Deprecation

     I feel like I woke up halfway down a mountain I’d thought I’d climbed. So tired, so lost, so unsure of what I want, who I want to be, where I want to find myself. I can see myself in so many different lives and roles, and I’m not sure which is even me. Maybe they all are, and that’s how messed up I really am.
      I quit smoking, during a period of time that will truly test that resolve. It has been a week or so now. I miss it. It is a little sad to say that cigarettes were one of the nicest consistencies in my life. A guaranteed escape, whenever I needed it, for about 4 minutes. I’ll probably always miss it.
      I find no peace in anything else. Pleasure can so easily turn to panic, socializing to cynicism. It makes me lethargic, lazy, a great human sloth. Sometimes I sit and hope that the novel will change everything, that it will be published, I will be able to write full time, and scour the globe for adventure and story. Yet part of me whispers that even if that happens, I will be alone, miserable, and hopeless as ever. That no matter where on this planet I find myself, in the darkest hours of the night, I will suffer and self abuse. I will cut and bleed and forever feel the festering, unhealable gashes upon my soul.
      I will never live up to my own expectations, I realize. I will always be this wretched, pathetic bag of flesh. I will never achieve or learn or love enough to make up for this consuming darkness. I have now and will forever fail. 

Goodbye Grandpa Jim

    Waiting with Grandpa.  He hasn’t spoken since I arrived.  Family has filled the room, and the mood rises and falls faster than the waves outside.  I barely recognize this man, surrounded by love.  His face is thin, his eyes empty, absent the expression and humor I knew.
    My brother is holding his hand, and has been diligently for hours.  Holding his other hand, I watch and listen to his breath.  Long pauses send fear into my chest.  It tightens, becomes hard to breathe.  Then he gasps again, and I too can breathe again.  We all know it is coming, but still I dread.
    Everyone else here is discussing heaven and faith.  About how they know where Grandpa is going, and how they’ll see him again one day.  This talk makes me feel all the more alone.  I’ve had my issues with faith, and in moments like this, I wish I could have it and the comfort it seems to bring.  But I don’t feel it.  Where everyone else feels God in the room, I just feel the grief, and the love that binds us.
    As the hours pass, everyone talks, catches up.  I wonder if it feels as hollow to them as it does to me.  I understand why we’re doing it, to not feel alone in this, to remind us we are still a family, still have love.  Yet I can’t help think that very soon, there will be less love in this world, and one fewer person who loves me.
    Grandpa taught me how to fish.  He had a boat on the Oregon Coast, in fact he ran a charter business for fishing and whale watching.  We’d go out, my dad, brother, Grandpa and I, and fish.  My dad and brother would always get sick, but I never did.  I’d inherited Grandpa’s sea legs, and I was always so proud to be the only one that did.  It was something that was just ours.  While everyone else was passed out sick, we’d still be fishing.
    It’s been a long time since then.  
    My dad gets up to run down to the store, but as he reaches the door Grandma calls for him to wait.  We all know.  Suddenly, he is surrounded by everyone.  There are words and prayers, and so many tears, and then he is gone.
    Grandma is wailing, my head is spinning, my body shaking.  We knew it was happening, yet still it shocks us.  A wife is hugging her husband’s lifeless form, a son is comforting his own sons, and I am useless.
    Not long after, I leave.  I have things to do, things I could probably cancel, but I want to be alone.  I feel selfish and horrible.  I hate myself a little more with each passing mile as I drive through the dark.

Fire Dancer

    Sometimes I feel like I’m alone on an island in the night.  I shake in the cold wind on the shores waiting for a glimmer of light on the horizon, a beacon of hope and an end to loneliness.  Sometimes I feel that way, but not now.
    Right now I feel as if I’m beside an enormous blaze.  This colossal flame of my own design licks my face.  Heat, light and smoke dance across my naked body, and I dance in reaction.  A fervor, as anything driven by such burn should be.
    I don’t know what is real in this light.  It is an unpredictable beast, and what it illuminates is just as impossible to foresee.  All the other figures around the fire are as much light as they are shadow.  I can’t see these other dancers clearly, but they are beautiful beyond words.  They move as frantic as I, they twist and shake like no one is watching, and in the red glow they seem to project as much heat as they take in.
    I don’t know if this will make sense to anyone, but it is the only way it can be said.

A Direction

    Figuring out what you want and need is no small task.  For me, my draws and desires seem to shift from moment to moment, and it becomes a haze of beauty and bitterness, desire and defeat.  But one thing in what I seek remains constant, and perhaps this means it is the only true portion of what I want.  Whenever I find her, wherever we meet, I want someone who inspires me.
    A muse for my craft, a motivator for life.  Someone who, just by being herself, makes me want to be the best version of myself I have ever been.  A hard to define quality, harder still to find.  Something I haven’t ever had in the purest form.  Yet only the taste I have experienced has left me knowing it is something I need in my life.
    Loneliness smothers though, you find yourself gasping for a breath of change from the solitude, and contemplating compromise.  Take the easier path, find comfort and calm, it often doesn’t sound so bad.  But such a choice is a slow death, I fear.  Little by little hope dies out until all you are is a routine intertwined with someone else’s.
    Of course, this could happen with a muse as well.  We are all human, we are all flawed.  We all get lazy and at some point succumb to sloth.  In these moments, I need to be able to look into her eyes, see the soul that so fired my own, and find the will to fight again.  If you never had the fire, there isn’t hope, and it isn’t a way I can live anymore.
    Everything else is shrouded in uncertainty, and I’m ok with that.  I may never have children, make a lot of money, or find fame and recognition.  None of these things will matter though, if I find the woman who can pierce my soul, and love me with the same fervor and passion that I will give to her.

For Crying Out Loud

    Sometimes, the least expected people disappoint us.  As life moves ever forward, as our hearts become evermore calloused, we grow to expected and anticipate those near and dear to us will eventually fail us in some way.  Yet the casual friend, the one you share a few interests with and enjoy occasional time together, these people you never really expect to be hurt by.  Indeed, you wonder if they even can, as there is so little investment.
    Somehow though, when it does happen, it can leave you feeling blindsided and dazed.  This person who you shared just a basic friendship with throws it back in your face, rejection you could not anticipate.  You stew in your confusion and wonder “why?”
    In the greater losses, I’ve wondered why I’m not worthy of being someone’s person, lover, or spouse.  Yet never have I really felt rejected from just being a friend.  Sitting, thinking, striving to understand what makes me not worth the smallest of relationship.
    This experience has bugged me far more than I’d like to admit.  The power over me I’ve given this person is absurd, and yet I can’t just let it go.  At least not now.
    I am not lacking in friends, or people to surround myself with, and still I feel incredibly alone at the end of this.  Something that barely crossed my mind now consumes me.  Perhaps this is just another test from the universe.  A quick jab to expose another soft spot in my armor.
    The truth is, I’m so tired of being armored.  I’m so sick of keeping up my guard.  Time to just drop it I suppose, and if the world wishes to bleed me dry, so be it.

A War of Grace

    Being gracious isn’t something that just happens.  You don’t wake up one day and suddenly no longer want revenge or punishment for those who have wronged you.  It takes work, every day, every breath at times.
    I have been complemented much this last year over grace.  People respect the kindness I fight to maintain in my heart.  Some may think this is just my natural state of being, but those who’ve known me long understand this was not a characteristic I’ve always had.
    Years ago, I was possessed by undirected hate.  I hated everything.  Myself, those around me, the very world and existence.  This is still a battle in me.  Blood and carnage litter my soul over this small scrap of peace I have been able to carve out.  A bastion of calm in a never ending maelstrom of emotion.  Darkness still swirls around me, threatens to consume me, but I cling to this place of kindness.
    As broken and weary as I become, as long as I have this grace, I claim victory.  Those who hurt me do not dictate who I am.  Fears and loneliness do not control me.  I am a kind man.  Despite it all, this is how I choose to define myself and live my life.

Becoming Nothing

    This world was made to disappoint us all.  I dream of places, situations and a life far beyond what could be, and wake to this dead reality daily.
    I have such hopes for so many people that are never lived up to.  When people fail us again and again, how are we expected to become anything but cold and cynical?  When it seems the world is out to get us, how do we stop trying to strike back?
    Hindered by expectations that become my reality, I feel a cripple in this realm.  To a point where I truly don’t know how long I can continue on.  Reasons for happiness I at times have feel petty and foolish on these darker days.  I fear there may be truth to my thoughts, “Nothing is real, nothing is permanent.”
    We will all die and turn to dust, and this seems to bring me some strange comfort.  None of what we do matters, so try as we might, we can’t really screw it up too badly.  Even the globe we inhabit will eventually be obliterated, scattered into the cold void.
    I feel my inner nihilist growing stronger, rising up in me.  As he gains might, I succome to sloth and hopelessness.  And without hope, I become truly nothing.