Glenna McCarthy's Blog, page 5

Nobody had/has the answers

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Life never had a false sense of security

I knew from day one something was off

When I looked to others for clarity

All I got was excuses and deflections

like…

Jesus is going to fix it

No one said life is fair

Things will get better

Life is what you make it

I guess I wanted something more tangible

I went to college to face my fears

Of being a problem child student that couldn’t focus

Or cut the mustard but here I am!

 

Now, I find out that even higher education

The world of ACADEMIA

Words of wisdom are almost entirely based

On THEORY

The wisest facts are based on theories?

Philosophy s based on a bunch of

Mentors that sound like drunken narcist

This country is a blood money

And lies that separate

Holy moly what a tangled web that we weave

And that is woven

Tell me there is something better on

The other side, tell me there is a reason

That we breed to carry on a family name

And take turns watching each other die

Tell me something because

Besides the one-liners and

Theories based on a hypothesis

Nobody had or has the answers

ESCAPE into THE ABYSS

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My old friend, I have been thinking about you

I hear you have let yourself go a little

but I guess we all have to face change

and our mortality

I have aged as well

It has been a bittersweet journey

I remember what a good liar you

used to be

When I first introduced myself to you

You told me the world wasn’t scary anymore

that life was worth living

I felt a warmth and calmness

spread over my entire body

my mind was able to take a rest

no need to watch

no need to critique

no need to fear

just let the warmth spread

through my body as if it is

the love I have always seemed

to miss, give me a reason

give me a season, help me put the blinders on

but the reality is I woke 25 years later

reality hit me like a punch in my face

and soul

I have recently faced a traumatic

life changing experience and felt so alone

so alone that I almost searched for you

HEROIN

Can you save me?

make the pain stop?

your company, your lie

I wanted to be comfortably numb

again but that is no longer an option

Do I dare to say…

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Do I dare to say what’s on my mind, heart, and soul

Yes I am talking to you GOD

I can feel the pain and destruction seep through my walls

of histories and histories of unjust wrongs done to others

I have lost the ability to feel the good in the world

or even from the touch of another

but I damn sure didn’t lose the ability to feel scared

angry, sad, lonely, tired, confused and abused

I dont like it here but I will not take myself out

because then there is a possibility that I will be

punished in the afterlife

I am broken and beaten

and I dont see the light

but for some reason I am

still here and stuck in the fight

 

Meaning

 

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I want to fall into a deep sleep

like my cat that looks totally carefree

as he yawns and stretches his paws

I have never felt comfortable or relaxed

without the help of drugs and other band-aids

but when that band-aid gets ripped off

so does the scab and now my wound is open again

Is it me? is it them?

Is it my fault? Is it theirs?

Why does life feel so heavy?

To be honest, the only thing that

has kept me from taking myself out

is the fear of being punished in a

possible afterlife? No…

no more suffering

So I here I lay

watching NOTEBOOK

and crying like an emotional child

The love that they shared was

so moving and I want to know

what that feels like

but that was a movie

and I am scared to care

about anything

because everything is temporary

and hopefully so is this

baggage I carry

 

Chapter in my book (Subway madness)

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NYC MASS TRANSIT (IF YOU DARE)

 

Silence and noise feels like torture to me but subways are the ultimate battle. I put on my headphones, trying to block out the situation, or play games on my phone—but when my battery runs out, I almost feel the anxiety of someone being held against their will.

The claustrophobia of subways has only worsened over the years, with space becoming overcrowded to the point that people do not even turn around when they are blocking the entrance. I have been driven to just rebel and say, “Yo, can I get on the fucking train?” or, “Stop breastfeeding the fucking door and wean yourself off to the middle of the car.” I would continue to mumble, “Motherfuckers are probably going to the next borough but still have to stand in the fucking door.” Mind you, I said this loudly but indirectly. I never made eye contact, since I rode the trains before everyone had phones and it was all about eyeball wars. The usual altercation started with, “What the fuck are you looking at?” and all of the other one-liner, like, “Why you all in my mouth?” (for those eavesdropping on a conversation). We also had the infamous Guardian Angels who stood in the doors of the subway, not to block traffic but to be a security measure. They would not be able to stand in the doors of the train now since nobody fits and gets to pose anymore. I remember I used to always stand against the door, not wanting to be close to anyone but also wanting to be seen. My drugs made me feel important and aloof at the same time.

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Now the game has changed. There is no longer an arm’s reach rule where someone cannot come within striking distance while arguing because that would be considered a fight. Everyone is now on top of each other, and totally self-absorbed, relying on their phones like oxygen. At first, I made fun of people on phones, but eventually, I followed suit. I came to recognize that these behaviors come from discomfort and not knowing how to cope. I have also grown up a little, realizing that I am not the only person in NYC who feels like they are having a nervous breakdown.

I was now drug-free and like a child, learning to walk again. The basic norms of society, which I had never wanted to learn, had evolved while I was self-medicating. I had even lost my street slang from being sedated for so long. I did not fit in anywhere anymore, not even within street culture. When you feel powerless like this, you must do something powerful, so tantrums are right up an addict’s alley. Addicts like myself make a whole lot of noise as an illusion of winning when everything in life feels like a loss.

 

My ego lived off fumes supported by “fuck this, fuck that.” I really did not know how to process the world and my environment. I also did not know at the time that I had PTSD, which probably did not help matters. PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and was not even recognized as a condition that could affect civilians until recently—as if the streets are not another battleground. PTSD can be found at home, too. Look at all the children who have been traumatized by struggles in their own homes, and—I hate to say it—by poverty, too, which has been proven to add to domestic violence and addiction. While I was growing up, nobody looked at what happened at home. If you were dysfunctional at school, it was your fault, and you were labeled a problem child. I am glad people are now looking closer into what children are exposed to in their home environments. Now I was back in the “real” world and trying to operate within it—yet even watching the news was so disturbing that it could have made someone want to jump off the planet (fuck the roof).  I had been on and off methadone for about 20 years. When you are on methadone and doing what is called “harm reduction,” it means that you take your sip of methadone and it blocks the urge to get high. I consider this bullshit; methadone is just a legal drug. My hands-on experience tells me that “harm reduction” is a dangerous game to play; it can be misused and enables drug addiction and stagnation.

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It was scary to face life without drugs, but I knew that drugs cost money and that a person had to go to extremes to get them. It is like burning yourself to earn the right to get a day of relaxation.

It had stopped making sense.

Facing the subway without drugs was an added source of stress. One night I was coming home from school after a three-hour Friday night class. It was going on 10:00 p.m. My train went express to 125th Street in Harlem, and I needed to get the downtown local since I lived on 110th. There seemed to be a hold-up, so I put my back to a pole and observed. Before gentrification started in Harlem, I remember people getting on the A train by accident at 59th Street and panicking when they saw they were going directly to Harlem. Now, due to gentrification, white people are walking around like they are untouchable.

A black gentleman was walking around with one crutch he did not need. My radar went off as I watched him pace. He finally went and hit an Asian man on the head— not that hard, but he still hit him. The Asian man went to defend himself, but his friends defused the situation and got him to walk away.

When I got on my train it was fairly empty but for a lot of young people looking like they were dressed to go out for a Friday night.  Again, I saw the man with the crutch. He was walking up and down the car,

stopping at various women sitting alone, and jabbing his crutch within a few inches of their faces.

I said to myself, “This motherfucker ain’t crazy. He’s picking his victims and they’re all the easy ones.” He did it to a young black woman and then to a young Puerto Rican woman on the other end. He had the nerve to go by a group of young men and try to fist bump them; so far, they had remained neutral. I was only traveling two stops and I was pissed, looking at the rest of the people on the train and thinking, “For real?” I purposely walked down the car, stopping near where the man with the crutch was standing and waited for my door to open. I assumed he had gestured towards me, so I went right into a fighting stance, planning to block the crutch and try to take it. To my surprise, when the train door opened at 110th and I walked out, he came out the door with me—not by choice, but by force. The whole car had just needed a green light; he got punched, kicked and thrown out the door with his crutch.

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Now it was just me and him as the doors closed and the train left the station. I said, “How does that feel? You still feel dangerous?” I hoped he did not, and I walked up the stairs while keeping an eye over my shoulder. He came up behind me, following me out of the subway, but he just walked off into the night with his one crutch. I watched him walk into Central Park and realized he was a man without a destination. I wondered what had happened to him in his life to make him like that. I almost felt bad for him. Though I had a place to go,  I still knew how it felt to be a nomad. I had been couch surfing in someone’s condo for 15 years, so it was not my home. I had just met someone who thought my piece could fit their puzzle, so I became part of it. I told him I was HIV positive when we first met, and he put me on the couch and never touched me again. I know that must sound horrible to some, but it felt safe to have a place where I knew I was not

desirable.

Being a subway vigilante did not always have such a good outcome for me. When I was 21 and living with my boyfriend in Newark, New Jersey, I would go to NYC every day to work. One day, I was on a bus due to problems with Jersey Transit, and I heard a commotion in the front. A black woman a little older than I was had begun ranting and cursing at someone. Finally, I said from the back, “Would you shut the fuck up?” Do not ask me why I have these impulse issues. I know that when I was a child, my mother was prone to tantrums and this made me feel powerless. I never forgot that feeling, and when people became out of control, it acted as a trigger for me. After I yelled at the woman on the bus, she stopped ranting and grew very calm. She forgot the person at whom she was yelling and told me that since I was a tough guy, she and I were getting off at the next stop to see how tough I really was. I saw the crowd watching and said, “Okay, no problem.”

The bus pulled over. We both got off very calmly like we were going to a business meeting. She and I were facing each other, so I started to put up my hands, but before I knew it I was on the floor with a busted lip, black eye, and sore nose. “Aw fuck, that’s embarrassing,” I told myself, “but I have to get up and try again.”

Before I could stand, she said, “Do you know what I do for a living?”

I responded, “No, what’s that got to do with anything?”

She continued by telling me that she was a trainer in hand-to-hand combat for hostage takeovers, then gave me her hand and helped me up.

I have a problem with someone being picked on and nobody caring, maybe because I feel that they are me in some way, but she told me not to recklessly play the hero like that in the future because I did not know what I might walk into.

As we waited for the next bus, she showed me a few locks and holds, and we actually enjoyed each other’s company. We parted with a goodbye and she made me promise that I would mind

my business in the future. We both laughed. She felt like a big sister, using her upper hand to show me what I did wrong in a caring way. It was a rough lesson, but luckily one with a happy ending.

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CAN IT EVER BE DIFFERENT?

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Call me a skeptic

Call me a conspiracy theorist

Call me a CUP HALF EMPTY

type

I cant pretend that this world

is a fair place with fair chances

I have made my way and feel

lucky? blessed?

but my past experiences and observations

will never let me live in a nieve bubble

I have been fighting too long

I am white but I have seen how

the minorities and poor whites live

I have studies the history of what

happened to Indigenous

what happened to Africa

and we cant even admit the wrong

so how can you believe in the future

promised by a corrupt voice

 

Love me, from a distance

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Hold me

love me

Till I decide

if you are worth my time

I might not accept you

or even like you

but please dont reject me first

because then my insecurities will

make you into a GOD

and I will need your approval

and if I dont get it

I will obsess about it

and spend my time studying you

Dark Dreams

 

[image error]Are they dreams or nightmares?

all the same to me

different dreams but same scenario

trying to get from point A to point B

and I am always missing the tools

the key to open the lock

the phone to call for help

the money to take the bus

and even missing part of the

contraband when I have drug dreams

different scenarios

same content

no security

no foundation

no reachable destination

dreams? or is it nightmares?

it’s hard to differentiate

 

 

SNEAK PEAK Chapter (SEX TRADE)

A Peak at my Memoir RECYCLED HUMAN

RECYCLED HUMAN

THE SEX TRADE BUSINESS

Sadly, the first time someone attempted to lure me into being a sex worker, I actually put myself down and said, “You mean someone would actually pay to touch me?” I still had not grasped the idea that sex has no boundaries and does not discriminate. There is a market for anything and everything if you look hard enough.

I was about 13 years old when I ran away from a home for troubled children Upstate. My intention was to use my “missing” status as a way to get attention from my family. I would have rather been a problem to them than thrown away and forgotten. I would eventually call my dad, but would be coy until my family gave up and took back custody of me—having already awarded me to the state—because I was not going to disappear gracefully. I disliked feeling like I…

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The stranger within

RECYCLED HUMAN

I looked at the scars on my arm and thought about getting a tattoo with

PEACE in different kinds of languages all over to cover the pain and battle scars

as I sat facing my therapist waiting for him to give me relief, a distraction or attention.

He asked me to touch my arm Why should I do that? I thought to myself

He coaxed me gently and I had a whatever floats your boat mind-set and

plopped my hand against my arm, it felt silly and awkward at the same time

because in all honesty it was like feeling someone else because I had lost

touch with my self and had separated mind/body

It is hard to be present spiritually and emotionally when you

had been a prostitute for over 20 years. I had learned to disconnect and

try to be somewhere else and let my mind take advantage of…

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