I am history
A history of a man
A history of anguish
A history of trial
A history of ecstasy
A history of education
I am Me

As a man:

I am a crying babe,
Learning to be spoiled from the start
Always with family and fantasy so loving
Never understanding the little tastes of something ****

I’m a rampaging toddler,
Playing with everything
And destroying it too,
Demanding more attention than exists
Learning from The Magic School Bus

I’m a shy yet straight forward child,
Shunned by peers for excessive knowledge
Yet little skill in its application
In love with a girl who I ask,
“Will you marry me?”

I’m a conflicted pre-teen,
Caught between my knowledge,
Feelings,
And religion
I seek to satisfy everyone and everything
Yet nothing I do is right to anyone

I’m a typical teen,
I’ve more confidence in myself than ever
From my religion telling me what to think
To my friends and family telling me what to do
All of which I say, “I know better than you”
I follow my heart and comes the true killer

I’m a worn man.

As anguish:

A baby spends more time with relatives
Than mom and dad
And they have their faults
Mostly that I’m passed from one to the other
As they don’t want to take the primary care

A toddler finally is with mom,
But dad’s still distant
Dad’s smart, so maybe he’ll stay if I am too
Little sister gets all the attention I wanted

The dream filled child knows so much
But can’t know why
He strays from fact to fiction
And believes he’s a prince
Like Aladdin

Chemically tortured pre-teen can’t think straight
Love is too strong for me,
Yet it makes of him a victim
Or is it lust?
I feel nothing I can trust…

A scarred teen lashes back
At a philosophy called religion,
Abandoning it ‘cause he’s been brain washed,
At people who were friends and family,
They’ve let me down so often,
At intangibles, love and hate and intelligence,
Emotions and notions of torture.

The worn man reflects the past.

As trails:

As a babe, I know not
For memory cannot serve

As a toddler, I know not
For recollection fails

As a child, testing love
Romantic thoughts are planted
Watered thoroughly by the similarly plagued
I loved a Summer, for her I longed
Yet for all my knowledge and all my skill
What little there was,
‘Twas to fail.

As a pre-teen, testing religion
Chemicals called hormones challenge my teachings
I love another,
She is a religious Brit.
Her father a Baptist Deacon,
Pressures me to brag when I become one for the Latter-Day Saints

As a teen, testing thought
Friends and family tell me how to think and act
I think through things with logic and emotion,
However ill it may be,
And ignore all I’m told
I’ve pain to gain.

As man, recovery.

As ecstasy:

I, a newborn, know nothing else

I, a toddler, know little else

I, a child, know some
But it’s confusing,
When happiness comes,
Sorrow must follow

I, a pre-teen, know some
But it’s fleeting
It comes only when things
Are beyond saving

I, a teen, know much
I feel it in every girls’ touch
It’s in my laughter and torture…
I’m a *******?
I find a false happiness in breaking the rules
Set by every, and any, one.

I, a man, hope and seek much

As education:

The baby cares little for knowledge,
Lest I lose attention

The toddler begins the search
Learning all I can and using it
That’s what gets Dad home from work

The child fears himself
I know too much without knowing enough
I can state a fact, but don’t know why it’s true
I can’t tell you how and realize
I’m dumb

The pre-teen learns to learn
I can break down facts
Relate them together
Learn from the book
I can now impress
Though still, I’m teased

The teen is an unscholarly scholar
Learning anything and everything
Applying it everywhere
Drawing definite lines into niches
Unable to contain, and losing the ability to add more
Drawing closer to a heavy door
I use knowledge to disprove everything
I don’t approve

The man is learning
But much slower.

As a man, I’ve seen pain
I’ve made remarkable gain
The person I am today
Is not what’s left of what’s gone away
In the AM, I learned from my own mistakes
That the future may never take

I’m a believer,
Of what I’m uncertain…

Memories of depression
Memories of suicide attempts
Memories of finding nothing left to live for,
Nothing good in my memory outweighs the bad,
So my thoughts turn inward

Why do I continue?
Why do I try?
Why when all hope is lost do I not die?
Because I believe.

But in what?
I believe in Me.
I’m recovery, life, and hope.