“ALL ABOUT ME…” By: Mikel Calcagno I bury my head in the crook of my arm, my gaze in no particular direction, the floor, the ceiling, anywhere safe from eye contact. Any type of conversation with me is filled with silent drawn out moments of awkward contemplation. When I do speak, I go slowly, sound kind exhausted by the endeavor of choosing words. My voice is soft baritone sound with bad accidental stutters; my train of thought often derails as I work my way thru my sentences. Whenever I write, I write about my life thru dark rants and thru brutally confessional ballads. All I’m doing is being honest with myself. With whatever I write, I’ve always been candid and straightforward with what I had to say, holding nothing back. These words are from my traumatic childhood when I was abandoned by my parents, ignored by the people who said they cared about me, and alienated by my friends. My words support my feelings of self-loathing and deep-loneliness. The way I see it, I say every possible thing I could ever want to say in my poems/songs, whether it’s negative or not. I’m bearing my soul with unmitigated honesty; I call myself UGLY, PATHETIC, and REALLY MESSED UP. My words are very personal and real and it feels good to have someone listen/read to what I have to say when it ALWAYS seems like no one else would. I went thru MOST of my life feeling like what I say means NOTHING and you really can’t ignore something like that. So to have someone listen to what I have to say means the world to me even though I’m not much on words. My dad is KIND OF like me; laid back and isn’t really a people person. We don’t really have that much of a relationship and all I’ve known him to do was to yell at me. So we barely ever talk to each other. My relationship seems to be more strained with my father more than ever. There’s NEVER any feeling of a “tight-knit” family, we’re all spread apart only god knows where. All I’ve known my family to do is to FALL APART AND DIE. When my first family member died, it’s like my whole family died right along with her cuz all of us were disowned. When this happened, it left me with a lot of abandonment issues. My childhood is what I call, “a few bad people in the neighborhood.” There were always other kids who tended to pick me out. They didn’t just beat me up, it was a lot more that than that. I’m very reluctant about adding more, but it should be obvious now that it left deep scars. I’m a very sensitive kid. When I was younger, I was the kid, who if he got picked on, would run home crying. Even with my “friends” I be the brunt of their jokes. They liked the reactions they got out of me and I ALWAYS gave them a reaction… When my mom died on Christmas day, my soul practically died with her because she was the only one who truly understood what I go thru. I was never ashamed to tell her anything. I was ALWAYS there for her just as she was for me. The one thing I was afraid to do was to tell her how much I loved her. It felt like a knot in my throat and I couldn’t bring the words out. I was scared to say anything because I wanted to believe she’d get better. I didn’t want to say good-bye and it hurts so bad that I never got to. Just imagine waking up on Christmas to hear you mother is dead, something like that will definitely screw your life up and mine is basically falling APART. It affects me EVERYDAY cuz I choose not to forget… I CAN'T HELP BUT BE EMO SO GET OVER IT IF U DON'T LIKE IT... WANNA KNOW ANYMORE THAN JUST ASK... -L8R