(no subject)
Sometimes the 'bad old days' are the only days you can stand to remember, the only time you can look back on with any sort of nostalgia or fondness or even just without the sort of pain that only longing and regret can generate everyone knows how it feels even if they don't ever bother to identify it or to put a name on it that tight low burn just right beneath your sternum and as deep inside as something can go without punching out the other side with an exit wound big enough to shine a light through.
Been sober for three years now, sober and clean, not a drink not a shot not a pill not a powder not a potion, nothing at all to alter or dull or change the mind, nothing to make life bearable or interesting other than denial and the quiet desperation that comes when you realize that the one and only reason that your heart is still beating is that you cannot conceive of a single reason to actually bother to stop it, no great cause or tragedy or whim that would make for a fitting set of last words or a worthwhile epitaph or a suicide note that anyone on Earth would ever even want to read if it were the last thing ever to be recorded on paper before the fires come and the rain washes everything away.
Been the monster, that worked until it didn't, worked until I got too tired and old and soft to keep it up, worked until I couldn't spit fire and shine with the kind of light that only hate can ever engender. Been the average person, that one never worked, not fit for it not born for it can't stand it can't tolerate the company of average men and want to vomit in the company of average women, nothing quite as stupid and spiteful in the most venal and inconsequential of ways as an average person. So I tried the good person, tried doing right and just and helping people and pulling people back from the edge and back over the rails and doing the good deeds and all of that delusional nonsense right up until the point I realized that the only thing that gets you is spit on shit on and tread upon because there is absolutely nothing you can one hundred percent absolutely guarantee except that if you force yourself to bend into that state of mind you will make the mistake of believing others the same and no one can ever be trusted to be like that even if no money, no sex and no power are on the line.
So the question arises 'Well, what do I be now?' and of course if you're dumb enough to say that aloud some dumb son of a bitch who's cooked everything out of his brain other than AA and Jesus is going to stumble along and say 'Have you tried being yourself' but there is no such thing, there is no continuous stream of consciousness there is no unified self and you are not who you were ten, five, or even two years ago, you probably aren't even who you were a week ago but you don't realize it because believing that you are a cohesive personality and not a jumbled mess of contradictory evolutionary instincts, nerve impulses, cultural demands and good old fashioned whim is what helps to keep you from collapsing into a quivering heap of jelly and existential panic.
So maybe I'll try the monster again, even if the fire isn't there and even if I'm not as sharp and as hard and as mean as I used to be because at least the monster was fun, at least the monster got out and was popular and was in high demand because there is nothing, nothing quite as amusing to one human being as the suffering of another.
Or maybe I'll just go score.
Been sober for three years now, sober and clean, not a drink not a shot not a pill not a powder not a potion, nothing at all to alter or dull or change the mind, nothing to make life bearable or interesting other than denial and the quiet desperation that comes when you realize that the one and only reason that your heart is still beating is that you cannot conceive of a single reason to actually bother to stop it, no great cause or tragedy or whim that would make for a fitting set of last words or a worthwhile epitaph or a suicide note that anyone on Earth would ever even want to read if it were the last thing ever to be recorded on paper before the fires come and the rain washes everything away.
Been the monster, that worked until it didn't, worked until I got too tired and old and soft to keep it up, worked until I couldn't spit fire and shine with the kind of light that only hate can ever engender. Been the average person, that one never worked, not fit for it not born for it can't stand it can't tolerate the company of average men and want to vomit in the company of average women, nothing quite as stupid and spiteful in the most venal and inconsequential of ways as an average person. So I tried the good person, tried doing right and just and helping people and pulling people back from the edge and back over the rails and doing the good deeds and all of that delusional nonsense right up until the point I realized that the only thing that gets you is spit on shit on and tread upon because there is absolutely nothing you can one hundred percent absolutely guarantee except that if you force yourself to bend into that state of mind you will make the mistake of believing others the same and no one can ever be trusted to be like that even if no money, no sex and no power are on the line.
So the question arises 'Well, what do I be now?' and of course if you're dumb enough to say that aloud some dumb son of a bitch who's cooked everything out of his brain other than AA and Jesus is going to stumble along and say 'Have you tried being yourself' but there is no such thing, there is no continuous stream of consciousness there is no unified self and you are not who you were ten, five, or even two years ago, you probably aren't even who you were a week ago but you don't realize it because believing that you are a cohesive personality and not a jumbled mess of contradictory evolutionary instincts, nerve impulses, cultural demands and good old fashioned whim is what helps to keep you from collapsing into a quivering heap of jelly and existential panic.
So maybe I'll try the monster again, even if the fire isn't there and even if I'm not as sharp and as hard and as mean as I used to be because at least the monster was fun, at least the monster got out and was popular and was in high demand because there is nothing, nothing quite as amusing to one human being as the suffering of another.
Or maybe I'll just go score.