Preface

There are times I forget I was in prison. Those times have faded with the memories I have created in their, but at times the world reminds me I once was a jail bird. Not to mean in a literary sense, or even a pun for that matter but truly mentally believe I was in fact a bird. That story along with other experiences are so strange and phantasmagorical I s**t you not when I say nothing I say was made up in my mind on purpose but, rather some divine purpose. A purpose that I question on days like today, where I found myself slipping up, going back down a dusty road that I have longed traveled. Sometimes my soul likes to journey down that road, because somewhere along that road I lost myself, and I guess I hope to find him there. Yet, I'm always lost, in a sliver of time he revisits me. He taunts me because he was truly free. I lost the essence of my being and it hurts not being able to get back to the guy I once was. The one before I experienced a trauma that haunts me every day of my life. Reminding me that I am not really free. I'm still trapped. I'm trapped within myself, within my own mind. I tend to ramble these days, my thoughts don't seem to ever make coherent sense to me. I even lose myself within my own words. You see once you have lost yourself once...it isn't all that hard to lose yourself again. 

For that sake, I will begin at the beginning so that I won't lose you. 

At one time I was an overachiever, no alcohol, no weed, no cigarettes, just a pure heart and a pure mind to be more than I had ever dreamed for myself. I was journeying to become great. Not in an average Joe help the community great, but truly great. Well-versed, well-mannered, self-respected, young Creole man, with an ambitious attitude that I would conquer the world, simply because I truly believed I could. I believed that anything was possible, because I truly believed I was invincible. Not invincible because of anything supernatural, invincible because I prided myself on being a good guy. 

I was the kind of guy that was quickly judge though. As they say good guys do finish last. Yet, I was judged simply because I was different, and I had not known I was different, but those around me did. I walked differently, talked differently, thought differently. I prided myself on knowing as much as I could about all topics, being eclectic enough to speak on my take on politics one moment, to my favorite Red Hot Chilli Pepper song the next. Laughing about a funny comedian I saw on SNL to hypothetically creating over the phone the next League of Nations with a friend. I had dreams that no one was going to take from me, because I tried with all my heart never to do something hurtful to anyone so I figured serendipity would always be on my side.

As I type this I'm revisited by images that flash within my mind of my youth, the one time in my life where nothing ever mattered, I didn't need to take medicine to sleep, and I didn't have to fight temptation to take a hit of weed. A time where I was innocent. Innocent to the dangers that are in our world. The dangers that live in our souls, the bad part, the part where being bad was good, and being nice was a waste. I changed because of the world. I became the guy your parents warned you about.