Fire-eater

My name is Danny and I turn 34 today. I still don’t know who I am exactly.
I’ve been gasping for air since birth, trying to eat solids since one
and attempting to talk through gaps in my teeth since two.
At three I learned we don’t hit things
and at four I learned to read.
I have been on the verge of tears since five.
I’ve been trying to keep from saying something hurtful or too honest since six
and was taught prejudice at seven
On a related note, I have been minding my appearance since eight.
I learned what was in store for me at nine
and at ten I began avoiding that.
When I was eleven I understood that feelings were not always right
and at twelve I found that I was always right, but even if I wasn’t that I could lie and still be okay.
At thirteen I learned to come,
and at fourteen I learned to take other people with me. It was a long time before I knew how to ask.
At fifteen I learned in driver’s ed to pretend I didn’t know how and at sixteen I learned I wouldn’t die due to traffic accidents or to drugs.
At seventeen I learned not to graduate high school and at eighteen I learned not to feel guilty about it anymore.
At nineteen I learned my parents and my sisters were people
and at twenty I learned I was too and we began to make fast friends, learning about it together.
At twenty-one, I learned to silently sit at my sister’s funeral
and then to sit not-so-silently in prison, after the emotional fallout.
What I learned there was about my white privilege.
At twenty-two I learned to file legal motions written on borrowed pages of commissary-yellow legal pads,
and I learned how dangerous anger turned inward could be when I saw an unsharpened pencil through someone’s neck.
At twenty-three I learned how sad I was—I wanted to escape, but I didn’t have to as the prison officials let me out, and at twenty-four I learned to cook meth. But not before I learned to inject it, of course.
By the time I was twenty-five I learned I could die after all. Many thanks for that one.
At twenty-six I learned I that fires mountains and whiskey were among my favorite things for now.
At twenty-seven I learned to love a dog. After not wanting to love anything including that dog for a long time this was a big deal.
At twenty-eight I learned that a battery of emotional embarrassments mental breakdowns and misunderstood heartbreaks doesn’t make me any “less than”
and at twenty-nine I learned being loved by the person you want doesn’t make you “more than”.
At thirty I learned again what my culture had expected, and demanded, this entire time when I wasn’t looking or caring.
At thirty-one I learned that several hundred dollars would never get me across the continent again, in relative comfort, with a cold beer between my legs. It was never going to be like this again. So I put the whiskey down so I could pay attention and develop a point of view.
At thirty-two I learned that my point of view is not all that important.
And at thirty-three, I learned that what I am composed of are things that I have found, picked up, discovered or been given along the way, and I learned that some people have to fight, every day, for everything that they have. I learned that sometimes, they had had to fight me, but I hadn’t even realized that there was a struggle taking place… .
I’ll keep you posted on the rest… . .