Memories and HeartacheBeing in South Carolina brings back ghosts and memories of greatness for me. I moved “Down South” when I was 16 from New York. I’ve been back and forth ever since. A year in NY here 2 years in SC there back to NY for a couple more then to NC for the last 3. I love them both. And hate them both. Brooklyn gave me my swagger and street smarts. SC my common sense and independence. I’ve fought and been shot at in both places.
Witnessed pure altruistic love and unsolicited hate in each. It took both to teach me the difference between a lady, a woman and a ________ (fill in the blank) but neither North nor South has satiated my wanderlust in fact the opposite. They are so different from each, not opposite just different, that it makes me wonder what happens West, NW, way north, SW, beneath the border, across the pond, etc. When I lived here I held several different jobs all in the social services field. They all have their own ventricle but one brings back the most
vivid recollections. Now I didn’t say pleasant I said vivid and anyone who has worked with bad ass kids knows exactly what I mean…and that I use “bad” in pure endearment. A group home is a strange place. An intermingling of victims and predators. Kids coming from correctional facilities trying to be made ready to successfully re-enter the world. Kids on their way to those same facilities if they don’t get their shit straight. Survivors of you name it that have no one but the hired shepherds to care for them and protect them from dysfunctional families and above said kids. Till they’re 18 at least. It’s not all gloom and doom (I know I sometimes am a bit pessimistic) many of these kids learn and go off into the world as prepared as any hormone charged teen. Some head to college, other’s home, some to the streets. I would bet that statistically we did the same as an inner city high school’s graduating/senior class. There are some stories though that you wouldn’t believe and I cant tell you because 1. HIPAA would hunt me down. 2. It’s not my place. 3. It’s not your business. LOL but as a writer I can attempt to convey the sentiment of the situation. I wrote a piece that seems specific but actually incorporates several incidents, children, and staff members’ stories from my time at the group home. It’s a work in progress and needless to say no names are mentioned.
CounselorThere’s a frame
Hanging on the wall of a counselor’s office and it…is old
Old as Methuselah’s baby clothes
Old as the echoes of the big bang’s boom
Old as babies tapping mother’s chest, to get at mother’s breast and their nourishment
As old and as ancient as this
The frame is chrome but tarnished
The whole right side is rusted
Half the glass’s been busted and removed
The parchment inside is ripped, wrinkled and bruised
Yet somehow, remains whole
It reminds him, of broken children
It reminds him of broken parts of him that he tries to mend
By finding broken children and fixing them
It rarely works
It always hurts
But it’s his work chosen for them
“At risk” children in-group homes
Who’d done nothing to get there on their own except for surviving
Abuse, neglect, unwanted sex, guns, drugs and gang violence
He chose this work, for her
sitting in the counselors office
where hung the frame ever so old
Today she was grown and going home
To take care of the alcoholic mother that put her here
get her 2 little brothers out of foster care
Move to Atlanta
She had a good job there…stripping
She really didn’t want to
But didn’t really care
She’d have her family.
What could the counselor say?
Only the caged know what it means to be free
Only slaves understand what freedom really means
Only the grave can give a body true peace
For her-the counselor feared all 3
He had tried to talk her off this path but failed
So he just listened and looked in her eyes, which looked at the frame
That hadn’t always been this way
It was perfect the day she bought it at the yard sale
with her group home allowance
Given it to him
he shouldn’t have allowed it, but did
Trying to combat the attachment disorder of this kid
Buy building one that was positive
She said she loved him, hugged him
Then went for his zipper, stopping her
He explained her behavior as inappropriate
That he loved her like a daughter or little sis
Perplexed she couldn’t understand this
Cause if he loved her like her father and big brother did
He should show her
Like her father and big brother did
And fuck her
Like her father and big brother did
He turned his back in failed embarrassment
That’s when she grabbed it and hit
The counselor with the frame in the counselor’s office before it was old
Glass shattered she grabbed a piece and stabbed him
He grabbed her hand as she sliced her wrist
Twisting it as her family had twisted love’s image
Twisting till the glass if not her heart was free
He cried for help. She cried “Why don’t you love me?”
Help came
He answered
“I do. Not how you want me too but the way you deserve”
She still didn’t/couldn’t understand
But apologized when she worked up the nerve
At the hospital where they both got stitches
8 apiece
Looking at the frame in silence they reminisced
The frame was chrome but tarnished
Turned green by salty tears
The whole right side i rusted
Mingled blood that had dried for a year
Busted glass and torn parchment
How she’d attacked her attachment fear
Her ride was here
She hugged him, this time appropriately
All it had taken was 16 stitches, 5 medications
and a year of therapy
The counselor watched her leave
While sitting beneath the frame in his office
Busted, rusted and old
Knowing he’d never see her again
And realizing
That he hadn’t chosen this work
This work had chosen him.
that I have to and God willing will overcome. My brother told me today that I have too much pride (if there is such a thing) and that I have to learn to ask for help. I know he’s right and I have to come to grips with it. Just one more character trait I have to adjust. I remember as a child growing up in the projects in Brooklyn having to go to the store with a note from my mother asking for credit and bearing a list of items. I used to play the dumb, sweet kid acting like I didn’t know what the note said. But I did. The answer wasn’t always yes and I felt like a failure when I had to come back to the house empty handed. The emerging man in me. My pride derives from this and other experiences of poverty. Nothing particularly special just having to swallow pride to survive…and knowing it way too young. We all have similar stories, even those who never wanted for anything, they too have had their trials. My story is nothing special it’s just my story and how/why I came to be who I am. I don’t’ excuse the behavior of rappers/ athletes/ entertainers but I can understand how suddenly having an excess when you previously had nothing could make you act. Anyway, it’s off South. The road calls me.
