Happy Valentine's Day Indeed.

stuck with an arrow
love begins anew within
or is it a dream

Valentine's Day is traditionally one where you spend time with your significant other or potential love interest. At this moment I am lacking a significant other and viable love interest(s) are a miles away. Instead I take this time to write about my condition.

I'm not sure when I became infected, but it happened along this tumultuous journey I call life. More than likely it happened early in my life, perhaps when I attended Catholic school, for it was there that I learned to feel shame for doing things that the Church and the status quo frowned upon. Organized religion, particularly the Catholic church, are really good for using your own emotions to dupe you into feeling certain ways so that inevitably their own agendas are furthered and their end goals realised.

As I continued to be socialised in this free American society where all of your dreams can come true, I was taken from Catholic school and placed in a public institution just in time to begin sixth grade. As I grew up listening to colorful musical classics such as "Bitches Ain't Shit" and "Gin and Juice" I'm sure you can imagine the crowd that I began to roll with. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why anyone would suck a dick, piss comes out the dick. I was intrigued regardless. With the vivid imagination of a person of a sixth grade age, I couldn't piece it all together, but the parts I did have worked out involved a black man with a big dick standing on a chair with his hand above his head, while some trick ho sucks his dick. Of course with my current dick sucking degree, we all know this is just plain retarded.

Public school and my crew of hoods didn't last for very long. I got in trouble for stealing shit, tagging up the bathrooms, cutting class... all kinds of inner city things -- keep in mind, this was an Italian town in Rhode Island. The Catholic influence of shame and degradation still existed as I was required to go to catechism. I used our field trips to the religious shrine to make out with this girl in the back of the bus. It was my form of rebellion. I was all ready to get my groove on and run up in a bitch, but she wasn't having it. Rejection from the ladies began early on, but I had yet to become completely disillusioned with that aspect until much later in life. It was probably around this time that I discovered masturbation as well. A note to my younger readers who may just be starting out, don't rub your dick on shit too hard... especially sheets and carpets... the friction causes chaffing.

When Nana saw the downward spiral that her grandchildren had gotten caught up in, she began the process of selling her house and moved in with us. Construction of the new house began that fall and had wrapped up in the spring, just in time to begin seventh grade in our new town, a Republican stronghold where the only black kid was whiter than I and would eventually end up graduating to attend Harvard. Who knew?

There's this thing about upper class towns filled with young and budding Republican children, they don't like hood outsiders who think they're the shit. Conversely, there's something about hood outsiders who don't try to fit in because if they don't like me, then they can fuck themselves. As hindsight is 2o/2o, I can without a doubt say now that that was probably the wrong path to tread. My luck with the bitches didn't get any better. The outsider was "gay". At that time it was just being used as a term to keep me down and isolate me from the general prison population... I mean who wanted to be friends with the "gay" kid? It worked for most of middle school until I made friends with people older than me, one of which really was a homo.

If you're told something for an extended period of time, how long does it take before you actually believe it's true? Couple that with constant rejection from members of the opposite sex. That boy sitting next to you is lookin' pretty good now, isn't he? I mean it's amazing the power of suggestion. Needless to say, aside from a random kiss with a boy in my room in the eighth grade, I was not really being this homo monster from the hood that I was portrayed to be... but children today are evil malicious creatures. I can't help but sympathize for those gun toting nuts that go to schools in middle america and shoot all the cool kids.

While I wasn't active sexually, I was a learning machine, searching the internet from a text based BBS system. It was there, downloading cheesy GIF and JPG images of black and latino cock that really did it for me. I had none of it around me and I wanted more. The thirst grew and I continued on with my learning experience that is life.

Finally I came to that point where I could throw away the Catholic church -- Confirmation. I was confirmed with the family's Catholic priest as my sponsor. It was probably all for the after-party. You get money when your Confirmed and it closes a chapter in your life that's better off not mentioned again for some time. No longer would I be taught to feel shame for well thought out actions made by a responsible human being, ie: myself. If only it were that easy, you can't lose that feeling of shame -- a dirty feeling covering your skin like black oil covering an arctic seal.

After I graduated high school I went back to the town I came from. It was there I ran into all of my middle school friends who didn't forget me after all. They were no longer ghetto fabulous and had it all together. I remained in their company until it was time to go away to school. There was this one kid, Crotch of Fire, who I started to mess with, but that was promptly over when my mother walked in on us. As he was a Catholic too, I was quickly tossed aside because he was too embarrassed to be seen, at least for a few months. I don't know what he's up to today because he kinda became consumed with the lifestyle and dropped off my radar.

A lot happened to me in college. I lost my virginity to this girl I knew... who began to cry in the middle of it because she wasn't over her ex boyfriend and felt dirty because there was someone up inside her... yeah, I didn't bust that nite, so I don't even know if that counts. I had a gay roommate... actually I had two. The first one I wanted to live with because we got along. The second one was an albino fem-bot freshman I got stuck with who was thrown out of the room very quickly because of his lack of respect of a senior's things... and he drank all my alcohol. I went to frat parties and met cool people where I learned to drink beer and play drinking games. And I found out that part of my family had Hispanic origins.

It's the last part that had a significant impact on me. It was something that I was not aware of. After being raised Italian in an Italian town, there's not much else that you know. As I had a wide range of friends at college, I turned to them to understand the other part of my family that wasn't celebrated. In this cultural awakening I learned basic salsa, merengue and bachata dance steps, I learned to make pernil in my dorm room and I learned about Dominicans.

Wonderful creatures these Dominican things are. I've had a few in my life. People ask if you have any regrets -- I wouldn't say I have regrets -- but I definitely do have days that go by where I wish I could do things over again. Two of those instances involve Dominicans that I've done wrong in one way or another. Other days relate to moments where lapses in judgement have caused undesired effects. Life goes on and you can't get caught up in the struggle, if you do then you'll never get out alive.

Some would wonder if what we do from the day to day can even be considered living. Granted with walk and breathe, we have a blood flowing thru our veins, but there has to be more to life than eating, sleeping and working a trivial job that exists to pay off a student loan thats got you by the balls.

After I graduated college, life was supposed to be so different. I was going to make something of myself in Rhode Island. I had dreams, I had political connections and I knew where I was going. I mean it didn't hurt that I had connections at the largest newspaper in Rhode Island or that I ran for public office when I was 20. My dreams however were decimated when the family moved to the state of Florida. If you've seen Alien then you will undoubtedly remember the cryotubes they sleep in during the space voyages. Florida is that cryotube -- except time passes much slower and there is not a god damn thing you can do about it.

I wish I never came back from the Dominican Republic that fateful day in May for I would never had come here. I'm going to generalise now, but the people here, especially in the Homo Universe, are the worst people I have ever met in all of my twenty-four years. Obviously there are a few people in Florida that that does not apply to, hopefully you'll know who you are because I really didn't intend on pissing you off. You know that these people are assholes as much as I do.

I had my first boyfriend while living in Florida. It was long distance as he lived in the Bronx, but I really tried to make it work. The jealous faggots up there he hung out with weren't really keen on the idea of him dating someone so far away so they poisoned his mind with lies and doubt. I tried to fix it, but when I broke my leg it went down hill from there. All we did was fight and one thing led to another and my first boyfriend became my first ex-boy friend. We were together for four months and I'm happy for the times we shared. I look back and see wonderful moments but I also see moments that should have been different, but I think that comes with any relationship.

I had mentioned earlier in the post that I was infected, but I didn't really go into it. I have a condition called Jaded Cold Hearted Chulo Syndrome, JCHCS for short. It's what happens when all of the bright moments in life have been clouded by drama and trivialities. There's still no cure for JCHCS, relief only comes from trying to make the best of things while wishing that some higher (non Catholic) being comes to rid you of the affliction so that you can experience joy and love again.

On this, 14 Feb 06, I am reminded, as I am ever year, of my condition. For all of those that I've hurt along the way to finding that I have become that in which i despised, I apologise.

To the First Dominican, I'm sorry for breaking your heart...
To My Size Dominican, I'm sorry that our relationship stalled and we drifted apart...
To The King of Spain, I'm sorry that at times you feel that I've led you on, it was unintentional at any rate...
To Principio, I don't know what we are, but I'm glad you're still in my life...
To Chamaquito, you found me at the wrong time in my life, you're wonderful and I'm sure that you'll find that boy who will commit...
To Azteca, we've been thru it and we'll continue to go thru it, it's all love tho...

To those who've been hurt in the past and to those who'll be hurt in the future, I'm sorry. I never intend for things to end up the way they do, it's my uncanny ability to take a good thing and turn it to shit.

Perhaps one day I'll have that light and warmth back in my heart, until then we can only hope that the tears don't freeze to my face in this unusually cold Florida weather.