The Sleeping Dragon Toshiro Gave Me...

 Anger is seen as inherently negative in "polite society" or  anger is uncivilized and unseemly.

My grandfather was one of my most steady male role models growing up, he was a stoic, stern, and humorously sarcastic man. He was a Judo teacher, an Autobody Mechanic, a Bodybuilder, and generally had all the hallmarks of the classic mans man. He was also a Japanese Canadian, a group that had been systemically targeted, and emasculated by white supremacy in government.

I asked him if he was angry during the war, being uprooted, dispossesed, and relocated to hard labour farms in Alberta. He admitted being angry, and that he carried that anger into adulthood, but that he saw it as a tool, something to be used, channeled and controlled by him. Instead of losing control to it  he saw it as a source of energy, or fuel for otherwise difficult work, which must have come in handy as a 12 year old forced labourer.

I choose to use my anger as he did, it helps me stay motivated to fight back personally and as an advocate against injustice. I had to learn this through years of conflict, both within and without, but like him, it got me through the toughest times, for me it was group homes, and the outrage at being treated as a prisoner rather than getting help for trauma. I remember his words when I find my blood boiling and the white hot rage threatens my freedom, my credibility, my control and my empathy. I use that heat, control the burn, direct it. It makes steel of unformed iron in my will.

I am still learning, will always be learning, and my anger is still there, coiled around the most sensitive areas of my being, it is a sleeping dragon, a protector, a tool. Let it be that for the rest of my days...

Where I decided to be...

 I'm sitting alone in my room,
staring across from my filthy bed at my filthy pile of random shit I once valued.
Waiting for the medication to take effect, the years of drug abuse and neglect have seriously hampered my chemical balances, and now I can no longer just push through my depression like I once did.

My once beautiful body has become a soft and somewhat formless cage, about as restrictive as my own thoughts, but enough to keep me in chains. I no longer smile...I want to but the missing teeth make an instant monster of me in this world of beautiful people with beautiful teeth, nice clothes, perfect hair, smooth skin, and ugly ugly souls.

I like to think that there is still some part of me that is pure, that somewhere underneath all of my self indulgent whining and desperate pleas for somebody to please come and care, that maybe there is some part that is still strong, and young, and brave.

I should go get my methadone now, since without it I will be a pants shitting mess, writhing in pain. There's a part of me that thinks that is exactly what I deserve.

People will tell you all sorts of things, they will tell you that everything will work out. They'll also tell you that ANYBODY can make it rich or successful, that you just have to try.

What they won't tell you is the truth. That they don't really want you to be ok, that as long as you are down they get to feel better about themselves, and that every time you fail there is a certain satisfaction in having known already that you would, they won't tell you this because they can't even admit it to themselves.

I don't know why I don't just hang myself other than that I'm curious, and that I still hope that one day life will be exciting again, that I will feel like something is beautiful for more than just a fleeting moment tainted by sorrow, and that one day I will look back and own all of it. That all of the people who watched me suffer, kicked me while I was down or turned their backs when I needed them will be afraid.
 Afraid because I broke out of the role that comforted that shitty evil place in the human soul that enjoys watching you fail.
the part of all of us that says "I feel better because I'm not you"

I hope that day comes, but like them I'm not holding my breath.