The last time I saw David, I told him not to die. He’s gone now because you guessed it, he got shot from being involved in gang life. That’s why this is so important to me, I’m losing friends, I’m losing family members by the dozens. Some to death, others to jail, others to institutions, and some are going to recovery, but recovery can’t protect you from guys who don’t care that you’re out.
The thing is there used to be a rule – out meant out and when you were out you were done. No friends, no family, no protection, but at least you were alive. I don’t know if David was out but I know I am, and everything in me is screaming to go back.
To fight the urge to go back I have Loud Mouth Brown Girl, to fight the urge to return to the days of old and go find out who killed my friend, I have my family, I have my Ohana, my Krisya. I have music to keep me sane, and writing to keep me focused.
But my friends are gone. Dale and David are gone, and they aren’t coming back, different reasons sure, but nothing changes the fact that there are two more funerals I can’t go to. I wasn’t family, I was fam, and that’s different.
I talked about this in That’s A Curtain Call, these people don’t matter to the average person, but they matter to me. Dale wasn’t a gangster, he just died – he just…fell over one day and didn’t get back up again. David got shot, but you hear I lose two friends and you automatically expect that both are gangsters, – fair I talk a lot about this topic.
The thing is, you don’t know until I explain, and not everyone wants to hear an explanation, they think “you used to…” and think that means that just because I don’t talk to my past, this means that my past isn’t talking to me.
I hear it every day, I drive by a recovery house quite often, and the faces are always changing but the result is not. People are reaching out for help, and some of them are doing the work and getting it, others are choosing or falling down, other paths.
The only way that gang life ends is in death. That’s it. I mean that’s the way that life ends, we all die, at some point, and even if you could pinpoint death and put it on hold for a while, eventually your life as you know it is going to change, and everything about your world is over.
Once the world says you’re “dead” that’s it. There’s no coming back, right? But what if they could? What would they say? They’d say put down the fucking guns you idiot, it doesn’t have to be that kind of war anymore.
If LC were here he’d tell me to reference Grease Lightening, if JT were here he’d tell me to look at Michael Jackson’s Bad video, if Shawn Bustin were here he’d say pass the weed.
But I’m not allowed to talk to any of these people anymore, because the best way for us to love each other, is to stay away so that no one thinks that we’re still back in the old days, on the old path, so no one gets afraid or jealous and takes a shot while we’re taking a moment to laugh.
I can’t see my family anymore because it’s safer that way. MY fam is gone. Yours doesn’t have to be.
Sending all our love,
Wolf Pack – Original Leadership Jason, Nicole, And The “Others.”
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 