Writing Exchange V 06-07

Writing Exchange VJanuary 25th, 2007
Journal #28
A three fold vision of the ageA symbol of the world todayExhibits on a theater stageHumanity in glass portrayed
A crowd of carbon copy clonesThough none of them appear the sameThey all display a common nameA brood of endless mindless drones
A pair of armies bitter foesSecretly together soughtTo instigate a clever plotWhile publicly exchanging blows
A wondrous array of lightsGave sanctuary to the soul‘Til tainted fiction took controlOf men enslaved by sound and sight
A three fold vision of the ageA symbol of the world todayExhibits on a theater stageHumanity in glass portrayed
Journal #29
I have been arrested plenty of times, but you know it isn’t really that fun to get arrested. I remember my first time getting locked up. They threw me in that tiny room and slammed the door on me. It really sucked because I had never been away from my brother. Our whole lives we had been together. We even slept in the same bed until we were twelve. I cried a lot, but I got over it. This last time I went in it was nothing, but still I didn’t want to be there.
Journal #30
Yesterdays experience was a great opportunity for me and my peers to voice our opinions about the Writing Exchange and the effects it has had on us as a school. Since we have started it, I personally believe it has been enlightening and a once in a lifetime experience. When we were being interviewed I felt like I had a voice.
Journal #31
I am always setting goals for myself. As always, I am wanting to lose weight but it never happens. I just like to eat. This is what I want to do and one of these days I will lose weight and will stay healthy. Besides that, I want to be known as a good kid and not as a gang member, but I guess it hasn’t happened that way. It seems to be what everyone notices about me, as if it’s on me.These days are getting very bad, having to listen to all of this **** going on is getting into my head and I just think that if I was in a way different place, I wouldn’t have to listen to people say the same things over and over. I try ignoring it, but they still talk all kinds of ****.
Journal #32
Having someone leave you is very hard. When my mom passed away it was hard. I started doing drugs and drinking and not really giving a **** what happens. I started doing things that changed my life and now I have to live with it. Everyday I think about what happened that day. Still, what happens, happens. Losing a family member sucks. It makes you do **** you didn’t think you would ever do.
Journal #33
All I know is that I do the best I can to be real all the time. I don’t really care about much: **** it. I’m an alcoholic. I love to drink. I’ve been drinking like an alcoholic since I was 14 when I ran away to live with my tweaker *** dad. I hitched from Chico there. I made it in one night and that’s a four hour drive. Anyways, I basically lived on my own. My dad was always gone. Nothing to do in that town but search for that bottle night and day. I was blazen weed like nothing because it grows everywhere up there. I started smoking weed at 9 and never stopped. Basically, I haven’t gone without smoking weed for more than a week in 5 years. When I started doing alcohol instead of weed, I knew I had a problem.
Journal #34
Well, to begin with, I believe that it was a brilliant idea to have the Chico ER come to our school. Knowing that our school is a “County-Court School,” I think it makes us look good as a group. The interviewer was really nice and very respectful. Allowing us to explain how this program is set up made me feel more confident in myself and others to make it work. The Writing Exchange has allowed us to voice our true thoughts, so let’s make it happen.
Journal #35
I believe that all of this gang bullshit is putting people who don’t bang in a tight place. Say if your friends or family are from one gang and one of your friends from back in elementary is in the opposing gang. If you talk to them then everybody will get all up tight as if I was in a gang. I’m not so it really shouldn’t matter who I talk to, especially if they have been my close friend since the 1st grade. Just because he is all wrapped up with the gang stuff doesn’t make him a whole new person. He is still the same. Other people might think he is different, but to me he is exactly the same.All these gangs have done to me is get me caught up and into some messes that take a while to clean up if you know what I mean. I am tired of being told that I can’t talk to one of my very close friends just because he isn’t in the same gang as my brothers. Before they all got wrapped up in gangs, my brothers and my friend’s brother used to kick it all the time. They were introduced to gangs and now they are all at each others throats.To this day my brothers are both still doing what they’ve been doing because they “have to be down.” RIGHT! Gangs have got both of my brothers in trouble, but they keep hanging and staying PROUD. They believe that they need to show that they have pride for where they are from.So now I don’t talk to my friend because I want to show my brothers I care and that I have pride too, but I have pride for myself. That is all. Nobody could ever turn me into my brothers. I will not be a gang member, but I have family pride and if it came down to it, I would have to back my brothers up.
Journal #36
This morning I woke up to my sick one year old nephew crying because he doesn’t feel good. So I got up to make him a bottle, but he didn’t want it. I got him back to sleep.I feel like relapsing because every night my cousin comes home high. I get so mad because I want to do meth so bad but I know I can’t. It also makes me mad that she hasn’t got kicked out yet. She always is complaining about how she can’t afford to pay rent. She is such a ***** to me.My mom doesn’t understand why I want to go do drugs or even why I want to run away. Sometimes I just want to say goodbye and end this so called life I call my own.
Journal #37
My dad passed away in November and it is really hard on all of us kids. My mom and I talk about him and my feelings and about his death. I am doing OK, but my brother is very angry all the time because I don’t think he is talking about it. He is not dealing with his feelings. I think he is holding it all in and that makes me sad to see him like that. I don’t know what I can do. Life is just so stressful right now.
Journal #38
I remember when I was 12. When I came home from school the cops were at my house trying to get my dad. My sister said my dad was hurting her. The cops took me and my siblings and kept us in a back room until they took my dad to jail. After that he got deported. To us it was a relief but it had its disadvantages as well. We moved to Chico and started a new life, looking for a new start.We all grew up to be aggressive and we started changing. We were in gangs, disrespecting our mom and my brothers were in and out of the hall. My dad came back from Mexico and we had thought he had changed until he left a message on our phone saying he would kill us when he found us. We reported it to the Chico Police Department and they found him. It was back to Mexico for him.When people ask if I have a dad, I say “No, he is dead,” but he isn’t. What he did to my life I will never forget. Still, after a while I have said to myself, “He is my dad and I will always love him because he gave me a life.”
Journal #39
I am so sick of trying to fit in: you know, be the part. I feel like I am always duck taping the support poles of my life because I can’t afford new ones. I feel like a backwards Cinderella. I dress nice for school every day. I look nice on the outs but I am so confused and mad. I am mad because I am so confused about being 18 soon. “Try to act like an adult,” is what they tell me. I listen but the more and more I do, I swear the real me is disappearing. I don’t know if that’s good or not, but I guess time will tell. Keep your head up and eyes open.
Journal #40
Day to day I wake up to face another one. It feels more like an obligation. As if I’m being forced to wake up. Although I am thankful for each and every day I am blessed with, I feel like I am cursed. In the mornings I know what I am to face and try to prepare myself as best I can. As a matter of fact if I make it to the end of the night I thank the lord for helping me survive, but at the same time I dread it because I know I’ll have to wake up in a few hours to face the same ****. It’s not that I fear what I’ve got to put up with, but I’m ******* tired of it. That is my life day to day.
Journal #41
I look at myself as someone unique and different from other people. That is what a lot of people tell me. I’ve made some pretty dumb decisions in my life so I guess I am dumb. I was with this guy and it turned out that he was a ******* jerk. He was my best friend at first. Then we went out and soon he started treating me like ****. I’d say I am alone on the inside, but not on the out. I look at life differently. I see how people act and what they do around me to see who they really are. I’m a loving and sometimes happy person, but I am emotional. I’d say my life is like a soap opera.
Journal #42
I see myself as one of a kind. I don’t know why. I can be nice when I want to be and I can be an ******* too. Sometimes I think I am bipolar because I can be mad and in a minute I can be happy. I don’t know why I am like that. Sometimes I feel like saying “**** everything,” and I don’t trust anybody in this world. I think I have two sides of me: a good side and a bad side. Sometimes I feel like being locked up because it keeps me away from everything and I don’t have to worry about anything.
Journal #43
My dad was hospitalized after he got in a car crash. He actually drove off the road and hit and ran over four walnut trees. He had lots of broken bones. He is in the ICU right now. His wife, my step mom, said he was trying to kill himself. He did the same things when he and my mom split up. It’s like he doesn’t care about his family.
Journal # 44
I’m livin with these crooked waysI’ma die in a misfortunate wayHope for better but expect shady daysOne on One watch them run awayThey come back in a crowd now listen to my gun playWatch these politicians and laws with their devilish waysThey give a **** what we sayIt’s a working scheme cause ourselves is who we slayThis life is like a mazeUsed to look for an out, ey,But there is none till my body is six feet deep where it lays**** it, live the rest of my days in a dazeBecause now I am dysfunctional if my mind isn’t in a hazeSo where you see, damn right I’m blazedNegativity is not what I wanted to portrayBut I had no choice cause I’m forced to live with these crooked ways.