The weather turns melancholy and I find my mood seems to be reflection
of that. For the first time in a long time I find myself fighting the chill and
the bitter sting of the encroaching cold, and I welcome it. There’s something
rejuvenating about finding my footing on a path I’ve traversed alone before. I’ve
trekked this wood, as it were, and I know the way through the forest. But there’s
something altogether different about the journey this time around. I’m here by
absolute choice, I’m washing clean the sins, draining all the poison and the
venom left in my veins. I’m bleeding out with a purpose.
I loved, I loved fully, I loved deeply, and I loved with every ounce of
my being. I have defended, I have purged, I have fought, I have toiled, and I have
expounded at length but it means nothing in the end because it was just an
experience. A situation I put myself in, and I sowed the seeds of those
consequences. So much effort, so much energy, and all of it boiled down to an
endeavor that was never clearly defined. In the end, I was there to be
miserable because happiness is the only thing I’m afraid of. The idea of living
for myself, of putting myself ahead of and beyond the need or expectation of so
many others, of really breaking the bonds of servitude that shackle me to so
much useless misery, so much endless excess…I would go to ends of the earth for
her, but I didn’t want her, I just wanted the misery; more an addiction that
anything else.
I’ve espoused poetry that would melt the hearts of so many others, I’ve
dedicated sonnets and declarations too beautiful to capture on paper, and all
for one so undeserving, one so selfish and self-righteous, the bane of my
existence is perhaps my own creation. But the purge must be done, the draining
of the abscess has to commence if I am to move on. The sky cries with me,
washing away the sin of the world so something new can begin to thrive.
I was so lost in her, so dedicated. And it’s all ground that’s been
covered before, covered en masse and at length, and while you guys may not like
it, fuck off, I need to admit these things to myself. I have to face these
demons and exorcise the best way I know how, so like it or not, she still gets
some mention and page space. I lost myself, I gave the best of myself to
someone with so little to offer, only unhappiness and misery. She was the
answer to everything I have indoctrinated myself to believe I deserved. The shortcomings,
the lack of commitment of emotion, so little to really offer, and yet I was the
one that was left believing I didn’t measure up. I’ve endured so many
unspeakable things, survived so much ugliness, too much suffering, and I learned,
only through the grace of someone with patience that rivals my own, that I do
deserve better, I am not the best, but I am solid and stronger of character
than most anyone else.
I claim to be an ass, to be the terrible thing that brings sadness and
despair, because it is all I see, but in truth I shoulder so much of that for
so many others I’m left drowning in it. If I am ever to find myself, to get
back to the person that only a select and privileged few have managed to know I
can be, I have to open this wound and let bleed all of the terrible things
locked within. She was a vicious, manipulative, selfish cunt that sought to
have all of my affections, all of my energy and effort, but refused to offer anything
in return. I took crumbs and scraps, devouring them like a rabid dog. I’ve had
so many friends, so many people, all of them trying their hardest to get me to
see the truth, to recognize the things that I had blinded myself to see, and I’ll
be honest, I still can’t see myself the way they do, but I do see enough to
know that I deserve better than I was given.
I was sullied. A tainted heart crying out for salvation and redemption,
and despite myself I actually tried in earnest to sabotage myself and keep
myself from being happy, from being given or shown better. Another bad choice,
in an almost endless list of them, but I have to admit it. For all the credit I’m
given, for all the guidance and advice I’m capable of offering so many others,
for all the ability I have to “fix” everyone else, I’m incredibly broken. My depth,
my passion, and my intellect have all been dulled in an effort to fit in, to
conform and adapt. I’ve traded so much of myself away for so many shallow and
hollow victories, and when I ran out of things to give, I shut off.
Now I’m staring at something wonderful, I’m flying through the air with
no net and I’ve leapt over the side of the precipice into the abyss of madness
and whatever else is within the black and that reckless abandon was done to
further my sense of misery and increase the burden of chaos I shoulder, but
instead I’m not falling toward uncertainty and terminal velocity, I’m gliding
on the wings of angels toward soft landing and warm arms. As daunting as the
idea and concept or notion of vulnerability is, given how badly damaged and
broken I am as a person and how god awfully shattered I still am emotionally,
it’s something I have to do. To know what it is to feel anything, to feel
connected, to matter to someone else, even if I can’t muster the courage to
matter to myself. There times and situations that test the mettle and resolve
of us all, for most it’s death or loss that determines what we do when the pressure’s
on. For me it’s an endless litany of things that seem to never abate or pause. Constantly
tempered in this fire, and the irony is, I once burned white hot and I thrived
there in the flames, but I actively moved myself from the heat of the flames to
become someone I didn’t want to be, to let loose of so much energy and accept
an idea who I needed to be to make someone else happy. Now I’m blinded by the
passion that so many others have, and I want it so badly. I want to be back in
the dead center of the flames, to glow once more with white hot intensity and
fervor.
I’ve pontificated on resolve, gamut, plans, revelations, and
declarations, but in the end it’s all just words if there’s no dedication to
the idea. I need my integrity back. I’m not the doomed soul I think I am. I brood,
I carry a darkness that few can understand, and I do carry the weight of not
just the world on my shoulders but in some cases a grander macrocosm of things
that go unseen even by eyes until they’re dangling inches from my nose. This is
who I am. This is who I have always been. The self-professed martyr, the self-imposed
sacrifice to attaining something better, that is who I have chosen to be. I once believed that I could never hope for
more, to attain something greater or to even begin to fathom the idea of
thriving in something less severe and occluded. But I have come to understand
that not only is this no way to live, but it’s a disservice to those that would
actively seek to love, to those that would choose to share some part of
themselves with me. It isolates and insulated far too well, and leaves me an
untainted bastion of integrity that is endlessly tormented by the ghosts of my
own psyche, refusing to let go or relinquish the control it has. I am a
terrible mess of complexities and chaos, but there is beauty in the wreckage
and a sense of potential in the smoldering ruin.
Like the phoenix born anew, the ashes are not permanent. This death is
not final. I am the son of a man that suffered so much injustice medically, and
yet still he draws breath on this earth. I am the product of a broken home held
together with little more shoe string and tape. I am the end result of my
experiences, traumatic and debilitating as they may be, and yet still I stand,
still I thrive, still I draw my own breath, filling my lungs with the coolness
of rain soaked air, and I stare with my own eyes, filtered though they may be,
at this screen and pen these words. My strength has not left me, I will not be
bested by the terror I’ve ignored. I will endure, I will find my footing and
achieve something I never have before…some semblance of true and unrivaled happiness.
If the fates are willing, I will accomplish this task, like so many others that
have been laid at my feet.
