POETRY
Who Would I Be
Dave Breslin
Outside, I walk nervous and unsettled through a parking lot toward a school.
Inside, I’m looked up to and admired for knowing the things I wish I didn’t.
Wondering where I’d be had I not known so well the feelings of such pain and self-doubt.
Where I’d be if I never knew the taste of an ice-cold beer on a summer night,
the euphoria, the invincibility and confidence of a whiskey buzz with a freshly met girl,
the smiles and carefree laughs brought on by the drunken foolishness of young men before we knew the extent of our foolishness, the feelings of acceptance by myself and others that I have found my role and should go with it because it seems to fit, the taste of bloodied gums from quick jabs to the face invited by my inability to keep quiet due to certain mind state, the scent of puke running through my nose while sleeping to wake soaked in sweat and guilt with mind crushing headache and dehydrated fevered skin, the warm taste of a last sip from a left over beer swallowed only to forget the night before, the encounters with hypocritical, arrogant, crooked cops using unnecessary force to handcuff a drunk, 130 pound 19 year old to satisfy their need for inflation of self worth that never really satisfies, the shameful looks of disgusted witnesses of my sickness, the memories of fun days upon days with close friends I’d soon lose to death, the realization of myself as someone society has told me is hopeless and worthless.
I step inside and think,
Who would I be without the memories of nights alone in bed pleading to a God I didn’t believe in to, “At least let me sleep if you won’t let me die.” Who, without the embarrassment in admittance of weakness to those you’ve displayed and insisted only strength in front of, the days where tears ran dry but it mattered nothing because you were still crying, the depression endlessly begging for freedom that it explains is found only in suicide and stays insistent through months of dosage upon higher dosage of medication that not only makes you sick but doesn’t help the depression, the waking from a suicide attempt, the waking from a suicide attempt to realize I was the only one who knows it was attempted at all, the idea that the taste of tears on your lips is worse than the feeling of pushing a blade against your wrist wondering how well it can cut as you think to yourself, “This would stop the tears.” Who would I be without the memories of the images of scenario upon scenario of how and when I’d do it, the sight and sound and the shake of the ground as a bright lighted train stares at you and moves closer from 30 yards away and you begin to second guess about if it will work or not and then you take that small step away, and it passes, the nervousness while a jury deliberates your guilt, the countless hours of solitude, the guilt you feel for becoming so dependent upon others just to free yourself of your dependencies, the pessimistic attitude that has evolved out of my seemingly endless string of bad luck, the endless self doubt and lack of self esteem that brought anxiety whenever expected to carry on a conversation sober, the lack of trust that seems to have grown from the things I still won’t write or talk about, the poetry, the self evaluation or the realization and acceptance of myself.
I have to wonder who I’d be without knowing the feeling of my best friends ice cold forehead against my lips as I kissed him and he lay in his coffin, the weight of the coffin, the color, the feel, the nylon liner, the texture of the wood on the coffin, the sight of the coffin as it leaves in the hearse, the coffin, the shock six months later as I heard the news that the friend who comforted me as I sat at the coffin shot himself and now lays in his own coffin, another coffin and another and another. Who would I be without knowing the helplessness you feel as you try to wake another friend as he twitches in and out of a coma and the stare of his eyes catch yours every time as they rapidly open and close, the stare that can only be explained as blank or empty, the intuition that my friends are not done dying, the lonely cemetery walks taken to evoke the idea that I still have friends, the calls from friends who are now in the same place I once was and are about to know all of what I know, the fact that I know no matter what I say, write or do or how much I want it, nothings going to change unless we all want it to.
Who would I be without the confusion felt after being admired for survival by both strangers, friends and those who thought nothing of me but now look up to me for knowing the things I look down on, things I wish I never knew.
No one should know all this; no one should admire me for this.
Don’t admire me.
Don’t look up to me.
Look down on me.
You don’t want to know what I know, stop trying to learn for yourself.
Look up to yourself for not needing to know.
Success is not succeeding through failure.
Succeed in not failing.
That is success, that is admirable, that is what I look up to.
Good does not know what I know.
I know no good.
Don’t force yourself to learn, no good.
Force yourself to know, good.
That is who I’d be without knowing all of this,
I’d be successful, I’d be admirable, I’d be someone to look up to,
I’d be good.