Collar Correction

I have so much hate in me now.

For many, many reasons, I hate how this world works; I hate what it accepts, and the evil it rewards. I hate what it neglects, and the beauty it ignores. I hate the bad people that get away with bad things, and the good people that die early. I hate how my family treats each other, how they treated me, and how I don't feel connected with any of them. I hate what people do to animals, I hate stupid movies with stupid plots and stupid loopholes, I hate bad music because people love it and I hate good music because I didn't make it. I hate how good intentions don't mean anything. I hate how succeeding and making money, regardless of how it's acquired, redeems someone morally. I hate traffic.

I'm at the point where I hate how much I hate.

But you were my one... good... thing in this world. This place I could go to listen to things and smile and laugh and create a bubble of my own in this chaos. This person I could just be myself with. No strings attached. No preliminary requirements. No hoops to jump through. You were a sanctuary away from all the bile and poison and spite I was surrounded by with everywhere else. You were my blue-eyed oasis; undeservedly so, but I felt it, so I made it. I felt invincible next to you. We were mental twins. No one could take us down when we teamed up. Nothing could hurt us - except each other.

And now, I can feel the hate bleeding through the fabric. It's warming. The beads of resentment pooling to the surface. And all the darkness and pain and fury and loathing... The demon is pressing against the warping steel bars on the door of the cage, howling for a chance to take over this depression.

And I fight it. Sweet Christ, do I fight it. Every minute of every day, a sizzling spark of a thought flies through my mind, searching for the fuse to ignite. And every minute of every day, I quickly think of a thought from the opposite side of the spectrum to snuff it out.

But it's getting harder. More difficult. And with each day that passes without a word from you, seeing you smiling in pictures, hearing from friends about other guys, hearing from colleagues about your new jobs, feeling you packing up, moving away, and knowing you're going about it all so cavalier and guiltless... the slow realization that you're content with how our last conversation ended... that not only do you not worry about how I'm doing, but you don't care...

If there's anything I've learned because of you it's how powerful regret can be. And I'm doing everything I can to make sure I have nothing to look back on and wish I did differently. But you doing things right now you won't  be able to take back. Things I won't be able to forgive. Even down the line. It breaks my heart that you're okay with this.

Holding this anger back is breaking me. Against the advice of everyone - family, friends, teachers, your friends, co-workers, therapists - I refuse to lash out. I won't.

I'm not a monster.

You're just creating one.

But he'll stay on a leash, even if it kills me.

"This guy at school committed suicide a couple of weeks ago."
"How?"
"He jumped off a balcony."
"Well, I guess you could say he took his life... for granite?"
"Wow."
"He understood the gravity of the situation?"
"LOL"
"It wasn't an accident because... cement to do it."
"Holy shit dude."
"Life was a joke and he fell for it."
"Hahahahahaha!"
"That was the last one."
"No it wasn't."
"Okay, no one else was to blame because it was... all asphalt."
"That's it, I'm coming home. These are gold."

Blue Cat Blues

Still seems a tad optimistic.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	2.9
Mind:	2.1
Body:	2.5
Spirit:	3.5
Friends/Family:	2.6
Love:	Not enough information
Finance:	2.4
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Fuckin' cheers.

O.C.D.

Serendipity

One day it'll happen.

You'll be standing in line. And you'll see a baby. Just there. Over his mom's shoulder. Quiet. Staring at you with blue eyes. You'll smile at it and think about how cute it is. And something deep inside you won't... immediately dismiss the sentiment of maybe - just maybe - one day becoming a mother.

And over the following weeks, months, and years, you'll start to feel the urge to want to know what it's like to truly have something of your own. Something created inside of you. To experience sharing life with something that can learn from you, 24/7. Grow up next to you. Depend on you. And, later, thank you for all you've done, as you do with your own mother. You'll start thinking about settling down, committing, and finally letting go of that glacier of cynicism that had once poisoned your emotional progress.

And whatever guy you're with at that time will reap all the benefits of your maturing, softening heart. Of your growth. Of your eventual retrospect. Of your wiser philosophies and calmer, pastoral outlook on life. He won't be any different from other guys. He won't possess anything you haven't seen before. And he certainly will not have been there through your darkest hours, your most difficult nights, or your most outrageous and unfair moments. He will not have earned you in any way other than simply coming into the general vicinity of your life after you're all fixed up, shiny and better.

He will enjoy the heat of your fire without ever having to build the pile, or spark the flame himself.

He'll just... be around at the right time.

One day, it'll happen.

'Cause you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out.

No one is going to save you. 

No one has the time to really care about you. Prayers will not fix your problems. 

Another person won't make you feel whole. Very few people have the time to act like friends, and most people secretly want you to fail. They all talk behind your back. Nobody can truly catch you. Everyone is busy. The world, by and large, doesn't give a damn about you. You are on your own. There is no backup. There are no mulligans. There are no reinforcements coming. 

You just have to get fed up, pissed off, and take it all out on Life, hell-bent on revenge for everything that it's taken from you, wrestle it to the ground, and step on it's throat on your way up.

The real world doesn't owe you anything and you don't owe it any mercy.

Kill it. Kill it to live on.

Appreciations.

"You made me confident in myself that it's okay to be me. You gave me hope. Hope that there are good people out there. Hope in life and love and good things. You wrapped it up in a pretty package with a shiny ribbon on it and... I ignored it. I abused it, neglected it. I refused it. I refused to see it. And you just... wrapped it up again and made it glow. You made me see it. That's something... no one else has ever done.

"So... thank you for that."

Hashtag, ditto...

Ainmosni.

I don't dream so much as I begrudgingly become a slave to memories. My reality has yet to surpass the nostalgia of my recent experiences... no matter how painful they ultimately became.

So I fight the urge to sleep the same way a hero in a book scrambles across a tipping trap floor, looking for anything to grasp, as the world tilts him into the abyss below. To fall asleep means to lose control of the mind, and where my mind goes is a place that reminds me of all the perfect moments I am no longer privy to.

 This is not insomnia.

It's survival.

30 Rock On

Just An Abstract Entity

I confess there are times - many times - mornings, sometimes at 1, 2 or 3am, after dropping off friends that live right around that intersection - when I catch myself looking up at your loft window on the third floor. Sometimes it's dark, blinds closed, windows shut. And figure you're out drinking with your new friends or a new guy. Or if you've packed up and moved away.

But every now and then the light will be on, blinds still twisted open... and I can see a new plant you've added and placed on the sill, turned to collect the afternoon sun. I see that rose bush and wonder if the baby spiders it had when you bought it still bother you. And sometimes I wonder why your light is still on at all at such a late hour. Are you reading a book? Did you fall asleep with it on? Are you simply afraid of being alone in the dark? Or are you not alone at all, and you're entertaining another man in your bed, all in the name of "comfort" and "having fun while you're still young", as the adage goes?

But more than that, I look up because I fondly remember.

I remember so many times that I would wake up next to you and watch you sleep with the morning light on your face. And I would make us coffee and look out that very same window, down at the world just beginning to stir; The city itself waking up, slowly grinding like the first spin of a ferris wheel, straining to gain momentum. One car per red light. Then two. Then five. And then within an hour or so, the intersection was buzzing with people and newspapers and the clip-clop of high heels and the incessant beeping of the crosswalk signs.

I remember sitting next to that window at night and looking down at all the people, feeling sorry for everyone out there. Sorry for them because they simply had no idea the magic that was happening up here. None of them knew of the beautiful woman that lived up here and all the power and grace she could wield, if it weren't for her equally powerful vulnerabilities and flaws. And this force of nature was sleeping next to me. Wanting me there. Wanting me to stay. Glad I was there. Calling me her shell. I looked at the world through that very window and felt pity for them; For they all went about their days and night, crossing streets, driving, grumbling to themselves, late for something, trying to find a place to park, standing in line for food... unaware of what goes on up here, in Brittany Marie Conrad's room.

But now, I look up. And now... I am one of those people. The same ant I once pitied. Seeing a light on - often the only one still on in the entire complex - and oblivious of what's happening up there in that room. I gaze up at it like a green light in the mist on the shore across a lake. I'm on the outside now. Outside looking up.

I'm on the other side of that window.

The difference, I suppose, is that I've been privy to the treasures inside that box; Both the blessings and the curses, and everything in between. And it's impossible to be angry and crushed without also feeling gratefulness and tremendous love. I guess nostalgia is a packaged deal.

I can imagine myself, still up there, looking down at me, watching me drive off into the night.

And that U-turn away is always painful.

Flying lessons.

 "Today I was thinking too...and I wanted to apologize for the times I've said, Move on...find someone else...don't answer her call..go out...do things. Having a little time (very little) to myself, I have no fucking idea what to even do when I am alone. So I can only imagine how you feel, and I am sorry for thinking it could be so easy. Cause I know it's really anything but that, it's tough. I needed to tell you and get it off my mind.    

Rest if possible, the days are flying by. Night G."

Perfection

Keeping The Roads Hot

Forever in the shadow of prior tree.

"I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz or arrow of carnations that propagate fire. 

I love you as certain dark things are loved - secretly, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries hidden within itself the light of those flowers. And thanks to your love, darkly in my body lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth. 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  I love you simply, without problems or pride. I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close."