Cousin

.***** triggery as all hell becareful ******

This one packs a punch

I have an Uncle who came home one day and gunned down his entire family, save for one boy who had snuck out and was not there. This child then grew up and got into trouble with the law and was actually shot several times by the police. EVERYONE seemed oblivious to the fact that he was attempting suicide. That he needed to be shot dead. He eventually succeeded in committing suicide by police. Gunned down in a hail of bullets like his family.

This not the only gun related episode that affected my family. The other more recent, a single shot that averted a planned school shooting.

There will be much talk about the recent theater shooters family and how he was raised and so on, as we all grapple with what happened and why it happened. You can raise a child 100% perfectly, and they can still turn/become/evolve into a killer. You can raise a child 100% wrong and fill there life with abusive hell and they can grown up and be a model citizen.

We as a society are missing something here. We are over looking something in this mix. Somewhere along the bike path one of the training wheels slipped off the pavement. We need a strong jerk of the handle bars to right us.

I was taught in history that civilizations are either in a state of incline or decline.

In my life I have seen, and rode the incline rise. Sadly, now I must also witness the decline.

************* again, very triggering - use caution if you are not safe ***************



I wreel back from the phone

receiver clatters on the hard cold tile

skidding

chaotically

the floor rushed up to meet me

I lay there wishing my selves away

I hear the sobs of my inner selves

Yet the body doesn't offer a single tear

maybe if I lie here with my eyes clenched

the world will just go away

Slowly like an incomming morse code message

the words of the phone call

replay over in my head

"You cousin ______ was shot dead by the police"

dead

dead

Twisted emotions surge through me

Part of me wants to dance...he got what he wanted, no NEEDED.

part of me is so jelous its blinding me...hes dead and out of pain and yet I still linger here in so much pain.

part of me wants to weep for the little boy with dark hair I only met twice.

.....I always knew my father, sold to a barren woman when he was a small boy, had a large birth family out there

met them only once when I was a young child

Cousin _____ and his siblings came to visit us one summer.

They spent the afternoon with us and then after dinner they were gone.

Didnt think of them ever again....until the news came to us.

Uncle ____ had come home form work and gunned down his whole family.

save for one child who was supost to be home...but had snuck out.

Cousin _____

Uncle in jail life without parole

Cousin _____ in a hell he can never exscape from...the guilt of surviving.

......I met up with Cousin ____ again in my twenties, the same shiny black hair

we are really strangers...

he looks at my scarred arms and then into my eyes.

we spoke volumes without uttering a word

He shows me his tatoos.

We both carry our stories on our skin

"P" he says, "Im an artist too. I keep my work with me, so it doesnt get lost"

my gut twists and the empathy button gets stomped on

I think, what a wound soul I have standing before me.

Hes always running, fleeing ghosts from his past

I run my hands over his back and feel the scars from the bullet holes.

not put there from his father, no

shot two seperate time by the police

.....again my soul twists in agony

I get it. I understand his pain...he needs to be shot dead.

he beleives he wasnt supost to survive

that somehow he wronged his mama and siblings that day.

That he is  in a loop of desteny he cannot excape from.

I see myself reflected in his eyes.

The abuse I endured as a child felt like it killed me

yet I still linger on this planet

My suicidalness as a adult is that a direct reflection of the murder of my childhood?

Cousin's tattoo of a child on his shoulder a depiction of our shared inner torment

I want to speak to Cousin...really speak to him.

but I am pre therapy and suicidal my selves

I stand on the curb and watch him till his car is out of sight.

I know I will never see him again.

that his visit to us was a quest

he was looking for something

like so many of us

looking for that lost piece of the interal puzzle that will hold the jigsaw together

and make the chaotic roar of life silent.

The coolness of the floor sooths my aching head.

I slowly sit up and put the phone back in its cradle

Cousin commited suicide by police.

died in a hail of gun fire....like the rest of his family.

Stand there wondering if self injury isnt a form of that...

the abuse made me feel like I was dying....so each injury I inflict is a little death?

or is it each injury I inflict is a little life?

at last the body relents to the internal flood of emotions and the tears spill

I head to my room and get my art pad.

There I draw all of cousins tattoos

as I ponder what gives some of us the strength to endure

and others to not.

(c) P. R 1-5-2009