The Apparatus is Damaged (Ask me)

Most of the time,
I am a walking contradiction
The bits and pieces you most often see
are the easy parts.
But then there are the other parts,
they come in the post-accident whispers
between dream and memory,
The apparatus is damaged,
so ask me.
Ask me about my childhood
look up the word hero
see a picture of my mom.
Who taught high school English in the South Bronx
for longer than many of you have been alive,
and raised two kids
on a NYC public school teacher’s salary.
Ask me about my nice guy status.
My disconcerting habit of falling for girls, who prefer girls
but aren’t ready to commit to that yet
and for some reason need my help to get there.
Like the girl who I took on a three day out-of- town trip,
would not let me touch her the whole time we were there
then told me she masturbated while I was in the shower.
Not as a come on,
but because she thought that telling me that would be funny.
Yeah, I get the crazy ones too.
Ask me about my days in junior high school
3 years of pent up rage
manifested into
crying the first time I beat down someone who teased me.
That I sometimes let people have cheap shots on me
rather than fight them
because I lack an “off switch.”
Ask me what bullet wounds look like.
How heavy a friend’s gun can feel
when you hold the backpack that hides it.
Ask me about faith, God, and angels
What I know...
Is that there are things about me you would be better off not knowing.
A history of bits and pieces
and lost days
I’ve seen a lot done in a name of faith and God.
The way a face looks
after being pounded into pavement
even after the person stops breathing.
About the gurgling sound someone makes
when they are stabbed in the throat.
The way bloods squirts out of man’s thigh
after being hit with a pick-axe,
as he screams the words “answer me”
to his God, over and over again.
To stand there and do nothing because you were told:
“Don’t get in involved”
The way the “angels” can look a lot like you and me after they fall.
You can ask me where the stories end, and my life begins,
but after head smack blood on concrete
that line is a little fuzzy.
I may never know the truth about everything that has happened to me.
Maybe that’s why I can remember lines from other people’s poems
better than I can memorize my own
because internalizing these pieces of me
and exposing them to you without fear
is something I struggle with everyday.
So I say things like “beautiful”, “amazing,” and “the apparatus is damaged’
because “I love you,” “brain damage,” and “psychosis” are too terrifying
but I’m trying.
I’m trying to build something here
I don’t what it is yet.
I hope to God it still looks like me
when it’s finished.