"The Storm Inside"

I had got off of work in Owings Mills I'd been clean long enough to get this job and get my mind and spirit in sink, So I thought anyway! Over the last three days a urge or a itch has began to grow, I'm not ready for the pressure, my expectations aren't working out and I'm becoming disappointed. They say expectations lead to disappointment and disappointment to relapse and here we go!  I had been waiting for this job, I had been unemployed from Nov. 2011 until Jan. 2012! Yes, I fucked up my last job right before Christmas, for myself, little bit of friends and family! I actually had a legitimate beef compounded with my drug abuse this time that led to me quitting my downtown job so close to Christmas! I could have and I should have stuck it out but in the moment I was put between a rock and a hard place. So I receive a e-mail in January to begin a new job in Owings Mills! It was all described and represented as good and one of the best companies in these days and times to be with in this world of food service! It probably is, when you factor in the extensive benefits package this restaurant conglomerate offers, but the work vs reward & energy you had to expend wasn't worth it to me at least! People say, "You just can't be quitting jobs back to back with no jobs lined up!" I say, "fuck U and mind your own business!" "Maybe if one of y'all Mutha Fuckas ever helped me to get a decent job instead of always kicking me while I'm down maybe I'd feel a personal obligation to hold on to a job longer!" I'm trying to figure out this recovery process and I thought I was ready for a job, having the emotional endurance to make it this time but apparently I didn't and it does hurt. So believe me some asshole who's suppose to be family restating the obvious does not help! It just compounds the pain, disappoint and self pity your already slow roasting your feeling and self esteem to!

So I got off of work and in the back of my mind I guess I was done with the place I was working at! The money wasn't right and the management was in denial about how things were working out. They were in position where they could afford to be, they had so many new hires we were all expendable and they were still hiring! They must could smell that we smelled, it was all bullshit! So this particular night I got slammed just triple sat and four sat all night long, as then soon as the dinner rush died, I was cut(sent home) immediately! Gotta keep that pay roll down, after the tip out I walked with sixty dollars! I was burning inside with a long subway ride downtown to stew on it!
 I take the subway downtown and this is where it always gets complicated. The familiar surrounding of downtown where you made many bad decisions so many different nights before! Your their again and it's like a crossroads,will this be another stint of abuse or another step closer in a direction of turning your life around! You think of how the $60 could be the beginning of your own personal rags to riches story or just three nice twenties on the Crack Pipe!

 Darkness casts a large shadow of doubt and surrender inside of you but theirs a little crack of light beginning to illuminate optimistic potential for you to resist temptation one night longer! So the anxiety and pressure to use Crack that was wrap around you like a Boa Constrictor loosens its grip for a moment! A little more time goes buy as you wait for your bus to come to go home! Working people, Junkies and Homeless surround you as you wait out front the Baltimore Arena! Take it one moment at a time, you may make it on this bus and get one more day of sobriety under your belt! Though not only are you not in the moment, but your on a corner inside your own head & mind watching your own personal IMAX theatre of your recent past, present and future failures with drug abuse! The nights before smoking Crack and your high tab of all the money you've blown night after night it has all compounded so fast! The movie being shown is a alternate present of where you could be if you could have just maintained the strength to hold yourself together so many times before! An everything you had or opportunity you've thrown away over the last months from making bad choices in moments just like this. Not knowing another opportunity that would bring it all together for you, was right around the corner!

Now I'm in front of the Baltimore Arena with $60 dollars and I can't live with myself! God even tries to reach out to me, in the form of a person I don't even know who strikes up a friendly conversation out of nowhere! I indulge in it for a little while, the small talk takes me away for a little while! We talk about how Wild Baltimore has become and how fun, nice and polite the people of Baltimore use to be! We use to be known as "Charm City", now violent children and adults are murdering and attacking its residents and visitors, they affectionately have retitled Baltimore as "Harm City"! It's beginning to stick too! We are so far from charming these days, Monique a Academy Award Winning Actress as well as a Baltimore City Native should bring her show "VH1's Charm School" back to her home town! As I began to feel a little better and begin to develop a positive outlook on the rest of my night and probable future! Just then my bus turns the corner left onto Baltimore St. and I cut my conversation with my angel short! "Nice talking to you I'm going to get on this bus!" Sad to say, this bus that turned the corner first gets me back to my neighborhood but passes a familiar Crack strip on the way. So I say my take cares and nice talking with you's, I'm getting on it! Like I said it gets me close to my house about a 5 block walk from where it lets me off! I could wait a little longer for the Bus that lets me off in front of my street, but I don't want to wait for my bus anymore! It's taking to long, I'm feeling good, I know I can have the will power to not get off of the bus at the Crack Strip! I'll be able  hold on to this $60 tonight and maybe even treat myself to some carryout when I make it home......