Prompt Word: Gaurded

I would suppose that after everything that has happened since 2005 until now, I could say I have a right to be “guarded.” Only I find such emotions to come about when I happen to see those interacting in ways, that may never be for me.

 There are many who must accept my apologies for my rudeness. Staring is not a common habit of mine, but to see a mother playing with her child and never ever having the chance myself with my own. Or for people to ask me, “Are you ever going to settle down and find a wife?” Even after I’ve explained my past and present pain. So yes, many will have to excuse me if I seem guarded.

  Would not such an oppressive turn of events affect anyone similarly? If they were denied employment in public places, in government affairs, in schools, the list that deter a man such as I from achieving security in this life is lengthens and even this passage is guarded, for I have not told you all I am up against.

 Partially because I doubt you’d believe it to be important. Especially if you find me to be “guarded,” after thirteen years of unemployment, (I am 30.) or if I was employed, it was “work-for-hire.” That is normal right? I can fit that one a resume to Human Resources and they will put me on the top of the list for that dream job I went to University for?

A “wife,” will be willing to put up with a man one denied resume away from loosing his tranquility? I have come to find putting someone in a position to love, marry, and commit to a man who not only lost his daughter, but can’t find his son, who lives with a mother known for taking cabaret nudes of herself like she is Judy Garland and robbing everyone she knows for $30.00 dollars, (In the guise of peddling calendars for video game players, or what not.) I am the same guy that has a mother who may be in jail or prison in South America because of a serious case of child neglect.

 I escape homelessness, abject poverty, living in a tent for three years, and everyday due to being at the mercy of benevolence to others, I am one step from returning to that life. The friends I did make in that time may still be “Street Rats,” looking to “Fight the Man,” by asking everyone they know for a dollar and to feed them.

Would you not be guarded, if you were imprisoned for three years and threatened with castration if there be any reason to be found that you are not complaint to ever letter of the law? The very same laws determined to keep a man scratching for more, and unemployed?!

The scars of my life are branded upon my cheeks, both cheeks to be exact and those closest to me are upset because I am guarded.

That was not a question but a statement because daily I build my defenses. I refuse to believe the lie that in some magical sense If I continue to allow abusers to abuse that one day they will see my reflexive stance and not want to test how far I am willing to go to obtain the very same  moment of peace and security that would allow for one not to seem defensive every time a critical suggestion is given, an observation made. A judgement passed.