You see....

You see, I really never cared what people thought of me. I was always that renegade. I was always that outcast. I was always that one furrowing the soil, branding the moment. I’m not a follower. You might like me and then again, you might not. Either way, I could care less. I have lived my life the way I see fit: and that’s what’s wrong with most people these days. They have no purpose to drive them to the place they want to be. They don’t have the right set of eyes to see that high water mark where the wave broke.

Some people are just too scared to step outside and feel the sun upon their skin. Some people just want it all; money is their God. Me, I have no God. My God didn’t answer me when I was in jail.

The things that I have experienced in my life have led me here. This is the stopping point. Writing. Putting my thoughts on the blank white page. I feel a rush when it happens. My words will echo forever.

The thing is, I always had that wild streak in me. I loved danger and all the excitement it brought. I was a daredevil so to speak. I did this because I wanted to escape the pressure and control of my father. I figured that I couldn’t get hurt any worse than how he had hurt me. So I learned how to fight. I learned it so well that I used it to intimidate. I became my father. You see, I was never really scared of him. And to this day, I’m not. He used to come after me with whatever was near, whatever was at hand. And I always thought, the bigger the better right? So fuck it, he’s coming after you with a piece of garden hose or an adjustable wrench. Soon enough you just breathe in and say, “Let it happen. Get it over with”.  So when I “grew” up, I left home at the age of twenty and ever since then I used what my father taught me. I learned how to be an alcoholic. I learned how to fight. I learned how to be a drifter, a loner, a homeless person and ultimately a loser just like him.

So many girlfriends I had. So many “I love you’s”.  So many.  Too many to count.  Sometimes I forget all of their names. So many nights confessing myself and giving my innermost secrets to someone I barely know. Letting them see the realness inside me. Pealing back the layers and revealing hollow bones dedicated to her. The women I had were decadent. All of them loved me for who I was at the time. But they didn’t love me for the person I truly was. And that person had a true blue wild streak.

I never forgot who I was even though I was in the funnel of the fervor. I always kept my composure. Even when she said, after three years, “I don’t love you anymore”. She is the biggest fake I have ever come to know. I used to love her but she turned into a stone cold cunt. So after three years of dedication, I was kicked out of the house and left with, can you guess? Nothing. Wait, that’s not true. I had a broken heart and a penchant for getting fucked up. I ate out of dumpsters for a while. I wandered the streets of Lansdale.  I wandered through towns with no sense of time or nobility. I often thought about my brother, my sister. What they might be doing. I was like a land locked salmon.

I was in a graveyard one day when I finally found it out for all my life. I was destined to do something greater than snorting coke and drinking. That was before prison. So I began to write. And I will never stop. Never.  This is the way I will always be.

J Lansdale is a writer and supporter of the local Hardcore scene. He has written two novels. One of which is about to get published. He is a local legend.