7 am. Every day of the week. He never missed his bus, because that isn’t who he was. But then again did anybody really know who he was? He had this unique gift in which if you spent 24 hours Locked in a room with him he would come out with enough ammunition to write a New York Times bestseller about your life, all aspects of it. Your first kiss, the first time you had your heart broken. Who you want by your side when all your dreams come true. It wasn’t that he was extremely special or that he had breathtaking intellect. He just paid attention. And because of that, because he was so attentive to your every word it always just poured out to him. You would never realize that you didn’t know anything about him outside of his first name and that you met him on a bus at the same time everyday. Some people knew this about him. And the most astounding thing is that even though they knew they never pushed to know him because they would realize what he did, it didn’t affect his ability to make you feel heard. Someone who was interested in your life in the inner workings of your mind it was a rarity that you wouldn’t want to contaminate the pseudo-friendship with something as irrelevant as knowing any of his truths because he kept you at a arms length but you clung with both hands nails dug into that arm. He was a simple looking man, he would sit 7 rows back on the left side as you faced the back of the bus. There was nothing special about the seat in particular but he always sat against the window. Maybe it was because it was easier to have people sit next to him because even though he wasn’t a mastermind, he paid attention. He knew that the probability of someone wanting to sit next to him was greater if there wasn’t any initiative, any.. obstacle no matter how small even if it was just to ask him if anybody was sitting there. That seat against the window. Or to climb past him to sit there and to ultimately be trapped for the duration of their ride. It was something small, but little things are the big things in the affairs of strangers. He didn’t know if he loved his job or he loved living in the city having to take the bus and hold his briefcase in between his legs. But then again he had too. He could have as easily taken a taxi or owned his own vehicle but there was something about the interaction with strangers that fueled him through the rest of the day, a natural energy that he could manipulate into life force and guide him through his life. He was just a man, an observant man but a man nonetheless. I’d be lying if I said I really knew anything about him but he knew everything about me. And anybody who was lucky to have the aisle seat in the seventh row as you look to the back of the bus. Even though everybody subconsciously looked forward to being the inhabitant of that seat so that they could tell their ambitions and triumphs, and even their greatest failures, not because he would take all of the pain away or because he had a solution but simply because he would listen. And nothing else. Weeks had passed and occasionally someone would realize that the seat. 7 rows back to the left as you stand towards the back of the bus was empty and every now and then two individuals who had once known this man, well as much as anybody could have will converse about him. About his wonderful gift to make you feel like the only person in the world when you talked to him. Not often but sometimes one of them would usually be inspired to sit in that very seat and listen. To be someone with all that anonymity and touch so many lives. The man was the best friend they ever had known but also the greatest stranger. He was the epitome of what made life beautiful and whoever, wherever he is or was, I’m sure it was engulfed in beauty because that’s what his goal was. In life and in death he was a beautiful friend but even more, the most beautiful stranger.

My mother gave birth to four children. There was me, my younger sister and my younger brother. I never realized how common it was for people in my life, my sister and brothers especially that people that we interacted with on a daily basis were unaware that I wasn’t the oldest. My sister Taylor is two years older than I am, six years and eight older than my sister and brother respectively, which I guess plays a role in the disconnect between all of us as siblings. That’s not to say that is always the case because I myself am an example because of the close nature I share with our younger siblings. My sister and brother have some semblance of a relationship with Taylor but our relationship is virtually nonexistent. The person that I spent most of my formative years with and ample amounts of time is a stranger to me. It’s a hard concept for people to grasp, because to say that you don’t speak to your sister doesn’t usually carry the same weight that it does for them when it comes from me. I don’t even know where my sister lives, just that she is in michigan and from time to time I would see her, for lack of a better word avoiding me in our home. It’s to the extent that she won’t even pass me going up the steps and I can count the conversations that have been meaningful for us on one hand with three fingers to spare. My sister can’t even be in the same room as me without looking like she wants to puke or just be anywhere but where she is at the moment. Ironically enough we were roommates for the better part of a year and I maybe saw her 25 times, and that’s being generous. A while back my dad and I were talking about her and it’s not a secret in my house how she feels towards me but he genuinely asked me why and at the time I had a few ideas but I don’t think I was in a place to really give him a good answer. I don’t say these things to paint my sister in a bad or unflattering light, but only to paint her as she is. I don’t really know how she feels about me, because how she feels towards me in my head is different from that, I would love to assume that she does carry a sense of some kind care for me but I honestly am not very sure. Even though she wouldn’t ever get to this conclusion on her own I have immense respect for my sister because everything I did growing it was because I wanted her to like me, I wanted to impress her, I wanted to do everything she did. I always tell people that you will never be able to fathom how much your younger siblings admire everything that you do, it’s inherent to want to be just like them to an extent at least. I think when my sister looks at me she sees immense pain, and I know that she remembers more than I do about our childhood and everybody’s recollection is a little different even if we all were a part of the same situation. I don’t necessarily think that we would be best friends even if we did talk all the time but I do know that we could get along, nobody else lived the way that we lived with each other in our home because everybody’s upbringing is unique to them. It is the wedge in our relationship though, I know that she believes that things were easier for me because I was younger and to an extent I’m sure they were that’s how it happens for younger siblings but she has to understand how brave I saw her to be because everything that I was able to “ get away” with was directly correlated to her and that she had to be our champion so that it would better for us. I know first hand that doesn’t seem fair because I am also the oldest but It makes me happy to know that anything I had to do made it so that my siblings could be who they are, and she did that for me. I can never repay her. I don’t know anything about her but it’s synonymous with worship in how I view her. I see so much pain and quiet strength in how my sister lives her life. She made her own way so that I had the role model to do the same. We owe everything to her. My three siblings and I are a sub-family and she is the matriarch. All of our success that we have had or will have is accredited to her even if she doesn’t understand that. It can be lonely at the top because I am a younger brother and a older brother I understand the dynamic and I also have someone close to me that understands that dynamic as a middle child but the oldest and the youngest have special responsibilities that aren’t in any rule book there’s no blueprint in being the first born you legitimately learn as you go, and I admire her for that. I don’t hold any ill feelings for the way my sister views me or how she treats me because I see how good her heart is and I would rather the entire world get a taste of how special she is because as much as they deserve to witness it she deserves it to be seen. If she has to focus the bad and the pain and the sadness on me then I am okay with that, of course I wish that I wasn’t only shown glimpses of the great she can do but it would be selfish of me to want her to show me her greatness at the expense of the rest of the world. I am able to live with it because she’s shown me how to survive whatever the situation because she didn’t ever put a price on the security of an older sibling because they don’t even know they’re providing it the way they are. My sister will do great things and I couldn’t be more excited because it isn’t about myself or my younger sister and brother it’s about her because it’s her time now.

A touch, a kiss a look. To be completely in synch to where even our thoughts, so aligned that if they could manifest into words on a paper the uncanny identicality of our thought processes would be, eerie to say the least. It’s kind of like how in movie action scenes two people will fight and each move is carefully scripted to where one punches the other ducks. Just so purely on the same page. Perhaps one of the most amazing things in my life time has been the realization that this kind of connection is so much more synonymous with loneliness than love. Routine creates synchronization almost like a habit like your hand or eyes going to an object that you place as simple as an app on your phone. Love doesn’t ever go away it either fades or it evolves and to me the 8th wonder of the world—or what ever number the “experts” who say what constitutes as such say we are on is how people can escape from under the crushing anxiety of the unknown. A lot of different people have an idea of what marriage should be and the most common answer I hear is that you have to find someone that you can stand for the rest of your life. But people will go to a job that they cannot bear to be at and they will rationalize it by saying that it wont be forever or that its a necessary evil at that the moment. When you apply that to thinking about a marriage both of those rationalizations are for lack of a better word sad, you don’t want the person that knows all your secrets who you share your entire entity with to be with you because they’re scared of what its like not be without the comfort of not having to communicate with someone. Everybody has this idea in their head about what marriage is supposed to be because everything about it is glorified. It’s an ideal more so than a reality and that isn’t always a bad thing because who doesn’t want a fairytale love life, but the true reality is that you just don’t know whether it will fade or evolve and it’s unknown which way it will go but that shouldn’t be why we do it. Devoting your life to someone is so much more than a piece of paper it is joining souls, and dreams to build the best version of our lives. An adventure with your best friend and it could last a lifetime, or just a time in your life but appreciate that it did last because it all matters.

Inside my country, in my state, in my city, in my home that is my world and everything is done in his name. Nobody would believe the atrocities that I have been subjected to in my time here. It is why i had to leave, flee really, faster than how water can shoot out of any crevices at its disposal and I was gone. There is no childhood in my world there is only learning about previous acts done in the name of, and future actions to be taken in his name. From the first moment i started to create and retain memories its all chaos a Blur and i think most people would say it was because i was young and its scattered in my head but its much much more frightening than that. I remember it perfectly the smells of burning flesh and dogs that don’t even begin to resemble their name because of the abuse and malnutrition they’ve been subjected too. The constant film of dust and smoke that never quite left the air as if someone had a machine set on the lowest setting to never really let you feel at ease. That at any moment whether it be when you’re walking home from the market or just outside playing if you happen to be lucky enough to not be raised in the war zone which was almost everywhere on my world. Bullets could ring out or bombs could go off and if you weren’t injured you acted as if it was the norm like someone is just going about the usual tasks of their day. Again we are taught in school in my class of only the kids who are able to make it to school in a war zone that it is all done in his name the one we serve above all else. The irony is that all this education is completely irrelevant to us because if youre able to sit still and focus anywhere for periods of time you were already blessed with a sense of security, though it was false there wasnt really a difference in my world. We didn’t learn anything of use because we had all the possibilities that the majority never did, learning that we leveled half of a city in his name, mind you half of a city that was so far away from where we lived that even if they took the whole thing we wouldn’t have even felt a change in the air wasnt going to help us if we ever were in that situation. The kids who at 9 years old are getting whipped in their hands for not holding a weapon the correct way and pumped full of drugs so that they can go and hopefully shoot more than they take. The ones who know to wait until they here 30 shots from an ak before running to safety but not making it because they forget about the one in the chamber, thats what is relevant to their world and hopefully never to ours. I had to leave because my world, my city my state, my country was so disillusioned they actually believed everything they did was done in his name. Gods name. But this isn’t gods country, its my fathers, and he hears no prayers.

My sister is my bestfriend. I know a lot of people feel that way because they might go and have a “girls night” or talk about boys and they get so deep that they share a bond that is everlasting. And thats nice, but my sister is different. She is hands down the smartest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing in my life. So intelligent that it overwhelms her person so much she probably isn’t even aware of the magnitude of her mind. It’s not just knowing a lot about a subject or being top in her class its the way her mind processes ideas worthy of major debate in a matter of seconds. The way she casually integrates words like “invalidation” into our mile a minute conversations when I couldn’t even find the words I’m looking for. She’s unique in the way that she’s dealt with all this pain, but before I even need to bestow any of my “brotherly wisdom” on her she heads it off and tells me what it took me more than her 19 years to even fathom. She says it like she’s just talking about anything too though. Not like its something so profound people have to watch countless talk show hosts and read all the latest self help books to even start to grasp the concept. My sister speaks to be heard not just to speak and she has the same intense dialogue running through her mind as I do. All of her words and ideas jumping on top of each other competing to get out, but they come out more flawlessly than if she was reading from a sheet of paper. She was always like this though, everytime i talk to her I’m so suprised at how intellectually astounding she is so in the know about what she feels about the things she speaks on. I’m not surprised because its something new for her to be unique in the way that she is, she’s been like that for a really long time. I mean I think back to all the conversations that we would have sitting on the counter late at night getting everything out in a matter of hours that we couldn’t during the day because of how full and how busy our house was. Middle children. Remembering the before and living the now. She’s my absolute best friend in the whole world I’ve never met anybody that inspired me to be so much more than who I am to learn about everything that i could because anything that i could show her as her brother she could run with and take it to places I couldn’t even fathom, because she has that gift. My sister is the reason I’m so excited to keep getting older and keep gaining experiences because i know that means that she will be too. She’s the reason I’m so excited to have children because i cant wait until they can see us together and feel how magic it is when we both get into a zone that goes so deep its somewhere only we know. I will forever be my sisters protector, because i love her more with every breath, but she will always be my keeper because when you do what someone like her has done for me there’s just no other choice.

                I’ve never really felt like an adult because everybody has  different take on what an adult is.  Whether it’s owning your own house or having your first child.  In the eyes of the law 18 years old makes you an adult.  Which I don’t agree with at all.  An adult to me is someone who’s lost sight of what it is to just be.  

              An adult who sees years of regret in a muddy grassless lawn infested with insects and rodents and will forever be plagued by procrastination that led up to this result.  I see mud baths and playing in the sprinklers.  I see learning to ride your right in the front yard because the dirt is soft enough to keep away scrapes and perfectly grassless so nothing will slow you down.  I see colonies of animals with brains the size grains of salt building the greatest empires the world’s ever seen.  In my front yard no less.  All the different animals coexisting with each other and me, no matter who you are there’s beauty in that type of peacekeeping cohesion.  

                         An Adult sees ice a road covered with ice as a hazard a “death trap”.  They dread even leaving the house because of the cold weather the CO2 constantly visible in the air never for once letting on that it’ll get warm anytime soon.  I see the icy glow that covers the trees, the snow that covers the sidewalk bulking up just begging to be used for shelter.  Or a fort for the snowball wars that dare I say are probably the only wars we remember who was actually fighting in them.  The astonishing moment when you realize that a part of you is briefly internalized every time you breathe out.  

        An adult sees layoffs, and crowded everywhere.  The stress of putting presents under the tree and people instead of embracing the feeling that for once everybody can decide that what’s going on is bigger than just their problems.  An adult doesn’t see the magic and not because they don’t want to. 

It’s because they refuse to let themselves. Somewhere down the line that feeling, that unexplainable feeling that we get when we discovered something that really touched us is buried so deep that it’s almost Shakespearean in it’s tragedy. I see the magic, I feel the unexplainable feeling. When something speaks to you so loudly that it chills your whole body, when your hair stands up on end and you want to tell everybody and nobody because your words won’t bring the significance of what you feel to life. An adult sees a 19 year old kid clinging to his childhood. I see an adults letting theirs fade away.

When i was younger my mom used to say “ every little boy is gay” and I used to blow it off because it really didn’t make sense.  I mean obviously i knew that people were gay but like everyone?  It seemed like a bit of an over exaggeration even for her, because I didn’t know anybody who was gay.  At least I didn’t think that i did, but then again who really leads with that bit of information.  Especially with the way that it can warp an individual’s entire perception of you, it’s crazy to me how powerful three letters can really be.  As I got older I started to experience different situations and meet new people, also People started to hit puberty and their whole world would break right open with new emotions and thought processes.  Sex.  Another three letter word that shakes any interaction that you have with a person whether it be good or bad it starts to draw a line in certain relationships. Something Like being able to swim naked at 7 years old with your best friend of the opposite sex stops being cute at a certain point, because the thought of promiscuity strips it of its innocence.  Sex is a big reason i believe my mom when she said what she had said because if it wasnt for sex people would probably just decide to be with their best friends whether they’re of the opposite sex or not because its about the bond and the comfortability that you have with them.  Like little boys can swim in a kiddie pool together and have the time of their lives because it’s purely for the sake of the time you’re having with someone you love, and most of the time when your best friend is of the same sex you love them more than your friends of the opposite because it’s really just about how much fun you have together and thats it.  I remember thinking that I’d marry my best friend just because he’s the friend I loved the most at the time.  I had no idea about sex or what being gay was just who i loved. As friendships mature you start to talk about the more hormone oriented ideals and based on your exposure the knowledge varies but people start to feel it around the same ages even if they aren’t aware of it.  Then you see your best friend start to date girls and he’s talking about his first kiss and it never really bothers you, because that bond you have is still so pure.  Until one day he has that bond with someone else and they show them the kind of love that you used to get.  And you realize your earth is shattered and you don’t understand the pain.  But its because your heart is broken because the love that you had for him was that love all along and the maturation into your adolescence only reinforces that you’re in love with him, all parts of him.

I never wanted to be in love with anybody who could hurt me, I mean who in their right mind would? But I knew after that first heartbreak that things would never be the same for me.  Do you know what its like to be completely surrounded by people but be crippled but unparalleled feelings of loneliness.  To listen to everybody share stories about their life’s what its going to be like what they want to do but to not contribute in fear that you’ll be subject to whatever kind of stigmas and stereotypes that are attached to what you have been at war with.  It’s not really a war between yourself, or how you feel whether you’re a certain way or the other.  It’s a war between being who you are or giving up that sense of feeling like you “belong” just by being who you are,because i know who i am, i have known since that eye opening day where my heart was shattered into a million pieces by someone who genuinely had no idea that they were the cause let alone that they were capable of such a thing.  

When you realize you’re different you start to pay attention to things that you wouldn’t have before because they take on much more meaning. When people, more specifically your parents talk about your future wife or your mom asks you if you think any girls are cute.  If someone has a date to a homecoming or a prom they would assume its of the opposite sex.  “What colors her dress” “where did you meet her” it’s all the little things that you pick up that drives you 1000 miles in the opposite direction of putting who you really are out to the world.  I think my parents will still love me. I mean obviously they would, but they would be in a sense,disappointed at first.  I mean I know my mom would love to have another daughter like figure who loves her son as much as she does.  Just to do things that two women who are rapidly infiltrated into each other’s life because of a shared love of someone would do,and that’s something I know she dreams of.  I know my dad can’t wait until I am trying to conceive a biological child and he’s able to bestow nuggets of wisdom on how to deal with the cravings and the mood swings and ultimately being there to witness the birth of my first child.  I understand all of that and honestly, it’s okay to feel that way because it’s natural to feel some type of way when you’ve pictured your life so differently and it gets detoured in a completely unexpected way.  I know my friends will still love me even though at first I’m sure the way they talk around me will sound scripted, just because now that it’s in the open their awareness level is heightened so that they don’t say anything to make me uncomfortable which is paradoxical in its own right because now I’m even more alienated by them not being themselves around me, but I understand that.  I understand that all the times that they made insensitive jokes or the times we spent the night together or changed in the same room could upset them because they feel like i was lying to them and of course i wasn’t but it could make certain moments feel artificial.  I understand because it’s not something they’ve been able to think about and come to terms with but only myself and just because I was ready doesn’t mean that everybody else just should be.  I was scared.  I didn’t want to let go of who i was but if i don’t i can’t become who i am going to be and I’m proud of myself.  I’m not ashamed, I’m not afraid and I’m not worried anymore because i never grew out of being “every little boy” that my mom would talk about.  I just decided he’s everything that makes me me.  Three letters, one syllable, so powerful that said one time is going to change my world forever and I’m ready for it. 

-sincerely, Every little boy

Do you remember making paper snowflakes as a kid? Like it was really just something that would occupy time when your teacher would want to enter something in the computer or just needed to escape the monotony of telling us the same things over and over again for it only to stick a day before we are signing year books and moving on to the next. I mean I’m sure you remember how it goes you fold it hotdog style then again into a small square and you start to chip away at it. It was a spectrum of how they turned out but on the safe end it was the kids that maybe cut it four or five times because as much as they wanted it to turn out cool they feared the failure even more to open it and have it tear or not even resemble a snow flake because of all the cuts and alterations made in route to their snowy masterpiece. Then there were the kids who went balls to the wall because if it couldn’t be amazing it would give its everything in the attempt and when they opened it and it tore they were okay because they gave it their all and thats really what the point was I think. This memory, is forever tainted. It’s defiled and its disgraced and honestly its just sad now. Because of you. Because you felt that you could steal my innocence, you thought that I wanted you to destroy any chance of me having a meaningful relationship with another human being. Maybe youre right. I definitely want my skin to crawl every time I get a lingering stare or a tap on the shoulder. Not even so much in fear but in disgust because everybody is just like you. Nobody really cares about what they want its about what you want. It doesn’t matter how many people go to the ends of the earth to prove that they care about me. The evidence doesn’t matter because in one fell swoop it can become all but inadmissible. But see thats the fucked up part its not that I’m numb so of course I understand that people also relied on me to be there for them, my mother to be her daughter my sister to be her keeper. To be the one she needs when even the smallest situation occurs. Once upon a time I was the strongest person that I knew. I wasn’t afraid to love I wasn’t afraid to need and I wasn’t afraid to fall because I knew that no matter what I would be better for it. I knew all that, or I thought I did. Thanks for creating my rational fear of the real world. A world where people just take what they want because somewhere along the line they rationalized that it was owed to them. Thank you for showing me that kindness is forever a weakness that no matter how someone seems they’re liars. Just like you.

What I think about When you slammed the door behind me, and you actually gave me something to be thankful for because I know that that sound, that gust of wind from the door marked the last moment I was me. When you had your hands around my wrists as if I was resisting arrest you casted your shadow into my light. And as you used the other hand to pin my waist down while you put your knee into my stomach, when you used your free hand to force my legs spread open, you stripped me of my innocence. As if it was the sticker on fruit that we just often peel away with our thumbs and never even know where it ends up because it wasn’t important to what we wanted but its the only thing that piece of fruit has that shows that its not just a number that even though there are many like it, its untouched. It’s unique, or it was. When you struggled to get my pants from around my waste you showed me what evil was, as you struggled and I fought kicking and thrashing, because as you know you had both of my wrists, it only breathed life into your sick vendetta when through the cracks of light shown through the blinds I now know why were closed I saw a smile, as if you had just been made the happiest man in the world. It was the purest form of vile to be overjoyed at the obliteration of my innocence, my happiness. When I managed to look into your eyes, which I did so to at least hold on to the part of me that wasn’t going to be afraid the part that never imagined her first time like this but also believed that it always shaped how you felt about life after no matter the circumstances I didn’t see a coward I didn’t see a evil entity I saw my mother, my sister my friends all come and fade away because who they thought they knew is a distant memory now. All of us are snowflakes. Everyone of us, and the things that happen to us in life define us, they give us or little cuts and alterations, some people like to settle with only a four or five alterations so that when they open up for someone its a safe bet they aren’t going to be scared of what they see even if theres more left to be desired. Then there’s the ones who have all kinds of intricate cuts and rips and are all masterpieces in their own right when they choose to be opened up sometimes they are a little too much and sometimes people wont understand their beauty but that’s okay because their beauty is in the attempt. Then you have the ones like me. Who has been ripped and cut and torn so much that any false move or maybe even a flawless execution still leaves me ripped apart when I’m opened up but that’s my fault right? For believing in the good in people. Never again.

Mad? Me? There’s just no way. I deny any such notion. Me? A king no less of this very realm, where I have worked endlessly night and day to bring my realm to the heavenly state we are in now. My subjects are happy, I do my best to make sure they’re all accommodated. Weekly audiences with myself the king where I will always do my best to have one of my many servants or Confidants document their transgressions. Once a month they get the opportunity to celebrate yours truly for all the hardships i go through on a daily basis. That’s a monstrous leap from anything my father the former king had set in place. He was extremely ill in the head, rest his soul. He let all the mentally taxing duties of a king get to him, but not I. It doesn’t bother me that I have to be woken up by the light of the sun, whenever it hits me, because the guards and the guards who watch my guards can not be trusted to watch my royal head slumber. I have the best chefs in all of these 9 realms but I still am out at all hours of the day just to hunt game to feed myself. It’s the best though i can assure you, my 15 meal testers, always tell me despite the impending fear of each bite being their last, because of some attempt on my life that its to die for so I willingly take their word for it. Of course my counsel gets concerned about me hunting on my own food to eat but what choice does one have when the only way to dethrone a sitting king is by assassination, so what sense does it make to take anybody out there with me armed where nobody would ever see what could transpire. No, no the counsel are not my friends I would cringe at the mere thought. Confidants maybe to a certain degree but the closer you get to anybody as a king the more of a threat they are to you. The more they see you vulnerable the easier it becomes to plunge a knife into your back. Keeping everybody at an arms distance can be cripplingly isolating, an entire kingdom, an entire realm, and I am completely and utterly alone. Just left to my vices and to sit and talk to the portraits and the cold unjudging eyes of rulers that came before myself because they too had felt this fear and anxiety but most of all sadness that we are unable to have a meaningful relationship with anybody because power is what we are taught to value from infancy. Power runs the world not money and most certainly not love. If that were the case i would be able to have children of my own and take a wife whom i love but alas i cannot. They deem me mad because I keep to myself, because i have no wife to bed and because I trust nobody because people only see power when they look at the king. Not a person. I had taken to literature because the only man i seem to able to trust is me myself and i do reiterate that this realm does not have a mad king. Not the isolation nor the falsification of human interaction and emotions I get on a Daily basis or the fact that my own fathers desiccation is the very cause for my rise to power. Mad? Never mad. If your king was mad how could he, the youngest of 7 boys rise to power and take the throne? They confuse madness with ambition. And to my brothers may they all rest peacefully, you’re welcome for taking on this burden for I wouldn’t wish this lonely pseudo-existence on any man. You, my brothers of all people knew what power could do to those around you. I just figured it out first.

A platypus is the only mammal to lay eggs.

Now, I don’t presume to know the emotional or metaphysical idealism’s of the platypus but I’d like to think that if they were capable of deeper critical thought, they would feel sort of alienated. Being only able to sympathize with fellow mammals who get to feel the pain, the anticipation, and tribulations that come with child bearing. Ultimately culminating in bringing that life into the world, where the next challenge presents itself. That’s not to say that they don’t love the child but we live in a world of relativity and the proof is in the contrast. Seeing that could be different, and at times wishing it was even for a moment that it was.

I know that was a really strange introduction for what is to come and who this is for, but I’d like to think that I can bring it full circle. This is about women, but not just women, mothers. All mothers, but more specifically mine. That being said, they all need to know they’re loved by someone even if I don’t know them.

Women are the only humans that when they become a parent or are with a child, they’re that. A “mother” or a “parent” which of course there aren’t a lot of occupations more noble than that of molding young minds but, problems always arise when they want to feel like themselves and want some assemblance of a life of all their own. To have ambitions or dreams, to want or even to feel things whenever they feel them. I’m sure a big part of the disdain some people feel towards mothers who pursue their own interests is the stigma that they are meant to be homemakers and men are breadwinners but the days of a June Beaver type just living to please but never for herself are long gone. It gives men way more freedom in their complexity as a human being because if they wake up one day and decide they want to quit their job they’re applauded for taking control of their life, or they could be seen as not tough but then again it’s “Manley” to show your emotions and not be afraid to have passions and interests other than what you’re currently doing. It really just sounds like living life, but because there are so many different archetypes for what a man should be or what makes a perfect man all of the previously stated actions fall under the category of being a man, and there’s really only so many different ways a woman can be considered beautiful or sexy or pure and that’s damaging enough all on its own. But a mother. She has to walk the finest of lines because to even want to think about doing something that doesn’t have the soul purpose of directly mothering her children she could be chastised. But they’re astounding because most find a way to do it anyway, and if the cards line up, they succeed they’re praised. God forbid it fail and then it’s: She “neglected her children” or that she’s “selfish” for trying to pursue a passion or even just an interest that she’s had her whole life before the world told her that her dreams weren’t in the cards anymore.

my mom Erica Webb,

I can’t even begin to imagine what she could have accomplished if she wasn’t creating a home for her four children. That’s not a slight on her because she still did and continues to do special things and now that her kids are for the most part adults, she can really start living for herself.
My mother was 22 years old when my sister was born. I’m 22 right now and I couldn’t even fathom having a child right now. It’s not the commitment or even the unknown. It would be that I had an idea of what my life was going to be like and then all the sudden it changes like a rug being pulled out from under you. Not bad because bringing a new life into the world shouldn’t be that way, but just different. I would be really scared, but for all kinds of reasons, because I don’t know how to raise a kid or because i was just in high school four and a half years ago or maybe because i might never get everything I’ve always dreamed of. I used to sit in my room upset and think about it all the time. Your first big dream. I would have just sat and thought about all the “ i can’t wait until this” or “I’m going to be this” you just wait and see and then out of nowhere your dreams change, because they can’t just be just about you anymore. Of course you get excited at the prospect of a new dream but there’s got to be something about your first one that haunts you. Ultimately to be completely honest i would be mad because I believe in myself to think that my dreams wouldn’t have come true if i had the chance because that’s another thing about Erica Webb. My mother’s confidence is her essence and it’s the purest form of greatness that I’ve ever come into contact with in my 22 years, but feeling like that can also be a burden.

Both of my parents were young but my mom was 2 years younger than my dad and she was working but she stopped to take care of my sister and I as we grew older and for a really long time I was mad at her a lot. I felt like she didn’t really want kids because i could see the things she was interested in and i could see how badly she wanted both those lives to be able to coexist but it’s virtually impossible with 4 kids that rely on you for everything but she would find ways, and I always figured it was a direct correlation to how she felt about being our mother but everything in her life was about me and my siblings. I guess I just failed to realize that there could be things in her life that weren’t. My father who also is a brilliant mind (that’s a story for another month) did different things and had more freedom to pursue different opportunities because my mom took care of us and i think that in itself can eat at you as well because you love what you’re doing but to be directly involved in everybody around you trying new things and figuring out life and you aren’t entirely afforded the opportunity because it’s just not what mothers necessarily do. Relativity can be a bitch sometimes but she took it on the chin just like so many others did before her, and so many others will continue to do.

Mother’s Day took on a new kind of connotation the year I turned 15 because she lost her mother. But I lost my grandmother and we both were wrapped up in the pain. I remember just seeing sadness in her eyes that I was perceptive enough to see but not mature enough to understand. I just hadn’t lived enough life yet, but I could see it. The kind of pain that hits you like a deep bruise it’s overwhelming and subtle all at the same time. Then some days it’s sharper than others and you have to hold it all together because you’re a mother and if you take a day for yourself it’s negligence towards your children when you’re just dealing with missing the person that you thought of seeing you achieve all those dreams you thought of as a little girl. Just thinking about what could have been and what she would have thought to see you get everything you ever wanted. But the chance is gone. That was a rough time for us. I was mad because I thought she had given up on us but people, especially children like to deny the significance of the past. Of everything someone gave up to give you all of their life that everything was in the pursuit of you having the kind of childhood you read about in story books, but it never happens the way you see it. I understand why she would get so upset because if i gave someone anybody all of me I’d feel useless if they decided it just wasn’t enough when it was all I had to give and I believe that she gave us all she had to give then found the strength who knows where to give us even more and all she ever needed was some of us and we failed her because when you love someone that’s just what you do.
My mother Erica Webb and I were at odds for a big chunk of these last 4 years and as I matured I thought more and more about why we did and i realized that she doesn’t know that much about me as an adult and i knew nothing about her as anything but a mother and that was the disconnect. I can understand how she would feel when she was trying to guide me through certain situations and because she raised me in such a way where I wasn’t going to believe just anything anybody told me, that that was the reason i should have listened to her she gave me the tools to become who i was even if she didn’t hold my hand all the way through. I think she was just really scared that something would happen to me and you care about someone so much and you’re so sure about what’s right for them when they take it with a grain a salt whatever the reasoning is it can just make you so upset caring with your mind body and soul will do that to you.
I want my mother Erica Webb to know that she raised a kid who knows things are always bigger than himself. That knows an act of kindness can change someone’s entire life, and one that can see the greatness in everybody before they even know it’s there just like you did with him. A kid who can watch a movie and be inspired to be anything he wants to be because you gave him that chance. Ultimately I want her to know she raised a man who understands. Who loves and who will always believe in his mother because she always believed in him and that’s the best gift you’ve given me because I’m going to give it to the world one day and that’s because of you.

Erica Webb is a woman, a teacher, a coach, a wife, and a friend. Erica Webb is also someone Who never let the stigma of how your life is supposed to dictate herself, and who refused to slip into the mundane existence of a routinely unpassionate life. She refused to feel alienated by anybody, not even her children who couldn’t see the essence of everything she was showing them by living for herself, because it was also for us. Erica Webb is passion, and she’s fire and she’s pain, and sometimes over the top, and she’s also a mother. Not a day goes by where I’m not made a better person by something she’s said or done it for all the reasons that she would be looked at in a different light by someone who just doesn’t understand is the reason that she is the great one.