Back in the day/I’m not a kid anymore

TEN YEARS AGO: I am living the life! Can ya say ‘ghetto fabulous’? I knew ya could!

Owning my own business. Partners with my best friend. Working with friends and family. Front row tickets to Yankees games. Prize seats at Knicks games. Eating at all the best restaurants, clubbing every weekend and picking up tabs for my friends. “Sure you can order that!”

My lil bro and sis are the lights of my life and my niece is the cutest baby on the planet.

And love? Well, love aint been that kine to me as I keep falling just a lil bit short in the relationship sweepstakes getting 5 out of the 6 numbers but am I worried?
Hell no!

Ima live forever and the industry that is feeding my lifestyle will never go out of funk! Never, do ya hear me?

Poems written: Zero

FIVE YEARS AGO: The house I built my ego in is starting to crumble.

Business has become a job that I can’t stand going to. My best friend is thinking about getting out and I can’t blame him. I am still living it up but it’s in a desperate attempt to get out of a depression that won’t go away after the worst break up of my life and a run in with the law that left me unscathed but had me feeling plenty fuckin guilty. My friends and fam forgave me—I never forgave myself.

My brother and sister are teenagers and I can’t handle the fact that Big Brother is no longer the answer to everything. Money is becoming an issue and I can’t treat my niece to the good things I could before. Guilt drives me way even though she never asked or needed me to be the financial rock in her life.

Love is a losing boxing match that just won’t end. I keep getting beat up only to finish the round limping and begging to go back into “No Win” situations. Meanwhile, my friend (who I DISSED when I was all happy in love) is living my dream with a loving supporting wife and a kid on the way. I suddenly feel very old and very unaccomplished.

I start hanging in some unsavory spots at the craziest hours with some shady folks. My friends know this but think that it just shows that no one is crazier than me- they have no idea how right they are. In the inside I want a real reason to live.

Poems written: One

ONE YEAR AGO: Construction, Deconstruction, Reconstruction. I go from finding poetry to losing just about everything to rebounding to nearly losing it all again.

Through it all, I manage to keep rockin and rollin through the business of poetry going from eager to novice to featured performer to Slammaster (don’t let the title fool ya, it involved more paperwork than actually mastering anything) to helping form a series (synonymUS) to founding a new series (Acentos). Manage to find a new gig that keeps me close to the arts and lets me wake up late.

My family is all growns up and branching out. The kids are bright and doing the right thing (following my sister’s path rather than mine) and my sister has found love and happiness living good with my niece.

Love… ah well. Ya can’t have it all and it feels like my ship has come and gone. I am starting to feel that I can make it through life without ever being truly in love. Yeah, that’s the ticket! I will totally commit myself to the word and the fact that I will die a bachelor will just add to my legendary dedication to poetry. Or sumthin like dat…

Poems written: A lot. Some good, some bad, but they all seem to be guiding me towards a great reward.

YESTERDAY: Actually get to work on time!

Am slowly moving from having my ego entirely wrapped up on the stage to getting satisfaction from a well written poem. Troop down to the Bowery for the BEST worst attended reading ever as some of the finest poets in America rock out to an audience of a dozen. There is a lesson here, y’all. As usual the post reading drinks & food session is even more enlightening.

Get home and share the day with Barbara. Talk about ten years ago, it feels like a whole life time ago when I think of life before she entered the picture. Let’s sum it up with this- Barbara is the one true love of my life and I have never been more sure of anything in mah life.

Poems to be written: A ton.

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