Like looking back on your life and expecting something greater to stare back at you.part 7

Holmes, the jokes on you they laughing at you.

Like looking back on your life and expecting something greater to stare back at you.

DAMN THIS JUST DON’T FEEL RIGHT. Had the lines in my and the visual that swarms of folks would dig. Here I sit again, behind my lap top. Got my video camera at the ready. Got my gas station bought aviator sun glasses close to my right hand. Typing on Book II of Don’t Write This. What would this audience think of me if they knew…

The hostess is a comedian. She is gaining momentum very rapidly. She’s saying all these nasty jokes about sex. I am amused and distracted for not a ‘long enough moment.’ The truth is haunting me. I just want. I just need a woman. “Where are you woman? I got all this love in my heart. No one to kiss. Surely I ain’t the only one to feel like this.”-hey man I can use those as lyrics to “Everything falls like Rain.”

I’m the only white here. Am I racist for noticing the obvious? Trump got elected-I’m evil whitey again. I am grateful to be here regardless. This has been the most nurturing open mic I have ever done-that says a lot. I been to so many different openmics I have lost count. She (the co-creator of this spoken word openmic) actually checks to see if I’m coming. Ask where I was when I miss.

My father died less than a month ago. Sometimes, in the past, I could hear him mocking me, “Well you wanted to be a criminal. Now you’re around all criminals.” Yea he hated it when I listened to all rap music as a teen. It mortified him. An being a public school teacher in Clarksdale and Jackson-I know why. The kids listen to it and act out on it. Consequences jail and/ or death. Seen it happen too many damn times. I have been a part of these kids lives know possibly more about them than their single parent does. Because they work non stop. I truly love every kid I have ever taught as if they were my own.

The more I sit here the more I am telling myself this can’t work. I wanna go home. I wanna quit. What will I do when I get home? Done that before. I’ll be alone afraid to go outside because of all these lies I have told myself. Untruths of I’ll always be alone because that’s just the way it is. Then to escape this misery I’ll watched television where someone lives their life and I am more interested in watching them live their lives rather than live my own life. Ain’t no coincidence that self-help advertisements, exercise programs, and religious programs are on during the twilight hours. Where you can sleep all day and hope to be satisfied by the ‘I’ll be better when I…’ statements. Sleep the whole day through and feed the lies.

I usually told myself I’ll be back and perform later. That ‘I’ll be back’ becomes days, months, years.

Let’s just get this over with. I got these lines memorized from Chuck D’s “Everything” click to hear songfrom the Public Enemy album Evil Empire of Everything. I decided last minute to change my plans that I have had since my father died. That plan was telling them about Clarksdale. Last time I went through Clarksdale to do an open mic the host put me off till last minute. I can’t really blame him because there were times when I’d play an the crowd would leave. My hope came with all the kids who recognized me from so long ago. Real folks love me. Folks who have no who the musician is. I made a difference.

I miss my father. So much more time I wanted to have more father son moments. We did weeks before he died. Maybe I should have been more like him. He was an affluent self-made man. He lived his life to the fullest. He didn’t waste his life believing lies.

When I first started doing open mics in 2009, I fell in love with the idea that I was so special because I could create something. Only lasted about six months.

Finally they call me up to the stage. My mind is telling me no. And I fumble through it forgetting lines. Damn near forgot the whole song. And it’s just me up there. I have no band tonight to disguise my folly. “It’s just you on your own as it’s always been.” The truth is “It’s you against you John. Just like it was with the heartbreak that led you to perform in 2009. I became the guy who could stand on his own without love. There is such freedom in that. Yet now I wonder ‘What’s next?’ I think as I spit the rhymes out.

Damn I did awful. In my failure that night. I thought of another idea.