Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

Spirit

Growing Up Dyfrent

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Growing up is hard enough, battling all the identity issues, acceptance, conformity, individuality, self love and self knowledge all separate from family.

I mean that’s when life starts right?

As soon as you leave the house and those that know you best and that you feel the most comfort with aren’t around, but I never had that consistency of comfort, so needless to say I had many identity issues.

I even grew up being ashamed of my blackness and the darkness of my blackness at times. So I used to deflect and make light skinned jokes with my lighter skinned black homies since being extra chocolate was the center of a lot of jokes, but now I have two light skinned bi-racial sons.

So they have to deal with all that plus find their fit within their own family and culture since their black side, aka me, is predominately nonexistent in their lives.

I don’t know if their mothers understand the significance of that internal struggle, I mean its not easy to understand unless you go through and kids don’t know how to voice every struggle.

They find the answers to those feelings later in life as they grow and mature. I can’t talk with both my sons right now, but I speak with my youngest, and I recently started singing that song, “I’m black and I’m proud” with him, because he lives in a predominately white small town, so I try to remind him of how beautiful he his and how different means special.

So it touched me when he said, “daddy,”

I said what,

he said,

“sing that song”

I said what song?

he said,

“I’m black and I’m proud!”

so we sing it together, say it loud,

I’m black and I’m proud,

say it loud!

I’m black and I’m proud,

baby baby baby,

baby baby baby,

oww!

watch me now!

Then I tell him to do his dance at the end, we also sing my fiance Halsey’s song, “without me”

Music not only heals and transcends communication, but gives identity.

I also learned to not call my sons or bi-racial people, mulatto’s.

It comes from the root word, “mule” because back in the day, it was said that black people and white people were a different species, so if they mated, they would be infertile, like a horse mating with a donkey made a mule, which was infertile, so the term mulatto’s came about…

the things you learn just to become a better parent end up also making you a better person.

We don’t only have kids to teach, but we have kids and become taught.

Being dyferent, makes up for all the difference in the world, and embracing your dyference, makes all the difference in the world!

I hope I succeed teaching my sons to be proud of theirs.

Aye God

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God, I feel like a little boy

the way you pick me up

I pray to you, my favorite ‘pick me up’

I stray from you, but never get enough

I run right back, I feel like I’m in love

I remember you rendered me physically weak

in the midst of your spirit that creep into and entered me, see

I could doubt you no longer

the depth of that break down, rose me up even stronger

can I talk to you about my lifestyle

I’m not the same when the lights out

life is dark and full of waves, and I know you are my lighthouse

but I see my illuminated shame when its bright out

yet you still love me, you never yell, you watch me and believe I will fix it

you have unshakable faith, I want that too but jaded by vision

I can’t see as deep as you can without your holy prescription

though I try, my pride is another sin I’ve committed

judgement is another, I digress, that job is only yours

I share my heart with so many afflictions, but its supposed to be only yours

I try to take back and side entrances, but you’re the only door

the only reason I humbly drop my knees on the floor

And I don’t have to beg, God you already know what I want

but always at the right time you provide just what I need

I want to get out of prison, but I know I’m a service here

I figured that out realizing that prison is a platform, and I can serve you here

God, finally knowing you kinda gets me giddy

realizing there’s much more to life, so excuse me, I gotta get busy!

Prison Life is Hard

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This prison life?

yea, it ain’t easy

believe me

this shit hard

walking dead bodies

on a big yard

with ignorant guards

aiming at my head

I find that

more people here

work to get you

to remember where you are

to act less than you are

but you can’t break down

what can’t be broken

word is bond

and everyday I build on

that at times

I may have to get

aggressive

just for you

to get the message

but without the best

listening tools

what more am I left with?

no one answered

the phone

no mail

no visit

I’m trying my ‘bestest’ shit,

sometimes I feel I barely exist

this prison life is hard

I tell you!

but I won’t show it

though

all I dream about

is an exit.

Limiting Beliefs

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There are so many disciplines, ancient wisdoms and proverbs, teachings, and religions that speak to how much more we can become and aspire to be,

the higher levels of internal manifestations…

Even in the bible, which I may butcher, I believe Jesus said,

“these works I do, you can do, and even greater, with just the faith of a mustard seed”.

So it all comes to what do you believe, and how much do you believe it?

Then, how influential, either to your detriment or benefit, are those beliefs?

Sometimes, with me at least, it starts with simply breaking things down and reconstructing the frame work or meaning of those beliefs and the words associated. How can we aspire to be so much more, when we reflect in the murky puddles of our low moments so much, and aren’t told that we are in fact, better than our BEST moments.

Who says that?

Who consistently implants in you that you can do even better?

No,

we for the most part get told that we need to do that over a long period of time, or made to remember how long ago it was that we did something great.

It seems that reinforcement stops after our childhood.

So lets challenge those beliefs, so you will not only succumb to the vision of being your worst moment, but also that you can aspire to be greater than your best moment, however that looks.

Sometimes we do things that we didn’t know that we had in us, whether good or bad, so isn’t it right to think that even at your best that there is even better that you may not realize?

What more is there to life if we stop learning, aspiring, dreaming, believing, capturing, and evolving?

Growth doesn’t stop.

It may at a physical level, but not an internal-

mental emotional and spiritual level.

You are better than your BEST,

and I’m beyond my worst.

Believe that!

Wine Philosophy

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If you have a person from prison coming home, I’m a say this once, you heard it here, get them into drinking Wine!

Its a lifestyle change, no, evolution so to speak, a WayOfLife-style Evolution.

See, its more than the pinky flip, glass tip then sip action, its the in between, that changes and evolves your lifestyles.

When you inhale the aura of the spirits refined in that glass, when you swirl around its essence, and take in its ambiance, becoming an extension of whats inside that glass, you too become fluid, smooth, crisp, peaceful, patient and exuberant.

See, sipping Wine is an attitude, it takes patience to make Wine, the greater the patience, the greater the Wine. W

e take on the energy of that Wine or enhance what was inside of ourselves at that moment. This is so crucial because when sipping Wine, you become conscious of your internal and external environment, you see the art and beauty of life and the world, you become dapper and a tad bit bougie.

No one who sips Wine, downspirals in behaviors, because Wine isn’t a drunkmans drink, its a refined person’s elixir.

No one woke up committing crimes after passing out from Wine, but if you drink liquor, you need to be cautious of the energy you have.

Its not about abstaining from liquor, but limiting it to a time a week, whereas Wine, oh you Sweet Sweet Wine, can be indulged responsibly, daily.

The biggest thing is, there’s a different crowd you are surrounded by when sipping Wine vs drinking Liquor.

Wine, is no criminals drink. Wine has a way of hypnotizing you, taking you from a painful reality while liquor has a way of enhancing that painful reality.

Liquor can have you maximizing that potential for that downward spiral with bad crowds.

Recidivism- make Wine, Your WayOfLife-Style!

A sipper, is never a drunk, and a drunk, should’ve sipped.

When we listen to our bodies, we pay attention to our surroundings, I mean you just cant make this stuff up!

I don’t usually drink but when I do, I sip.

Stay Refined my friends!

Selling Titles/Entitled Labels:

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How can I follow the concepts of what you call love, value, success, and acceptance when those titles have derived from a whole different world and side of life that I haven’t lived?

There is a complete different mindset and disconnect with the experiences that I have had.

How can I agree with what you deem success, when your success would measure monetary accomplishments, though when I see success, I think of survival?

How can I agree with what you deem acceptable when I have largely not been accepted, only to be replaced by the acceptance of gangs?

How can I agree with what you see as value, when I’ve been shown that it doesn’t look like me and that I am rarely able to achieve it unless entertaining, so I begin to see value in the things that you see as success, my value doesn’t expand beyond material gains?

How can I agree with what you call love, because love. don’t. live. here!

I can’t find my place in life if I continue to try fitting into your accepted labels that title me in ways that I am not accustomed to, these entitled labels that have enough room for a selected few that don’t look act and come from where I come from.

So don’t do me any favors by telling me all I have to do is this, say that, act like this, look like that, think like this, behave like this because it doesn’t fit me!

It doesn’t fit us!

How about you take those titles and labels, and bring them to this side of life, and tell me what they mean to you then, what they look and sound like?

Then maybe you’ll understand that to most people, that love, value, success, and acceptance takes being bi- or even trilingual, because we speak different languages.

So I’m going to make my own titles, and identify my own labels, so

love,

success,

and everything else

can make sense and become achievable to people like me too.

I entitle my own labels, in that, I find my own power becoming empowered by my own titles, not yours.

So my title? Is more than your labels!

Life just got that much easier, conforming was never for me anyway.