Same time when my dad was on ice he was managing the retirement home near our house. He got fired for shooting up in his office and when my mom told me that I got worried in a special way and asked my aunt if that's why I feel messed up sometimes but she said no, it would've had to have been my mom on ice. I wish sometimes that his drug problem is why I feel messed up because he's four years gone now and want to have something in common between us other than the books that I can guess he might've liked when he was alive. Sometimes I say his name softly to be reminded that we have a bond somewhere between us. I never got to talk to him about books or ask him all my questions. Best one I asked him was "when do the numbers end?" and he told me that's a really good question and that made me feel like his bright boy and that was an honor to me. He was a very casual father. Probably due to his drug jadedness that made him a big joker and conniver. He'd trick me into drinking his beer by saying it was my favorite drink coke and let me eat a whole rack of bananas around the store. After he'd been on the street for some years, living in that double decker bus he spent a bunch of my mom's money on and never made any back despite how great an idea it was, he'd caught a regular bus to mom's house all the way from downtown and had two damp bags of Mcdonald's for me. My mom didn't know I was hanging out with him in our house. He talked for hours telling me about how 9/11 was meant to cover up the JFK assassination and about his time working on telephone poles back in Florida, smoking weed on the job in what imagined at the time was a large hole in the pavement. He asked to use the computer because he was homeless now and didn't own one. He took a beer out of the fridge and sat at the computer and not long enough to do what he wanted I don't think because my mom came home and talked at him so disappointed my heart thought she was yelling. He was casual, as always gently swatting away her words and got up from the computer with his beer and caught the bus back to the double decker bus in downtown. And after he left my mom started getting mad at me for things like homework and chores and it felt like all I could do was go on the computer and watch something easy so that I didn't get overwhelmed and cry or do something instinctive that I just couldn't handle. I feels like I didn't have any reaction to everything that went on with my family. In memory it feels like I kind of blacked out at the dinner table or turned stone cold when the cops arrived. When my sister and mom threw Bruce, my father, out of the house, literally threw him by the arms, he was so drunk he couldn't catch himself, and I remember running around like a rabbit not knowing how to help, who to help. Four years gone now, and when I don't have classes I find homeless people to talk to and don't much talk to them as much as I listen to everything they say like my dad always did with me.

I don't like writing about the times I was disemboweled in my room and crying down the street knowing so certain that things weren’t going to better, and I was crying because I thought like it was the only thought in my brain, like my whole skull’s inside had been filled with concrete of this thought, I was crying like it was all I could do to stay alive because I thought with concrete that my life had ended. Some people live long lives and other people die young or too young even. I thought I was the young type and that I was feeling how all young types must feel when they reach the time where they rest their roles as young types and die. I was shivering but I wasn’t cold, everything about me was so confused and conflicted by the reality that I had to be done now and that I was just a young type. I told myself months before that life was too long and that it was backwards and filled with romance up the ass but I didn’t know if I was ready to go yet. It felt like I was arguing to the truth of my death, saying, “ah, c’mon – now?” I just didn’t think I’d go out so limply. It was all because of pot. Weed, dope, green, hash. I was majorly depressed and hated feeling so. I'd get high once I felt sober and once I was high I'd chain smoke American Spirits on a toddler sized red chair outside my front door. I must've scared my mom to the point where she wouldn't say anything to me, she'd just look at me and curl a light a smile as I walked through the door, like she was saying, 'it's okay, I still love you' with her face alone. When I say disemboweled I mean that I collapsed my lung one night from a bong. I was also eating like one meal a day or peckishly snacking between it all. I don't think that helped. I was bedridden, barely able to fill my chest with air, laying down on my futon like that for three days. "Last straw" I thought. On the fourth day of being unable to fill my chest with air, I called on my extended family to tell them how truly awful I'd been doing for a whole three months prior. Once I opened up, they took care of me. When I was around them I never wanted to smoke. They occupied me with morning walks with their dogs, lunch conversation, plans for the upcoming college quarter, what classes I wanted to take and so on. That was in January and now here in July I'm breathing gigantic, deep breathes and reading and writing everyday. With my education I'd like to reach millions of people, to share this story and more with those who struggle and try to relate to them in a way that gives support and hope.