 |
| Who is she? |
Perhaps, finding love means to first start with examining and rediscovering who I am. Rediscovering ... I don't know if I ever discovered myself.
I am a product of an abusive and drug-use household where I watched my mother get her butt kicked, her body, her face black & blued. Never hating her for staying, but always felt responsible to her as a protector. Yet, so many times, she-the mother of two girls- put the man before her children.
Many times I reflect how did my sister and I get through without ever being molested by one of her boyfriends, that was always the new found Mr. Right. She would leave them in the house with us.
Joe Lonesome was the worst. He was a good looking man. Probably an charmer to women. A photographer. So many stories. Alter Street. Last year of elementary and maybe, one year of junior high. I remember hearing him tell her that they were the same ... She was no better than him ... she to suck his dick and he to lick her pussy ... that's was what they were good for. One day, my school bus was late and I could feel something was off in my spirit. Something kept me uneasy. I just decided to walk home. When I got there ... she was beaten up .. her face black and blue. I remember being angry; thinking, if I had only been home this never would have happened. One day, he turned that fury onto me. He decided he had enough of my rolling eyes, refusal to acknowledge him, the obvious contempt that I held for him. Went out one night with my cousin, cruising the neighborhood, but failed to tell anyone we were leaving the house. They called the police looking for us. Didn't know this until we returned home. Everyone was out looking for us except, Joseph Lonesome, the Photographer. I said some smart remark to him .... probably something like your not my father ... and he came after me with two leather belts with wrapped around the palm of his hand. He beat me with them. When my family and the police came back, I told them what happened. The next day, my mother told me not to say anything to the teachers about what happened the night before. One day, my mother took me to a government building in Towson. As we sat in the room, she told me to tell them that nothing happened that evening and if I said anything different it could get Joseph Lonesome, the Photographer in trouble. I did as she requested. She made her choice. She kept making that same choice over and over again. Next, Westerlee Apartments. They were pulled over and he had drugs in her car. They were both arrested and charged. Later, I would find out that my grandparents put up their home as collateral for her bond. Returning home after school, my sister and I came home to an apartment that had no mom. She had packed her things, left her children without a good-bye and the apartment and skipped bail with Joseph Lonesome, the Photographer. Her parents had to pack up her apartment which was stored in their basement ... which then became a storage room instead of the usual recreation room. I had to hear complaints from my then teenage aunt, Crystal, my mother's sibling, that my mother abandoned my sister and me, without any contributing support, that my grandparents are having to struggle and sacrifice to care for us providing food and shelter. I don't remember ever getting any new clothes ... I guess just the ones I brought from the apartment. With the help of a police detective, my mom was convinced to return home so my grandparents wouldn't lose their home. He got her arrest records, mug shots, finger prints removed from the system. How's that for second chances. But it proved for naught. Joseph Lonesome showed back up during my college years. This time when he beat her butt, she called my boyfriend, Audie Haskins, to told him. Audie was an extremely large pitbull type of guy. I met him when my girlfriend and I cut school and went to Druid Hill Park, probably to smoke ... I don't know now. But he had a blue Mark IV, I think, Continental with wide white rims and chrome siding. It was pretty, always clean and shiny. What I didn't know what that Audi had just got out of jail ... don't remember for what....much later in life I heard Audi was gunned down on a city corner ...Audi came over to defend my mother and beat Joseph Lonesome's butt with a baseball bat. She never heard from Joseph Lonesome, the Photographer again.
Where is the model for love in this story? What of trust?
My blog is taking a turn in my journey. Finding love may be more now about finding about how to love me. Thank you 44.
God please grant me the ability to discern and understand.
Love always,
Yo
No comments:
Post a Comment