Codependant Shadow

I just realized today that I fear losing my shadow. Im still trying to fit in when it’s so clear that I stand out. I was meant to stand out and I always knew I was different. I think I want to blend in when it’s time to stand out but when I was blending in I yearned to be seen. Being seen has never been a familiar space for me, it was never something I was granted. I always had to create a situation to be seen, heard, in a loving or friendly way. I yell because I want somebody to hear me almost to the point of it being a default tone. “Why is he yelling” because he wants to be heard. “He’s so funny” because he wants to be seen. Ive collected data all my life, people dont understand that while i’m talking i’m observing, eyes, forehead, hands & arms. Teeth have always been the goal. Teeth are the most important social cue to me. I want to see people smile, I love to make people laugh uncontrollably. I will laugh at my own joke because I think it’s funny. I take things too far. I hurt people with my jokes when I have to or rather when I want to. I learned laughter at my own expense, and then at the expense of others. Pointing out others insecurities to hide my own, or to make sure none notices them. I was always trying to fill then silence. My home was silent but the tension was always present. Drowning in silence until the pressure got so painful that id sacrifice my own self esteem for a chance at breathing. My mother had a sharp tongue and she knew exactly how and when to use it. Noise was her enemy, happiness was a deadbeat father. She taught me how to talk, how to hit people where it hurt but she also sent me on a never ending search for her forgiveness. Being a child wasn’t convenient when she had to be an adult before adolescence. Ive never seen her smile for a picture, her scowl was real and authentic. She didn’t want you to think she was happy because she wasn’t. I think I saw her smile in a photo with me as a toddler. She was so happy to be my mother, she always wanted a little boy. She spoiled me and made me sweet until my nature reared it ugly head. She taught me to be free and fearless, she also made sure that I feared her. Reality is she feared me and she feared the truth would come too soon so she waited until it was absolutely too late. She lied to me, and she hated liars. I lied to her as often as possible, Im actually a great liar because the truth yielded worse results with her, it was audacious to tell her the truth. She wanted to sniff out your lie, she’d lie to get the truth while telling me not to lie. She taught me everything, she was my everything, she showed me everything, when I lost her I thought id lost everything but I gained something much greater. My sanity, I knew they were all lying about my origin but she never tried to make up a story or gaslight me. She’d just tell me, “Im your mother, That’s your father. You don’t have to believe me but im not gonna keep telling you the same thing over and over. If you wanna listen to Brandy and believe your adopted go head.” It was so apparent but I also looked like her. I hated smiling for photos, because inside wasn’t shit funny. I learned that from her, and I was literally the only one who could make her laugh. She didn’t adopt me, she saved me and I saved her. The decision was made before I was born probably at my conception but the didn’t abort me. Whoever carried me knew that I deserved love and I two days old my mother got her son. I saved her, she carried me in her womb and lost me several times. Miscarriages, and the stillbirth that broke her. Ive seen his footprints, I don’t remember his name but him being born dead, killed something inside her. She was determined to replace him or actually get to hold him. So at two days old she held me, and she never let go. She got to feel the newborn baby kick and scream but this newborn didn’t get to go skin to skin. I was taken from the womb and placed in a waiting room, i’m still waiting in there. I can’t stop smiling now, in pictures, I know what’s funny and I know that’s the best medicine for broken people. I need a reason to laugh so by making others laugh it gives me permission to take a little bit of medicine for a sick minded, sick soul, a sick man. The cure is me actually trying. Doing something difficult, doing something that will show me that im different. Im not just a regular guy, regular guys, don’t take pictures everywhere they go, regular guys dont have people lined up to meet him, regular guys dont think like this, regular guys are regular. I was among the regular but I wasn’t saying the regular thing but I never have and I never will. I make so many people proud, proud to have found me, proud to be black and intelligent. Proud of me for transcending my regular life with and irregular mindset and an appetite for destruction. I don’t like “deconstruction” its a nice word and its sound good and productive but its akin to renovation to me, I don’t want to pick apart the structure piece by piece. I want to destroy, I want destruction and demolition.

The reason Im destroying myself is because I love tragedy. Tragedy is so beautiful because its removes the completion of the story just when it starts getting good. One puff at a time I take some time off my life because I don’t know the point of living. I think brilliant people succumbing to their demons is actually the most deserving of being called a masterpiece. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Kurt Cobain, Fred Hampton, Jean Michel-Basquiat and Nipsey Hussle are the most glaring examples. All lived a life of ease in terms of achieving their goals. They all were already so great without trying because that the way that God made them. The started things that have yet to be finished and could only be finished by them. All of them self inflicted to some extent. All of them sought to destroy. Destroy social structures, destroy limits of artistic expression, destroy stereotypes of what they were capable of or what they were expected to be. Destroy the rules of a game they never chose to play, while the people who made the rules break them constantly as fin that’s the reason why they made the game in the first place. They were all destroyers, and ultimately destroyed themselves. Think about the fact that Fred & Nip knew that they were swimming in forbidden waters and chose to swim those waters publicly and proudly. The waters are filled with bodies off destroyers, demolition men. Im destroying myself and I know it but Im codependent on my shadow. Im fat, and I don’t eat well at all. That’s regular in America but that’s also me rejecting my full potential. I know that I will be extremely attractive and i’ll feel good in my heart , my body and will regulate my mind. Ive never actually committed to anything but being lazy. I still “look good” but only because Im not a regular guy. I decided today not to fear my full potential, Im on my Gunna shit. I smoke cigarettes because it’s what I do. That’s my vice and it’s also my signature of rebellion. Fuck you, I risk my life seven to ten times a day because I dont really know the point of living. Slow Death because im not quite ready to go until I figure out the point. I have to figure it out but the reality is, I fear feeling better. I don’t know what’s its like to feel good. Everything comes with its own pressures and I know that my success to others is not having to work a job, I get to do what I love, TALK. For a living but the fear of failing got me drinking like a fish. I literally can’t fail because im being myself, and so many people don’t know what Grits and Eggs will do for them, but you can’t imagine what’s it’s done for me. Its made me a target, a target for those who sees success as fame and financial gain that’s reserved for the perfect. I fear perfection so I try show off all my flaws, Ive been self sabotaging but i’m the only one who knows.

Im going to actually try. Try the hard things and do what is going to ultimately reject my comfort and path of least resistance. Im purging all these poisons that have sustained me all these years. They didn’t make me special. I don’t think it makes men unique anymore, to be regular. I wanna be just like ya’ll but y’all chose me. Ive been the chose one since day two. Im done smiling because ain’t shit funny. Not because i’m not happy but because I been playing the game on easy, and i’m ready to see how I can measure up to the biggest challenge i’ve ever faced… My true potential. My momma knows I can do more and the shame is my shadow now. Not my crutches that I lean on, my trauma, my overachievements. I don’t get to continue to reap the rewards of being competent and actually doing what expected of me as a father, as a friend, as a man. I need to see what i’m really made of, Ive never committed to anything in my life without an excuse for why I can’t commit. Even when i’ve transformed and transcended not only my circumstances but my own expectations. Even when I showcase my greatness, it’s natural. When I really have tried and applied myself at anything, I’ve succeeded. Like with the Grits and Eggs Podcast, but even then i’ll try to create chinks in my armor. My trauma is not an excuse to create an unsafe space for victims of DV but I come from a history of family violence and that’s what they did, laugh about it to deal with it. What happens when I just stop and Say leave that nigga alone before he kill you and sit with the uncomfortable truth of what happened to my wife’s cousin. What happens if i’m responsible for my own mistakes but calling them decisions. Im not just another nigga, IM THEE NIGGA!!! I will speak life into my audience and keep them safe, they deserve that. I could have cut it out but im gonna own my shit! Im gonna admit that at some point I stopped laughing when I was watching it and I lost the faith that some women had for me and I in that moment was just another nigga. I focused on the teeth instead of the heart and I do give a fuck when I hurt someone and me being hurt by witnessing isn’t the same as the hurt some women have felt in their experience. Your trigger is on a much bigger gun than mine because I never was a victim of DV at the hands of a man. I actually am extremely embarrassed that I chose my own comfort over your trauma and i’m truly sorry. Ive been codependent on my shadow, my baggage is always close by when I need to dig in there for an excuse for my behavior. To the people who’ve I offended by saying “Beaner” i’m not sorry but I am sorry that you hold yourself to a higher standard when it comes to your respect. You don’t think you deserve respect, because I said that to a Mexican calling me a nigga. It was weeks before that Ice raids and it was in response to a hispanic man critiquing the Clipse album and they chose to make it a thing like twitter does. They clipped it and made it seem like I said it during the ICE raids to make me the whipping post for black liberals and leftists who put themselves on a pedestal when it comes to politics because they’re creating space for everyone with academic language and human rights activism in theory and protest for practice. They are on the right side if history in the books but only optically. Most of these people are young adults who are college age and their counterparts are facist hipsters who think they're adults because they’ve been robbed of a childhood via the internet. They’re chronically online and use language to police and censor themselves and attacks all who don’t adhere to their quite assimilation into the higher road theory that we know doesn’t work. You can respect your way into being respected by people who disrespect you. The golden rule is a 2 way street. Im gonna treat you how you treat me. That’s also a golden rule and Black people are expected to only treat other the way we want to be treated always regardless of reciprocation. FUCK THAT AND FUCK ALL YOU NIGGAS WHO TRIED AND FAILED AT MANIPULATING A SITUATION TO MAKE ME SEEM LIKE I WAS EVER SIDING WITH THE GOVERNMENT OVER THE PEOPLE. MY PEOPLE DESERVE RESPECT FIRST, WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO EARN YOUR RESPECT WHEN OURS IS SO FREELY GIVEN. I DON’T FUCK WITH MOST POC AND I STILL DONT WANT TO SEE YOUR HUMANITY ABD DIGNITY STRIPPED AWAY BY THE STATE, BUT YALL GONE LEARN HOW TO RESPECT US, PERIOD!!! IF ANYONE DESERVES RESPECT, ITS US! Just like old dude from Tiktok gone blame us for something another Mexican did when he exposed DL men in the hispanic community. WE AINT HAVE NUN TO DO WITH THAT BUT ITS ABOUT TIME YALL START AIRING OUT YALL DIRTY LAUNDRY BECAUSE BLACK PEOPLE ARE THE ON LY RACE OF PEOPLE WHO CALL OUT OUR OWN BAD BEHAVIOR IN FRONT OF EVERYONE WHILE YALL “KEEP THE RACE PURE” AND YOUR TIOS BE SUCKING DICK ON THE SIDE!!. Black Americans are the only group who operate from a true human space because by dehumanizing us with stereotypes that always depict us in degenerate ways or make fun of our diets because we’ve turned it into magic. Y’all stereotypes are positive for the most part, but it’s also based on some type of assimilation to white supremacy. We aren’t ashamed of being imperfect while y’all pretend y’all are all just hard working, honest, and treat each other like family. Y’all be drunk, coked up, woman beating child molesters too. Y’all just aint got say nothing because white people use y’all to make us feel lazy and now that they’ve used y’all up, were expected to be understanding to our own detriment. Im never going, it’s not a human issue until y’all address our humanity and how y’all ALL YALL POC participate in white supremacy by kicking us while this country repeatedly beats us down. Y’all look at us when they start beating on you because were supposedly immune to beating, its a way of life for us and tired of it. The solidarity starts with y’all addressing your anti-blackness not us. Which like we said before doesn’t matter now because they on both our ass and we gonna look out for you regardless because that’s the nature of abused people.

Those are my two “misses” as far as im concerned and I now have to move forward and not fear yalls pattern of exhausting people, cheering them on for a while and then starting the witch hunt when they actually accumulate success. Pander express and Beanie + Uncle John was easy to ignore but not these things because I actually felt so defenseless against mad people tryna tear down my reputation and my integrity as a man and what Ive stood for, to have black people run a smear campaign on me to exercise superior morality and the ultimate respectability politics was disheartening because a lot of you niggas was hating the whole time because i’m a street nigga and people was calling me the “Joe Rogan of the LEFT” and y’all felt like I didn’t deserve that title, that I never gave to myself, because Im not really centering my self as political but being black and loving that is my politics lil niggas. That shit did bother me too but have to be unbothered and let it happen according to PR people and FD Signifier. Losing my auntie really fucked me up personally not because I was super close with her but because its hard to despised people once they’re dead.

My 3 week hiatus from social media wasn’t only grieving time for me, its was also the first time that i’ve talked to any of my mothers sisters since she died and I cut them all off for participating in the lie about my life. They were all guilty and I used to wonder why my momma never turned them away when they needed help, which was always, we always suffered because they, in typical Williams Woman fashion, HELD THAT SHIT OVER HER HEAD! They used that lie to justify abusing me and ganging up on me, they even used to expose themselves to me and only me because they’re all fat and unattractive, all baby mothers of ain’t shit men. Crackheads, Ex Cons, Slow niggas with no ambition and even other women’s husbands. Any and all takers because they also were jealous of my mom for being married twice. Bitter to the very end all of them hate to see any of them happy, and death is the only time they actually show each other love. These mf made sure I felt like I didn’t belong and lied every time I asked but they came up with crazy ass lies that I couldn’t really argue with anymore because I just had to accept that I wouldn’t know until I really wanted to. I said to hell with all of them once I found out from my dad, who literally couldn’t wait to tell me then truth and set himself free from the lie that kept him from being a present dad. To not one but two adopted kids, yes my older sister is adopted too and guess what… she was put into foster care because her mom was running the streets on drugs like she is now, and nobody told her the truth either when she would behave erratically , she’s bipolar and they thought that was the devil but the real devil, was the lie. My mother deserved to have a child and her womb woudln’t allow it until my little sister Mikala by c-section, who is a sitting image of her w my dad’s nose. We also noticed how different she was handled than us, but its not because she’s was the baby its because she was theirs together and we were an obligatory failure of their marriage. Between the sisters and my dads other child who he prolly had to just be able to leave a legacy because he wasn’t present in his life at all and still isn’t, we we’re reminders of their failed attempt at combining their lying ass DNA, and adopting us while still trying is crazy. Imagine finally getting to have your own child yours prayers are answered but now none of there kids look alike and they’re personalities are reminders of your biggest secret. Ultimately my mothers lie killed her, stress and regret rendered her blind due to a stroke and I ultimately chose to my wife and child over her when I decided to get my act together for my child when she coudln’t get me to conform to her rigid ass rules. She died with the lie and gave me liberty, because I thought I was crazy, I was driving trucks soon after and started my life over on my own where I birthed, NEGUS DEANTE’.

Im really scared to be great because I have some many reasons why I shouldn’t be. I know how to be perfect, because I have the potential to be a better version of myself that I would love to be, I’ve seen him, he’s the shit fr because he does what he tells HIMSELF he will do. He is unstoppable and he’s gonna be a media mogul who does business in the way he sees fit. He will take advantage of his capitalism to create socialist agendas that will be beneficial to the people and also an example of what community actually can look like. His revolution is love and he will not be a tragedy because he will not slip, he’s been slipping, he knows slipping, he’s slipping right now. He doesn’t need an ideology for people to follow with doctrine or dogma, he will lead by example and the people will provide for him because he will provide for the people. He’s infectious and he will never forget when he thought he was regular. He will dodge the smear campaigns and the rise above the pattern because he deserves to know peace and discipline. He is me. I am him. Im not Malcom X, Im Kyle Deante’ Johnson. Im Jaqueline Denise Hodo’s only son. I wouldn’t put you through what Ive been thru to gain this wisdom because it’s truly a miracle i’m here. Ive been so lucky and favored but i’m destined to be even greater than I think I am now but I have to work for it, I will not be tragedy, I will be a testament. I’ll tell you the truth about who I am always because I have no shame. It’s time to meet God where he met me and be my own wildest dreams. Thank You for reading my first substack. Ive been struggling with these thoughts for quite some time and I dont want to self destruct. So I won’t. Love - Kyle