(no subject)
As one or two of you know, lately when I become overwhelmed I just start writing/typing, letting it all out. Whatever comes to mind goes straight to my fingers, straight to the paper. Chris read one, and let a lot of other people read it, and it was uncomfortably popular. So I figured, ay, maybe I'm on to something, maybe these are actually pretty good. I wrote one today, and I'm gonna post it. Read it if you've got a sick mind like mine, I actually like this one a lot. But I warn you before you go,
Last night, I came home from work at quarter past twelve, wearing pajamas. Not the kind of neat little flannel pajamas you're used to, or your cute two piece that your boyfriend insists you wear cause he can reach under it, oh no, these were special pajamas. These pajamas were in my head. I was just so warm and comfy, the stupid feeling you get right before you drift off to sleep, where you can't help but smile at how there's positively nothing to smile about. But I wasn't in bed with a pretty girl on my shoulder, I was walking up my driveway. I was outside, away from the safety found under my covers. I was vulnerable. Just like pajamas. Warm and comfy, but unless you're in your safe zone, you're naked, unprotected. Oh I know these big fat emo chicks wear their pj's to school and think they're awesome and unique, in reality they're just too rotund to wear jeans. Any decent self-respecting person knows well enough to wear fucking clothes. But if I was s exposed and weak, how was I warm and comfy? Drugs. I threw my back out at work and was in agony, but I needed the money too bad to go home. Paul found out and gave me a muscle relaxer, which I thought was no big deal. I felt better in twenty minutes, and made it through the rest of the night relatively unfazed. Then I was wearing fucking pajamas in my driveway. Maybe that's what drugs are... Flannel pjs for your head. They make everything warm and soft and friendly and let the world fade away while you smile like an idiot, when in reality, let's say, I dunno, Karl Marx jumps out from under your mom's truck, and you're all like, whoa no, isn't that- and then WHAM, he hits you with some kind of big communist stick, presumably with a nail in it. Don't you wish you had been able to defend yourself, that maybe your reflexes weren't all padded and hidden behind ugly paisly fabric? And then I went to bed... And I slept. And then I woke up. But I woke up all wrong. I woke up around two am with four messages on my phone, one I think I dreamed, and three from someone I'd been waiting to hear from for days, and what's sad is I think I was technically awake when they came, just too sick and destroyed to perceive anything, particularly something so trivial as a phone call. If only it had been trivial. I listened to the messages (I still can't make sense of the first one) and the second and third were hangups. The fourth one yeilded something positive; I got to hear her voice. I returned it, no answer, no change, I still lie delirious and confused, the drugs have worn off and I can't move, I just lay there, burning, dying, convincing myself that I will not live throughout the night. I know I'm fine, but I lay there, and tell myself I'm not to justify the flaming human melodrama racing through the neurons in my brain. I lie awake, and now it's three in the morning,and every fiber of my being shrieks at me not to survive the night. I punish myself for being too weak to die, and too weak to live, and nothing makes sense. My whole body is on fire and I can't diagnose it or make sense of it because I'm too delirious to even be positive where I am. It's four am now and something important in me tells me I should be thinking of someone. I ask it why and it doesn't answer. It tells me not to ask, we're too far into this now, if you're gonna look back now pull the trigger cause every bridge you've ever crossed lies in smoking ruin. And then, this voice, it laughs. It's not any better off than I am but the difference is it knew it never would be, I at least thought I would get somewhere. I wanted to be miles down the road from here, someplace warm and safe where I didn't have to be afraid anymore, where everything would be all smiles and flannel pjs and most of all someone else would be there, the only thing on earth more secure than me. And lord she would be. And then it's five am. The sun is up and for a split second something makes sense and I realize what I'm thinking about. Then the voice tells me it's okay, I'm just tired and sick and broken. To emphasize this, flames shoot up my back and the pjs are just a bizarre memory. One would think being totally without any type of blanket to keep me safe and warm I wouldn't sweat like this. I'm still dying. The good people of the world, the ones the sun still shines on, all safe and happy in their SUVs and DKNY clothes, they're driving to work right now. They're living their lives. And I'm on fire. I haven't slept. Or maybe I have. I can't remember. I'm sad that I'm alone but I know it's a damn good thing. What if I wasn't? What would I look like right now to someone else? Would I still be burning then? It's almost seven and I can't tell if I'm sick anymore. The burning in my stomach and chest is gone, my back is still shattered, I can't move, but I can think. I can't think straight, but I can at least focus on the malaise. I'm still absorbed in the self pity of playing sick. My back gone, yes, destroyed on my idiot quest for capital. But I'm not sick, not as lonely and forgotten as I'd like to tell myself. This is my warmth, this is my safety, I'm comfortable as long as I'm a martyr. As long as I can picture the people that never appreciated me standing around my home made coffin, screaming "his name is Robert Paulson", what a way to go. Now it's half past seven and I hate myself. Idiot. Some people are victims of weakness. You are its best friend. You call weakness late at night and ask it to come over and cuddle with you, you annoy it and ask it what it's thinking about. You are weakness's bitch. Now the voice is laughing again, and I realize we've reversed roles. This voice is my weakness, this voice is what causes me to doubt myself and convince myself that I can't do the things I clearly am more than capable of handling. And I let it convince me that I'm the weaker half. I tell it this, it's still laughing. Fucker. He knows my convictions aren't this strong, I'll let him take over again soon enough. But here, early in the morning, while my back burns and the good people of planet earth continue their lives, for a single instant I am one up on the demon in my head. I worry for an instant that by acknowledging him I let him win just one more battle, but hey, at least I know what the problem is. The culmination of all the bad parts of my father and my brother, the two men who hate each other more than any two men I've ever met, finally assembled in a union of failure that would make either of them proud. Duane and Aaron, together at last in the head of someone who never understood either of them. I'll call it Darren.
Last night, I came home from work at quarter past twelve, wearing pajamas. Not the kind of neat little flannel pajamas you're used to, or your cute two piece that your boyfriend insists you wear cause he can reach under it, oh no, these were special pajamas. These pajamas were in my head. I was just so warm and comfy, the stupid feeling you get right before you drift off to sleep, where you can't help but smile at how there's positively nothing to smile about. But I wasn't in bed with a pretty girl on my shoulder, I was walking up my driveway. I was outside, away from the safety found under my covers. I was vulnerable. Just like pajamas. Warm and comfy, but unless you're in your safe zone, you're naked, unprotected. Oh I know these big fat emo chicks wear their pj's to school and think they're awesome and unique, in reality they're just too rotund to wear jeans. Any decent self-respecting person knows well enough to wear fucking clothes. But if I was s exposed and weak, how was I warm and comfy? Drugs. I threw my back out at work and was in agony, but I needed the money too bad to go home. Paul found out and gave me a muscle relaxer, which I thought was no big deal. I felt better in twenty minutes, and made it through the rest of the night relatively unfazed. Then I was wearing fucking pajamas in my driveway. Maybe that's what drugs are... Flannel pjs for your head. They make everything warm and soft and friendly and let the world fade away while you smile like an idiot, when in reality, let's say, I dunno, Karl Marx jumps out from under your mom's truck, and you're all like, whoa no, isn't that- and then WHAM, he hits you with some kind of big communist stick, presumably with a nail in it. Don't you wish you had been able to defend yourself, that maybe your reflexes weren't all padded and hidden behind ugly paisly fabric? And then I went to bed... And I slept. And then I woke up. But I woke up all wrong. I woke up around two am with four messages on my phone, one I think I dreamed, and three from someone I'd been waiting to hear from for days, and what's sad is I think I was technically awake when they came, just too sick and destroyed to perceive anything, particularly something so trivial as a phone call. If only it had been trivial. I listened to the messages (I still can't make sense of the first one) and the second and third were hangups. The fourth one yeilded something positive; I got to hear her voice. I returned it, no answer, no change, I still lie delirious and confused, the drugs have worn off and I can't move, I just lay there, burning, dying, convincing myself that I will not live throughout the night. I know I'm fine, but I lay there, and tell myself I'm not to justify the flaming human melodrama racing through the neurons in my brain. I lie awake, and now it's three in the morning,and every fiber of my being shrieks at me not to survive the night. I punish myself for being too weak to die, and too weak to live, and nothing makes sense. My whole body is on fire and I can't diagnose it or make sense of it because I'm too delirious to even be positive where I am. It's four am now and something important in me tells me I should be thinking of someone. I ask it why and it doesn't answer. It tells me not to ask, we're too far into this now, if you're gonna look back now pull the trigger cause every bridge you've ever crossed lies in smoking ruin. And then, this voice, it laughs. It's not any better off than I am but the difference is it knew it never would be, I at least thought I would get somewhere. I wanted to be miles down the road from here, someplace warm and safe where I didn't have to be afraid anymore, where everything would be all smiles and flannel pjs and most of all someone else would be there, the only thing on earth more secure than me. And lord she would be. And then it's five am. The sun is up and for a split second something makes sense and I realize what I'm thinking about. Then the voice tells me it's okay, I'm just tired and sick and broken. To emphasize this, flames shoot up my back and the pjs are just a bizarre memory. One would think being totally without any type of blanket to keep me safe and warm I wouldn't sweat like this. I'm still dying. The good people of the world, the ones the sun still shines on, all safe and happy in their SUVs and DKNY clothes, they're driving to work right now. They're living their lives. And I'm on fire. I haven't slept. Or maybe I have. I can't remember. I'm sad that I'm alone but I know it's a damn good thing. What if I wasn't? What would I look like right now to someone else? Would I still be burning then? It's almost seven and I can't tell if I'm sick anymore. The burning in my stomach and chest is gone, my back is still shattered, I can't move, but I can think. I can't think straight, but I can at least focus on the malaise. I'm still absorbed in the self pity of playing sick. My back gone, yes, destroyed on my idiot quest for capital. But I'm not sick, not as lonely and forgotten as I'd like to tell myself. This is my warmth, this is my safety, I'm comfortable as long as I'm a martyr. As long as I can picture the people that never appreciated me standing around my home made coffin, screaming "his name is Robert Paulson", what a way to go. Now it's half past seven and I hate myself. Idiot. Some people are victims of weakness. You are its best friend. You call weakness late at night and ask it to come over and cuddle with you, you annoy it and ask it what it's thinking about. You are weakness's bitch. Now the voice is laughing again, and I realize we've reversed roles. This voice is my weakness, this voice is what causes me to doubt myself and convince myself that I can't do the things I clearly am more than capable of handling. And I let it convince me that I'm the weaker half. I tell it this, it's still laughing. Fucker. He knows my convictions aren't this strong, I'll let him take over again soon enough. But here, early in the morning, while my back burns and the good people of planet earth continue their lives, for a single instant I am one up on the demon in my head. I worry for an instant that by acknowledging him I let him win just one more battle, but hey, at least I know what the problem is. The culmination of all the bad parts of my father and my brother, the two men who hate each other more than any two men I've ever met, finally assembled in a union of failure that would make either of them proud. Duane and Aaron, together at last in the head of someone who never understood either of them. I'll call it Darren.