2

Stopping by Sly’s house shortly after June 1^st, I could see him for who he really was.
I was twenty one.
During my adolescence my parents would drop me off at his house for weeks at a time, claiming some untrue story of my troublesomeness.
Sly always believed them, even when I got the guts to insist the truth to him.
He claimed to be the acting youth pastor of our church, when really he wasn’t a pastor, just a regular guy who worked in tile.
He was brown-skinned and married to a Caucasian woman, and for some reason this had an effect on both of them as far as dealing with the outside world. It forced them to be proud of it, asserting their pride, instead of just allowing their skin difference to be unspoken and normal. The world back then didn’t let things like that be unspoken and normal.
He always tried to be cool, asserting his coolness, because the white men he stayed surrounded by treated him that way -- because he was black. The nineties were full of that.
One day another guy was there and they were talking about what women liked, how women liked you to be aggressive sometimes, to yell a little and have a temperment.
I thought to myself: Or you could stop trying to act like a man and actually be one instead. All that stuff you’re doing on purpose would be assumed, incidental.
After June 1^st I could feel the truth strongly, I knew what I knew, felt what I felt, and what was true was known to be true because I could feel it so strongly. I could see right through Sly.
I remember what it was like to feel naturally. The feelings unencumbered, untainted by what the House put into my head. All I’ve wanted is that back.
Until I could get it back I had to be Tough and insist to myself the truth, despite my feeling the opposite. When I do feel, I feel things that turn out to be unreliable. Especially the distrust, which never shows up as distrust but is always cleverly disguised as something else.
That night, when I ran my hands along my legs and arms, and thought to myself: You have your own, I could feel the truth again. I could feel that Value down to my fingertips. I could feel that the truth was true.
The Value is the power.
The power of Wordless Knowing.

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It’s been several days and I still feel the Value down to my fingertips, I can feel the beat as the blood flows. Tolle told me to feel this way but I couldn’t at the time.
Every man has his own power. It’s still the universal masculinity but it shows up as one, same as every human being is all stories but it shows up in their life as one.
It shows up in my sleep as I have dreams about sex.
It separates the guys who seek scenarios and trysts in order to receive that power and the guys who have trysts due to their power. One seeks his power, the other has found it within himself, can feel it down to his fingertips.
Thing about the Value is that it always requires moving forward. You have to drop the last moment forever in order to live the next one with the Value still intact.
That’s what Abuse takes from the individual -- their power.
That’s what sexual abuse takes from the child -- what would’ve become their sexual power.

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It was like June 1^st happened because a reset button had been pushed.
Instead of seeing my life through the child’s eyes -- because I had lived it as a child. I suddenly felt my twenty one years and saw my life through the adult’s eyes.
The trauma was gone in an instant, and I could feel my Value down to my fingertips. The memories were effortless, and for the first time I could remember being less than twelve years old.
I still feel the shame and weakness of that, and blame myself, and don’t seem to want to let it go until I’m sure I could face the same eighteen years of Abuse and still hold on. In a way I’ve been reliving it since June 1^st. I’ve been learning how to remember it and still hold on.
Feeling my Value is how I lost all that weight. I couldn’t help but take care of myself, it was the most natural thing in the world.
June 1^st added up to my seeing myself differently. Really that sentence should read: it added up to my seeing myself differently then they did.
If you can see it, you can be it. I think that’s a quote from one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches.
I think the feeling of Value and truth didn’t last because I wasn’t aware of what was going on subconsciously: the broken record.
Or maybe it had to do with how I still hadn’t remembered everything. There would be four flashbacks that would prove this to me.

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