I didn’t write this for pity.
Fuck no, Joe.
I wrote it because I survived something that nearly killed me — and someone out there is dancing on the same goddamn edge, hangin’ ten on the worst wave of their life feeling like they’re aboutta wipe out.
I’m as serious as I am sober. I want you to hear this — not from a shrink or a YouTube guru, but from your old pal Marshall. One stubborn bastard who’s been face down in the gravel, screaming (I mean SCREAMING) while the world just spun on.
Yeah — I’ve had suicidal thoughts. Not once. Not twice. Many. Goddamn. Times…And not just the “what’s it all for?” kind. I’m talking the real McCoy, partner. Full-blown demon-bargaining, naming every devil in the book and staring ’em all down.
I said: Fuck you. You tell me to jump — I stay put just to spite you.
The darkness shifts. Sometimes it creeps like slow poison, other times it smacks you like a George Foreman haymaker. Sometimes it’s numbness. Bonanza’s on but I can’t look Ben Cartwright in the eye and tell him I can’t do it today. Sometimes it’s walking the Bowery of my mind, getting jumped by the leather-jacketed “punk of life” with a mental switchblade.
You get cut. You stitch up. You learn the route.
I drank. I drugged. I fought with my fists instead of with my mind. I got my ass kicked. I spiraled. And yeah, sometimes I wanted to disappear. But I didn’t. Because fuck that.
Here’s the big middle finger to the voice that told me I was worthless: I’m still here you sicko! Not just breathing — building. Raging for my life, not against it. Taking care of my body.
And for the first time in a long time — I’m proud. There was no “aha!” moment. No magic pill. It was, and is, a choice. To stay. To ask for help. To say: “Who do I want to be?” — and claw my way toward that man.
And guess what, buck? Things. Fucking. Changed. The path wasn’t clean. It bled. But it worked.
To be abundantly clear, my path looked like:
You don’t need to save the world today. Just don’t disappear from it, and if you’re holding something — a bottle, a weapon, a thought — ready to ruin you… do what I did.
Say: “Get fucked, you mongrel son of a bitch” to the demons. Then turn around and walk towards the light. One step at a time. You can lean on me. I mean that. I’m here. I stayed. And if you can’t believe in yourself today — believe in me, believing in you. That flame burns for you. Like Blue Öyster Cult, “I’m burnin’ I’m burnin’ I’m burnin’ for youuuuuuu.” I mean it.
This is Marshall Harris Myerson.
Still here. Still weird. Still proud. Still swinging…For the fences like Sammy fucking Sosa in this ballgame called life.