Category: Series Eight

It’s relative
The things I want
The things I need
The things I deserve
The world shared by you and me

It’s relative
The time passing us
The rhymes passing by
The space between memories
The moments shared between you and I

I’ve learnt how to accept the past
But what good is that
When I can’t accept the present
And I live in the future

It’s relative
The things we watch
The things we see
The things we’ve heard
The Earth shared by you and me

It’s relative
The heartbreaks and love
The laughter and cries
The pain, pleasure, and joy
The overlap shared between you and I

I’ve learnt how to accept the past
But what good is that
When I can’t accept the present
And I live in the future

Youth has passed
Not worried I’ve missed out on moments
But worried I’m missing out on moments
I’ve experienced more than I can describe
A persisting inescapable feeling from which I can’t hide
Compared to some others, all others, no others
It’s all relative

I’ve learnt how to accept the past
But what good is that
When I can’t accept the present
And I live in the future

Losing key memories
By not experiencing these
Keys to a life I’ve always dreamed
Blessed in some ways
Fortunate in others
But always searching, wanting, yearning
To realize dreams of which I’m not sure from where they came
If they were my own, derived from television, or via derivation are mine all the same
Some hope for what I have
I have a lot, and sure, I don’t take it for granted
Some hope for what I have
I’m running out of time for these wishes to be granted

Text. Text. Testing. Texting.

I’m riding in an Uber on the way to the airport, wondering what comes next.

Do I continue searching for something that may not be there? Do I give up and redirect my discontent elsewhere? Or do I give in and succumb to the end that awaits us all – or, at a minimum, apply a filter over my life until I forget what’s right, only to wake up again in the morning each time.

It’s night, but at this time of year, you could mistake nighttime for most of the time. It’s cold and it’s windy, but outside of a flurry here or there, no snow has fallen hard or long enough to build upon the ground. It doesn’t matter, though: it’d melt away the next day.

Nothing is permanent, not even the slush we walk through and get annoyed by when we have to take off our shoes and clean them. Why do we bothered getting annoyed? It’s not a big deal; if it’s not a big deal, does that mean we’re apathetic and missing a piece of what makes us human?

Maybe the snow will make it through the night, overnight. When it decides to make its presence known again, but that night is not tonight.

It doesn’t matter, anyway: I’m leaving. What to? Well, I guess the technical answer is I’m going home to my family (parents and brother) and friends for the holidays, from where I live now. But really, what am I leaving to? Tonight, tomorrow, at any time, what I am leaving to? Where am I going to? And where am I coming from?

I don’t really know anymore, if I ever knew. There’s a fear that comes from realizing you’re the holder of the pen of your life. Some other people, some other circumstances might have had input on previous pages that has led you to where you are now. But have you thought about where you are now? Where you’re coming from? And where you’re going to?

I don’t know. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know I’m leaving.

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday.

I’m leaving.

I hope to know the answers then. I hope to know myself by then. Or I’ll have realized it was about the search, not the destination – or I’ll have realized the search was fruitless all along. So many options. So many possibilities. And I’m the one holding the pen.

              She looked on with a nervous anticipation, an anxious expectation of what was to come. She’d done this before, and she could do it again.

              Feet to the floor, that’s all she had to do.

              Feet to the floor, without the spinning of her room and the tunnel vision of her view.

              Sitting up was the first step. The first step was successful.

              Now she found herself looking on at what she could see – she couldn’t make it out: something, anything, or everything.

              Every thought came swirling in her head, chaining her down impossibly to her bed.

              The made-up path of existential dread – she couldn’t reconcile how it was all made up in her head.

              Just like the thoughts of negativity when positivity is felt; never letting herself feel joy even when the good cards are dealt.

              Toes to the carpet, that’s all she has to do.

              Toes on the tile, that’s nothing new.

              Yet she winds up in this struggle every morning, she winds up on this path that is her own doing, her brain, her mind’s own doing.

              She wants to be be free, she needs to let go, and she doesn’t know she has the power to do so. To imagine herself – and the feelings that come with – embraced by the sun and the coolness of a breeze in the warmth of the heat, an unforced smile brought forth uncontrollably, a high rushing through her body completely naturally, a sensation of happiness and joy, positivity in the stream flowing through her thoughts and the non-existence of the word negativity.

              She’s sitting upright.

              She puts her arms over her head to stretch.

              She’s sitting upright.

              She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

              She can do it again today. She can find meaning in the day. The day has purpose. There is a reason to get up. There is a reason to do it today, just like there was a reason to do it yesterday, and like there will hopefully be a reason to do it tomorrow.

              Her legs slide from the side of the mattress, the softness of her skin passing past the satin. Feet to the floor, she’s done it again.

              No longer does the room spin, and her line of sight has widened.

              She might not be ready for the rest of her life, but she’s ready today, and she’s ready for it to begin.

              She’s ready for today.

              ready for today to begin

I’ve got that summertime sadness in that I feel like I’m falling apart right now.

I’ve got that summertime sadness in that I am falling apart right now – there is no feel like, unless, of course, it’s all in my head.

There’s a good chance it’s all in my head.

The sky outside is on fire, and my mind inside is on fire. I think there’s a metaphor somewhere in here. I think, I think, I think.

Maybe that’s the solution.

Maybe that’s why I just bought and consumed a four shot bottle of Jack within ten minutes. Can’t have more than that in the apartment. Oh no no, no sir, no way, no how.

Have to forget. Have to be able to stop thinking. Have to stop it.

Am I am an alcoholic, and if I’m losing weight from eating better and working out more, why do I still have this beer belly? Oh, that’s why.

Better drink about it.

So that I don’t think about it.

And so now all of my writings have become ramblings I guess, huh.

Hemingway was a drunk, right?

To be clear, I don’t think I’m a drunk, nor do I believe drinking is the cause of my issues.

It’d be easy, if that was the case.

But it’s not. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not.

Oh my god, am I doing that annoying LinkedIn thing where every single new sentence is a new line?

I’ve earned myself a fifth shot.

To be clear, I know I’m not a drunk, and I don’t believe drinking is the cause of my issues: it’s more nefarious than that… I drink because I think because I want to control because I feel out of control because the things in my mind and the thoughts in my head never correlate to the person I am or reconcile with the person I wish I was and I get so obsessed with this overconolulted complex of OCD making plans even though I’m not OCD that’s not who I am and I’m struggling can’t you see but I don’t care enough to make anyone see, the “you” wasn’t directly meant at someone, not you or me, or maybe, I guess, you know, partially potentially me.

I’m 32, single, and definitely questioning.

Why I am single? Why am I here? How’d I get here? Do I like other things? No, I really don’t think so, but why else am I single? Why else am I here? Well –

I said “I don’t really don’t think so,” but again, that’s the issue: thinking.

Sixth shot.

“Why else am I single?” I’m not sure, all I know is I hate myself and I’m now too scared to talk to girls after being the “doesn’t call – or text back (let’s be real here, who calls anymore, nowadays)” douche in college, and so I no longer like to approach or perhaps ruin or poach a good evening, writing this it sounds like I’m seething, but I’m not, I wonder though if I’m believing.

Again, perhaps there’s things I’m not admitting about myself or to myself.

Or perhaps there’s skeletons in my closet so much that I wish I was someone else.

Things I regret in the past and don’t believe were the real me.

But what if they were? That’s the one thing that has me seething.

And self-loathing with no coping because I don’t deserve any reserve or reprieve because is it just me I am going to deceive?

No one knows the past but ourselves and the others in it, and who knows how the other remembers it, and do I remember incorrectly?

I honestly don’t think it could have ever been me.

And maybe it wasn’t, maybe I’m just remembering incorrectly.

Because I never realized it until years later, and they never said anything.

At this point, to them, I’m never saying anything.

And then to conflate and confound the issue, is that completely ancillary?

Is it because I could be of a different orientation than I previously thought, and that’s why I no longer try to quote unquote talk to the orientation that I’ve always thought?

Or is it because I have one thing I haven’t been liking about me (well, a lot of things), and that one event in the past, that they’ve never brought up, but its effect still has its last.

Cause I think about it now, and about it I’m not proud.

There’s so many, many things about which I’m not proud.

The self-hating leads to the over-drinking.

And when I’m out – no pun intended – when I’m out there’s so much over-drinking.

Which leads to more self-hate.

How’d I get here in the first place?

I was a good person, so I thought.

Am I a good person still? So I hope I am. I’d like to think, but I don’t know if I am.

I do good things, but are those because I am reflecting?

And to return to earlier, is this simply tangentially?

Do I wish I was someone different altogether completely? If you know what I mean?

I don’t know.

I really don’t know.

If this is the world, then this is what it is.

I hope, I pray, no one feels as fucked up as I do, and this is why I say I’ll never had kids.

At least biologically.

If I’m not happy with myself, then it’s time my bloodline dies with me.

But I’d love to have kids honestly.

And know I’d be a great parent.

And would love to take a kid out of a situation that’s shitty.

So adopt, don’t shop, as I jokingly say.

Then again, sometimes I wonder if I’ll be around another day.

So then no, at least for now, plus I have the whole issue of finding a partner for now.

And reconciling within myself why I haven’t done so yet at the age of 32.

Perhaps my insecurities all along were right: I’m a loser, who knows?

Oh yeah, all the people who picked on me growing up.

Why do I care about what they did or said? Honestly, now I don’t give a fuck.

But I worry their words and actions made a lasting impact on me, subconsciously.

And these are the things I gloss over in therapy.

I want to be in a relationship, I want to have kids, I want to love and be loved.

But I have a hard time finding love for myself, and I have a hard time envisioning a future where love for me finds someone else.

To atone for the past, sure, I donate and volunteer and am generally a good person.

But I know I could have been a better person than I was, and I hate half of who I was who is half of who I am.

So until I can figure that out and figure out what it takes to be a man (pun intended, fuck societal norms).

I’m just so lost.

And every summer as an adult it’s arisen.

As a kid, you look forward to the summer break, minus the summer reading, where you can spend so much time with your friends playing outside, playing inside, and even by yourself doing nothing.

As an adult, you feel the pressure to have the same fun and make the same plans and make the most out of it, even though you don’t have vacation, or you feel the melancholy of reflection now that you don’t have that time and now that you don’t feel fine during that one time in which you had the time.

Breathes out in exasperation.

The summertime sadness hits me so hard, it’s for real.

I thought for 2023 maybe this could be the one year I could steal.

Away from the sadness, but the sadness now has it.

The only way now I could steal is to not partake it.

But in order to do so, I’d have to stop partaking in all of it.

And that, I will not let myself do so, I will continue although I know “deep down” I want to quit BECAUSE deep down I don’t want to quit.

I’ll continue striving to be the person I’ve always wanted to be, always known I can be, every day.

The other pieces in life will settle as they come, in a way.

Because I know deep down, I am someone I can humbly be proud of, and make the world a better place.

I just need to remind myself to keep living, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and every day.

And to improve on myself, no matter how big or small the improvement is each day.

And one day, as I try to make others happy, I’ll also understand how myself to be happy.

That way

That way’s away right now

But I can see it

No matter how far away

Every morning’s a struggle

Every evening’s a battle to convince to try another day

But I can see it

No matter how far away

At least that’s what I say… what I say today… who knows what I’ll say tomorrow… if I am around tomorrow.
…and after I quoted Lana, I’ll quote A Fire Inside, and say “Sing the Sorrow”