The Portal Diaries – Part 1

Sucker-punch

- The way I see it, I’ve got two choices: fight and fight.

A year ago today I stepped off a boat that I had boarded in New York City…Red Hook, Brooklyn, to be exact. Six days later, I stepped from that boat and back onto British soil: Southampton Port, Hampshire, England, to be exact.

When I was a younger person - a couple of times - before the ‘council’ got me, I’d entertained the thought of ending my life. Once, by pressing a blunt (three inch) potato-peeler into my left wrist till it left a white line, an impression of where the blade had been. And the other attempt was death by TAP WATER! – Yes, TAP WATER - I had read you could actually overdose on water, and so, lacking even the most basic of suicide accoutrements such as a revolver or rope, I decided to give-it-a-pop. Needless-to-say, the suicide attempts failed (although the last one did do a pretty good job of clearing-up my cystitis). It was lucky really, cos once I escaped childhood, I was given a ‘guardian’ by the ‘council’, a ‘guardian’ who was kind and sweet and honest and told me, in a round-about way, that I could achieve anything. Life wasn’t LIFE anymore…it was parole, it was a royal pardon, it was community service, it was a suspended sentence…it was FREEDOM! And it came just in time.

Three years of freedom later, I was deemed too old to have the ‘guardian’ and the ‘council’ took her from me. - I was 18 and she was Janet Baldwin. I can still remember her face and the way her eyes would soften as she looked at me. No one had looked at me that way for a long time. The thing with ‘the council’ is, they’re pretty good at giving with one hand and taking with the other, which is no bad thing…it’s just the way it is. So, they took Janet Baldwin away and gave me a flat. I decided for the first time (it would not be the last) to start over. I moved over 200 miles away to a flat in London, North-West London, an estate behind King Cross Station called Maiden Lane. It was during that first year on Maiden Lane – not knowing a soul, trying to keep my head down and my finances up, and in the absence of a ‘guardian’ of any kind – that I made my third foray into suicide. It was not as dramatic as the other attempts. In fact, it wasn’t really a suicide attempt at all. 

It’s hard to explain loneliness – it’s a bottomless pit. When it comes to poverty, illness and homelessness, we're lucky enough to be buffered by the state. But with loneliness: you could be on the number 29 Bus and not realize - until a little old lady, with kind eyes, brushes up against you as she sits down - that it’s been forever since you let someone touch you. 

I got off the bus, went home, closed the curtains, locked the doors, turned the lights out and said to myself: If you can’t get me out of this situation, let me die. Cos I'm getting out of this situation, one way or another, I’m getting out of this situation.

When you check-it, my suicides have all been pretty rubbish. No dagger, no gun, no note, no blood, no vial of cyanide, not even an ambulance…just a whole heap of H₂0 and a blunt potato-peeler…and then nothing, for nearly twenty years.

A year ago today, I stepped off that boat, into what has become one of the worst years of my life. And I’m up for the fight, I know all about the fight. However, something both odd and terrifying has gotten a hold on me. In my despair, I have experienced for the first time, the urge to disappear; not die, but to be exact: disappear.

To be continued…

Mission Statement

This story may be true. Then again, it may be untrue. I’m not sure it matters anymore. However, it is not a cry for help or a bleedin’ heart, it is just a story, a story to be enjoyed…like a snoop through someone else’s porn. This story is my way of finding humanity in the recollection of ‘I’, and salvation, in the promise of ‘you’. So please enjoy, comment, follow, and read on.


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