Tag: writing

My 10th Grade Fire Speech

Most kids in 10th grade give speeches about normal things like “My Favorite Vacation” or “Why Reading Is Important.” Not me. No, I came into 10th grade walked into Speech Class like he was about to headline KISS Alive IV: The Public-School Edition.

My teacher — Mr.C was a pretty cool guy, he was hip, wore vans and had a restaurant on the side. He was also deathly afraid of fire — already looked like he was reconsidering his career, his life choices, and possibly his religion. He had the same expression the MST3K robots get when they realize they’re about to watch another 1950s safety film. It should be noted that I got a D minus on my last speech that I did. I did a speech about explicit rap lyrics and maybe played 2 live crew” We want some Pussy” to loud. Sometimes I held grunges.

I began my speech with the swagger of a man who had watched Bill Nye, Beakman’s World, and exactly one episode of MacGyver and decided I was now a freelance chemist.

“Household chemicals,” I declared, “can be very dangerous.”

The class perked up. Mr. C knew something special will be happening soon. Someone whispered, “He brought a bag. Oh no. He brought a BAG.”

And oh yes. I brought props.

ACT I: THE HELLFIRE JEANS OF DESTINY

I grabbed a can of hairspray like I was summoning the spirit of 80s glam metal. Then — in a move that would’ve made Nikki Sixx say, “Kid, tone it down” — I sprayed my jeans.

My teacher made a noise like a dial‑up modem having a panic attack.

I flicked a lighter dramatically, I lit them on fire and proceeded to walk around talking about the hazards of not paying attention to your surroundings. it was epic!!!!!

The class gasped. My teacher aged seven years. Someone in the back whispered, “This is how the school burns down.”

ACT II: THE LYSOL HAND OF DOOM

Next, I grabbed a can of Lysol and held out my hand like I was about to summon a demon from a forgotten He‑Man episode.

I reenacted the Paul Stanley “hand‑on‑fire” pose from the Heaven’s on Fire video — except instead of a stadium full of fans, I had 27 horrified teenagers and one teacher silently bargaining with the universe.

I sprayed my hands and saw my teacher just horrified and unable to speak to tell me not to….so since I took his silence as approval, I lit them on fire, and I think at one point made devil horns with my hands that were on fire.

ACT III: THE SIX‑FOOT FLAME

Then came the finale.

The moment that would go down in school history. The moment that would be whispered about by janitors for decades.

I pulled out:

  • a can of Gumout carburetor cleaner, which shoots a 6-foot flame
  • a bottle of Binaca breath spray, to spray after the gumout, you know to freshen up the room that will become dark and smokey
  • and the confidence of a man who had never once considered consequences.

I held them up like I was presenting the Ark of the Covenant to Indiana Jones.

“This,” I said, “is how fast things can flare up.”

I had asked the class to back up so that I could do the final demo.

Then with the lighter I sprayed it twice, producing a huge fireball that people could feel, the heat was hot and the flame was tremendous. I think one kid said,” this is how we die” It was six feet of pure, uncut chaotic energy, a shimmering pillar that looked like it had wandered off the set of a 1980s heavy‑metal music video and gotten lost in a public school.

The Six‑Foot Flame wasn’t just a moment. It was a legend. And I was the kid who summoned it.

My teacher confiscated:

  • the hairspray
  • the Lysol
  • the Gumout
  • the Binaca
  • the lighter

He gave me a F for the speech…….Little did he know that I was planning my next speech about the phenom we called phone sex with the 976 numbers. To be Continued

Like A Virgin, Touched for the Very First Time

This story begins with my sister — not the version of her people saw in school photos or family gatherings, but the version shaped by a mind that was constantly at war with itself. Bipolar disorder. Manic depression. Suicidal thoughts that came and went like storms no one could predict. We grew up in the 80s, a decade everyone remembers as bright and loud and full of innocence. Back then, life felt simple. Music was better, movies were better, and childhood felt like a place you could hide from anything. But innocence has an expiration date, and mine ran out long before I understood what was happening. My sister was thirteen or fourteen when the shift began. At first, it was small — a change in her tone, a look in her eyes that didn’t match the moment. Then it grew darker. Faster. More chaotic. In the late 80s, mental health wasn’t something families talked about. It was something they hid. Something they feared. Something they hoped would just go away if they didn’t say its name out loud.

My parents tried everything they could think of. Medication. Hospital stays. Facilities that promised help but felt more like holding cells. Even shock treatments — the kind of thing you only hear about in movies and assume doesn’t happen anymore. They were desperate, terrified, and completely unprepared for the storm that had taken root inside their daughter. You’ll get to know her as I keep writing — the girl she was before the darkness, and the person she became as it tightened its grip. You’ll learn about my parents too, and the impossible choices they had to make while trying to hold a family together with their bare hands. But they also were guilty of taking my innocence.

I’m not a writer. I’m just someone who lived through it and spent years trying to understand the damage it left behind. What happened in her room that first time — the moment everything shifted — became a shadow that followed me for decades. It shaped me in ways I didn’t understand until much later.

I was lucky to find a wife who helped me untangle the knots, who helped me breathe again. But the beginning of it — the moment the bright 80s cracked open and something darker spilled out — that’s where the story truly begins.

It started with things that didn’t make sense — little moments that felt wrong in a way I didn’t yet have words for. Back then, I didn’t understand boundaries or danger. I only understood that sometimes the world felt strange, like the rules had quietly changed when I wasn’t looking. The night it happened, the house felt too quiet. The kind of quiet that presses against your ears. I remember the hallway light spilling into her room, the shadows stretching long across the carpet. I remember feeling small, like I’d wandered into a place I wasn’t supposed to be.She acted like everything was normal. Like this was just another game. And I was a kid — kids believe what they’re told. Kids want to be good. Kids want to be liked. But then something shifted. The air changed. My stomach dropped in a way I didn’t understand but my body did.

Fear arrived before understanding. I remember the moment I tried to get away — the panic, the instinct, the sudden certainty that something was terribly wrong. I remember scrambling off the bed, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to escape too and then her voice. Calm. Cold. Final.

“Nobody is coming for you.”

Those words didn’t just scare me. They carved themselves into me.

The room felt darker after that. The house felt darker. The world felt darker.

And even now, years later, that sentence still echoes — not because of what happened, but because of what it meant: that the person who should have protected me chose to become the thing I needed protection from. I was just molested for the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last time this would happen, who did she learn this from…. Hint it was my mom.