As some of my previous posts have explored, I ran away from the Juvenile Los Angeles Courts when I was 15. This was unplanned. There was a “houseparent,” as they were called, I only now remember as RJ at my last residential home with The San Fernando Child Guidance Clinic who beat me into submission, pinned me down using a hold that is today considered child abuse and can actually kill you, and threatened to break my arm—the hold in question involved twisting my right arm halfway out of the socket at an angle that could easily break the humerus without much added pressure.
“I’ll just tell them you fell,” he said, laughing. Actually laughing. His wife, the other houseparent—there were just two that lived with the kids full time—kicked me in my face, which was half mashed into the shaggy brown carpet. “Oh! He just fell!” She laughed, “That’s going to leave a mark.” They both laughed. This was all going down in my bedroom, and yes I was no saint—I had just ripped my large sliding closet door off in one of my tantrums. I cursed them out for all it was worth, which only seemed to make them laugh all the more.
This was pretty much all I had ever known, one form of abuse or another. But I was beginning to realize this was not how it should be, that something was wrong, that most of the people who dictated the terms of my childhood and upbringing were in fact twisted, sadistic, and void of compassion—including my parents. It wasn’t long after this incident that I found myself hitchhiking thither and yon across the highways of America, taking odd jobs, avoiding the larger population centers, and by some unimaginable grace steering clear of the predators, for about 2 years.
This poem reflects on a night I spent atop a mesa near Kingman, Arizona, probably my 6th day out. My 4th day out, two days prior, a Grand Canyon National Park ranger gave me a subzero sleeping bag. I tell that story here.
The Enduring Seed
The midnight sky was moonless
and clear as tempered glass
I could discern no gap between the stars
that drifted up as numerous
as white sands by long shores
the milky way foamed like a standing wave
Beside me a Smith-Corona
typewriter case contained
a toothbrush, rag, two sets of dirty clothes,
half a loaf of bread,
a jar of strawberry jam,
and six days worth of desert dust and grime.
I climbed to the crest of a mesa
feeling my way through darkness
and lined up the flattest rocks I could find
to prevent my rolling downhill
as I drifted off to sleep
tears drying cold and taut on restless cheeks
I remember screaming out
to that heavy shroud of stars
to whatever benevolent beings could hear my pleas
I remember cursing God
until I spattered blood
in open palms I then washed dry with dust
Oh and I remember
throwing back my arms
chest heaved out to darkness, fully expecting
to be struck down—vaporized
by God’s infernal might
and somehow disappointed life went on
I remember crawling dazed
into my bright blue bag
tired, weak, defeated and staring up
through a drawstring hole
at all those distant angels
wings flickering syncopation in absolute silence
I was alone with my rage
completely alone and free
alone with hunger, alone with fear, alone
with sorrow, grief, and hate,
with raw, unbalanced, potential
alone in the dark struggling at the edge of extinction
The stars gazed back at me
and offered only light
a billion little pinpricks stung my eyes
I spoke once more through tears
and said I only wish
to know somehow that I would be okay
and with that very last word
the dark that held its breath
throughout the hours with not a single stir
exhaled and breathed at last
and from the twinkling expanse
a star broke loose and streaked across the night
There in that moment began
a strange new resonance
a current of meaning for which no words exist
an insight beyond the reach
of language or even thought
and to the watercolor stars—Thank You
I drifted off to sleep
and dreamt of rattlesnakes
of scorpions, coyotes and unexpected strangers
and here and there I woke
looked up into the stars
said Thank You and returned to broken dreams
The sun rose—I unzipped
from my cobalt blue cocoon
stood up hungry, thirsty and cold—and stared
out over sand and rock
as far the eye could see
and after bread and jam began my descent
That day I set off in search
for a completely impossible future
a seed laid firm and deep within my soul
that sprouted and slowly grew
from barren soils cracked
beneath the heat of apathy and malice
Yes, something did change in me that night, and I don’t think the language exists to express or convey it. Sometimes I wonder why I try, knowing full well that what I wish to accomplish is actually beyond the reach of words, imagery, metaphor—anything.
Yet, I have also been driven to the edge of language my entire life, ever since I stumbled across the Best Loved Poems of the American People as a 12 year old and my drugged, traumatized, disorganized brain for the first time began to stitch together coherent thoughts through the power of structured language, imagery, and metaphor.
So here I am, attempting yet again to walk the insubstantial hinterlands of language and find one or two lexical, imaginary vapors that may or may not convey some small aspect of my experience, and the insights gained therein.
