Scenes from My Life: A Memoir

by Michael K. Williams

what else are we here for if not each other?

Heavier than the blood in our veins are the stories we inherit about ourselves.

You can’t be something else if you can’t even picture it.

What most people don’t realize about addiction is that it is in you before the drug even shows up.

“Remember what they say: those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.”

We have normalized the abnormal so completely we don’t even realize it.

I’ve seen the evolution of people, how it happens. No one wakes up and says they want to be a gangbanger or a drug dealer—that’s the last stop on the train. That’s what you do when you’re drowning and reaching out for something—anything—to survive. By the time they get to the corner, there has been a series of things that led to that decision. No one wakes up at the top of the mountain and decides they would like it better down there on the bottom. They end up there out of desperation. We don’t spend enough time examining the wider picture, the steps that get them there. We don’t tell that part of the story. And to tell half the story is to spread a lie.

When injustices and mistakes compound and compound and compound on the same group of people, they start to look a lot less like mistakes. They look like a plan.