Hurts

What is it about pain that makes me want to share it?  Why would I want to burden anyone else with the awfulness?  I never understood that there was so much pain available.  I guess I thought it was for everybody else, and not me.  I've thought that I've been in pain before, sure.  It hurts all the time, just being alive, and the years add up.  I guess you can get used to anything though.  But who can get used to an artillery barrage?  That's what it feels like now, all the time.

Jerral is dead.  How can that be?  All I had to do was just say one word to him, just one word, and he'd still be alive.  One word.  Any word.  He'd still be alive.  I wasn't there when he needed to live.  Everybody tells me that it's not my fault, I can't blame myself.  Oh yes I can, because this isn't just any situation.  I knew Jerral.  I KNOW that if I'd just called him once he'd be alive right now.  It would have set a different sequence of events into motion, and he wouldn't be dead.  I wouldn't have let him die.

My brother... I'm so tired.  I can't.  There's too much grief, and it costs too much.  I don't have the energy to feed this pain continuously, and still breathe and eat and go to work and sleep and walk and look at things and hear and smell and live and type this.  I'll never have another conversation with my brother again.  My relationship with him is diminished.  My life is diminished.  The last coherent words we exchanged were words filled with anger.  I have nightmares about my brother every night now, that he's dying the saddest death imaginable.  I wake up boo-hooing and getting my pillow all messy, and my ears all plugged up, and that's the worst time to feel sad, is right after you wake up from a dream.  All of my dreams are linked together by an unbroken sadness now.

And Leah.  If ever there was a dead horse that just kept getting beat over and over and over again, it's this heartache bullshit.  I'm so sick of being heartsick.  Fuck this, I hate it.  It's a part of the new pain conglomeration now... Leah, Jerral and Matt.  I feel like crying all the time now, all the time I'm holding back tears.  If I let my mind indulge in any kind of memory or thought concerning these people I love and whom I've lost, then the tears start and I have to spend a hundred calories trying to suppress them, and that sucks.

How did this happen?  I thought it used to hurt.  What an idiot I am.  Now I know that it can keep hurting worse and worse and worse, and that there will always be a new level of pain to explore.  It all sucks now.  It hurts,

I think I'm gonna throw up now. Isn't that funny?

I think I figured out something about art tonight. I was walking home from work and listening to some music that I really love - a band called Pinback - and as I was listening, I saw my shadow marching before me, in step with the song. It's a dark no-moon night, so the available light was coming mostly from street lamps. The lights which were casting my shadow were about 100 yards behind me, and at the top of a hill. I was in this little valley with trees all around, and my shadow was long and surreal... like a caricature of me.

I began to feel separated from my shadow, as if I wasn't associated with it, but just watching it perform this marching step in time with the music, a rigid step-dance, independent from me. I saw it as this black description of an animated piece of negative space, forever marching away from me. Purposefully moving away from me, trying to get away from me, to disassociate itself from me.

And that's when I realized what art really is. It's an expression of everything, represented as a caricature of the artist, but separated from the artist on a thousand superficial levels. If we just look at it and then look away, then we only see the most shallow part, the just under the surface information which is meant to lead into the heart of the artist, but only gives vague directions. This is the view that most of us perceive when someone presents us with a thing that they want us to appreciate. Usually we just glance at it, or listen to a few seconds of it with half an ear, and say, "Cool," when what we actually mean is, "I really don't give a shit because it isn't about me. Now, have I got something to show you..."

So that's art in a nutshell. Just a method for trying to get people to understand that thing about ourselves that even we don't understand. The problem with it is, most of us are so self absorbed that we never recognize what's being said. We want you to look at us, but we don't want to look at you. But then again, what makes art a 'thing' to begin with is that shared connection among people who understand a particular something. The concept exists as a phenomenon - but independent of logic.

Isn't that funny?

Things that happened recently

From April until now:  The sister of a friend of mine from East Texas committed suicide.  The father of a friend of mine in East Texas died.  My Aunt Mary Lou passed away.  My Aunt Judy died during routine back surgery.  My best friend from East Texas killed himself.

The dressing on all of that death salad is that my brother Matt had a stroke about a month ago.  His cognitive ability is diminished, as well as his speech.  He can't work anymore.  It's impossible for us to have a normal conversation now.  Nobody knows yet how much he will recover... he may never recover.  He'll probably get disability.

I'll never have another argument with my brother again.  Ever.

What can I say?  It all makes me very sad.

My friend Jerral

I learned this weekend that my dear friend, my dearest friend and brother in all but blood, my friend, my friend... my connection to mortality, my secret sibling - Jerral Wayne Johnson - committed suicide. I love you brother, I'm sorry it had to hurt so bad, I'm sorry I wasn't there. I love you Jerral, I love you, I miss you, I'm sorry, forgive me.

Jerral is the only friend I've ever had who I actually thought of as my brother.  We even wrote and signed a contract - making us brothers - with our own blood, and shook bloody hands over it.  Yeah.  We really did that.  And I honored that pact by completely ignoring it.

The last time I saw or spoke to Jerral we had been drinking and we had fought pretty severely.  I know Jerral - I know that he was a tortured soul; that he always was his own worst enemy, and that alcohol brought out his demons.  I know that he felt terrible about what happened between us, and that he was sorry.  I know that he agonized over the memories of our last encounter and endured extreme guilt because of it.  I know he was sorry... I know all of this; I knew all of this, but  I never contacted him again or told him how sorry I was, or asked his forgiveness, or gave him my own forgiveness.  I just left him there, mired in his own feelings of self hatred, and I never even tried to heal that breach between us.  I never even tried.

Never have I ever felt like this before.  Ever.  I can't help but think... if I'd contacted him, if I'd made some kind of effort to talk to him again, that he'd still be alive now.  But I never suspected... I never imagined... I never thought in a million years that he'd take his own life.  I was always sure there would be time to get together with him again.  I always assumed that I'd see him again, and that we'd talk about that fight we had when we last saw each other, and that we'd laugh about it and call each other idiots while remembering how drunk and stupid we had been at the time.

But that never happened... so here it is, continually before me... a moment which will always contain the death of my friend.  And there I am, forced to observe this truth as it just sits there... still and unchanging.  And somehow this never ending moment, this persistence of NOW, this terrible, happened thing, this moment which contains within it the first real description of suicide that I've actually known - all other descriptions before this one were in black and white and projected onto a broken wooden fence in broad daylight - all of this truth containing moment exists solely as a construction of the most terrible thing I've ever experienced in my life.  And there it is, continually before me, and here I am... forced to observe its persistence.

It's interesting, in a clinical, detached way... a new emotion, something new to feel.  A brand spanking new experience.  Interesting.

I'm afraid

I want to say things, out loud to people, but it's like a brick wall stops me.  No, a neutronium wall, which stops me.  Secrets that I hate about myself.  A lot of the things I hate about myself aren't 'me', but things 'about' me.  Does that make sense?  I don't hate myself, not really.  I have enough true self awareness to realize that I'm not inherently evil, because I recognize the evil in myself and hate that instead.  But, it's still something which is attached to me, and it's easy to confuse it with myself.

I think there's a core to my self which is separate from evil, but is addicted to it.  When I say EVIL, I don't mean bloody fangs and murderous rage and hatred for him and her and them.  I mean... things about me which I hate.  Simple evil.  Evil that's not necessarily recognizable.  The worst kind, I guess.  Heck, I don't know.  Personal evil.  The kind that hurts only the people around me that I love, as opposed to the kind that would make me famous, like Hitler evil.  Anyway.  That kind of evil... the worst, I suppose... for me anyway.  That's the kind which is attached to me, which I can't shake off.  And I hate it, like it hates me.  It's a working relationship.  I never knew about it, not really, until about four and a third years ago.  It's good to know it's there, though.  If evil can make me feel good at all, then that good feeling comes from recognizing it, because if you can't recognize despair, then you'll never know hope.

For most of my life I've been just one little teeny tiny soul out of a gadzillion which have lived and died and are living right now... just one, but my own life has seemed so all encompassing.  How can it not have?  I'm a self contained observation of the universe.  How can I ever ever understand anything or anyone other than myself?  How can I ever connect to the real existence of life, and understand that my own personal conscious awareness isn't just this little, compressed singularity of despair?  If I ever ever understand that, then I think I'll understand that the despair I feel never existed, because I'm not alone.  Right?  Whoever you are, if you are reading this, is reading this.  Therefore, I'm not alone.  You've felt this way, right?  Or have you?  How can you not have?  Maybe it's my ego trying to assert itself again, wishing that I'm not the only one to be terrified.  But if you add up all the terrified souls, surely it's got to come out to a positive number.  It's math, right?  Somewhere in there?

Last night, I went to sleep, trying to imagine the trees of that dream.  I've mentioned it before, here and there, to people and online and whatnot.  That dream, up in the trees, where I could spend eternity.  That feeling I get, when I think about that dream I had, 10 years ago, of just existing up there, in the dark, in the trees, changeless and absurd in it's apathetic attractiveness.  I awoke 30 minutes later.  I was breathing, really hard.  Fast.  Breathing about 5 times a second, over and over, in a terrified panic.  I was terrified, trapped in between awake and asleep for what seemed a timeless period, but which had to have been less than 30 minutes at least.  I awoke, breathing like that, feeling like I was about to die, terrified out of my mind, like I was about to die, saying out loud:

"I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid."

I woke myself up saying that.  I thought my mom was there, and that she was holding me, but it was my pillow... I thought it was my mom for a while though.  That's what brought me out of it.  It was terrible.  Just absolutely terrible.  Hateful.  It was hell, for a little while.

I don't know where I'm going with this rambling monologue, changing subjects and stuff.  Just saying it I guess, so that it's not still just in my head.  Getting it out, so I won't have it in me and feel so alone with it and be so scared of it.  That's all, I suppose.  I'ma sleep now.

Three Years

Three years and two weeks and I still think about her every day, I still feel her lack of presence like a phantom limb, and I'm still a retarded goof ball in love.  It'll be interesting to see how long this keeps up.  In other news, I completely forgot about the Jazz Fest this weekend.  That sure was a fun time at the Jazz Fest back in 2009, when we she and I and my sister and John all went together.  That was fun.  I miss her.  Really a bunch.  A whole lot... dang.  Awww man, I just realized I might be stuck with these feelings for the rest of my life.

A single breath

A single breath, one little smell, and I've relived a lifetimes worth of youth in a few seconds.

Something about the night. When it's quiet, and still, and the moon reveals something, a form with a silvery blue lining... the edge of that something reveals a distinct lack of substance. A pure blackness, an anti-tree which, through the trick of not even existing at all, brutally cuts the sky to pieces. Something about it is very compelling. The shape of the wounded sky; the presence of a chaotic, fractal nothing, implies a suggestion. I think about it for a while, off and on, and at the end of the night, after I'm back home and safely tucked into bed, I get it. Eternal sadness? An intentional thing, purposeful and created? That's it. And by qualifying the suggestion, I've just given it form. The sudden realization of the reality of this universal practical joke - played on suckers like me by the devil, apparently - to which I'd just supplied the punchline, threatens to overwhelm me.

After a while I've had enough of that piece of tree-shaped hole in the sky. I start walking again, into the wind, and the breath of the world shoots up my nose. The world does little things like this to me sometimes, usually without warning. I'll never understand it. The smell of the beautiful sadness of memory tries to carry me away into a comfortable oblivion. With some effort, and somewhat reluctantly, I turn away from this feeling, and it feels like I've amputated a part of myself. It hurts terribly for a moment, and then, suddenly and without even meaning to, I put myself back together and I can't even remember feeling anything at all. Sometimes I really worry about the absurdity of everything.

I finally decide to do something about the splinter in my right foot that has been worrying away at me all day, just sitting there at the limit of perception, wreaking havoc somewhere down there just above the cellular level. I realize that it's just a tiny piece of whatnot, and that it's state of awareness - if it even has any at all - lies somewhere between that of a grain of sand and the thermostat on the air conditioner. However, even as stupidly unaware as it might be, it's still a guilty little freeloading bastard that's been getting a free ride all day, and I've passed judgement on it and sentenced it to the same oblivion from which I'd just recently emerged. After the sentence is carried out and it's over and done with, I don't feel bad about it at all... well, maybe a little. As simple as it was, it was a thing with a purpose - to aggravate the heck out of me - and it was fulfilling that purpose completely. I ended that brief purpose, forever. Empathy for a splinter. Isn't that retarded?

It's late. I'm home. I'm tired. I've been running a fever all night.

I'm sad. I'm afraid. I don't belong.

I'm alone.

Everything is going to be all right.

Hilarity

Uh... it's late, or early, or whatever.  Drank too much tonight, still awake, and I missed vigil too because I decided to party with my brother.  I missed confession too, so I've excommunicated myself from communion.  It's Lent, and I'm just using it as an opportunity to screw up as good as I can. 

Anywho, so I'm a flaky undependable douche bag.  What else is new?  I'll go to church in the morning with crap sleep and zombie my way through work, and then I'll start over and give it another go on Monday.

Imagine horror as hilarity.  That's how I feel now.

G'nite.

sadness

Sometimes I think, and think and think and think, about these people I've seen who have killed themselves.  And people I've known who have killed themselves.  It's a thing, in my head.  Ah God, it's a sad thing, I don't know what to do about those thoughts.  They don't present themselves as a general rule, not as a normal thing, not on a regular basis.  It's enough to just have those thoughts for a few seconds a month, enough to remind me of how awful being awake can be.   But it ain't all the time.  It's just a sad sad thing.  I think it needs to be known at least, that sadness.  It should at least be known, because ignoring it would be giving it the ok.

Thinking

I was thinking tonight on the walk home, about how the universe is like a grid, and is twisted up where gravity is. Tightened, you know, into a more dense place, where the grid lines are closer together. Planets and stars and things, and people too. Anything with mass. Then I thought, that's what people are, and alive things. Twisted up parts of space-time that are where the life is. And especially twisted up, especially dense parts, are people, the conscious alive things. The aware things. And then I thought, that hurts, that twisted up-ness. Why should that hurt? But it does. Being alive hurts. Why should that be the case? It's a natural part of the universe, that twisting up dense-ness, which the alive-ness is. But naturally it hurts. Why? Why should that be part of the natural order of things, the pain? Or is it just me?

this chance

I often wonder why I've been given this chance, when many people more deserving than myself have met such tragic ends, lost and strangers to God. I mean, I used to refer to Christians as semi-evolved simians. I laughed at their willing stupidity, and I enthusiastically viewed them with as much contempt as I could muster, placing them on a level which might as well have been infinitely below my lofty perch of enlightened knowledge. I certainly don't deserve any kind of chance at life and hope, so why do I get one when so many others didn't? What about kids that were just as stupid as me, just as young, just as old, just as confused... and who had just as much chance of possibly coming around as I was given, but they died of stupid drug overdoses, or car wrecks, or asthma attacks, or suicide? Especially the suicides. I'll never ever EVER understand that - why I get this chance, when all of those myriad hundreds and thousands and millions of people, most of whom were far more deserving than I am, never even began to have the chance that was given to me. I don't get it. I mean, real life with hope is possible for me now, when it wasn't before, and I didn't even know it. That's a miracle. I don't understand why I'm part of such a teensy minority that got that, when most people never get the chance.

bad joke

I'd finally come to the end of yet another long, grueling night of walking around Denton and reading my e-book, when I noticed that I was out of smokes. So, I went into Walgreens to buy a pack for one last lap around the town, and the guy in line behind me tossed a box of condoms onto the counter and said to the clerk, "Hey man, these are used. Do I get a discount? Heh heh heh. Heh... heh. Heh. Ahem...

Now, let me ask you... have you ever been present when a bad joke was delivered, and nobody laughed, and everybody - the young, old, weak, strong, guilty, innocent - EVERYBODY had to suffer through the intoletrable aftermath of uncomfortable silence? Imagine a terrible, terrible weapon - one that nobody would ever actually contemplate using, because the effects are devastating beyond comprehension - falling into the hands of a moron and actually being used in a random sneak attack against a group of completely neutral and unsuspecting folk; good, honest, law abiding citizens who haven't the capacity to even imagine such an atrocious act of unspeakable evil.

As you have most likely gathered, this actually happened tonight. I was a witness. I fled the scene, but I'm willing to testify.

4 years

As I walk by the church tonight, I can see oil lamps burning through the windows. It's strange to think that four years have passed since I first stepped foot in there. In a lot of ways I still feel like a stranger there, but at the same time, seeing those burning lamps gives me a feeling of security, like those are the home fires being stoked and tended.

The Lonely Strangers

The Lonely Strangers

by

Elias Ashley Davis

The lonely strangers sat side by side on the secluded park bench in silence. Neither of them could think of anything to say to the other. Finally, one of them started to say something, but stopped. The other, reacting automatically to this attempt to make a connection, also tried to say something, then stopped. They both sat there for a few more minutes in silence. Finally, both of their faces lit up as they started to say something at the same time, but being abashed at the embarrassing juxtaposition, they both stopped. Another short interlude passed. Then what seemed like an epiphany occurred to both of them simultaneously. They looked at each other, opened their mouths as if to say something, and then stopped; embarrassed that they had both shared an epiphany at the same moment. After another long pause, one of them took a deep breath in preparation, looked the other one in the eye, and finally did say something... something very large and incredible, and pontifical, and important, with such profound verbosity that the words were deadly and beautiful. The other, taken aback by this sudden outpouring, almost said something... but then someone else showed up and said something that just killed it, so the two lonely strangers just continued to sit there, saying nothing and looking like a couple of retards.

Thoughts of you

My thoughts of you keep falling into their accustomed places, so often now that I'm beginning to wonder if what I'm feeling anymore is real, or if it's just a habit. There's no way to really know, you see, and that's a truth I've come to realize with some dismay... that the memory of life isn't organized the way you or I or any of us would want it to be - like a story, with a beginning and an arc and a moral, and characters that grow and develop, and the resolution of conflict, and then ending with a lesson well learned, leaving plenty of room for a sequel. It's mostly just this chaotic mess that only happens to seem like a poem every now and then, and we want so much for it to be a poem that we learn to lie to ourselves. And from there we build our delusions, and wreak the inescapable havoc of hope.