The Questions I’ve Always Asked Myself

Some questions follow you for years. You ask them at night, at bus stops, in hospital beds and in quiet rooms where nobody answers. Near the end of my memoir, Neglected But Undefeated, I answered some of the questions people ask me, and I faced some of the ones I have always asked myself. My poem “Who I am” holds many of them in one place.

The poem: “Who I am”

Amongst darkness and light
Nearly all my life, praying
Facing trouble and pain
Waiting for a star to shine bright

Head held high
I see it standing, straight and tall
No other amongst, but myself
Feeling, no purpose in life
As others strive for success

Father,
I want to count my blessings, not my troubles
End my curiosity of love and a family
Have the answers, to the questions that upset me
Be given a chance to turn my darkness into light
Achieve greatness instead of troubled nights, like tonight
Be given a smile and not a shrug

Accomplished and successful
I wish to be
But in what, I hope to find
For nothing right now, is along the line

Unfair, I see life
From my experiences of walking through those nights
Why and what made them do this to themselves
Were they given a chance, for change
I asked myself

Conscious and determined it all has made me
A winner in life and no longer a failure
Triumphant, victorious, and achievements
I am now going for, to leave above my name
Describing in life how I’ve changed

— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated (2012)

The heart of that poem is a prayer: to count my blessings instead of my troubles, to have the answers to the questions that upset me, and to be given a chance to turn my darkness into light.

The question underneath all the others

When I look back on my childhood, one question sat underneath everything else: “Will I ever be given love? Will I truly ever be loved by another in this lifetime of mine, other than by my grandmother and grandfather?”

My grandparents, Arnold and Lynn Burkett, raised me in Westmoreland, Jamaica, until I was six, and their love was the measure for everything after. When I moved to Miami, I lived with a mother who neglected and beat me. In “Who I am,” I pray: “End my curiosity of love and a family.”

After my brain surgery in 2006, when I wrote down my goals, the last one was the biggest: “I wanted to be ready for a family, because that’s what my heart craved the most.”

Questions I asked as a boy

Some of my questions were for God. Lying in bed crying as a child, I asked, “Was it too perfect in Jamaica?” Some were for myself. As a teenager, standing in a house with no pictures of me on the walls and none of my school awards on the refrigerator, I asked, “What purpose do I have in this family’s life?”

And one was for my mother. At sixteen I begged her to sit with me and asked, “Do you love me, Mother?” Her answer was no. Afterward I sat alone, sobbing. In time I learned that not every question gets the answer you hoped for, and you still have to decide what to do next.

If you are a young person being hurt at home, please tell a teacher, counselor or another adult you trust. If a child is in immediate danger, call 911. In the U.S., the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline is 1-800-422-4453.

The questions people ask me now

How is my relationship with my mother? I don’t believe we will ever have a typical mother-and-son relationship. We have never talked about the past. My brothers are the main reason I go by the house. I have written more about choosing to forgive her in another post.

What about my best friend? We are no longer close, but I still have love for her. When we see each other, we smile. As I wrote in the book, “I feel like she’s a part of the reason that I’m still here today.”

And my first love? Seven years after she ended things, I learned it was because of a false story that spread around school. I still consider her my first love.

What did I sacrifice? My street pride. I came to see it as the one thing that would get me locked up or dead, so I let it go.

What the poem answers

“Who I am” does not end in confusion. The last stanza says that everything I went through made me “A winner in life and no longer a failure.” It did not happen overnight. I spent years sleeping on streets and park benches, living with seizures, and wondering if I would make it to eighteen.

What I can say today is this: “I know that I have made it through trials, so now let me see if I can make it through challenges.” I still have mountains to climb. But the walls I thought could never be rebuilt are being built back up.

How to live with your own questions

You may have questions of your own that nobody has answered yet. Here is what helped me:

• Write them down. For me, writing helped release what I was feeling instead of holding it all inside.
• Ask safe people. A teacher, a counselor, a pastor or a friend’s parent may not have every answer, but they can help you carry the question.
• Don’t let the unanswered ones stop you. After my surgery, “I promised myself that until the answers came, I’d focus on success and not on the past.”
• Count blessings, not just troubles. The poem asks for that, and it is a habit worth practicing every day.

If questions about whether your life matters ever turn into thoughts of ending it, please reach out. If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, U.S.).

The full story behind these questions is in Neglected But Undefeated, on my Books page. More of my poems and quotes are on the Quotes page.

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