I am alone.
None of the Newsies had families. Not one. They were orphans--street rats-- delinquents. They were best friends with a cause. It was almost comical, this unspoken mandate. /You must be utterly abandoned to join our click/. But click was hardly a word for it. A group of survivors maybe; a union in more ways than one. They were there for each other, because it was all they could do.
There was something wrong with me. Maybe I'm just a loner--but I always felt excluded in this "brotherly" masquerade. From the time I arrived to the time I left. Left the Newsies. Me, the almighty leader of these boys. Young yet smart. Tough and brilliant. Did I scare them off? Did the face of adolescent power drive them to their knees?
My life is a façade, even now. It just started in the literal gutters.
No one could relate back then. Now---a grown, established man, I'm not sure that my own wife really understands. I lived the tough way on purpose-- feeding on respect and street smarts. A different girl each night, even in my earliest days of notorious leadership. I was so fragile on the inside, seeking a way out through self mutilation. Don't get me wrong--I wasn't a cutter. No, the boys would have noticed that. I drank just enough to stay sharp but buzzed. I took opium from the Chinese immigrants and learned the best poker face ever seen in Brooklyn. Mutilation through deeper destruction is the fancy wording for it. I was tearing up my feelings.
Then I met her. She was beautiful; almost eathriel. It was like someone reached into this blackened pit of a body and pulled out my heart. I gave it to her completely. She knew it too--an intuitive figure amongst the little educated Newsies. Knew the love. Felt the love? I could have only hoped then. I was never a shy one around girls, but this was no ordinary girl. She had me quiet like a bloody idiot without even trying--without even looking my direction. For a while I had no other drug, no substitute booze. She was my life and my obsession. Perhaps we were above the world. Either that, or we were so far under that there was no room to observe our graves. It was a parrallel universe-it was utter bliss.
They named her Brooklyn after my first love. They named her after the neighborhood that I held dearest. I was stupid then. I never thought about losing it. And I did. I lost it all.
Brooklyn
Death. The word is my life, my abstract, my home. There is so much, and it is so near. Do the powers that be--the real, mean, spiritual ones, not leaders of a foul group of straglers--do they laugh at this? Do they think that I'm funny? I bet it's a huge inside joke up there. "/Spot Conlon, given everything he might need to lead a lowerclass life happily. And then- you'll never believe this one, Jesus-we took it all away. Poof! With the flick of our Goddamned fingers; we killed his soulmate, overran his home, and did away with the closest things he had to friends./" Yeah, great joke isn't it? Isn't it? Well, let me reassure you--whoever is out there--Satan just won himself another soul.
Now I'm a breathing, life-like specimen of an empty palette. The years just washed it all away. The pain--the joy--everything. And I'm not strong enough. I want to be back, I want to move on. An eternity of blank, whitewashed, walls.
Go, Spot, Go. write a note. short and to the point. Tell us about it. See if we cry for you.
I don't think I put "I love you". I don't really care. I never thought about losing it. I did. I lost it all.
/Brooklyn/
None of the Newsies had families. Not one. They were orphans--street rats-- delinquents. They were best friends with a cause. It was almost comical, this unspoken mandate. /You must be utterly abandoned to join our click/. But click was hardly a word for it. A group of survivors maybe; a union in more ways than one. They were there for each other, because it was all they could do.
There was something wrong with me. Maybe I'm just a loner--but I always felt excluded in this "brotherly" masquerade. From the time I arrived to the time I left. Left the Newsies. Me, the almighty leader of these boys. Young yet smart. Tough and brilliant. Did I scare them off? Did the face of adolescent power drive them to their knees?
My life is a façade, even now. It just started in the literal gutters.
No one could relate back then. Now---a grown, established man, I'm not sure that my own wife really understands. I lived the tough way on purpose-- feeding on respect and street smarts. A different girl each night, even in my earliest days of notorious leadership. I was so fragile on the inside, seeking a way out through self mutilation. Don't get me wrong--I wasn't a cutter. No, the boys would have noticed that. I drank just enough to stay sharp but buzzed. I took opium from the Chinese immigrants and learned the best poker face ever seen in Brooklyn. Mutilation through deeper destruction is the fancy wording for it. I was tearing up my feelings.
Then I met her. She was beautiful; almost eathriel. It was like someone reached into this blackened pit of a body and pulled out my heart. I gave it to her completely. She knew it too--an intuitive figure amongst the little educated Newsies. Knew the love. Felt the love? I could have only hoped then. I was never a shy one around girls, but this was no ordinary girl. She had me quiet like a bloody idiot without even trying--without even looking my direction. For a while I had no other drug, no substitute booze. She was my life and my obsession. Perhaps we were above the world. Either that, or we were so far under that there was no room to observe our graves. It was a parrallel universe-it was utter bliss.
They named her Brooklyn after my first love. They named her after the neighborhood that I held dearest. I was stupid then. I never thought about losing it. And I did. I lost it all.
Brooklyn
Death. The word is my life, my abstract, my home. There is so much, and it is so near. Do the powers that be--the real, mean, spiritual ones, not leaders of a foul group of straglers--do they laugh at this? Do they think that I'm funny? I bet it's a huge inside joke up there. "/Spot Conlon, given everything he might need to lead a lowerclass life happily. And then- you'll never believe this one, Jesus-we took it all away. Poof! With the flick of our Goddamned fingers; we killed his soulmate, overran his home, and did away with the closest things he had to friends./" Yeah, great joke isn't it? Isn't it? Well, let me reassure you--whoever is out there--Satan just won himself another soul.
Now I'm a breathing, life-like specimen of an empty palette. The years just washed it all away. The pain--the joy--everything. And I'm not strong enough. I want to be back, I want to move on. An eternity of blank, whitewashed, walls.
Go, Spot, Go. write a note. short and to the point. Tell us about it. See if we cry for you.
I don't think I put "I love you". I don't really care. I never thought about losing it. I did. I lost it all.
/Brooklyn/
