Memories Of A Painful But Once Promising Life Gone Wrong by T. Pina

A man living on the edge of life for so long puts his service revolver to his head and trays to end his torment and despair!

Memories Of A Painful But Once Promising Life Gone Wrong By T. Pina              I woke up to the extremely loud deafening noises of children screaming and stomping above me.     All this noise seemed to just boom in my eardrums. It all felt like being caught in the middle of a war zone during an air attack.   Kitchen pots were crashing and sticks were banging on the pipes over my head.   The disturbing sound of large toys and other heavy objects were crashing over me like missiles being dropped upon an established enemy target in a war zone.   At the time of this harrowing occurrence I was knocked the hell out in a deep, dead sleep. I was semi-naked on my couch downstairs, in my basement.   When all this noise started it felt like as if a bomb exploded around me.   My face was tucked deep in to my pillow.  My eyes were closed shut tight.    The morning drool was secreting from my mouth, just oozing down upon my chin. At the time of this entire clamor, my soul felt as if it hadn’t sleep for ages.   My mind was completely lost and bewildered. It even took me some time to recall who the hell I even was.   Usually weekends in this dysfunctional household was reserved for the children’s joy and laughter but unfortunately for me this day wasn’t.   Sad to say for the rest of my life, it would never be the same again.   When I finally found my bearings, I remorsefully remembered who I was and the very grave legal phenomenon I had gotten into just the night before.  Remembering all this just sickened me more than ever.    Compound all of this with severe depression, (from the wrong I did the night before.) When it all started coming back to me it truly made me sick. I just wanted to puke.  Why I did not, I guess I'll never know.   Saturday March 1, 2003 was going to become one of the worst days in my life. Believe me there would be many more putrid days to come.    Just an hour earlier, I had convinced my wife with my kids to leave the house.  After they left, I put my fully loaded .38 caliber service revolver to my head and tried to blow my dam brains out.   My miserable tormented soul should be in the fires of hell. If it wasn’t for God’s mercy his compassion in my life, I'd probably be there today.   For 44 years of my miserable life, I had suffered from severe depression. This was all being suppressed by uncontrollable rage and anger.   Though out my sorrowful life l held on to an idiotic belief that my life would end much later in better circumstances.   I always dreamed of owning a little patch of heaven somewhere on the California/Arizona border between Yuma and San Diego. It would be there, that someday I would buy and call home.   I had hope that someday it would become the oasis in my life. Some where I could write, watch the spectacular sunsets which would  just help me find my lost soul again!    One where I would finally find refuge, peace and tranquility that has eluded me for so long.   This is where I felt the world would be safe from my uncontrollable anger and beast like rage (God forbid, if I ever snapped) that had plagued me for so long.   Unfortunately for me, I knew in my heart that it all would end today.   I couldn’t even fathom the thought that the pain and intense heat of a hot burning .38 caliber metal fragment ripping though my cranium, would ever be as great as the chafe of the 44 years of torment that I had suffered on this earth!   The latter has been a horrific slow death killing me daily. It was strangling my soul at times, stealing the very life out of lungs.   At least the bullet would end my misery instantly!   I have been a dead man walking for so long that I can't even remember the last time I truly felt free and alive!   At least if I couldn't be free, today my tormented spirit would sure as hell be!   It was approximately 10:38 A.M. that morning and my wife and my beautiful two kids had just left a short while earlier.   At the time I was having severe martial problems. Quite frankly my marriage (on and off) was way over, before all this came to pass.    My relationship with my (sometimes) wife had become pretty bad.   The augments that were always heated were going from bad to worst.    To tell the truth (at this time), we were even speaking to each other.   We had been fighting for so dam long probably even before we got married I couldn't even tell you why we were even fighting anymore!) I just couldn't do anything right for her anymore.   Probably, I felt the same way too.   Probably, it was all about that I just didn't tickle her fancy anymore, I guess though, I really never did.   Maybe, if I wore a tattoo rode a motorcycle and had a nick name like: Kinky, Flex, Shorty or Papo I would have had a better chance at love with her (I always thought to my self!)   I always tried so hard to better her life, but she never saw my true intellectual spirit deep inside of me.   I always tried just wanted to teach her and try to make her a better person inside.   I felt that she always took all this the wrong way and looked at it as I was trying to belittle her and disrespect her.                        I always thought I was making her life better!    Wheather by escorting her to a Broadway show, a fancy dim lit romantic restaurant, or by taking her on a trip to the exotic Turk Islands, Lord knows I always tried my best! Yet I know for a fact that she never saw it!   It had been done for me years earlier by older women in my life whom I certainly loved and appreciated.   I was luckily nurtured by them and I just wanted to pay back the favor and do the same for to her.   I felt in my heart that she always took it all completely the wrong way and I always had all hell to pay for, because of it! Or dissing her like she lies to put it!   I have a deep belief that we are all spirits in this journey called life and that no spirit is actually better than another!   Some might be more intellectual, friendlier and more lovable. Some may be even more endowed then others yet deep down in our spirits, none of us are truly better then the other!   I always felt that she could never quite grasp that concept and she just couldn't deal with it all and we were never truly happy because of our differences.   So I just continue to dwell in this wretched land of complete misery.   As they say we are what we are and you can take a lion out of the jungle but not the jungle out of that same lion!   Now I always took her erratic behavior as a sure sign of her unfaithfulness and that she was much happier when she out there cheating on me.    Yet, as I further investigated  her constantly changing behavior and after receiving testimony from those who knew her closer than I could ever I began to realize that she was also a cracked egg like myself.         After learning all this about her, I now felt that my wife has probably just been acting out what she has seen all through her life.     But how in the world can two cracked eggs ever survive in a (carton) household together?         I just hope the buck stops here and my kids don't do the same to others in their future that wouldn't deserve such abuse and treatment.             Sooner or later someone has to put an end to all madness and I hope they find the courage, strength and wisdom one day to do it themselves!   All these problems just continued to haunt me! Go figure. It took me years but I have already.   I was living in that basement for so long, far away from all the bullshit above me! I lived there for so long; I don't even remember when I moved down stairs.   It wasn’t that this dreadful trouble I was in, killed my marriage but it did put the final nail in the coffin of this dreadful union.   This day sad to say, we were about to part forever and do so not even as friends.   In simple English, she really didn't realize what was about to happen.   I was about to try and make her a very happy women and she didn’t even know it yet!   My wife would later say that she just couldn't wait to run out of that forsaken house, (or this hell hole as she called it so many times before.)   I feared this day for a lifetime and now it was finally coming to pass. In a few seconds I would finally find the answer to: how much pain would I feel and where would my final destination be.    These questions haunted me for so many sleepless nights, in my crazy lifetime. After today it wouldn't haunt me a dam second longer!   I was able to convince my tormented psyche that the pain would only last for a few seconds.  After that then there would be a short period of darkness, along with peace and finally tranquility.   I did hold to the belief that where ever I was going on my journey in the afterlife, had to be much better then all the hell I had endured during the past life.             A very famous 1960's Broadway show proclaimed the line "Stop the world I want to get off".  Hell I was fed up and I wanted to get off too but I was going to do it in a random act of violence to myself and not in a musical whim like this show.                               I just had enough of it all and I just closed my eyes and began to pull the trigger! All I could say was forgive me Father for I have just sinned!   As my lost, frightened soul was waiting for the sound of my gun to go off, I saw a hot burning fire in front me.    In this intense fire I saw two old friends of mine, Correction Officer Ronnie Arroyo and Officer Simpson who had committed suicide many years earlier.  Just Years earlier Ronnie had blown his brains out (over his wife's relentless adultery). My heart still goes out to poor old man Simpson.   Back then, I never could understand how he had the balls to jump off the Whitestone Bridge in Queens New York on a very hot summer evening (when he just couldn't cope with the stress of life anymore.)   I sure do now understand his pain and why he did such an outrageous thing or even why anybody could go out for a pack of cigarettes and just never come back!   He just had way too much of towing the toll of life and the bullshit that it brings with it! I guess I did too!   After jumping over 377ft to his quick and sure death, All they found left of this poor tormented man on this humongous bridge was new BMW.              His car was still running with keys in the ignition with its lights and A/C on. His cleaned uniforms were still hanging neatly in the back seat.) Some claim they still see his wretched spirit wandering on very hot summer nights on this tall bridge in New York.   In my vision, they both seemed very scared to me. They both were standing their in front of me in those intense fires with frightening smiles on their faces.   They were waving at me to come and join them in these hot fires of hell in my mind.   Up to then, I had not seen either of them for a very long time. They both seemed eagerly for me to end my life and join them in this torment.   They were laughing at me and saying "do it. End it you worthless piece of s**t!" The demons around me were now talking and tormenting me.   They tried to make me feel that I was completely worthless and that no one ever cared about me. They were longing for me to kill myself.   These demons yearned for me to join my friends, in the fires that I had just vision moments before.                                       All that followed next began to become surreal to me.   As I began to pull down on the trigger all I heard a voice scream "enough" and then I swear I heard the gun blast go off.   Yet, instead of my spirit standing over my body lying in blood for a moment, I went in total darkness.    I heard a voice scream again in the darkness "It is over!"                                                        The next thing I saw was Jesus Christ standing in front of me. He just stared at me with so much hurt and pain in his eyes.   Christ then asked me two simple questions: “Was this what I brought you into this world for my child?”    He then pointed down to the ground, I then saw myself lying dead in a puddle of my blood.   Seconds later I saw my children running into the basement and upon seeing me dead on the ground with my son crying out:    Why daddy?   Why did you have to kill yourself and leave me all alone in this life daddy?   He then showed me a vision of my son later going down the road of depression and despair.   After a life time of abusing his body with drugs and alcohol, I then saw my poor little boy (this love of mine) with his young wasted body laying dead in a puddle of his own blood with a bullet ripped through his own brain.   Is this what you want, child?” Christ asked me.   All I could do after witnessing these visions was to drop my gun onto the floor, fall to my knees and weep helplessly. It all seemed like an eternity to me.    My life had been running on empty for so long and now it just hit the bottom pit of it.    Plain and simple I did not want to live anymore! I was finished with this tormented life.   It wasn’t just one act of stupidity that I committed that made me feel this way. It was always struggling to do right, when just about every else around me, really didn't give a s**t!     There were always just too many warning signs to alert me to the mere fact that I was in deep trouble though out the years of my life.   It was my uncontrollable temper and fits of rage, which at times caused me to break walls and throw my earthly processions (that I struggled so hard in my life for) outside my windows.    Afterward, I would purposely take a hot knife and brand a mark on my body (usually on my arm or wrist).    I would make a cross or scar which would always remind me (for the rest of my life) of these painful occurrences. Least may I never forget!  I still wear these scars of my torment till this very day. They are mere reminders of my years of being plaque with despair!    There were many sleepless nights filled with fits of anger and crying bouts that always seemed to last most of the night, for so many years.   I was always afraid that if these selfish a******s in the NYCDOC were to find out, (instead of trying to help me) they would take away my gun and go after my lousy job.    For many years this caused me to hide all of this as I held on to life in despair.It did though pay the bills and take care of my family. But it all cost me the very devil to pay in this life.   On this sad particular morning I had about all I could stand of it.  I was totally hell bent to end it all that day!   The problem here was, it seemed that something had better plans with my life. Much better plans than I had.   It was then at that very moment, I felt the long warm loving arms of Christ wrapped around my cold frightened body.   He then whispered into my ear “I love you my child, I will always love you.” Seconds later he was gone. I guess if though I didn’t know it then but I was truly loved that day.   Many doctors would later diagnose me as having a nervous break down. They said it was from all the years my Psyche was being tortured. I say, I was crying for my sins and my failures. I do know now, it was over the tormenting that my soul had been subjected to for so long.   I believe with all my heart had I not seen these visions that Christ had shown me, I would not be alive today to tell you this story.   That day, my life changed and has never been the same since.   Its true bad things happen to good people but I never felt that I was ever good! Hours later, I was barely alive; when the news of this theft finally hit the air waves (I saw it make top news on CNN that day.)   After that my good friend Orlando and my so called friends were all calling me to see if the rumors were true about me being involved with the others in theft of this famous Dali painting stolen from the prison just the night before.   I knew that I was in for a very long harsh walk through some very dark roads ahead in my now torrent life! Yet in some crazy way, I felt a warm conviction in my heart.   I felt if God had taken the time to rescue me in that darken hour, then why wouldn’t he walk with me down these dark dreary roads ahead of me?     Make no mistake this was going to be the hardest walk of my life. I knew I was going to face these trials, but I also knew I wasn’t going to face them all alone.   Now to many, this might all sound like a very tall tale.   As people begin to read my account of that morning, there were many interpretations of what really happened.   Some would later say that I had a psychotic experience.   Others would accuse me of smoking drugs from a crack pipe that day.   A few would swear to this day that I had an out of body experience that frightful morning.                                       All I can do is state the truth of the matter for the records that day and let every one else figure out the math.   On the morning of February 1, 2003, I was a very psychotic, manic depressed, middle age man with a loaded gun held up to my head.   I was in the process of losing everything I ever cherished, worked hard and truly lived for in this life. I felt I had made unbearable mistakes in my life and at this point I just had nothing left to live for.   It wasn't as I had given up on life but more as I felt that life had given up on me.  It wasn’t as much that I felt life had failed me, but much more like that I had failed life miserably.   Understand that all humans in general are extremely fragile!   Most view their fragile life out their glass window of their souls that can be shattered at anytime tragedy or misfortune strikes upon them.   Now, it’s even harder for a manic depressor or bi-polar person.  For us, this extremely fragile glass window come with a badly tainted dark tint and clouds that causes our outlook on life to be dismal, overcast, and gloomy and filled with despair.      Unfortunately our little problems in life seem a hell of a lot worst through our tainted dark widows. Our bigger problems are even worst.   Every new episode of trouble of ours is usually followed by more depression and despair. Causing our already tainted, dark window to become even more obstructed and unclear just making life and its problems even more unbearable!   Because of all of these mishaps, We have more breakdowns and make more misjudgments in life.   We have a shorter life expectancy then others, with extremely higher suicide rates!   Hell, even our life insurance premiums, cost much more then you normal folks!   Yet, because most of us look normally healthier on the outside, we are expected to live normally in the average constant world of stress we call life!   Most of time in this world our life is covered in pure darkness. Well at least it is, to our imperfect eyes.   Yes, we do have normal moments and times through our lives but in times of trouble and despair we can quickly decide to jump ship and leave this life much faster than a normal person. It truly makes us highly irrational in times of trouble! When we go postal (in many cases) no one can understand why? Hell, I can!   I can't tell you how many time my thoughts race around my tired mind every time I cross a bridge. Is this the bridge in my dreams I keep seeing myself jumping off of?      This why, while I was too busy in putting out the fires burning around in me in my personal life, I was not able to pay attention to the wild beasts that had me in their sights as the easy prey I was. Man my life was truly a blaze and these b******s knew it!   These wild beast masquerading around me as friends would soon lean down the lonely roads of despair and would finally attack and consume me.   A true friend would never ask another to go and commit a crime and do wrong. True friends would never try to compromise one’s freedom or jeopardize one’s family in any shape, way or form.   These b******s did the latter all in one dam shot. I wish I could have seen it then but I sure as hell see it now.   This is why I always worked so hard to try and help my fellow underdogs in life. I always tried to help those like myself (walking time bombs as people call us), who some how managed to fly under the radar gun of life.   I was just trying to help others that just couldn't help themselves. I would try to assist them in the barren valley of their lives.   I always tried to do this with an enthusiastic heart but always at an extreme price to pay. I did it, because I always knew in my heart that this could be me one day!   All my life I spent my time worrying about others but at the same time neglecting my deprived needs. It was the same in my marriage I always tried so hard and gave my all (spiritually and financially). When it finally ended, I was totally devastated by the results!                               The problem here was that my clock was always ticking just too fast and I was always much to worry about others to even care to notice it! In the end by the time it finally stop ticking and I knew that it was all over (I felt) there was no one there to offer me help.   At the end it's sad to say but there was no one there to walk with me through the lowest desolated valley of my life.   Well at least, that's how my twisted delusional mind saw it.   Up to this point, I had very little self-esteem in life. At times I would have to ask my female friends if they thought I was handsome. They would just look at me crazy and say “are you nuts, of course you are!”    They saw it but I never did!   Now they didn’t realize it at the time but my tank of life was finally empty, which caused me to feel that I had nothing else to truly live for.        The fact of the mater is that something and someone talked me out of this great tragedy of killing myself and gave me the will to live again.   I’m here alive today as proof because of it. In this day and great age of technology miracles still exist!  I wouldn’t be alive today with out either of them. I guess it just wasn’t my time to go.   Common sense should have told me to stand up to these thugs and kick them right up their corrupted little asses.  But with my distorted window of life, I had no common sense! Fear settled inside my soul and instead manifested it all into total stupidity!   Now that my fear has finally come to grips with me and  some common sense has settled I see and regret not being a man but instead a total coward (like my wife has forever called me since.)   I just should have done my job and stop these pricks from the very beginning of this insane plot. I should have been stronger and turned these deviants in from the first time they uttered their stupid words.   Dam you, you wretchless demon of fear. I will forever despise you with a passion!      My true dilemma here was that I had been sailing off course here on the uncharted waters of desolation and despair for so long that it literally distorted the ability of my common sense.    This was of course was all true until God allowed me to a have a very painful collision with him in my life. It would be one so excruciating, that its strong humiliating winds would help blow me back on course to safety and change my life for ever!                 Yet first I would have to go through pure hell and learn that even though I've been through a lot of difficulties, conflicts and wars in my life which were from within and from abroad (as you will see further in this story.)     The greatest woes I have ever encountered and dealt with in my lifetime were the destructive conflicts from within me!    I've learned the hard way that one's personal demons are usually the hardest one's to fight in life! This all cost me to be lost on very dark nights, sailing the wrong way into the paths of total destruction in life.   Now days of despair are bad enough but oh, those dreadful dark nights....... Yet through it all, I learned that one must always remember that tough time’s never last but tough people always do!   One must either triumph over their fears and despair or their fears will triumph over them!    They say love conquers all and I believe on that very sad day, my love for my little children whom I love with all my heart and soul help me overcome all my torment and depression.  It kept me alive that day and prevented me from going through with this dastardly deed against myself. Now If only I could stay alive through these hard, dreadful, dismal days ahead of me to see it all get better.   Later that day I was lying on my bed broken and in severe pain. I couldn't help from reminiscing on some haunting words my grandmother once taught me many years earlier in my life:   When a person falls from grace and their once promising life is engulf by disgrace and scandal, all fairy tales are now uncovered, myths heartlessly exposed and pain magnified, by the greatest affliction ever discovered by your soul!       Lord, you always taught me to be strong, Yet now, I'm so confused to realize that what you created in your perfect image was always truly so troubled and weak.            You always taught me to never to give up, but after you have hit upon the rocks of scandal it hurts so bad to have to admit to your own defeat.   Whom can you turn to for comfort? No one, not even your despised self! So I search in the valley of despair for your lost soul, always in vain.   When a person falls from grace and is drifting a mist in the sea of their grief and misery,   Their stars also fall from heaven and so does their perception of tomorrow, as they watch their dreams burn and sink into the deep sea of hopelessness.   Without your grace father, now there is only me alone to deal with my pitiful sorrows, deep anguish and drowning troubles.   My heart has ceased to work, is in constant pain and now has become non-functional.   My soul is endlessly in torment and is constantly in despair.   Yet, I have no one to blame here, other than myself.   You once graciously gave me the gifts of courage and wisdom but I was much too afraid and confused to properly use them.   Now, I sit here on this earth with the weight of the world on my weak shoulders and in extreme despair.     Lord what do you expected me to do?    Yet why then, am I expected to survive?   When a person has fallen from grace their once proud life is shredded apart from all, by its distress, reproach and shame, by just stealing everything precious to them from   So I lay here in agony and try to pray to the heavens above, for strength to survive just one more day.   Dear Lord, please entrust me with your gift of courage once again, so I can live on till another day.

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Just wanted to share with you one of the most painful most painful days in my life. I hope my memories will help others that find their selves on this same road of despair , find the hope and courage to carry on and survive it all! Tough times never last but tough people always do!

Reviews

[Jet Lag]

first of, thanks for your kind words in your review of
Grace

i had to come read what you said matched my "poem."
(like i said, i'm nobody's poet.)
i see what you mean about it matching!

I'll tell you about this place, that it's hard to get long pieces read and reviewed. Consider breaking longer pieces up into shorter ones. Check how I did my chapters in Jet Lag.

My suggestions and comments:
--extremely loud deafening shrieking noises
Choose one adjective.
I like shrieking.

Lot of description about noise.
--screaming, stomping and playing above me that seemed to just boom in my eardrums like the blaring sirens going off in a war zone during an air attack.

Same as above.
--Kitchen pots were crashing and sticks were banging on the pipes over my head.

still talking about noise. You could cut some of this out. We want to see how he reacts to the noise.
--The agitating and very disturbing sound of heavy toys and plates were crashing on top of me like missiles being dropped upon an established enemy target in a war torn zone.

If he was knocked out, then how could he hear it? You need to say the noise woke him from a dead like sleep.
--At the time of this harrowing occurrence I was knocked the hell out in a deep dead like sleep, semi-naked on my couch down stairs.

Avoid using exploded twice in one sentence.
--When all this noise exploded in my ears it was just like as if a bomb blast exploded around me.





Put a comma here:
--Just an hour earlier,

Comma:
--To tell you the truth,

End the sentence here and restructure sentence suggestions:
--I shouldn't even be here today to tell you this story. Instead I should have been six feet under. My miserable tormented should be tortured in the fires of hell, and it would be if it wasn't for God's mercy and his showing me his compassion in my life.

Long sentence. Consider breaking it up:
--Though my sorrowful years it was with some hope that I tried to retain on to an idiotic idea that my life would end much better and later on in time and on a little patch of heaven somewhere on the California/Arizona border between Yuma and San Diego that I would someday buy and call home.


It's fathom.
--phantom the thought

Good sentence:
--At least the bullet would end my misery instantly.

I would edit some more but I just got in from the gym and need to eat! Let me know if you want more suggestions. You have a great emotional story and just need to smooth out writing kinks. It's better to be a good storyteller than a good writer, 'cos sometimes "good writers" write boring stories! :)

[~Mariposa Una Lila~]

I think this poem is truely heartfelt and unique ..like you! x0 I like this very much! x0x0

[Farrah Grahm]

Okay, first off, I have to commend you on a job well done.

This is a great story, and it being a memoir, I can see that you are a wonderful person who has made it out of despair so that you could take responsibility for you life and family and that you had the courage to stick around. And that you were enlightened by the experience.

Although I do have some constructive criticism.

First off, there are a lot of distracting grammar and spelling mistakes. Those can be easily solved.

Also, the extremely vertical format--nonlinear thinking-- in this memoir has proved to be well, above nonlinear more like a rollercoaster. And this works, especially since you are describing such a tormented mind that probably does is thinking in a very tumultuous pattern. Although, as I tried to follow the plot, I continually found myself taken down a completely different path for so long and do far away that I almost thought I would never get back to the main course. I think the best way to make that better would to include all the little reminisces and retrospective thoughts in little tidbits while alerting the reader of the divergence you plan to make. You have sort have done that, but in a matter when each time I just kind of went "who, what's going on?"
You see, you're in the basement at one point, then you discuss the horrible marriage, but forget to come back and explain the noise that troubles you, return to the basement, poised to pull the trigger, then you go into another reverie, I just think the vertical writing is a little messy, but that's just me.
I still think that this is an amazing piece, it's going to stick with me for a long time, its a heart wrenching very personal piece where you allow us to peek into your soul in your psyche in sort of a detached way.

I like the imagery.

One thing I would suggest is that you keep the story based in the basement, and the "window" that you speak of, can be used to see all the things that happen outside the window like the robbery, the murders all that, it would just be really cool to keep that figurative window but make it tangible, so that you can actually see everything that goes on, past and present, through that window, and differentiate between when that window becomes murky, and when its clear. Just sort of tool, a metaphor you could use to weave the story around that idea in a more organized manner.
Although I'm not dissing the linear format, I really like it. But just make it easier to get through.

Oh, and you didn't actually introduce the robbery before you started talking about it, as in, when you said "this robbery" I felt like I missed something. The way you state place, date and time, should be used also to begin talking about the robbery .

Oh gosh, I'm sorry this is so long, I just really liked this and I actually wish I could sit down with you and workshop it with you face to face because I think that this could really be something amazing and wonderful and prized for years to come. So painful, so deep, so honest. I absolutely love it!

I'd like to pick apart the entire thing and give you some real suggestions, only if you want them, you can message me if that's the case, but you should really consider-once its polished- entering this into literary magazines and anthologies and such, more people need to read this and understand what its like to go through this kind of heartbreak and come out the other side well and enlightened.
Kudos, applause, bravo, etc. great great piece!

[Anita B Jacques]

What do I call You? Life is full of miracles. That you are alive is one, Me writing to you is another. We all have a story to tell, I have mine.
I wrote my first poem less then two months ago. "A small Whisper". A true event, the night after my husband died I heard the whisper,
"time" Of course I thought it was from my husband, Wrong. My second poem "A silent prayer". The whisper in my ear was I AM WITH YOU.
I don't know what Jesus plan is. I'm 66 years old, English is my second language, I was born and raised in France, learn English read and
write on my own. Tonight I was writing a poem about The Passion on my pad, every few minutes I would write a line, I would stop and
another would come to mind, for the last two months. I'm not complaining, if it's God's Work, I'm His completely. Read my poems, Read
them slow, especially "I have a Soul Mate." God Bless

Anita

[Aspiring Angel]

My friend you have done an awsome job writing your emotions of that day. I commend you for sharing this part of yourself.
I hope you are doing well and are finding your smiles. It seems my friend, you so deserve your smiles of today,

Hugs,
Lesa

[Alexis Pena (Goco)]

I wanted to share with you that tough times don't only make tough people. Tough times can also be generated as artful pieces, like your poems. It's brave to show your pain; it is also brave to feel something. You have done both and to an extent of credible magnitude. Keep one eye open at all times at your experiences and I think you will blossom into all the things you think that you aren't; and make wishes - as literal as having a magic lamp, that is also part of life, and look forward to seeing those wishes come true! Best to you, and good luck

Alexis

[Paza]

What a testimony! You shared what it was like to be at the lowest point anyone can imagine, and how you lived to be able to share it. It's a tough road, no doubt...one day at a time...that's the only way we can take it...one day at a time. I'm glad you made it through.

[pal]

Great job here. Thanks for sharing.

Peace & health.

pal

[Adrian K. Smith]

I uh, had to stop for a moment before I was even halfway through. The acid in my stomach had just gotten to be too much. My eyes were burning just too much. My own little voices that I had thought quiet, but that I had just pretended not to hear came alive as I read along. I do not remember how many times I tried. I try, but I just cannot. I do not remember how many times somebody else made the call. I do not remember how many times something moved me to make the call. I was always lucky. I have never owned a gun. It would not have been my way anyway. It was always a needle. The thing that kept me alive was always my weapon of choice.

This was not some ethereal poem painting suicide in some romantic view. There is nothing romantic about it. You have reached that bottom, you have cried until there are no more tears, just a raging burning sensation in your eyes, your body is wracked as you wretch on those empty tears, it violently reacting to the thoughts spinning out of control in your mind. It screams for you to pay attention to it - to just stop for a f*****g moment. But your mind reaches that surreal calm, where taking your life seems like the most rational action to take to end the pain. You may be shaking as you reach that point, you may be running, or you may be calmly filling the needle full - sticking it into your abdomen - depressing that plunger - emptying the needle - filling it again, emptying it again, over and over - as simple as tying your shoes. That last attempt should have been enough to kill twenty to thirty people. I woke up the next morning though. Always lucky - always somebody watching out for me.

I could not take it that way. I had to twist it around. I did not find hope in a new day. I lost hope in suicide. I was angry. But I begin to wonder if taking my life would actually have made anything better. I do not believe in a classical Heaven and Hell. I started to believe that suicide would just lead to more of the same. It would not make things better. It would not make things worse. It would not make anything different. It would just be the same. I lost the hope that it would even make the slightest difference. Still though, that did not really lead me to change my life. I became more plastic. I just went through the motions each day. I just showed up, because that is what people do - they show up. I existed. I was not living. I had turned my back on life, and in a way I had finally committed suicide.

I got married. Cause that is what people do. I tried to make it work. Cause that is what people do. I went through all the motions. Cause that is what people do. I got divorced. Cause that is what happens to people who get married because they are just going through the motions. It does not matter how much they want to love somebody, if they do not love themselves - it just is not going to work. I should have been destroyed when I found out about her affair for over a year. I was angry, but it was just more s**t that had happened. S**t always happened. I just went back in my hole. I started living a little less each and every day.

Then I met somebody recently. It has really fucked me over, I do not even know how to explain it. It started with something as simple as her persistence in saying that my writing was not as bad as I believed it to be. She would not hate me the way I hated myself. I sent her twelve pages of text, a huge wall of text, much of my life, and much of what I hated about myself. She accepted it though. I expected her to walk away. She did not. She forced me to feel again, and it has been an insane rollercoaster ride since - such highs - such lows, trying to deal with everything I had been running from all my life. I felt a love that I had never felt before. It was new. It was not something that had been there even as people had tried to help me in the past. I just cannot explain it. I have no idea if it will work out with her. God knows I want it to work out. Regardless though, I will ever be grateful for opening my eyes and forcing me to feel again. Cause the way I was living, it was never better - it was never worse - it was just more of the same - never different. I might as well have filled that needle again. As I have been dealing with it, I had my first thought of suicide in over nine years. It came out of the blue and scared the s**t out of me. Those voices never go away completely, but there are other voices you end up listening to as well. Sometimes, it is even your own voice.

I had a girlfriend once tell me that I was not manic depressive. She said I was too labile for that. I switched moods faster than a guy changes channels during the commercials. She said I was just maniacally depressed. Then again, she had more personalities than you could shake a stick at - so I am not sure if the one that said that was qualified to make that statement. Looking back at this past week though, I think she may have been right...

I know I have rambled here, but dude - I just had to let you know how much this fucked with me - how much it moved me - and to say I am glad you are still around, man.

[Orlando Murcia]

Bro all I can say is Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!!!

This was fucken awsome!!

I loved the way you were able to write about all this
and sharing it with those who think that they are the only ones who have it bad

I just want to wish the best for you on your
future sucess with your writing because I know you will go places with it

Great job once again Bro and I am proud of you
and your future acomplishes

Well done bro

Your bro Orlando Murcia

[Meridian]

First off, congratulations on your contest win. I see now why your submission won. This is incredibly moving and touching. I too have had some very low lows, and have been on the brink of causing myself harm. I truly believe that Jesus Christ did reveal himself to you on that day. And from that revelation, you have been granted the opportunity to help someone else along, as you do with this story. Pay it forward! Great write.