I'm Still Just Breathin...

"...I have been here many times before..."

In this short time span of me "runnin the ball" towards the touchdown I seek, I had a thought. One I'd like to crystalize for myself in this open diary of mine. 

I am acutely aware of my surrounding realties. I actually understand them better than most think I do. As I gauge reactions, I often laugh because 90% of the time...it's always the same. Men see me walkin and if they're by themselves, they'll either not engage in eye contact or they'll puff up their chests and imaginary lats like my trip to get a loaf of bread was really meant to be a "who's bigger" contest. If they're with their women, they'll either hold their hand tighter or draw them closer for a kiss. I actually heard a man on the train tell his woman in whispered scorn "don't look at him" while he squeezed her arm really tight. In those situations, I just move or turn away to assuage their insecurities. As for women...yeah now that's a write-up. Insecure women think I'm too much for them to talk to and they will either shyly stare, take pics on the sly or giggle with their girlfriends. Young chicks do "the follow" or get real bold with a "can I touch you?". Folks, I wish I was exaggerating. On the other side of this weirdness, women that seem sure of themselves due to their level of attractiveness immediately assume I'm a player that needs to be shunned or given the brushoff in the form of rudeness so that I may be "put in my place". As though this was their job at anything I may inquire about or try to help with as I would anyone else. If I ask what train stop we're on because I honestly can't see it, an eye roll puts me in my place every time by getting me to miss my stop...or something. As descriptive and flippant as I'm being, believe it or not, these things no longer bother me as they used to. These days it's about as annoying as a fly that won't stop buzzing in my ear. I just swat it away and live out my life as easy as breathin. Since breathing is a function one engages in without thought within our anatomical design...it's effortless.

You see, I can tell you that I "get it" and that "I understand it" but I don't embrace the man capable of causing such reactions like I used to because frankly...I got over myself a long f*ckin time ago. I just got used to those things "being there" and I learned how to ignore them...being myself without worrying about what people think. I feel like a spectacle sometimes but I'll be damned if I decide to lessen myself to avoid it because at the end of the day...that ain't on me. It's just humanity as it is. Something I've come to accept so I ain't changing a thing. Oh and just to be sure, this is on the everyday so in case anyone was wondering, I actually wear clothes on the train and when I walk around outside as well. It usually helps with the cold in the winter and mosquitoes in all the other seasons but this is not so much about me...

No folks, this is about overcoming stereotypical prejudice. A prejudice that doesn't deal in race or class and because of this...it easily stays hidden. Oh, but don't get me wrong here. I'm not writing to talk about how evil it is. I am here to immortalize my understanding of it as a human trait that you can't do anything about nor would I ask you to. To ask folks to stop being prejudice is to ask them to lower their defenses in a world that's filled with agenda driven assh*les. I wrote the above only to illustrate how it works in my case but if you're asking "what pray tell do we do about it?" I would say deal with it as a fact of humanity only time and understanding can change to either confirm or deny said prejudice. For myself, I've learned to embrace "it" as opposed to the subjective "man character" I'm pre-judged to be. I absolutely love it when external eyes prejudge me one way and get confused when they read my heart. Stereotypical prejudice dictates that a man that looks like me should not have such deep thought, emotion or intellectual discourse. Yeah, I get that I mess that up for most. I absolutely adore it when brave souls decide to meet me after they've read my works to prove I am "full of sh*t" only to come away scared after finding out..."nope, same man". I say scared only because people can deal with "full of sh*t". That's everywhere...but real? No...not this!! Not this "beautifully sensitive man"!! Right? Yes..the "fantasy" from which I gladly deem myself "fantastic" or as I love to say..."mantastic". Oh that's nice and all but that's only half my story. Folks, I'm just a man of intense passion that has lived long enough to know that pretending to be something I'm not is not only wrong...it's boring. A man that loves the grit and the glitter whose dualistic nature gleefully confuses the hell out of most. A man that loves the treasure found in loss and the power discovered in "the process" which can be unassumingly problematic for some he's close to. A man that knows more than he should at his age. So much so to even comically annoy himself. You see I can beautifully articulate it all but living this way or with "this" is not always easy. I'm way more than just the two dimensional stereotypical image the human mind naturally creates and you don't take home an image to talk to it. You don't take it out to eat or lay with it in bed unless that's your thing in which case you're just a freak. No folks...you take it home and hang it on a wall...expecting it to be that way forever. Expecting to admire it forever. Complex humans revolve and evolve. Their character remains and when they're "real"...they go through it and it ain't always pretty. Stereotypical prejudice only gives way to understanding and you can only truly "judge" what you truly come to understand.

It's a beautiful thing when you learn how and when to shut it off. Oh, I love imagining a woman to be a certain way knowing its just my prejudicial mind that has her hanging on the wall of my soul to perpetually admire. Maybe I don't want to meet her. Maybe I don't want to know that her feet smell like cornchips or that her farts smell like a hobo's after he's had some chili given to him by a good samaritan. Or maybe I do. Maybe I want the excitement of my prejudice being proven wrong. Maybe I want to know she's human. All these questions pass through me in seconds like a cool breeze one usually doesn't mentally entertain. Me? I'm annoying like that! So yeah...I do.

In all this I've learned to overcome it by acknowledging it. To understand that it's normal. People will be people and I will be me. They can either take the time to know me, I can take the time to reveal myself or we could just not give sh*t and keep it movin as it is. I usually opt for the third unless there's worth found enough to opt for the others. So in and out...I breathe my life as I live it while all around me remains at it will. So when I write poetry...I'm just breathin. When I send encouragement...I'm just breathin. When I give advice...I'm just breathin and yes, when I write as I just did. Without thought to what anyone might think...I'm still just breathin. Much love...I'm out...

~Moses Apollo