I sit in the dark writing words. I do this as an attempt to sort through everything burning through my mind. Yet, nothing I do can absolve my thoughts. Instead, I am forced to replay through everything trapped within my mental prison and find my way out of what I’ve forged. It seemed that every time I write myself closer to some sort of epiphany regarding my existence and what I should do to find my way free, I get dragged back down into the dirt by an equally compelling force. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself depressed or seeking attention, but I would easily say that I’m desperately calling out. Could it be that these silent pleas are my only method for conveying my true feelings regarding the world and the way I look at it? Or is it simply the easiest method of explaining everything to myself. I couldn’t say.
What is obvious to me are the circumstances regarding those involved. There are those that are perfect constants—I know where those paths will lead and cannot argue the comfort upon such a trail. My feelings are known and will not waver, yet why are they there? I’ve lived this life in a haphazard fashion, going through the motions in one second and then viciously sucking the marrow out of everything and everyone my eyes fell upon. Everything hurt after the fires finally died on such a life, and I was left shivering in the cold, attempting to recover on my own. Hands were offered, some were accepted, and I healed. Scars remained, as they often do, and I lost a portion of what I once saw through all things.
Past attempts on my life still sang clearly throughout the depths of my thoughts, forever echoing as a reminder of what I so desperately craved. The ripples of such things never truly goes away in a mind like mine. I feel the scars long lost to vision and remember what it felt like. My wiring has been altered forever because of such things and permanently branded my existence with self inflicted injuries that can never fade. I rose from the ashes of my own existence and the hell I created for no reason other than to punish myself, but I couldn’t be the man I was before. No, that innocence was lost to my own fear and rage. I viewed the world through clouded eyes and declared myself villain to what I saw. Deciding I didn’t deserve what I had, I shed my skin and vowed to become better.
As the flesh regrew and I allowed my sins to wash to the back of my cavernous thoughts, I found new hope in a new world. The past remained, and I fixed certain aspects of it with certain people I thought I could never be around again. Apologies were carved into my soul and lovingly repaired with forgiveness I had no right receiving. Tears baptized my new existence and I rose, desperately ignoring the demons locked at my back. They could never truly be destroyed, as I knew the dark strength I forced myself into was necessary for my survival in a number of aspects. Not only that, but the destruction of who I was and my subsequent resurrection meant that I could help those I cared for in far more ways than I had originally thought possible.
I became a twisted hero for those who I knew deserved it. I found the single person I needed more than anyone and confided my essence in her. She showed me the light within my own cracked heart and I clutched that to my breast as hard as I could. My life wasn’t made for one as pure as her, though, so I was forced to release her as one must do with anything they are not meant to hold. I collapsed in her wake, knowing strength unlike anything I had before, but finding now that she took some of the light she brought out with her—nay, it was a gift. It was the beautiful thing she saw in me and brought out that she felt was worth the most. I couldn’t know how to produce it in her absence, thus it only made sense to pass such a thing onto her.
The demons scratched at their cells, and I finally cracked the lock. Unleashing the darkness I had long harbored, I found that it had never truly been chained. Instead, I had simply instructed it to sit quietly while I pretended it didn’t have a grasp on my heart. With my jaded experiences guiding my actions now, moving through life became the easiest thing in the world. What I didn’t realize was that my thoughts still existed, lurking in silence and burning through everything I knew over time. Instead of simply getting through the trials and tribulations I experienced, I found a clever way through them without actually handling the situation mentally. Thus, I created kindling for the inferno that now rages constantly within. I hate how depressed and emotional I sound, when I feel the complete opposite.
Perfect apathy is what I would describe this as. I care about these thoughts and resolving the injuries they’ll surely inflict upon my personality, but they do not cause me grief or sadness, merely a lack of sleep and more confusion than I readily like to admit. Instead, I hide behind the veils I’ve sewn together from patchwork memories and the rationalizations I’ve given for why I have yet to face myself. I survive in this world and I go through it rather successfully while behaving like a functioning member of society. How fractured is it that I can play the part of perfectly adjusted, when everything about me is scorched, cracked, and chipped? I play my part perfectly so that only those who look closely see the straps keeping my mask on. When around those I trust, the walls fall harder than I’d like, but keeping them up anymore is more work than I can justify.
Which makes me wonder why I don’t simply open up to someone. I can sit here and write for hours with the same song on repeat like a heartbroken teenage girl, but I can’t allow myself to look truly and entirely vulnerable in front of another. I suppose that’s come with time, betrayals, and the pain of passing, but it wasn’t always so difficult. Once upon a time, I could lay my feelings bare and allow another to help me figure out where my pieces went. Yet now the simple act of stripping my armor off so that another can see my exposed underbelly is reserved for the most intimate of times. Even then, when I start to let my life out, I opt to instead grasp their problems and concerns to give them the chance I so desperately crave. I blame this largely on pride and also on not wanting to burden others with feelings that not even I fully understand.
Instead, I’m left typing away at four thirty in the morning to a horde of people I may never know. If eyes scan these words and find my essence there, then you see what I’ve meant for you to view. I hide nothing when I write, as I bleed every inch of what I am into the phrases I build. Why can’t I do that when I speak? What is so hard about looking into the eyes of someone I care about and granting them that which I can write so freely? I’ve begun to think it’s because when I write I don’t conceal any portion of who I am, while I can’t help but shove certain bits of myself into the shadows when around others—you don’t go an entire life of trying to make others smile without losing your ability to make yourself. Add in a portion of my life where all I did was fight for myself, and you craft a situation where I obliterated certain things I always held as personal truths and constants.
What’s more concerning to me than any of this is the simple fact that I can only access this raw portion of who I am when exhausted. By pushing my body to its mental and physical limits, I can look into my own eyes and see nothing but my pure self looking back. She found this crack in the wall and exploited it time after time. I loved her for it. As time passed, it seems as though I have no other means of accessing who I am at my center. Maybe if I can figure out some healthier means of doing so I can actually restore the light she saw in me and tried to nurture. Who knows, maybe there’s a good guy lurking amidst the layers of jackass and sarcastic asshole I’ve come to know as myself. I’m no role model, and I’ll never pretend to be one, but there just might be some portion of me that still views the world with the gaze of a child and finds beauty in everything.
For now, I suppose I’ll continue being the emotionally distant jackass I am, going through things as best I can until someone can recognize what exactly I need.
I really hope you’re reading this. I understand what was last said and the reasoning, but I need one of those moments you talked about. You brought me so close to your personal light, but I just couldn’t bring myself to touch it in fear of tainting it. I need that now, desperately. Whenever I try and reach out for everything you taught me, something pulls my hands back and I step away slightly. You taught me that help would always be there if one merely asked and was open to it, so I’m begging for it now. I hope you still read these pages in an attempt to keep an eye on me to ensure I’m doing well, but only if that doesn’t go against the promises you made. If it can’t be you to read through this and find the words to crush my defenses, then I pray that someone does—be they flesh or something more. Clearly I can’t keep doing this on my own, else I want to lose my sanity to the turmoil of my thoughts, but I don’t know where else to look for a soul to listen. I’m sorry this sounds so depressed, I swear I’m not, but I could really use your guidance right about now.
Walk well my friend.
-Rj
