Workshop

(A Collection of Poetry)

By: Tyrone Norman III

3am

So, it 3am and here I am, yet again.

Feeling sorry for myself because you aren’t here.

Now, for many years you were, the both of you, mom and dad, you were there.

You were here.

But in the same space, in the exact same time line you managed to be absent.

Missing every pivotal moment in my life, even though you were present for them all.

Like when I tried to O.D.

And mom, mom you rushed me to the doctor, and I thought to myself,

“Hey maybe this time it’ll get better.”

Then, as I sat there explaining to you the reasons why I had attempted suicide I realized that you were there.

You listened to every word I said, and yet you could not hear the things I was saying.

But I could see you, because you were here.

But in the same space, in the exact same time line you managed to be absent.

It was cold.

I spent that night in a room with a guy I’d never met.

In a building I’d never seen.

With windows that didn’t open,

In the thin blue pajamas, they gave the inpatients to wear.

So, I got used to being cold.

It was lonely.

In group I told everyone my reason for being hospitalized.

So, I started,

“Hi, my name is Tyrone and I tried to O.D. on pills.”

And they all looked at me as I continued to tell them how I’d never had parents although I lived with both.

And they all looked at me as I continued to tell them how I was an unwanted product of a premature teenage love affair, abandoned to save face from a group of over-zealous religious fanatics.

And they all looked at me as I continued to tell them how for fourteen years I’d lived with my grandma, until she became more cancer than anything else.

And they all looked at me as I continued to tell them how when I met my parents, they were nothing like her. They didn’t accept me for who I was, and every day was a constant battle between me being me, and them hating me for it.

And they all looked at me as I continued to tell them how your religion drove this wedge between us.

And they all looked at me and I could see that they could comprehend everything I had said, but they didn’t understand it.

So, I got used to being alone.

I felt worthless.

It was phone time.

I had got a call from dad, who failed to visit, because he was working.

So, I sat there thinking of how once again I wasn’t a priority.

Whether it was to a sibling, to his job, or to his congregation, I always took second place.

And even though you were here, in the same space, in the exact same time line you managed to be absent.

So, I got used to feeling worthless.

I felt broken.

We had bible study every week, and we went to religious ceremonies three of the seven days of the week.

There I learned all the reasons why I was a bad person, and why I would die for my thinking.

I was no longer comfortable being myself, so for four of the seven days I felt trapped.

The other three days you spent trying to fix me, which made me ever more aware of my own inability to fit in, and your inability to love me for me.

So, for seven of the seven days of the week I felt this tremendous burden to change, and I did.

Then, for seven of the seven days of the week that followed I felt like I was living a lie, but that lie made you love me.

So, I lied to you… until I couldn’t lie anymore.

So, I wrote you all this letter, and I read it to you.

We sat at the kitchen table, and I told you how trapped I felt, because I didn’t believe what I was learning. I just didn’t feel like I was this evil person who would die, but then again, a part of me did.

So, I asked you to tell me that I wasn’t, and you told me that those who didn’t practice this way were going to die, because they were wicked.

So, for seven of the seven days of the week that followed I felt doomed.

Then, for seven of the seven days of the week that followed I felt depressed.

Then, for seven of the seven days of the seven years that followed I felt nothing, because I got used to feeling broken.

I felt empty.

There is this hole in my chest, this void, that I want to fill so badly with the love you should have given to me.

But the lack of that love has left me brutally aware of my own fragmented ability to be loved.

So, twenty-one years later I’m unable to accept love without simultaneously feeling that void grow ever more so.

The pulsing of my heart when I see her interact with them. How happy she is, and how loving they are.

Is that what a family is? Is that how I could have been? Is that what we should have been?

So, I sit back, delighted that she has such a bond.

Yet, simultaneously, I sit back in agony, because I lack one.

Then, as I feel that hole in my being begin to consume me, and my face is shrouded in tears, I hate myself.

I hate myself for being envious of what brings her so much joy, and I don’t know how to not hate myself for that.

But I do, and I always will, because of the childhood that you stole from me.

So, I got used to feeling empty.

I felt battered.

I remember so many occasions where random household appliances would have such delightful meetings with the flesh of my body.

But there is one occasion I remember better than any other, because it was the day my hate for you truly began to take root.

It was the day that you didn’t pick me up from work.

I walked in the cold of winter, 11:00 at night, four miles, down the streets of Chicago.

I was two blocks from the house, two!

Forced into a car at gunpoint.

So, bruised, bleeding, and crying I came home to tell you what had just occurred, and you beat me.

I shouldn’t have worn such bright colors, and you always told me that I gave people the wrong idea.

So, that night, that night was the day you went from mom and dad, to mother and father.

And I got used to feeling battered.

I got used to not having a family.

I got used to being on my own, and lacking the things you should have given me.

I got used to not having anyone to ask for advice, so I handled everything myself.

I got used to not having someone care about me.

I got used to not having as much as the people my age.

I got used to not having a home.

I got used to hating myself.

I got used to crying.

I got used to solitude.

I got used to feeling like I was never truly who I was meant to be.

Because I think had you not gotten me used to having you as parents I would be someone else.

So, I consistently feel as if, although, I’m now living my own life it is still a life that you created for me.

So, although I feel like I’m my own person, I’m really just your son, and I haven’t gotten used to that.

One Day

One day my eyes will close, and the beauty of this imperfect world will hath faded from green and blue to ah tinted gray hue, the nothingness.

data-p-id=e2941f710449ce335f7dcb467f0b1d0d,One day the screaming thoughts I whisper into ah room of ah thousand sleeping insomniacs will quiet, the nothingness.

data-p-id=620506fce5038539503e65a9c696e0ea,One day the abstract palette that I had once used to taste you, will no longer desire the deliberate accidentals of enraged passion, given without discretion to the inevitable void created by the lust which like ah fire dies out, leaving me nothing but the same, the nothingness.

data-p-id=d79f16d55fde807d73aedfb211cde4f4,One day the agonizing regret felt by this belittled soul will end and there will be no weeping eye. One day there will be no more. One day, the nothingness.

Dear Man I Wish You Were

Dear man I wish you were,

data-p-id=f045e41d75a2ce912ae36a28b8537146,Dear man I wish you were today I woke up and you weren't there. I opened my eyes for the first time and for the first time you weren't there. Alone, cold and afraid of what would lie ahead of me I looked and no you weren't there.

data-p-id=ebbbcd0971573f9bf09ccb02b5ca26f8,Dear man I wish you were today I was sick. I coughed, I'd never coughed before so I looked up and unfortunately you weren't there. So, I coughed again and then once more. Today I had my first cold and you weren't there.

data-p-id=b0548d22909dbbe1787117ba0cd81d2a,Dear man I wish you were today I had my first game. I scored eleven and got six assists. I was so happy that we won and when the buzzer went off I looked to the stands and saw everyone that I knew with their version of the man I wish you were. But once again you weren't there.

data-p-id=7dbd110494515c40ce0b142c58a8241a,Dear man I wish you were today I had my first kiss, my first love, my first break up, and my first heartbreak. Then as I ran home to tell you I was reminded that I didn't have one. Because when I needed you most you failed to be the man I wish you were.

data-p-id=d99fb45508742ffd5a5c4363a999fde0,Dear dad,

data-p-id=737598943bf4a7a2b7b04a400ef6b5c1,Today I woke up and you weren't there.

Endless Recollections

Do not expect conformity to embrace the masses or reform to appease the ever so changing guidelines of this twisted society.

data-p-id=5058f1af8388633f609cadb75a75dc9d,style=text-align:left;,

data-p-id=c5b0e1deb83f69283b18d26a659e8023,style=text-align:left;,Subtle regression into the state of animalistic qualities. Like primitive creatures we destroy that which we seek to become. Afraid that we will never be that which is desired we project our hate unto those who merely seek to love us whilst the true enemy runs free. Had Darwin been around he'd say that our generation was in fact his missing link.

data-p-id=9966ca6dcc0401cd6dcf0e5d74d3c125,style=text-align:left;,

data-p-id=efb1a4fabe86b490808ba7d381e65ba2,style=text-align:left;,A simple dichotomy. The irony in fact. The hostility of the pacifist. The lust for the meat a vegetarian will never eat. The screaming cries of children never heard, because we are too deaf to see the consequences of the life in which we seek, the person we wish to be, the promises we broke so that others we could keep.

data-p-id=8967c2dc7ff9815cf66c84fd159d4861,style=text-align:left;,

data-p-id=267ed275c7c4bbef54e6eba12e178747,style=text-align:left;,Progressively, progressively we revert. We destroy the bridges we build with the bodies of those whom we've killed. In barren streets full of life lay lifeless beings who's dreams will never come to fruition. And for what, a race to arms that cause nothing but desolation.

Feel

I feel as if you would never understand, trying to reach you would be like trying to count the grains of the puddle which I’m slowly sinking in: quick sand.

She feels as if I betrayed her because I chose a different path, pressuring me to believe in a system that disowns the very person I am: religious stance.

He feels as if I’ve given up on everything I believe, yet the only way to please would be the very pleasures of my heart to leave: irony.

They feel as if I’m a lost cause due to my decision, I’ve simply found another way to attain salvation from the consecrated demons that plague us all: contradiction.

I feel as if every action bears its fruit, yet barren trees are what they perceive to be truth: repercussion.

No one feels as if they feel what they feel during this existential crisis wherein we know not what is real: doubt.

Who feels as if this was all there is, should not we strive for more than the delusion of merely existing, in a world full of beings who merely exist in a delusion that they are living: decisions.

Someone feels as if I’d let them down, simply by inquiring of the things that had yet to be found, searching for inconsequential reasons to stick around: desperation.

Subliminal messages

Subliminal messages, hidden in text messages, you were dishonest, and I cried because of this,

Unfaithfulness. The secrecy, hypocrisy, discrepancy in all the words that you’ve ever spoke to me.

But I was blind to see the obvious even though they warned me, now I’m forced to see

Everything for what it has to be, within you I sought the things never given me,

And momentarily I was happy, with the episodic conversations we shared without reservation,

Yet it was just a distraction, amidst this slowly sinking vessel for which you were the captain.

Holy demon of abstract uniformity, how the heavens beg for your presence,

Yet hell mourns your absence. Treacherous is what you are,

Oozing veins, bleeding, from the scars, which you inflicted.

Still conflicted, unanswered questions, what did you ever get from this?

Perplexed by your nonchalant behavior, I remember what you said: nomenclature.

Oh, angel of darkness consumed by light, this was not your nature.

Desolation, the void left by your actions, or the lack thereof,

Both scratching, clawing, chaffing upon my skin, causing dissatisfaction.

Is it really enough, to have and to lose? To know and not to have? To wake up every day and wished you’d walked another path?

You fraudulent, corrupt, dishonest distributor of truth, giving ancient wisdom in the days of your youth, producing nothing yet claiming to have proof.

Hypocrisy, slashing veins and overdosing just to ease the pain, leisurely falling as your life so thick slowly drips away.

Faith

Is it not the veneration of an omnipotent being, redeeming the lives of murderous, duplicitous, faithless, martyrs that has petrified you?

The ever-clear recollection of the cards your father took from you, the words your mother kept from you, the fabrications they passed as truth to you,

Deception and manipulation has been their noose clasped firmly around your neck, constricting with every move you make as the essence of your very life it takes, slowly gasping as your being seemingly slips away.

This world is a blanket marked with the scarlet blood of those who’ve come before us.

I am the incarnate of detrimental reasoning based upon sound logic.

Lost sheep strayed from the flock, franticly searching for the master who has disowned him.

Agonizing pain from the slit wrist and dripping veins behind the doors open yet closed.

The dead envy the living, yet the living mourn the inevitable.

Constantly evading an ineffable end.

Pompously parading and masquerading as sheep yet wolves is what they prove to be.