Responsibility II
The knife is on the counter again today. The long one; with the jagged, key-like teeth. The one that always makes me imagine stabbing myself in the heart or in the belly. Restless exhaustion lifts the blade, and the corpse’s reflection shows me something rare: a smile, cold and dead, and the finger cannot stop itself from caressing all the teeth. A sip of caffeine takes me to the bedroom, where a curtain is tied with the scarf, the one that always makes me feel like I’m hanging and swinging from something so high I cannot reach it on my own. The scarf is torn from the curtain because brightness is attacking me, and the shielding darkness must be drawn. It cannot bear the being seen clearly, this thing that must drug itself to perform even the simplest of humanities.
Pleasure comes only with guilt, and connection only with disappointment. Beauty like music, once my favorite food, is now a drug, and overdosing is the only possibility of relief. The things consumed are not appreciated and waste alone is produced. Friends cannot know that I am here again, not even the ones I call “family.” Their faith in me is all I have.
Pages are turned without reading because my religion has never really been there, and impatience is everything I am; maybe all I’ve ever been. In this darkness everything is clear to me. Pockets must be filled with rocks and the truth must be embraced: some people spend their entire lives drowning; I will hold this tightly to myself and dance with it until I can sink no further. Only there can I be truly myself. I can forage for myself and hum to myself, and finally know the one true happiness of not being a burden to anyone but me. I’m sure I can find everything I need in this sunken place that I’ve decided I cannot escape; and, even if I can’t, my story will end the same: lifeless hands, scattering rocks and floating to the surface, no longer bothered by the choice between the problem of evil and the problem of paradise.
Happy First Anniversary, everyone! (Anniversary of the Great Election Day Hangover of 2016, of course.) It’s been a little bit easier for me the past week or so, easier to hold the good news close again and soak it in. But I still must own and honor my dark times, the entirety of the journey that brought us all here to this moment together.
How is everyone else doing a year out from November 9, 2016?
Love always,
your Mister
Lonely Hearts Chapel 