Strange Days

I hurt myself today, To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain, The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole, The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away, But I remember everything

I wear this crown of shit, Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts, I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time, The feelings disappear
You are someone else, I am still right here

What have I become? My sweetest friend
Everyone I know, Goes away in the end
You could have it all, My empire of dirt
I will let you down, I will make you hurt
If I could start again, A million miles away
I would keep myself, I would find a way

Johhny Cash

My brother called my sister this morning...she's still not sure how he got the number. The only reason he didn't call me is probably because I moved out of state. He's been out of jail about 3 months now, amazing he lasted this long.

I don't expect it to last. I'd say he might last another 2 or 3 months, but then I sound like a real bitch right?

I took custody of my brother when I was 17/18 years old. Not even a full grown up myself, I took responsibility for a child of 11 who had more problems then I would eve be able to fathom. He was adopted by my mother and stepfather as a small child. He had been one of 7 or 8 children as I remember being told, one day his mom snapped and locked all of the kids under the kitchen sink and left them there for over a week. When they found them 2 were dead and the others were near death.

When he came into our home he was a tiny bag of bones, stomach distended, eyes wide. He was a happy child but exhibited typical psychological characteristics. Rocking back and forth, repetitive behavior and banging his head on his pillow at night to get to sleep. My stepfather, fast with the belt and slow on patience beat him daily to get him to stop banging his head. Perhaps if he knew why he did it he wouldn't beat him for it, but if he knew he didn't care, stepdad was all about control. Or else.

They adopted my brother, but when my mom and stepdad split, the kids were thrown to the wind, and my brother wound up in foster care. He went from foster home to foster home and eventually I was told that they had nowhere for him to go and he was going to be sent to a youth facility in another state. I asked if I could take him and after tons of paperwork, meetings and classes, I became his para-foster parent.

It started out ok, and to this day I go over things in my mind, wondering and searching....was there somewhere where I went wrong, where I should have done something and didn't or vice versa? I've since grown to realize that, it couldn't have been my fault...even if I did fuck up, it wasn't for lack of trying. I put my all into him and he still turned out wrong, and I really don't think there was anything I could have done differently.

It started out with cutting school, hanging out with the wrong kids, dropping grades. It moved up a notch to threatening someone with a knife, trespassers, more cutting classes and dropping grades. Then it went to no school at all, stealing, and throwing firecrackers out of a 8th floor window onto a cop car causing him to draw his gun. I spent the night in jail behind that one.

The finale was when I was 9 months pregnant with Jessica, he pulled a gun on my boyfriend and got locked up. That wound up being a pattern and he didn't see light of day for more than a few months at a time for the next 5 years. Here's the poem I wrote after the 2nd time he got locked up. The last time he came out, 7 years ago, I told him he was going to come stay with me, get a job, I bought him clothes, all my friends gave him money, he had his own bedroom on the first floor of my house, no rent, free food....and after he had been at the job (I got him) for a couple of months, he could start pitching in for rent or whatever.

He never made it thru those few months, one night, high on angel dust, he walked up to some guys car, asked him for a ride home and when the guy said no, he shot him in the head.

He was caught that night walking home, and even though he had gotten rid of the gun and the jacket he was wearing, they still arrested him based on witness id's. The guy who he's shot was a major drug dealer in our city. He claims he was high and didn't know what he was doing, but I got word through someone else, that this guy had been trying to hit on his new girlfriend, and my brother wasn't happy about it. I was told that there was a hit put on my brother, and a possible hit on me and my daughter, I couldn't step outside for the next few months without anticipating a bullet. They tried to hit my brother while he was in county jail, but he managed to get away from them, and I had internal affairs relocate him, because the way it was set up, the guards had to be in on it.

While the guy he shot was in a coma, my brother took a plea bargain for aggravated assault, and got 7 years. The guy died a month later. My brother got out 3 months ago, and I don't know how to deal with him. I hate the fact that he put myself and my daughter in what could have been deadly circumstances, but I also ask myself, if this was my blood brother, would I give up on him? I would be mad at him, I would hate his ways and the things he did, but he would still be my brother.

He hasn't called me. I think he knows that I'm still angry, and I doubt he wants to hear much of what I would say. Maybe this time he'll get it right...maybe this time, he'll make a man of himself...maybe.