Sometimes I wonder who exactly mended my mind, and where he got his doctorate. I need new stitches, some things are flying loose, things I would usually keep under wraps. I think I’ve decided, some walls come down friday. Sure, they’ve been patchy and full of holes a lot of the time, but now it’ll all be laid bare, all the murky things behind that have festered. Though, I count myself a wordsmith and so I think I can doll up the murk enough to not destroy a friendship. I’m actually cleverly disguising a loss of hope in a last-ditch effort, winner take all, loser, well, loser loses all I suppose.
If you read or have read this blog, or my own, you know more or less exactly what I’m talking about. I feel kind of like how Harry must have felt when he went to take down Voldemort for what he imagined as the last time. I have my own personal Philosopher’s stone, as Harry used to have the people he loved guide him to the incredible climax. They tread the path with him, instilling a confidence needed to confirm the act.
But Harry lives. Spolier alert, I know. He does. And that’s where my fairytale ends. I can see it happening already, that cold, empty Avada Kedavra, a flash of green light, and then….nothing.
All my favorite book characters, all of them, now that I think about it, die in the end. Well, a few of them, (like Harry) cheat a little and come back. But the message is there. Bobby Pendragon “died” in a sense. Darren Shan died. Larten Crepsley died. Dorian Gray died. Chris McCandless. Rorshach. Nathaniel.
Dead, dead, dead. Of course, it’s always a noble, dignified death, one that means something, adds to the experience. That’s my only silver lining. That my ‘death’ will lend something to the story.
What to do, what to do, what to do anymore? I sit down and try to make sense of things, only to fail miserably. It’s getting a little ridiculous, actually. I read through our conversations over and over, trying to see something I want to see, something I’ve overlooked, some sign. Though, I know that the words you’ve said and the words I read are two different animals altogether, where you meant one meaning and I found another one.
Again, I go back to my mind, I fall through the veil as my eyes close to daydream, and I find myself in a warm room, velvet drapes and beads hanging from the wall, velvet tapestries and portraits dotting the vast walls. a hearth burns brightly, illuminating the deep maroon of the room with its flickering amber and cackling shadows. The room seems to breathe, seems to have life. A central room with no windows, the area is gentle and at peace. The hardwood floors of mahogany make no sound as I pass over them, their inviting warmth like an invitation. Though, while this should be a refuge, a safe haven, a home to retreat to, it is a fearful place for me, for dominating the center of the room is a cage, shining in its steel splendor and impenetrable atmosphere. Walking closer, I feel the warmth slowly come away from me, as though the daunting prison is sucking the life from the fabric. I come to see the figure, laying broken, defeated inside the cell, adorned in shock white clothing, a stark contrast to the easy nature of the room. I can’t see his face, but yet I don’t need to look to see who it is.
I collapse to my knees as if to weep, but tears do not come easily, and I just stare blankly into the dead eyes. He turns his head to meet me, gazes into my eyes, a smiles a horribly wretched grin, a haunted look that betrays the mania in the eyes.
“Having fun?”
Maybe I’ve read to many comic books. Or I’ve delved too deeply into too many characters in sci-fi epics. It’s easy to blame the media. Our whipping post when we’ve run out of resources to blame for all our own faults. Insert bitter laugh here. Is there an emoticon to lend exageration to my point? Ahh, now I’ve gone tangential, strayed from my point. another rant for another day. I came here to say this:
I’m caught between deciding if I’m gifted or cursed. I say this with no intended arrogance or weighted emotion to tip the scale, but I’ve grown past the logical point for someone my age. I feel older than I am, in several respects. Not older as in particularly matured, but at least, the perspective that should rightfully come with years I haven’t gotten. To pluck one thought from this ambiguous mist here and simplify it, I can read you.
I say “you” as opposed to “people” because all people are you. There are only few exceptions to the rule, and I can read those reasons to those exceptions anyway. I hate it, though. I’m really very serious. I can break down your mental defenses, cut to the core of you, show you what you are hiding. I’m not saying this is always easy; sometimes it takes days, weeks. sometimes, seconds. I’m an abhorrent mutilation of the psyche.
But I use it. And I grow ever closer to loving this ability, reveling in it. Which is what often scares me. I know things about people that can be so damaging, so hurtful, that no one should be able to wield it. Thank God I don’t believe in religion.
I get on a bus for my mental workouts. On a bus, I can freely violate peoples’ minds at will because I will likely not see them again, and I have time alone in proximity. It’s like a burning drive - who are you today, sir? With your USA Today and sensible coat, but deeply saddened, confused look in your eye? What are you hiding? And I’ll tell you, and your fluster and panicked eyes betray the denial of my claims you declare after your initial shock. And in that moment, I have you, I feel everything you feel, I am you.
I enter the 6 subway line on 110th street. I always semi-run down the stairs and when someone is in front of me, I’m noticeably impatient. It might be rude and kind of care what strangers think of me; I do not know why. I swipe my metrocard while staring at it and push the turnstyle with my waist enter the station. I look across the platform in hopes of finding someone to fall in love with. No one today. I walk along the platform but not too close to the edge. I don’t wish to die today. I look in the eyes of all the unfamiliar and realize we are all the same: scared, lost, hungry.
Scared of whats coming or whats right in front of us. Hoping we can handle it and won’t forget who we are in the process. Trying to stay on our feet but if we fall, let’s not stare at the ground in hope for answers. Get right back up and prove to nobody but yourself that you are everything and everything is you.
Lost in a life where nothing is easy to find. God’s lab rats. We are the trial and error process. We have mastered it. But with enough errors should come the correct procedures, right? Wrong. Not in this case. Keep your eyes open and discover things that you’ve never known. Place your stamp on it and you will be remembered, Christopher Columbus.
Hungry for something new. Trying to remain human and stay away from the robotic instances that we have grown so close with. Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 is aching for something more. Something that you deserve and that will come eventually. Don’t lose your appetite.
I approach a wall to lean on and stare deep into nothingness as the bass from my headphones shakes my glasses, disrupting my vision. Shaking the world in my snow globe of music, hoping to somehow change my routine and surroundings. Only failure results. Seeing that distant red light in the dark abyss helps me realize my destination is that much closer as the train creates a whirlwind that I wish I can get caught up in. I walk on the train only to be temporarily blinded by lights and glared at by my fellow passengers. Why?
Is it my height? Because I have grown into something that I have yet to master. My intelligence and my personality has yet to catch up with the 6’2” frame that I bare. My mouth is kept shut in order to prevent disaster from and tarnish my name even further.
Am I ugly? I might be. I have no standards for my physical appearance. I try to impress no one and might genetic makeup may not be helping my case. My eyes are dark and my skin is tarnished. My arms are thin and I slouch in the comfiest of chairs. Maybe I’m exaggerating.
Was I staring at you? I apologize. I get lost in these thoughts since the advertisements above my head cannot keep my attention. They smell like lies and the aroma is strong. So I’m sorry if I was looking at your necklace for longer than I should’ve. It’s pretty as are you you swear I was looking at your breasts when I promise I wasn’t. Forgive me.
I wonder why I don’t take buses often. It’s bad enough my mind wanders like this on the train. Buses are slower and can see more. More to capture me and keep me locked in a cage of my ferocious thoughts. That’s something I’m not ready for. Absolutely not. So I just focus on my childhood that went by too quickly because it is now that I realize Carmen Sandiego and Waldo are together. Somewhere. They ran off to prevent getting stuck in this quicksand. The quicksand none of us can get saved from and I’m sinking oh so slowly.
Sometimes I wake up and just lay in bed, looking back over the dream I had. I become weary of being awake, willing myself back to that ethereal realm of possibility, but find my body too saturated by sleep to remain idle. So I wake up, shuffle around my morning rites of shower and dressing, locked in my head the whole time, trying to relive moments that have all but faded into the cloudy nether of my mind. I talked about walking the corridors of my mind before, and I emphasize it again. I’ve beaten a well-worn path into the thick, velvety rugs, the footprints like a map of my thoughts. However, it always turns out that I lose the key to my dream door in my waking hours, and seek it bitterly to no avail. The best I can do is peer through the room’s window, simply reflecting on the hazy images during the daytime.
But when I sleep, when I fall beneath that murky veil, things take on a sunnier atmosphere. Between the newly fulfilled love, the highly improbable situations, and the downright impossible gifts, dreams seem to be the body’s way of telling us that at the end of even the shittiest day, there is yet something to look forward to. Atreides.
Forgive me, Mungo is absent this week, and the post is only half of what it rightfully should be.
I lived several months of my life in the dark, not wanting to turn the lights back on. These endless shadows were beautiful and you blew my mind every night with a drug that, at the time, I wasn’t sure what it was. Laughing at nothing and gently touching your skin just to make sure you were always there. I was high on a product that must’ve been as pure as the words you speak, the tears you weep. It was bliss to open my eyes and feel like I had done nothing. In a world where light doesn’t exist, I thought I’d get used to this but you and me, my love, were far beyond any mind trip that a 70’s hippie could’ve experienced. Are you my witness to all this? I need you. I want you. I love you but…now I think your gone. I didn’t want to be left but I’m in a cage with no fire or stars to light up my vision. I thought it was all real but now that you’re gone, I feel foolish. I fear that nothing had went on. But I guess my fearless thoughts saved time to flip the lightswitch of life and just in time as I watched you walk out that door. On the floor, nothing but syringes and bottles, little sandwich bags; this was a fiend’s dream. I see the scars on my wrists that you left with each poke and each moment of bliss that I feared didn’t exist. In an attempt to make sense of every event of that lonely spring, I reached down and picked up one of the bloody syringes that crawled on the floor, probably reaking of disease. I hoped for a clue that could perhaps lead me to you. What was this drug that kept me so alive in such a dead place? I hadn’t expected an answer but on the bloody syringe, written in a blue sharpie, read a four letter word that had to be cause of the ecstacy, you and me had so organically created. I read the word, dropped the syringe, and ran out the door after you. Still dizzy from my three month stay on that drug journey. And after all that time, I was still high because apparently there is no detox for love.
Hollow Head
Insomnia provokes me. I wander the corridors of my mind, as I often do, treading barefoot in the thick persian rug that veils my ethereal hallways. I come to halt outside the door that has emblazoned upon it “Don’t go there again”. Knowing what is bound to come of it and yet holding some piece of delusion that insists this time will be different, I enter. Another long corridor branches out and recedes to darkness as the light seems to shy away from the cloudy veil. I walk down, cold stone replacing the warm, inviting rug. I pass the portraits of the people who have meant most to me, hanging there in a mockery of my hope and effort. Bridget MacIntyre, Caitlin Downey, Grace Russo, Chloe Hillman, Esther Dioniso, all horrible crushes that ended in a similar vein. The portraits bear startling images of cruel and wicked faces, where at their feet I felt marred and broken. These pictures strung together to paint a picture. Like jesus on the cross, I see my life segmented to these times where self pity, loathing, took over. Forcing past, I move tearfully onto the worst, most wicked poster of them all, tattered and torn, with a wretched “I Love You” carved into the frame. To have been so close to my heart as to reach out and touch it, then to take your hidden dagger at the time I was at my weakest, my most vulnerable. To kick a man while he is down is a prisonable offense.
Now on my hands and knees, I struggle to the door with the brass knocker, and collapse in my velvety room of Love yet unadorned by sadness. Three more portraits line one wall, their names hardly need mentioning, and the far wall has a dominating sketch of love reborn, phoenix like from ashes, rising again, to fly freely or burn up once again.
There is often much talk of deconstructing the masks we bestow upon ourselves. That we should shed the illusion and hold true to the person beneath the Papier-mâché faces. However, it seems abundantly clear to me that many of these masks a bred into us by raw genetics and the coincidence of our species. Consider this; we all naturally hide our most personal vulnerablities from all but our closest friends, and even then we cannot beat the inclination to lash out violently, emotionally, to an intrusion. When we are angered, we spit fire and rant fury at those who we decalre the center of our focus. But aren’t we just so wounded inside, so hurt, upset, distraught - sad? Anger is simply a diversion to distract people from our sadness, something we consider a vulnerablity, somehow forgetting that we are all at some point sad. And yet think further - we are sad for what reason? Why can people get into position to make us hurt? Love is at the core of that. You are most hurt and upset because whatever the assailant is, they bear some of your love, and so any small sadness they cause is a betrayal to your love. Even people you do not explicitly “love” can hurt you…. just because you put yourself out there to love and be loved. And yet even more lies beneath love, but that,i’ll save for a later date. Atreides.
Your Reflection Seems Disgusted
Look deep into yourself.
…
Rip out your heart and throw it on the ground you step on. I promise you’ll feel better without this. It feeds you the wrong information and you interpret it the right way. The love you felt wasn’t false, fake, or full of shit. Rather pre-determined. Let it swim inside you. Let it. That is until you find out Love is a horrible swimmer and runs around your body; dishing lies and causing chaos. Splashing blood that falls out your chest; the space where you ripped out your heart, in fact. You scream and scream but agony has never been so silent. Never so quiet. So you try and try to grab onto a friend that is lending a helping hand and you spit on it. You swallow their flesh and consider yourself dealt with.
“Please feel sorry. For I am no longer within myself.”
Your heart caused the agony, pain, anger, and rage and now you’re in a labyrinth of emotions. Finding your way out might take a lifetime but happiness lies within the center. Answer yourself: is all of this worth it?