Nature 82

This is a story about one of the many things that has contributed to the current state of affairs in Baltimore City, from the perspective of the perpetrator.

Nature 82

By John Dorsey

I will not choke you to death. I will choke you, inevitably, but not to death. Because I do not want to see you dead, quite the opposite, but I will not, when the time comes, be able to help myself. It is not personal. It is my nature. At the moment. Of the choking.

There are things that have set me on this course, that you cannot fully understand now. That you certainly will not understand, when I am hurting you. I would apologize for it, but you would not hear it, what with the choking.

It is not so much that I have been hurt, personally, and so consequently will hurt you. It is that the world has been hurt/is hurting. And I am part of the world hurt/hurting. It is cyclical. It is natural.

You will not understand when the choking begins. This, or any other thing that really matters.

It is not personal. It will be intimate though. Only you and me and the moment when your brain….

And it is starving…

It is not your fault. Do not blame yourself. It is not my fault either. You did not ask your parents to bring you into the world here, where you are so… accessible to a thing like me. They could not have know what I would do to you. If they had known they may have tried avoiding…

One can hope, at the least. Sometimes, there are so few options at this level.

If they did know though, then what? They may have tried but I am not easily avoided in places like this, places where people like you inevitably end up… and are stuck.

They may have had no choice. Even if they knew, because, to try and avoid me would be costly…. And they may not have had the means, or the access to afford to avoid me… choking you….

But if they knew, it could help them make sense of some things. Of the why. Why you are not the same. Why you act differently, do not meet their eyes like you used to, why you lash out, are afraid of the dark, of being alone, of yourself. Why you can’t express it.

Why you can’t express your feelings. Or grasp your identity.

If they knew, they could… meet you halfway. It is harder to live in love than to love one who has gone, one who has been choked to the point of… being here no more. It is harder to live in love with one who has been abused and left to linger. To fester. To rot. To contage.

But if they knew, knew why, there could be more patience, more understanding, more mercy…

But they can’t know. Not now. Far too much going on there. Far too busy providing for you. Far too busy away from you. They have to leave you alone with me. They have to go. Where else can you go?

I know, what will happen, when we are close. But I cannot help it. It is not maliciousness on my part. Only nature.

It is maliciousness and depravity when it is exploited for personal gain. That is not my part in this.

That is the part of others.

Because, there are others that do know, what will happen when we are so close and so long together. And they know, what will happen after. The scars, on the inside that you will carry, the signs on the outside. They know, and they long for it. They drool for it. They know what kind of person it will turn you into.

No one, can be touched like this and not be changed. I am sorry for it. I do regret it. It is not my intension, but it is my nature now, since I have been hurt.

After I have had you, you will become insecure, introverted, distracted. Always distracted. You will fall away. You will be changed. You will become violent, aggressive, dangerous, because you will not understand the world.

You will always have me on your brain. You will no longer be able to function properly. You will fall behind. You will become a problem.

Now, if they knew, if your parents, your family, those who loved and cared about you knew, what I had done to you, they could have been a voice for you, an advocate, an intercessor. But you can’t tell them. You move further away.

And then, others come. I have hurt/did hurt/am hurting/will be hurting you. [We] will share it with others. [It] is [our] nature, since [we] have been hurt.

Aggression will be met with aggression. Hurt with hurt. Danger with force. When it happens they won’t be able to blame me, because, they won’t know. And even if they do know, I did not do the thing that must be addressed. You did. Your acting out.

There is a place for people like you. Two places actually.

Cage, or coffin. They will put you in one of them. And you will not be able to stop it, to help it, to help yourself, because of what I’ve done to you.

It is not your fault, or mine. But this is no accident. There are those who know, and those who set us up, you and I, alone and close together. They drool for me to have you and to choke you, but not to kill you or destroy you. They want that for others.

They are broken and depraved, and we are just victims, the both of us, the rest of us, of circumstance, of nature, of geography, of entropy, of hatred and pride and selfishness. Of the trap. Of levels upon levels upon levels of failure and injustice, intentional and indiscriminate.

The very rocks cry out. The very thing that, by nature, turns you into what their depraved minds need you to be, cries out against. Nature. Broken, fallen, hungry, starving nature. Depravity.

I am the fall incarnate, manipulated and maneuvered to break a community, your community. I am a building block of your oppression. I am always watching. I am in the very walls. I am the deluge and the fallout.

When exposed, I am the radiating repetition of Cain and Abel, of “Am I my brother’s keeper” and blood wailing from soil, of hemes red, iron and oxygen crying from adamah red earth. Not only that, but also, the warning “Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” And “What hast thou done?” And “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”

When I am exposed I am the knowledge of good and evil, I am the acknowledgment of the brokenness, and the hope of the “way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

I am the acknowledgement of shortcuts taken, and of the expenses for wholeness.

Now exposed, I am the recognition that his propensity to their definition of criminality is not due to a deficiency of character but a deficiency of oxygen to the brain, an outward expression of the inward change of brain matter choking; suffocation, traffic jam, bumper to bumper lead pile up on the inter neuro synaptic superhighway of the brain.

Now exposed I am the crisis of choice. The drama. The call to mercy, the call to rebuild.

I am not an excuse. I am a call to action. An invitation to the work of wholeness. Now exposed, I am the truth that cut corners cut deep, and the hope that cycles can be broken.

If, and only if, we can all agree that we do not want to see you in one of two aforementioned places.

Can we all agree on that?

A call to humanity to be more than just base nature.

Links to articles about lead paint can be found here (I recommend The Baltimore Sun and The Atlantic articles)

I know there are songs to go along with this but I can’t recall them at the moment.