All For More (Or Less)

It is no different to assume a loss than it is to lose in the physical sense. Either way, the mind sees what the mind sees; whereas my time has been confined to this small place and yet, there is a great big world outside and around me. The receptors in the mind do not know the difference between fantasy and reality, whereas I can dream and picture myself or imagine my losses, and whether my thoughts are reality or fiction, the results of my emotions are the same. I understand the games of chemistry in our minds, which is why I say it is no different to believe or to feel for a loss, even if we have lost nothing. Put simply, if I believe that I have lost, then I have lost. And if I believe that I can never win, then I will never win. This is the trick that the beast and the demons play. This is how they keep us guessing or trick us into using their resources, to keep us coming back and steal our freedoms with lies about a temporary redemption. “Man cannot be saved, lest he be born again.” I am not capable nor can I go back to the womb–therefore, my estimation tells me that I can never be saved and thus, I will only be damned or at best, stuck here in Purgatory. I see this place. I see everything. And, so? What else would I think or believe? There are sights and sounds that never go away. And smells too. There are tiny remnants that trigger the flood of memories and bring us back to a series of people, places, and things. Like say – Some of these triggers are a godsend, and others come from a much different or desperate direction. For example, there are those who understand the old junkie codes and despite their years away from the pincushion veins, the smell from a burning matchstick will remind them of the smell from cooking batches of heroin. There are smells which I remember from the hot months of August in Jamaica, Queens during the summer of 1989. There was the odor of the small bodega, which was a front because their real business was running numbers for the quick-fix gamblers that tried their luck. And of course, it would be remiss of me to forget to mention how this was two doors down from the methadone clinic and one door west of the chop-shop automotive place who handled their business in a less-than-legal practice. I remember these places. I remember the time too. I remember the sickness, which I was warned about. And I remember the feelings I had of being young, lost, and similarly, I felt the ongoing sadness and the shame because I was a teenage dropout. I was sick. I was too thin. My skin was green and i had too many sins under my belt for a young man at my age Other...

Preview: ~500 words