Tag Archives: confessions

The Introduction

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You know that moment, late at night, when you wake up suddenly and you aren’t sure why? Some tiny noise or shift in the light startles your mind awake. Maybe a dream has you falling or running and you instinctively flee the sleeping world for the day time realm of consciousness. This wasn’t that.

The resounding crash had me on my feet and my heart racing before I knew what I was doing. I looked around, startled but nothing seemed out of place. A second scream of shattering glass and falling debris assailed my ears. It sounded like it was right on top of me.

I rushed out of my room and looked around frantically for the source of the sound. Nothing. The house was still and quiet as the grave.
With that disconcerting comparison going through my head I carried on through to the front of the house. I could still hear shifting and creaking, though much more distant now. I stopped at a window to glance outside but there was no sign of disaster. No neighbors rushing out of their homes to find the source of the sound.

I could still feel my heart in my throat. What the hell just happened? Could it have been just a dream?
But no, I was well awake for the second crash. What was going on?

I walked into the kitchen, clean and organized as it always was. Which was to say not terribly. But the roof hadn’t caved in so I couldn’t say the sound came from here.
I walked quickly into my work room. Nothing seemed out of place.

I ran my hands over my face and sighed. Maybe it was just a bad dream…

“No, not quite just a dream. Sorry to tell ya”

I whipped around fast enough that I almost fell over. Standing behind me was a tall man, middle aged. He wore a bright colored suit and had piercing green eyes. His voice was almost sing-songy as he laughed at the fear that must have been clearly stamped on my face.

“Oh, dear boy don’t look so terrified. It’s not as though you didn’t know I was here”

He laughed again, and the sound of it made my blood run cold.

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?”

He looked down his nose at me and clucked his tongue “Such boring questions. Come on, you’re suppose to be smart. You tell me who I am. Come on, we both know you can”

I just stared at this lunatic, wondering what I had near by that I could use as a weapon.

“Now, don’t go doing anything we would both regret. Hitting me will only hurt you after all” He laughed again and sauntered over to my desk to sit down. “Fine, I’ll give you a hint. If you really want to get to know me, you just have to look in a mirror”
He kicked his feet up onto my desk and grinned an impossibly big grin as I edged away

I swallowed to find my voice then said “What, you think you’re me?”

“No, no no. Nothing like that. Well, actually, that’s pretty close. I’m part of you. A fun little part you’ve had buried deep, deep down for a long time” He spread his arms and threw his back to look at the ceiling “And here I am! In the flesh, so to speak”

I shook my head and kept slowly making my way backwards toward the door. I had to get away from this madman before he hurt me.

I turned to dart out the door and he was suddenly standing in front of me “You can’t run away from you self you know HaHa”

I gasped and fell backwards onto the ground. “Dear sweet god what are you?”

He frowned at me and touched the bridge of his nose “We’ve been over this. You know you don’t like to repeat myself. We are us. You and me, same person, different faces. You run around during the day doing…whatever the hell it is you do. And I’m your subconscious. The part you don’t talk to much. Awake and alive in that boney noggin. Just quiet before now” he crouched in front of me and smiled “Don’t believe me. Then try this on for size”

His form warped and in a flash he no longer had the same pale complexion and bright smile. He was a tall, young women. My ex-girlfriend.

“Is this more pleasant to look at” she said softly in a voice I hadn’t heard in years.

His….her….its form warped again and my mother loomed over me, stern and angry.

“Or this one? Come on, answer me damnit. I’m not here to be stared at!”

I closed my eyes and tried in vain to calm myself. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. It was the vodka from the night before. I was still drunk and it finally caught up to me.

His melodic voice sounded in my ear “Sorry, but no. Your drinking couldn’t cause anything as clever as me HaHa” I opened my eyes and he was sitting right next to me.

I lurched away made for the door again. He sighed but didn’t get in my way this time.

I ran down the hall and back towards my room. Slamming the door shut I collapsed against  dresser and counted to ten. This can’t be real. It’s all a bad dream. You can wake up, you are in control here.

“Wrong again” I looked up with a start to see him sitting on my bed smiling at me.

“Come over here and sit down before you hurt ourselves” he patted the bed gently to indicate i should sit next to him. And lost to the confusion and terror that I must be losing my mind, I did.

“There we go! This is much better isn’t it?” He draped his arm across my shoulders and he felt real. Solid.

“Just you and me and all night to catch up. Oh, that earlier ruckus. That was me. I needed you up and alert for our little chat HaHaHa. Don’t worry, I didn’t actually break anything. Just made a lot of noise. I do love a good start”

I took a shaking breath and looked into his eyes. The bright green was almost unnerving to stare at, but I wasn’t going to be deterred.

“So, you’re me. Or, rather part of me then?”

“Now you’re getting it! Yes, I am you. Ish. I mean clearly you aren’t in control of me but we are one and the same. Different sides, same very sick coin”

“Ok, so you’re a hallucination. A manifestation of an illness?”

He scowled at me sourly, as though I had offended him “An illness? No, no, no. I am part of you. Don’t make me sound like a bad thing. This is great! You and me…you never have to be alone again. I can be here for you, every single moment from here on out”

I put my face in my hands and tried to think. Have I seriously gone off the deep en-…

“Hey, I can tell a lot about you because I am you HaHa, but I can’t read minds. You gotta talk to me. Tell me whats going on in that thick skull”

I looked at him again. He looked so familiar. So real. “I shouldn’t talk to you. That only enforces that you’re really here and you aren’t. I need to get help.”

“You got ‘help’, remember. They gave you those beautiful pills. Do you think that’s why I can talk to you now? How you can hear me? Maybe the pills actually work and they finally started cutting through the noise. Maybe that help is why you can hear me now, instead of just all that screaming and crying all the time”

I glanced over to my night stand where my medication sat. Could this be a side effect? Some times schizophrenics reported worsening symptoms on certain medications. Could I be schizophrenic?

“Let me guess, you’re asking if you’re crazier than you thought? No, again. I’m you. You aren’t crazy, you’re just getting adjusted to your new reality! It’ll be fun, you’ll see”

I looked at him again, his form becoming clearer as I spoke to him.

“If you’re part of me then I guess I can’t just get rid of you. But who are you? What do I call you?”

His bright red smile widened again and his bright, white teeth shone in the half light of the room.

“We are the same person, remember? But for now, you can just call me….Joker”

Patience

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I keep trying to write here but recently I have been struggling to write at all.
I’ve had to start some medication that leaves me in a fog, dazed and stupid. I can’t focus on much of anything for more than five minutes and my inspiration has dried up.

I keep hoping I will push through it and get back to a place where I read and write regularly. But so far I haven’t managed to make it there.

So I’m writing this more or less just to write something. Anything. Just trying to shake the creative juices loose or get something moving again. With any luck at all I will start to see some positive effect from my medication and get back to where I am writing more. That is the ultimate goal in all of this. Improve the situation. Move my life forward again.

In the mean time, I have no idea what to say. I have a million fractured thoughts that would make brilliant starts to stories, poems or songs. But I can’t follow any of them. I chase these pieces like wisps of smoke. I can see them, I’m almost certain I should be able to reach them. But they slide through my fingers tips, insubstantial.

It’s a frustrating feeling, seeing so much potential that I just can’t make real. Fighting for a hold on something that use to be more readily present to me. But here I sit, ready to punch my monitor in frustration as I fumble words I’ve always managed so easily. I reread words I’ve written and hate them, seeing constant misspellings and errors in grammar or words missing entirely.

But still I try. I won’t let circumstance take my writing from me. And sooner or later, whether through adaptation or sheer force of will, I will see myself writing again. The process is just time.

Patience. Patience in all things. You can’t rush life, so to I must not rush health. Til then, I hope for the patience from others that I have failed to have with myself.

Personal Truth is Hell

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I’ve started this post more times that I can count over the course of more than 24 hours and I’m still not sure I have the right things to say what all is going through my head.

For very many years I have worked so hard to dedicate myself to the notion of truth. Not just facts, but truth. It’s hard for people to understand the difference sometimes, but fact is what simply is. It can be proven by numerous independent groups. Truth can be relative. Personal.
And I have fought to be able to see the fact, but also recognize personal truth in my interactions. You can’t maintain personal or social relationships without acknowledging personal truth.

And that can be hard. Because personal reality doesn’t have to line up with factual reality. And sometimes deciding which is more important can be hard. The capacity to face dozens or hundreds of separate realities and keep them all in the right place and order is insane. But I try.

I don’t always find the right balance. I tend to err on the side of pointing out fact and statistical probability. And this can be harsh and cold. Part of the reason is that I can’t understand how other people feel. I can guess and I can adjust based on who I see them being. And I like to think I’m good at that. But I can’t always cater well to personal truth. Despite my determination to always recognize and support truth.

In the last eight months I have had to question my personal reality more than a few times. I’ve realized that despite my determination to never lie to myself or accept a cover story to make tragedy easier, that I have actively ignored fact to accept what I wanted. And I was wrong.

I convinced myself that something that wasn’t true or factual was in fact real. I broke one of my cardinal rules. Don’t believe it’s true. Consider everything.

I want so badly to believe that I can find a relationship of any kind where I can just accept what I hear as truth and reality. Not just carefully constructed words to create a situation favorable to the person speaking them regardless of the other people around them. I want to believe that mind games don’t have to be a part of every interaction. But every time I find myself trusting someone I also find myself cheated or tricked.

It’s natural to subconsciously alter our behavior to create a favorable outcome. Everyone wants to be on the winning side. I pursue that sometimes at the expense of the people I care about. Because a core part of who I am is based around my ability to be the smarter and more capable person.

Physically I am broken. I am crippled and suffer from chronic fatigue and pain. I have fought off two decades of illness that no doctor will help me with. And so I have relied on my mind to stand out, to be successful.

A couple of years ago I began exhibiting sever mental illnesses. This has terrified me because I feel like I am only as good as my mind. And mental illness takes that way from me. If I lose that then I am worthless. Just another broken, crazy, useless man who will never be more than a medicated, slowly dying ass.

I’ve always been good at telling people how things will work out. I’ve studied and enjoyed behavioral psychology so I am good at reading what people do and why. In the last eight months I have been gloriously, massively wrong in my own life. Repeatedly.

I’ve trusted people who played me. Even people I was told constantly not to trust. I’ve been wrong. And if I can’t see what’s in front of me how can I be useful to anyone else?
I understand logically that I can’t be blamed for missing things. Everyone wants to believe that are worth being loved and important to other people. But I can’t shake the personal truth that I am better than that. I lied to myself, actively ignored factual reality to give myself something I wanted. And in the end I got burnt for it.

Factual reality is a cold, lonely place. Personal reality is so fluid and not close to fact. I just can’t find that balance.

And the harder I try to pursue the factual reality the fewer people I have around me. I can’t connect with people well because of that. But I can’t accept personal reality over fact.

If I stop counting the facts I just become the joker and no matter how hard I try Ill only be played by harley. I’ll just be an idiot. I won’t be the wizard. I’ll just be the asshole.

No matter how many blue lights I hear I can’t ignore the demons. The lights only seem to lie.

So I am a broken, dark asshole. But Im not accepting the lie just to make myself feel better. I may lose more people over it, but I can’t live the lie forever.
No matter what happens I will always get the factual truth. I can’t avoid it no matter how much more appealing the lie is.

Everything says “He died doing the right thing”. That’s not true. The fate is more like “He died ignoring the lie”. Cause someone will kill me for pointing out facts. Sarcastically cause I’m a dick.

I’ll stop here before I say something else I’m sure will be too much later.

**Please ignore what I am just going to assume are the many spelling and grammatical errors here. I have had a few to many drinks. Sorry to a certain mermaid, there is nothing left to smash but an empty bottle. I’ll make it up by making more empty bottles to smash. Cheers**

Breath on Bones

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I’ve felt grossly nostalgic this evening, for places and things that do not exist in my world. Missing my light and my darkling and much more.
So I thought I’d ponder on irony. On loss. Some of the pathetic turns that shape a beautiful, if tragic reality.

● I’m a writer. I write to express things I cannot otherwise express. However, I don’t write much of what dwells in my mind because it is, by nature, darker or unhappy. And that makes people concerned. I am very
appreciative to have people who notice and care, but it does make writing my mind…awkward sometimes.

● I sit here with a connection to the Internet.  I literally have a tie to every corner of the globe. Everything we know as a species is here. With time and patience I could learn everything human kind now knows. Yet there are moments I find myself bored. People less interested in learning have done so much more with so much less.

This maybe the single greatest tragedy of this generation, that we squander such opportunity on apathy due to convenience.

● With time off from school or work I have accomplished nearly nothing. The old adage is true. If you want something done, ask a busy person. When I have nothing to do, I will do nothing. If I don’t have a spare second, I’ll change the world.

● If I need to sleep, I have to make plans. If I have the chance to sleep I will literally spite rest out if restless anxiety.  If I can’t afford to, I’ll sleep through my alarm, texts, phone calls and possibly armagedon.

● Making plans will also guarantee that my body and mind give out. Just saying…

I could keep on for quite a long time.
The point being that life will actively be everything other than what you expect. So take the chance to enjoy where you are.  It may not be home. But it can be perfect for now.
Tell the people that matter that they matter. If you’ve said it a million times,  always say it once more. They need to hear it. Believe me, they do.
You’ll never be ready for the big steps. Not until you take them.
Sometimes you have to trust that you aren’t the Joker you think the world sees, and just be thankful that Harley  love you.
The deepest night brings the brightest stars.
If, in that dark night you can’t find the light, maybe it’s because you are the light.

And when all else fails, a few shots of whiskey can carry you that last few steps and probably then some.
So keep a flask handy. It holds the lullaby at bay.