i want nothing of this madness. i am everything of this madness. this madness has become me. this madness will leave me. this madness is utterly complete. this madness is so undone.
Category Archives: internals
thoughts, musings, life, etc
there are very few good friends
after a while you accumulate all this armor, you defend yourself from all sides. you have wounds that have scarred up nice and thick, and your joints begin to creak. you forget how to laugh, how to forget yourself.
but then there are those few friends, the ones that knew you when you were whole. that you knew when they were still all in one piece. the ones that you fought the night with, the ones you drink away much of your liver with. the ones you shared women with, the ones who stole you from a woman or two much too soon.
they are the ones that remind you who you were and who you could be. they point out your stupidities and teach you again how to laugh at yourself without feeling timid. they come back with the comebacks that make you choke away the dust of the day. you say to him, “even at seventy, drunk on miami beach, we’ll be saying the same shit, i swear.”
night sick fear
when the night is at its most peaceful, i snap right up. i am sick with fear. my stomach churns, my bowels feel weak. i touch my child and the terror does not abate, it worsens. i reach even further, i touch my wife’s belly and still no comfort. my life is escaping me, i cannot hold it between my fingers, time pushes me around. it is so ruthless. so unforgiving.
haven’t you heard this all before?
there are times i literally shoot up and try to catch my breath. horrified i need to rip my heart out and hold it in my hands to slow it down. it beats too fast with fear, it is much too loud, it careens around in my ribs. all i wish for is a way to stop time, to stop this beating in my chest that leads me closer and closer to inevitable grief and madness.
i will outlive you all and i cannot bear it.
it is obvious
it is obvious that something has cracked open, my chest has been cleared of leaves and cobwebs, things long abandoned and dead. i can never hope to catch up to it, in many ways i think it is already gone, but i can only follow it’s trail, listen to the hushed distant whispers of its voice.
sometimes it’s a grizzled old man who has much too much fight left in him. sometimes it is a woman marked from head to toe with the words i’ve yet to say.
sometimes it is my dead father. sometimes it is the daughter i lost.
but i’ve been cracked open to listen, to write, to rub my eyes open with ashes. to openly mourn and grab hold of that, to no longer push down and stop feeling that. but to bring it to the surface, bring it to my calloused fingers, to smear it here, to let it live, for whatever it’s worth, for whatever it’s meant to do, for whatever it can be.
good times
i can imagine how someone reading through this site would imagine that there is nothing happy here, that there is no hope. but there is, there is. just because you write of broken things does not mean you are always broken, or that your life is.
i have a son on the way. i have a beautiful wife who loves me despite of my faults, and they are immense. i finally broke through to my future goddaughter. she went from crying at the sight of me to holding my finger and pulling me along. of course this will all change when i dunk her in september for her christening.
i’ve been given more responsibility at work and work has gotten even more busy than before. my daughter, completely on her own, hugs me and tells me she loves me. i think she actually misses me from time to time.
all in all, it’s a good life. not the life i dreamed for myself, not the entire life that i would want to be living instead. but as long as i can write about damage and pain and suffering, as long as i can engage with everything writing allowed to happen for me, then it’s enough. almost more than enough.
no names
they never have names. it’s always you, he, she and them. faceless and nameless, always shifting, dancing from one person to the next. as if they were all one and the same but far too many to hold still. as if it’s always been a panic of person and place, of desire and regret. as if you were the memory and they the life you had lived a long time ago.
yours and only
hey boy, he said, crouching down beside him, listen to me boy.
and the younger man couldn’t tell the difference between his lungs and his chest, his ribs and his skin, he felt his nails digging deep into his sides and he wanted to claw his skin off. what, he spat, what, fucking what?
boy, he leaned in closer to lock eyes, to grab the younger man’s attention, to have him focus. you listen to me, you feel it don’t you?
the younger man was rocking back and forth, biting his bottom lip.
but you going about it the wrong way, the man shook the younger man’s shoulder, you’re trying to get rid of it boy. he grinned, yellow tobacco stained teeth, grizzled chin, wisps of grey hair blown across his eyes.
the younger man clenched his teeth and finally broke the skin.
it’s the only thing that’s truly yours, he stood up and appraised him one more time before they would start again, it’s the only thing that remains.
he helped the younger man get back on his feet, shaky and sweat drenched. he looked off to the horizon, the sun was setting. now stop fuckin’ about boy. we got work to do.
me
you vile wretched piece of shit, you sad fucking stain of a human being, you gutless worm, you touch anything and it spoils and rots, you’re a fucking disease, you leave blisters on everything you love, you’re an infection on everything that’s decent and human, you’re a forgotten cum stain, you’re an abortion, a severed tendon, a split lip. that’s all you are, fucking damage, you fuck damage, and damage everything you fuck, you’re a fucking weapon, there is no kindness in you, there’s nothing fucking human about you, you mongrel, you cunt, you use people, you break them, you gut them out because you have no heart of your own, you fucking liar, you empty shell, you waste of fucking meat, you and your sad flabby skin, your pathetic little cock, you’re a vermin of a man, you’re just fucking vermin, fucking kill you, i should fucking end you, fucking put your head through a window and cut your fucking neck, put a fucking end to this shit
the trick
my boy, he said, gristle stuck between his two front teeth, my boy the trick is to believe the lie you are living.
i get that, i said, whittling away at a branch we had found. pieces split from the blade landed on the stream, floating downward. i’m not stupid you know. i’ve done this sort of thing before.
yes boy, he shook his head, tried with his tongue to get at the gristle. yes, you have but this is a different sort of thing. they’re all wise to our kind these days. you see the stupid ones get plastered all over the news. they even had a documentary once.
he finally fingered his tooth and inspected what had been caught there. it was a between infomercials, i dont think anyone noticed it.
he flicked it away, which isn’t the point. they know we’re out there and we have to be careful. he pointed a thick finger at me, you my boy, you just starting out.
he smiled, new territory for you.
pretend with me
i love being a father because i learn to be all the things he wasn’t. i learn how to control the rage within me as my child throws a tantrum and i want to do nothing but hold her in her place, to let her know that i am the rock upon which all her fears can break.
i love being a father because i exaggerate my face and make funny sounds and keep all the howling within me at bay. i can redirect the tension and the confusion of just being in the world into sharp focus: take her hands, teach her to dance, try to get this silly little clown to follow some sort of rhythm.
i love being a father because i get to make it up as i go along. i get to be someone other than myself. i learn to be something bigger and stronger and more beautiful than i could ever be. in my child’s eyes i get to be alive even when i am dead inside. i can pretend that i am not broken. we can pretend all the scars inside are healed.