What I wanted...What I lost...What I was...Who I am...

         I was the little kid whom laughed at those fairytale, technicolor wonders of Disney on a rainy afternoon at the Waverly with his bag of penny candy from Dietz's and a Coke in a flimsy wax cup. I dreamed of the happy endings while trouble brewed in the next room...alcohol turned father into the monster whom I feared. I always wanted to be wanted in a way not shown...I slept with a stuffed animal whom rests to this day in my closet , waiting like the velveteen rabbit for the one last hug before it slumbers for real. I wanted that life that seemed every house had except mine...I wanted the television sitcom family of Brady and instead was met with the bitter reality that all is not sitcom gold. I wanted to be liked so I went back to a strangers house and lost something as pure as an infant's  first grip to a Mother's welcoming teet.
         What I lost was the chance to be a child and grow into a teen , I lost the wonders of a world as it grew closer to the next century. I lost a Mother's trust as I became distant and pained and lashed out at a sister whom I will never be as close as I wanted. I lost the chance to hang with the school gang as I was among a different crowd that drained my spirit as I learned to live by the rules of the street and the harsh realities of life and its vicious pecking order ...I lost the chance of first love and the butterflies that came with that first kiss, instead I have the smell of stale beer and homemade wine in my mind that will never fade as that of the memory of that sharp pain as I felt the arm on the nape of the neck as it held me down and made me his whore.
          What I was , was that lost little boy in a young mans body who craved the touch of others to feel alive in a world that was so cruel to this boy. I was the piece of meat that you wanted me to be as I would lay down with the men who feed off youth as a way to keep young themselves and cast aside as someone younger arrived whom could fulfill their fancy. I was the scorned young man who found the taste of alcohol and the highs of drugs to help build the walls of rage that would hold more than those of Jericho...I was a man whom broached middle age with the bitterness of an ancient character of mythology , I became the drunk at the end of the bar who would rather lay with the scum tossed off by others to feel less than...I was one afraid of pain otherwise I would of been six feet below so long ago. I was a ghost whom walked among the living and lived off others tales and dreamt of those Disney days in the darkness of the Waverly with his sisters hand in his and the warmth he felt. I was the shadow in the mirror whom wanted to escape and live again.
         Who I am is a survivor that only knows disappointment as his norm and whom now must revel in his success as a student whom yearns to be the bard of this sordid journey and teach the struggling of the mistakes that could be made and joys of beating the odds that where stacked against me for so long...to help those avoid the same pratfalls the could keep many from getting back to their feet , I could give them that nudge that I wish I had...Who I am is a man I like to call Michael.