and reliving it… I got in to see my beautiful redhead navi, but I didn’t know yet, just how hard I’d fall, but in her tight blue jeans, striped checker low-cut shirt – it was dark so I had no idea she had eyes of the bluest kind, and how I wanted them to always be mine, fixed on me and our kids one day… but I didn’t know then, not the night we met… We drove all night into the morning, parking outside her apartment before returning home. The conversation was EFFORTLESS, we felt so free. I exposed parts of myself I buried long ago, somehow she made me comfortable. It was intoxicating, it was sexy just the way she opened me up, and the way she opened her life to me. We vibed all night, so much so I asked her to do it again tomorrow, and from that day on, you could probably count on two hand the number of days we were apart, I didn’t want it any other way. I cut off everyone I was talking to and just focused on her. We built a bond, we built a life, we built a home… now we’re gettin’ stoned and kickin’ rocks… We had one hell of a ride, but it started so effortlessly and developed so beautifully, it made me a better man, I made her better in ways, neither of us are spotless, but we saw it through, till the end.
I do shoulder some big part of the blame, as I wanted a revolutionary and thought I could mold her into one. It’s ok that she’s not, but I pushed her, trying to have her look up to Assata and Afeni the way I look up to Mutulu, Jackson, Che, Pac, and Hampton. That was never to be, and she held on for a long time, but we do hurt people we love and we tend to hold onto what’s not best for us. I do love this woman dearly, but she’s not going to fit in the life I’ll lead, what it demands, all it entails, the risks of jail and death at any given moment or incident. I’m a revolutionary. I am anti-government, I am anti-snitch, anti-cop and pro- breaking all the laws, living outside of the law, making us our people, not black, but ALL disenfranchised, downtrodden, oppressed, and bent. Making us good, building community, one that takes care of each other, one under structure, like our predecessors the Panthers, BLA, BGF, and the Kumi vanguards. Not everyone can fall under that structure and that life, but breaking a law or rule is like breathing for me, it’s what I do. When I call a pig a pig, I mean that, they’re a fucking pig! They’re low down dirty trifling lower than dirt – loam, they’re loam lol. When I say Fuck 12, the DA & the judge, when I say fuck liberals, republicans, moderates, presidents and this whole fucking criminal injustice system, I mean that!
So I don’t blame the woman, my wife, I blame the system that steals our men, women and children and cages them. I blame the foot soldiers who carry out orders to get us, do the bidding of the establishment. I blame the mechanisms in place that smother the will and spirit, and crush love. I have no doubt it was real, I have no doubt she felt driven, but she’s a civilian, and that’s ok. We can take them to the promised land too, but some of us will be the ones who pave the way for them, everyone. That’s the role of the revolutionary. To be this takes more than just defiance though, it takes heart and deep belief and commitment to a lifelong struggle, it takes a realization that you’re not just living for yourself, your wife, kids or friends, you’re living to serve a purpose, living for the betterment of the poor, broken and downtrodden. But I digress… Some people got soul, but they’re not soldiers, and can’t make that kind of commitment or be with someone who has.
So here we have come, to the end of the road. Are there some darker things in the background that played us? Yes, but that’s for another time, or never, I’m not into slandering someone I love even still. I will say this: loyalty is important in an up-and-coming revolutionary; disloyalty, dishonor, betrayal, those things will be signs of a compromised soldier, someone not fit to serve the purpose. This personal experience has added to the lessons I been learning. After the sudden turn in this prison, the betrayal, the fakeness, seeing friends become enemies, you’re resources turn and the love of your life leaving, it does something to you. It’s definitely eye-opening. That being said, the whole time I’m going through this, I see how the adversity will build me. Do I regret the time, the years, the money and turmoil, the heartbreak, betrayal and lies, deceit?… NO, not at all. If I could go back, if I could do it again, I’d go ride along with her still, I’d never trade the feeling of elation, the vertical drop, the full speed free fall I was in that night, and felt, and feel even now as I reminisce.
I love you Jesse sweets, you’ll always be my sweets… I would have fallen forever with you time after time. I’ll always be here, I’ll be your James, your best friend, cuz nobody made me feel what you have and never will.
So with that I will close this. I have a tendency to be long-winded and cross topics, so I hope you see how it ties together, I’ll be onto some more militant shit here soon, as my heart mends. The only feeling better or nay, comparable, would be my love for the people and revolution. I am just romantic, and I love everything, but you can’t MAKE someone something they’re not.