Who I am

I’m not sure who I am anymore. Just a fading memory of the path I chose. I’m an agnostic living in the happier parts of hell. The weather here is hotter than fuck, but we manage. I live in a city that most of you who live outside la frontera wouldn’t know. It’s the gray area between the United States and Mexico. In the eyes of many down here, Mexico won’t deal with us because we’re not Mexicans and the US disowns us because we’re not like the rest of the country. We are a borderland. A melting pot of cultures bastardized by so many outside influences. Many of us dreams of escape. I dream nothing different.

I am home-grown, living in small cities like Edinburg and Donna. I am somewhat of a writer/poet. I’m still finding my voice in this world. I write what I know. About the stories that no one will dare touch. Most of them are true. Only five percent are completely fictional. Some day I hope to break free and get people to know what sort of people live in the cities below San Antonio. What sort of culture we are. Nothing outlandish. Nothing strange. We bleed just like you and we think just like you. We are a plague to this world. I’m just trying to do my best to spread it.

I read most of the time. Mostly nongenre fiction because I can never get hooked to things of one nature. I read anything from Hemingway to Burroughs to virtually unknown writers as well as those from the Valley.

I graduated from the University of Texas-Pan American, where I worked on my degree on English.  My minor was philosophy and what I’ll do with either is beyond my knowledge. I plan to get my Masters as well, an MFA in Creative Writing, but the future is bleak. While all that I would like to be is a writer, I have to think realistically and find real work.

All my life I’ve dealt with the same demon, never knowing that it would attack me physically during my sophomore year of college. It was there at the end of my high school career as the final year was a blow to my mental states. Depression in the form of anxiety plagued me for years. Finally when I was twenty-one, I couldn’t go out that much. No matter how much I liked spending time with my friends, the thought of being outside scared the shit out of me. At stores, I’d get sick and nervous. My blood would flush, leaving me pale and cold-sweating. It was a struggle to get out of bed, to find a meaning of life. I stared in the mirror, no longer recognizing who I was. I made it a habit that I never look into another mirror again, only for brushing my hair, and even that because I normally wear a hat.

Along with the depression, I’ve been plagued with all-too-real dreams, nightmares really. Most of them are the same in structure. Demons spawn out from the floor, take hold of my limbs as they tilt my bed toward the floor or wall, whichever has opened up, and let my body slide down to the deepest parts of, what I think is, Hell. It’s really the mouth of a large worm with endless rolls of sharp, fang like teeth with the souls of the damned reaching out and pulling at my flesh and hair. I heard their voices calling to me, and somewhere down below is the sound of a child laughing, or crying. S/he is always calling to me.

Who am I really? In short, I am a writer. An artist of the profane. I love music just as much as I love writing and reading literature. I love my life and where it has taken me so far. I love the fact that I will never be as normal as you, or anyone for that matter (even though it keeps me from doing all the normal stuff like driving and going out to places). I don’t believe in writer’s block, but am affected by the midnight disease. I love all things and hate them just the same. I am neurotic, selfish and insane. I’m agnostic. I’m the sort of person you’d probably stay away from if I looked the way I act. I can be quite the asshole at times.

When I was a kid, I thought I was Christ.