Midnight Fire

I am a midnight fire. 

Ripping through these fields of mine.

Raging like a tornado. 

Across the open skies. 

Raging.

Tearing.

Burning.

If it ain’t the soil beneath my feet.

If it ain’t the true me. 

It must be consumed by this fire. 

Within me.

Raging.

Tearing.

Burning.

There ain't no room for the wicked past. 

There ain’t no room for these doubts.

There ain’t no room for this shame.

There ain’t no room for these lies you have told me.

Raging.

Tearing.

Burning.

There ain’t no room in here.

For anything that ain't the soil, beneath my feet. 

This midnight fire rages with burning heat.

From my journal

From my journal. 

Horrors

I have done and seen truly terrible things. I know the boundlessness of evil. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have met evil with my own evil. I have drank from the dark well and understand I cannot give it back. Only time and death can erase the true horrors of what I have seen and done. Only the dead have seen the end of the evils of this world.

Heads

I hate the people who cut the heads off of other people and leave them on the side of the road for us to see. It was like a good morning gift of what these people would do if they got their hands on me. If these people so freely did this to their own people, what would they do to someone like me? Because of these people I had to turn my morals off. I became ruthless. Everyone was a threat. Men, women, children, boxes, culverts, donkeys, cars, trees, dogs, and buildings. You name it. I have killed it. I am not proud of that. It is what it is, and I must live with that.

Angry Bees

The scream of the rockets passes by and raises the hair of the skin. The guns roar to life spitting their fiery rays towards the sky. The crackle reports and hopes are dashed as the ground bucks and the whump of the explosion deafens the ears. The British artillery fires, but in the wrong direction. “Fuck the British!” Raises from my lungs. “Why the fuck are we here!” Rocket pieces litter the ground, the concrete is pot marked and insulation floats on the breeze. Someone's room has been hit and it seems like giant terrible bees have ripped through the building. Thankfully no one was in there, when it hit.   

Fuck Them

Lights flash, the siren wails, the brass dangles by its string, the truck rocks, the gun is hot. The hits are good, the car burns, no one gets out. We drove by as though I didn't just kill an entire family. “Why the fuck did he do that. “Why the fuck did he ignore us!? He had to have known that was going to happen! Why? God I hate people who don't pay attention! Fuck them!”

4 Inches High

The building burns, someone is alive. It's not possible, the walls are four inches high. The bombs missed the mark and it was raining dirt, tears wet my cheeks. Blood and brains coat the hood of the truck. I watch Rob lying naked breathing his last breath with tears streaming down his face, they said he died instantly but corpses don't breathe and cry. Rob knew what was happening to him. The trucks march forward, the guns turn the house into a nightmare killing field. Cease fire! Comes the cry. They drag a body out of the rubble and he is still alive. “How?!” I exclaim. That wall is four inches high. He complains about his finger as both of his lungs collapse. The trucks are shot to shit. Don lies there dying. Chief packs bag after bag of gauze into Don. “Oh God what the fuck has happened!” The car burns and the pilots can see it for miles. Everything is fucked! Including me.  

Sniper

No sleep, 24 hour shift. I am the only one on watch, life sucks ass. I sit on the roof! Last night was terribly cold. The sun begins to get hot. My body armor is miserable. I haven’t seen a single soul other than trucks passing on the highway in the distance. Snap! Boom! Zing! The bullet sings. Concrete peppers my face. “What the fuck was that! Oh fuck that was a round! Its a fucking sniper trying to kill me!”

Cacophony of Death Music

The phone rings. “The A-10s did what? They smoked one of our checkpoints, what the fuck! Load the trucks and get the Iraqis ready!” Comes the cry. The HESCO barriers are shredded and there is blood everywhere. The Airforce sure did a number on these dudes. The phone rings. Some of the Iraqis we brought got ambushed and some of them are missing. The trucks are in the ditch burned to a crisp. The Iraqis say that some of them were taken alive. Let's see what happens when we get close to that village. Bullets whiz by. It's kind of fun. The rounds are not close. The 50 rocks sending tracers into the distance. Who knows where the rounds hit the village? It is so far away. SNAP! Says a round as it passes close by. Someone who knows what they are doing has shown up. It's time to leave, we can't get any closer to the village because of ditches and we are being baited into a trap and we can smell it. The brass from the guns firing at the village have jammed the turrets and we drive until it gets dark before stopping to get out to unjam them. Rob is on the roof of his truck in front of us working to unjam his turret. Tracers streak through the sky from the right. There are three PKMs firing from close range. “How the fuck did they get there! How did they know where we were going to stop? They must have been following us on motorcycles under nods.” Rob in full body armor and helmet dives off the top of the truck like he is diving into a swimming pool. He must have gone to sleep from the impact. The .50 on my truck opens up. I hear the brass and links ting into and on top of the truck. The smell of gunpowder envelopes me. I stare numbly out the front window and watch tracer after tracer streak directly towards me in slow motion like I am watching a movie. Tracers bounce off the hood of the truck and and dazzlingly smash against the front window of the truck. I am mesmerized by the sight and am brought back by the jarring and crashing of the overwhelming roar of the .50 cal and the screams of Syid who is attempting to crawl underneath his seat creates a cacophony of death music. I begin to feed ammo to the cook who is manning the gun. I had gotten tired and felt that all the fun to be had had been had and allowed our cook on the gun. I am not sure how he has done it. I have handed up a number of cans of ammo and the gun has not stopped. Chief who is in the truck in front of me opens his window facing the enemy fire and opens up with a SAW. I watch as the gun spits fire and sparks. The short barrel doesn't allow for a clean burn of the powder and looks like a poorly made dirty sparkler. I don't know the true body count. But war math says 14 bodies are found the next morning. 

Shame

Shame,

Shame has been with me a long time.

So long it has learned my name.

So long it has learned how I breathe.

At first it spoke quietly,

like concern,

like caution,

like a friend trying to keep me safe.

It taught me to watch myself.

It taught me to watch the world for proof.

It taught me,

To measure my tone.

To calculate my presence.

To move carefully through the world

as if existence were something

I could misuse.

When I had energy, it warned me not to take up too much space.

When I was tired, it told me I was failing.

When I worked, it said I was running.

When I rested, it said I was lazy.

It never raised its voice.

It never had to.

It was always there.

If I took time for myself,

shame called it selfish.

If I didn’t,

shame called it weakness.

If I felt anger,

shame said I was dangerous.

If I was mistreated,

shame said I deserved it.

When I leaned on others,

shame called me a burden.

When I stood alone,

shame called me empty and pathetic.

When people were kind,

shame said they didn’t know me.

When they were cruel,

shame said they finally did.

It followed me into ordinary moments—

into traffic,

into conversations,

into rooms where nothing was wrong—

and made sure I felt wrong anyway.

It judged my kindness.

It judged my refusal.

It judged my generosity.

It judged my boundaries.

It told me there was no correct way to exist.

Alone was wrong.

Together was wrong.

Giving was wrong.

Receiving was wrong.

Shame grew sharper with time.

It stopped commenting

and started sentencing.

You do not belong here.

You never did.

You were a mistake that no one wants.

It said I should be reduced to something smaller than human,

something discardable,

something that wouldn’t be noticed

being thrown away.

It said even that was too much mercy for my worthlessness.

It poisoned death itself,

telling me I should be ashamed

for wanting an end to the pain.

I thought once that 

discipline,

service,

and war

might burn this thing out of me.

I thought if I carried enough weight,

ran far enough and fast enough,

if I did enough violence in the name of duty,

shame would finally be satisfied.

It wasn’t.

It only learned new words.

New images.

New ways to accuse.

And still—

something in me has been watching,

and waiting.

Something in me can say:

This is shame.

Not truth.

Not justice.

Not God.

Shame is loud,

but it is not all-knowing.

It is relentless, it made me relentless,

but it is not right. 

I am still here.

Breathing.

Feeling.

Trying.

Not because I have proven my worth.

Not because I have earned forgiveness.

Not because I have been allowed to live.

But because my existence

does not require permission.

I will no longer be bound by these chains, 

I will no longer live under the thumbs of those who have mistreated me.

If we shall pass as two ships passing in the night so be it. 

Today,

I am enough 

Gratitude

The purpose of me writing this is to tell you what it was like, what happened, and what its like now. I tell my story not to hear myself speak. I am telling my story in the hope it shows someone else how to overcome the insurmountable problems in front of them just like the countless people who have done the exact same thing for me. I am not writing this in an attempt to claim responsibility of authorship for anything written here and anything that belongs or appears to belong to anyone else is indisputably their works and all credit due will be freely given. I say that because if it was left up to me I would not be writing this. I am only writing this by the grace of my higher power, the skin of my teeth, and the giants that have come before me, who cleared this path.  

The greatest gift I have ever received was the gift of desperation. I had tried everyway to implement my will on my life and I was absolutely failing at everything. I was destroying my family, I was destroying my body. My friends were gone, my extended family was gone. I was running across an open plain while the four horsemen of my own apocalypse were riding me down with the intent to annihilate me with brutalistic barbarity. I was allowed to see my future and the only thing that I shown was death watching and waiting. I was facing my own destruction. There was nowhere to go! I could not turn around and hide behind the corner. I had worked my way to Dante's inferno's 9th ring of hell. I was given two choices; stay, or grasp the flimsy reed that was presented to me. I know for a fact that I cannot run my life by myself. I know this because I tried everything within my power to retain any form of control in my life. It wasn't until I had been utterly and savagely beaten into reasonableness was I willing to grasp that flimsy reed. That flimsy reed has proved to be the loving and powerful had of God. I equate my putting my faith into my higher power as jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft with a questionable parachute, packed by who knows. Standing in an an aircraft you have a sense of control, but when those doors open up and the wind crashes in, the light turns green and the jumpmaster says go, you have to give up your control, focus on the things you can control. Like giving the people around you plenty of room because flying a parachute is just like driving a car. I am surrounded by a bunch of people who are scared out of their minds, are not paying attention and probably cant see past their own noses even if they have their eyes open in the first place. Some people can claim to have only jumped night jumps because they had their eyes closed the entire time. 

I am grateful to be an alcoholic, because without the devastating and savage beating I endured that crushed and ground me into a state of reasonableness I would have never found my way into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have finally given up and handed all of my broken and pulverized pieces over to all of you and my higher power, and by the grace of my higher power those pieces have been slowly put back together piece by piece. Each piece held together with a beautiful strip of gold. I can tell you that I think i am starting to resemble a beautiful flower pot that I along with my friends and family, and my higher power can plant flowers in and we can all watch them bloom. I will never be put completely back together and that makes me smile, because I can continue to add little bits of my destroyed pottery and a little bit of gold to this vessel that I can now store whatever I want in. I am going to take my family to a pottery painting place and try to replicate a Japanese kintsugi flower pot and then I am going to plant some flowers in it. 

God I am grateful! Thank you so much for letting me share this. 

The Symbol

So there I am. Standing on the precipice of a cosmic cliff over looking the great expanse of the universe. There is no sense of how tall the cliff is. It continues so far down that the only sense of termination one would get is its disappearance into the inky darkness of the universe’s expanse. I notice a massive shoe attached to a massive person. His shoes are as tall as a two storied house. His pleated pants extend so far up into the cosmos that from my prospective he is nothing but a huge pair of shoes and infinitely long pleated pants. 

You as an outside observer might wonder what is going on. To tell you the truth, I may as well have been abducted by aliens. But, I have an overwhelming sense that I am supposed to be here and just melt into the experience. 

I ask biggy shoes to show me a symbol that represents my life. I am curious. The shoes instruct me to close my eyes, and from the darkness of my mind the burning surface of the sun appears. I am looking right at the sun. Massive plasma arms reaching out from the surface. It feels like I just opened the door to a very hot oven. Scorching but pleasant heat spills across my face and chest. I think to myself that “this is cool.” But, the feeling of awesomeness is short lived. It is replaced by the feeling of getting socks for Christmas when you were hoping for a PlayStation. I am grateful for getting something, but this shit sucks. Lame. I think to myself “how am I supposed to draw the burning surface of the sun?” I want to make a pendant that I can hang on a necklace. The burning sun will not do. I asked the giant shoes for the truth, but the truth sucks, so I start to improvise. I think to myself that the sun is a star, so I could just say my symbol is a star. But a star is pretty lame and I think it sounds like a shitty town or a stripper’s name. I add a tail to the star to spice it up a bit and turned it into a shooting star. But, it’s still lame. Biggy shoes tells me in a stern tone, “it is a sun, not a star.”

I tell the giant shoes my thoughts about how lame the symbol was and how I wanted a new one. 

A horrendous clattering erupts between the giant shoes and myself. It sounds like a metal light pole dropped from 50 feet and was burning off its gravity fueled energy by bouncing around like a barking chihuahua. 

The commotion scared the crap out of me. I swung around coiled up like a terrified rattle snake, ready to send its deadly venom into anyone or anything that wanted to find out.

I looked down and seen a word made out of metal. It was an odd bit. The word spelled “otlA.” What a queer word. I had never seen or heard of it. I thought that it must have been a Hungarian or maybe a Nordic word. I had no idea. I picked up the word and put it into my mouth like I was an infant. I explored the contours of the word with my tongue similar to the tongue fussing over a stuck piece of meat between your teeth. Trying to get a sense of what the word meant. I got a very distinct coppery citrus taste and I spit the word out onto the floor. I blurted out to biggy shoes that “I didn’t like it” and “I wanted a new one.”

I will try to explain the following scene but, I will have to ask you to be patient with me and allow the scene to unfold. You will experience the unfolding with me. Thanks for being here.

Imagine you were looking at a chalk or marker board as a teacher tried to get you to see something on the board. No matter how hard you try to see what the teacher is pointing out, you just can’t see it. Your teacher gets so frustrated with you because of your inability to see something so apparent. The teacher feels as though they are going insane and in one last desperate attempt to maintain their grasp on their sanity. They hold onto their sanity like a terrified child holding onto the safety bar of a roller coaster. Thinking that if he let’s go it will result in his death. So he squeeze as hard as humanly possible while doing the same thing with his eyes. With that desperation the teacher grabs the back of your head and pushes your head forward towards his finger pointing at the exact spot you need to look. You still don’t see what he is pointing at. The teachers sanity splits and the energy produced by the splitting propels your dimly lit brain across galaxies. You see stars and planets pass by. You feel a slight chilly wind passing over your skin and through your hair. After passing through uncountable galaxies you approach a blue planet. As you get closer to the planet you have a dim recollection of familiarity, and then recognize North and South America. You see Baja California, and recognize the US Mexico boarder wall. You sweep over roads and dodge cars and realize you are in Tijuana Mexico. You see a red stop sign approaching. Just before your face smashes into the sign you see the word “Alto.” A thunderous roar of an angry man yelling “STOP!!!!” The depth and power of this voice was overwhelming and awe inspiring. How could I be so dense? I guess that’s what happens when you frustrate biggy shoes

Knee deep in hand grenade pins

Sorry Bill! Bill isn’t his name, but if you recognize yourself in this story, you know who you are. Bill works for me, one of the best guys I have ever worked with. The dude got shit done. You never asked Bill how he was going to accomplish something. It was like working for the mafia. You just told Bill that you needed 25 RPGs in two weeks and voila a week and a half later you got 25 RPGs and a box of donuts on your desk with a sticky note that said “your welcome.” We all know some shady shit more than likely went down. But, like the Clinton years. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Bill was like an ace up your sleeve. The dude would show up with a never before seen beater ass car, sporting a bath robe like the Dude from the Big Lebowski; shovels, a bag of lime, duct tape, and a harbor freight special blue tarp in the trunk and a case of natty light after you drunk called him at 3:30 in the morning. I think you get the point. Love you brother. lol.

Bill worked for me, and Bill was in charge of a lot of shit. He oversaw with the assistance of some other team members a group of contractors that also worked for me. Bill, comes to me and tells me about a guy we will call Andrew.

I’ll do my best to paint a picture of this individual for you. Taller, probably 5’10”, 5’11”. Dark hair. Imagine 80s hair band mixed with death metal hair, but greasy like pepperoni pizza. Zits and an obvious history of acne. Soft as warm soft serve ice cream. Titties that would make a dairy cow blush. Wore a black leather jacket and was shaped like a pear. Duck walk and all. I’m not saying this stuff to be hurtful. I’m paint a picture that will become very important to the story later on. The dude looked like he was a 45 year old man child that lived in his mother’s basement. But his mother didn’t have a basement and lived in a single wide trailer down at the sunset estates. I am trailer folk so I can make fun; back the fuck up, Karen. I’ll upper-cunt you. What is upper-cunt you may ask? It’s where you upper-cut a dude so hard it causes his you know what to become a you know what. — Back to the story. Dude was paler than milk.

Bill comes to me and tells me some people are complaining about Andrew’s bathing routine, specifically the lack of it. And how they had told him he needed to shower, but he refused to. So there I am talking to Andrew along with Bill. I tell Andrew he needs to shower at least three times a week, and that I would dictate to him what days he would shower, and that I would inspect him on those days to ensure he was showering. This was all under the threat of me firing him and cancelling his contract due to failure of maintaining a cooperative work environment. Andrew followed through and it got to the point where I would only randomly inspect him.

Months later Bill stops by my office and tells me that Andrew has an OnlyFans appointment this afternoon. I was intrigued. I had never had an OnlyFans appointment before and I wanted to ask Andrew what he was going to ask the OnlyFans model to do for him.

Andrew walks by my office door at the end of the day and I yell his name. He stops and turns to my door. He responds to my call with a “yes, sir!” The thought crashes through my head, “I am not a fucking Sir! I am a god damn working man, I didn’t spend my career in classrooms, scuffing up my knee pads, trying to swallow the gravy in the hopes that I get promoted.” But, my rant would have been wasted upon Andrew’s warm soft served pizza pocket munching civilian mind, and I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to ask him about his OnlyFans appointment.

“I was told you had an OnlyFans appointment this afternoon”? Andrew physically shakes as a response to my question, and the following question sloppily falls out of his mouth. “Who told you that?”

I respond with “that doesn’t matter, tell me about your appointment. Tell me what you are going to ask the model. I am just curious, I have never had an OnlyFans appointment”. Andrew asked me what I meant by “asking the model”? And I thought to myself, “this mother fucker is dumb, he is so smart he fucking retarded”. I responded with “like are you going to ask the model if she would put a whistle in her butt and blow it?” And Andrew responded with “they ask me to do things”.

“What the fuck?” Am I going crazy?

“What the fuck did you just say?”

— In a tone that you would use to explain something to a toddler for the third time. Just slow, Andrew says “Theeeey ask-kk meee toooo dooo thinggggggs!”

My mind is doing fucking back flips, the room is spinning because of the weirdness. “Hold the front door! You are telling me that people pay you to do things on OnlyFans!”

“Yeah!” Is Andrew’s response.

I am floored, my brain is numb. The snozzberries taste like snozzberries. “What do they ask you to do?” I gulp out.

He responds with “it’s mostly involves spray can whipped cream.”

I tell him “you cant leave me there hanging, what do you do with the whipped cream?”

Andrew responds with “mostly spray it on my nipples and they watch me lick it off.”

I respond with a visible shake. And Andrew senses fear so he pounces.

He throws in “some times they make me cover my self from head to toe in whipped cream and make me do the truffle shuffle naked while my wiener slaps back and forth on my thighs.”

And for the coup de grace he throws at me “sometimes they want me to cover myself head to toe in whipped cream, act like I am hanging myself with a black trash bag while I shuffle my ruffle.”

I am thoroughly defeated but I attempt one last futile stand. “Is it mostly men or women that are your fans?”

Andrew responded with “you’ll have to pay the subscription fees to figure that one out.”

I was done. I could no longer even attempt to stand toe to toe with this absolute giant of a man on the battle field of the absurd.

I had to find Bill to tell him the story.

Bill was even more dumb founded then I was. Bill only passively believed my story as he thought that only something that absurd could come from my mind.

Bill, vowed to talk to Andrew himself.

Later that day, Bill comes into my office and sits down like he had been outside digging holes all day in the scorching heat. Bill looks at me with an exhausted face and says “what the fuck was that?”

Tells From The Other Side

Well, a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. Sorry about that. I made it to the 200 mile mark on the AT before I got off trail due to over use injuries and a poor choice of shoes destroyed me. The start of my journey of recovery and healing started the day I decided to walk the AT. I can say since then I have experienced a spiritual awakening and am no longer haunted by or am running from the experiences that I have had. My life is no longer concerned about running from or attempting to numb my traumas. My life is here now; as in the present, here; like right fucking now, here, and it is beautiful. I get to enjoy the now. I have laughed more in the last 5 weeks than I have ever laughed in my entire life. Life is good.

I am thinking about getting back on the AT this upcoming spring. And, if I do, I’ll continue blogging with the original intent of documenting my journey on the AT. Until then, I’ll use this blog as a depository of my short stories. Fictional, non-fiction, auto-biographical, biographical, who knows, I’ll never tell. I’m excited about this new journey. Off to the mountains we go, fuck the yellow brick road, we know that shit leads straight to hell. Spur that horse and make like a tree. Yippie ki-yay mother-fuckers we’re off to the races.