cancer is a word with 6 letters, not a sentence.
plenty of people live through it every year, more survive it than die from it. yet when i tell people i have it ,why do they look at me like i have a death sentence?
more annoyingly, when i try and explain that it is infact very cureable, why do i hear them talk behind my back about how "brave" i am. i'm not brave at all, i'm fucking petrified, but i deal in facts and not myths.
at the same time, i belive that everything happens for a reason. maybe its my own fallacy to look for meaning within meaninglessness itself. but i truely, madly, deeply belive this is happening to me because i didn't learn from it the first two times. i need to let go of the darkness inside of myself and face up to my past. i wont let history dictate my futre, and for so long that's what i've let it do. now i believe that it isnt cancer thats killing me, its like a slow suicide. all those malignant feelings of hate, insecurity and guilt have been hidden deep inside of me for so long that they created this.
maybe my cancer is a reaction to the inner hell that ive been going through all this time. the inner hell that i simply refuse to look at objectively and release. i need to let go, of everything. dave, my childhood, every mistake that i ever made, i need to not dwell on it any more, i need to set myself free. and in doing so, i belive then i will find my cure to cancer.
i dont have cancer. in a way i am cancer. i need to cure me, not a collection of cells.
Monday, 31 May 2010
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast.
I'm not talking about onset or duration. I mean the quality of the insanity, the day-to-day business of being nuts.
There are a lot of names: depression, catatonia, mania, anxiety, agitation. They don't tell you much.
The predominant quality of the slow form is viscosity.
Experience is thick. Perceptions are thickened and dulled. Time is slow, dripping slowly through the clogged filter of thickened perception. The body temperature is low. The pulse is sluggish. The immune system is half-asleep. The organism is torpid and brackish. Even the reflexes are diminished, as if the lower leg couldn't be bothered to jerk itself out of its stupor when the knee is tapped.
Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.
In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions. Digestion could kill you! What I mean is the unceasing awareness of the processes of digestion could exhaust you to death. And digestion is just an involuntary sideline to thinking, which is where the real trouble begins.
Take a thought - anything, it doesn't matter. I'm tired of sitting here in front of my PC: a perfectly reasonable thought. Here's what velocity does to it.
First, break down the sentence: I'm tired - well, are you really tired, exactly? Is that like sleepy? You have to check all your body parts for sleepiness, and while you're doing that, there's a bombardment of images of sleepiness, along these lines: head falling onto pillow, head hitting pillow, Little Nemo rubbing sleep from his eyes, a sea monster. Uh-oh, a sea monster. If you're lucky, you can avoid the sea monster and stick with sleepiness. Back to the pillow, memories of having mumps at age five, sensation of swollen cheeks on pillows and pain on salivation - stop. Go back to sleepiness.
But the salivation notion is too alluring, and now there's an excursion into the mouth. You've been here before and it's bad. It's the tongue: Once you think of the tongue it becomes an intrusion. Why is the tongue so large? Why is it scratchy on the sides? Is that a vitamin deficiency? Could you remove the tongue? Wouldn't your mouth be less bothersome without it? There'd be more room in there. The tongue, now, every cell of the tongue, is enormous. It's a vast foreign object in your mouth.
Trying to diminish the size of your tongue, you focus your attention on its components: tip, smooth, back, bumpy, sides, scratchy, as noted earlier (vitamin deficiency), roots - trouble. There are roots to the tongue. You've seen them, and if you put your finger in your mouth you can feel them, but you can't feel them with the tongue. It's a paradox.
Paradox. The tortoise and the hare. Achilles and the what? The tortoise? The tendon? The tongue?
Back to tongue. While you weren't thinking of it, it got a little smaller. But thinking of it makes it big again. Why is it scratchy on the sides? Is that a vitamin deficiency? You've thought these thoughts already, but now these thoughts have been stuck onto your tongue. They adhere to the existence of your tongue.
All of that took less than a minute, and there's still the rest of the sentence to figure out. And all you wanted, really, was to decide whether or not to stand up.
Viscosity and velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination, velocity causes the stillness of fascination. An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.
Something common to both is repetitive thought. Experiences seem prerecorded, stylized. Particular patterns of thought get attached to particular movements or activities, and before you know it, it's impossible to approach that movement or activity without dislodging an avalanche of prethought thoughts.
A lethargic avalanche of synthetic thought can take days to fall. Part of the mute paralysis of viscosity comes from knowing every detail of what's ahead and having to wait for its arrival. Here comes the I'm-no-good thought. That takes care of today. All day the insistent dripping of I'm no good. The next thought, the next day, is I'm the Angel of Death. This thought has a glittering expanse of panic behind it, which is unreachable. Viscosity flattens the effervescence of panic.
These thoughts have no meaning. They are idiot mantras that exist in a prearranged cycle: I'm no good, I'm the Angel of Death, I'm stupid, I can't do anything. Thinking the first thought triggers the whole circuit. It's like the flu: first a sore throat, then, inevitably, a stuffy nose and a cough.
Once, these thoughts must have had a meaning. They must have meant what they said. But repetition has blunted them. They have become background music, a Muzak medley of self-hatred themes.
Which is worse, overload or underload? Luckily, I never had to choose. One or the other would assert itself, rush or dribble through me, and pass on.
Pass on to where? Back into my cells to lurk like a virus waiting for the next opportunity? Out into the ether of the world to wait for the circumstances that would provoke its reappearance? Endogenous or exogenous, nature or nurture - it's the great mystery of mental illness.
I'm not talking about onset or duration. I mean the quality of the insanity, the day-to-day business of being nuts.
There are a lot of names: depression, catatonia, mania, anxiety, agitation. They don't tell you much.
The predominant quality of the slow form is viscosity.
Experience is thick. Perceptions are thickened and dulled. Time is slow, dripping slowly through the clogged filter of thickened perception. The body temperature is low. The pulse is sluggish. The immune system is half-asleep. The organism is torpid and brackish. Even the reflexes are diminished, as if the lower leg couldn't be bothered to jerk itself out of its stupor when the knee is tapped.
Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.
In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions. Digestion could kill you! What I mean is the unceasing awareness of the processes of digestion could exhaust you to death. And digestion is just an involuntary sideline to thinking, which is where the real trouble begins.
Take a thought - anything, it doesn't matter. I'm tired of sitting here in front of my PC: a perfectly reasonable thought. Here's what velocity does to it.
First, break down the sentence: I'm tired - well, are you really tired, exactly? Is that like sleepy? You have to check all your body parts for sleepiness, and while you're doing that, there's a bombardment of images of sleepiness, along these lines: head falling onto pillow, head hitting pillow, Little Nemo rubbing sleep from his eyes, a sea monster. Uh-oh, a sea monster. If you're lucky, you can avoid the sea monster and stick with sleepiness. Back to the pillow, memories of having mumps at age five, sensation of swollen cheeks on pillows and pain on salivation - stop. Go back to sleepiness.
But the salivation notion is too alluring, and now there's an excursion into the mouth. You've been here before and it's bad. It's the tongue: Once you think of the tongue it becomes an intrusion. Why is the tongue so large? Why is it scratchy on the sides? Is that a vitamin deficiency? Could you remove the tongue? Wouldn't your mouth be less bothersome without it? There'd be more room in there. The tongue, now, every cell of the tongue, is enormous. It's a vast foreign object in your mouth.
Trying to diminish the size of your tongue, you focus your attention on its components: tip, smooth, back, bumpy, sides, scratchy, as noted earlier (vitamin deficiency), roots - trouble. There are roots to the tongue. You've seen them, and if you put your finger in your mouth you can feel them, but you can't feel them with the tongue. It's a paradox.
Paradox. The tortoise and the hare. Achilles and the what? The tortoise? The tendon? The tongue?
Back to tongue. While you weren't thinking of it, it got a little smaller. But thinking of it makes it big again. Why is it scratchy on the sides? Is that a vitamin deficiency? You've thought these thoughts already, but now these thoughts have been stuck onto your tongue. They adhere to the existence of your tongue.
All of that took less than a minute, and there's still the rest of the sentence to figure out. And all you wanted, really, was to decide whether or not to stand up.
Viscosity and velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination, velocity causes the stillness of fascination. An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.
Something common to both is repetitive thought. Experiences seem prerecorded, stylized. Particular patterns of thought get attached to particular movements or activities, and before you know it, it's impossible to approach that movement or activity without dislodging an avalanche of prethought thoughts.
A lethargic avalanche of synthetic thought can take days to fall. Part of the mute paralysis of viscosity comes from knowing every detail of what's ahead and having to wait for its arrival. Here comes the I'm-no-good thought. That takes care of today. All day the insistent dripping of I'm no good. The next thought, the next day, is I'm the Angel of Death. This thought has a glittering expanse of panic behind it, which is unreachable. Viscosity flattens the effervescence of panic.
These thoughts have no meaning. They are idiot mantras that exist in a prearranged cycle: I'm no good, I'm the Angel of Death, I'm stupid, I can't do anything. Thinking the first thought triggers the whole circuit. It's like the flu: first a sore throat, then, inevitably, a stuffy nose and a cough.
Once, these thoughts must have had a meaning. They must have meant what they said. But repetition has blunted them. They have become background music, a Muzak medley of self-hatred themes.
Which is worse, overload or underload? Luckily, I never had to choose. One or the other would assert itself, rush or dribble through me, and pass on.
Pass on to where? Back into my cells to lurk like a virus waiting for the next opportunity? Out into the ether of the world to wait for the circumstances that would provoke its reappearance? Endogenous or exogenous, nature or nurture - it's the great mystery of mental illness.
Friday, 21 May 2010
i have a dream.
i dream of a world full of green and brown and earth colors instead of pavement and cars and buildings. i dream of a world full of smiles and hugs and beauty, instead of smirks and shrugs and people bumping into eachother without an apology. i dream of a world in which we care about the starving and the poor and the ill, instead of worshipping the movie stars and basketball players and big breasted super models. i dream of a world in which kids grow up loving art and books and nature instead of plastic and tv and lies. i dream of adolescence marked with self-discovery, friendships and joy, not drugs and peer-pressure and bullshit. i dream of adulthood in which people are in happy marriages, holding jobs they love, treating people around them with compassion, instead of fighting with their spouses and working hectic hours in workplaces they despise, living life in a stressed, annoyed mindframe. i dream of a world in which the news reports random acts of kindnesses instead of random acts of bombings, killings, robberies and wars. i dream of a place where we all grow up happy and live life appreciating it. i dream of a life in which we have enough time to appreciate it.
Thomas..
You don't need to know any of this. But the things I don't reveal are the things I hold closest and fear losing the most. I work overtime keeping them veiled and camouflaged. You don't need to know that I walk around all day fearing the things that make me happy, and that I have been doing that for my entire life. Infact you don't need to carry on reading any more of this. Stop right here and walk away, because these are my thoughts, and they scare me.
Firstly, nobody wants to admit this, but bad things will keep on happening. Maybe that's because it's all a chain, and a long time ago someone did the first bad thing, and that led someone else to do another bad thing, and so on. You know, like that game where you whisper a sentence into someones' ear, and that person whispers it to someone else, and it all comes out wrong in the end. But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.
I think a person's life is supposed to be like a DVD. You can see the version everyone else sees or you can choose the director's cut - the way he wanted you to see it, before everything else got in the way. There are menus, probably, so that you can start at the good spots and not have to relive the bad ones. You can measure your life by the number of scenes you've survived, or the minutes you've been stuck there. Probably though, life is more like one of those surveillance tapes. Grainy, no matter how hard you stare at it. And looped: the same thing, over and over. That's how my life feels, a neverending cycle of cancer and recovery. Getting my hopes up and having them shattered. Another year, another organ. Another month, another course of chemo. If my life was a movie it'd be so monotonous it wouldn't even make it to Canne's.
Despite all this crap sometimes you meet somebody, And you know that whatever you did before, It must have been right. Because nothing you've done could be too bad, Or have gone too far wrong, because it led you to this person. I don't belive in destiny, but i want to, because i wan't be believe mine is you.
You might think of me as just some girl, but I want you to know that I'm that one girl who took one look into your heart and fell harder for you than I've ever fallen for anyone in my life.
It's amazing to me how you can just say these small little things, one sentence and it changes the way I feelin an instant. Small little words that can hurt me so much or make me fall more deeply in love.
Love scares me. I never really truely loved anyone since i loved Dave, I realise that now, they were all perfectly nice in their own way, but they didn't unhinge my soul. After Dave I guess I didn't have a hinge left. When he died, it felt like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerve endings are still a little raw. After Dave I tried to never, ever get my hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren't as devastated.
I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus energy on something other than the ache in my heart. And for a long time after he died i hated everyoen and everything. But mainly i hated myself, and blamed myself everyday for his death. It's hard living with the daily guilt that you effectively killed the one you love. It changes people. And when Dave died, part of me did too.
But that's all ancient history now. 5 years on and i'm with you.
I read once that the ancient Egyptians had 50 words for sand, and the Eskimos had a 100 words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but language fails me. All I know is that I want to be a girl falling asleep in a boy’s arms and not caring about anything else in the world, except how I feel right there with him. I close my eyes, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It's the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me. I want to be with you. In your arms, in your bed.
I giveyou my heart and that's all I can give you, and if that's not enough, then I'm not enough.
Firstly, nobody wants to admit this, but bad things will keep on happening. Maybe that's because it's all a chain, and a long time ago someone did the first bad thing, and that led someone else to do another bad thing, and so on. You know, like that game where you whisper a sentence into someones' ear, and that person whispers it to someone else, and it all comes out wrong in the end. But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.
I think a person's life is supposed to be like a DVD. You can see the version everyone else sees or you can choose the director's cut - the way he wanted you to see it, before everything else got in the way. There are menus, probably, so that you can start at the good spots and not have to relive the bad ones. You can measure your life by the number of scenes you've survived, or the minutes you've been stuck there. Probably though, life is more like one of those surveillance tapes. Grainy, no matter how hard you stare at it. And looped: the same thing, over and over. That's how my life feels, a neverending cycle of cancer and recovery. Getting my hopes up and having them shattered. Another year, another organ. Another month, another course of chemo. If my life was a movie it'd be so monotonous it wouldn't even make it to Canne's.
Despite all this crap sometimes you meet somebody, And you know that whatever you did before, It must have been right. Because nothing you've done could be too bad, Or have gone too far wrong, because it led you to this person. I don't belive in destiny, but i want to, because i wan't be believe mine is you.
You might think of me as just some girl, but I want you to know that I'm that one girl who took one look into your heart and fell harder for you than I've ever fallen for anyone in my life.
It's amazing to me how you can just say these small little things, one sentence and it changes the way I feelin an instant. Small little words that can hurt me so much or make me fall more deeply in love.
Love scares me. I never really truely loved anyone since i loved Dave, I realise that now, they were all perfectly nice in their own way, but they didn't unhinge my soul. After Dave I guess I didn't have a hinge left. When he died, it felt like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerve endings are still a little raw. After Dave I tried to never, ever get my hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren't as devastated.
I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus energy on something other than the ache in my heart. And for a long time after he died i hated everyoen and everything. But mainly i hated myself, and blamed myself everyday for his death. It's hard living with the daily guilt that you effectively killed the one you love. It changes people. And when Dave died, part of me did too.
But that's all ancient history now. 5 years on and i'm with you.
I read once that the ancient Egyptians had 50 words for sand, and the Eskimos had a 100 words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but language fails me. All I know is that I want to be a girl falling asleep in a boy’s arms and not caring about anything else in the world, except how I feel right there with him. I close my eyes, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It's the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me. I want to be with you. In your arms, in your bed.
I giveyou my heart and that's all I can give you, and if that's not enough, then I'm not enough.
Friday, 14 May 2010
tonight.
tonight i decided not to breathe anymore, but willing myself to stop didn't make it so.
tonight i realised that things would never be the same again, but you've not figured that out yet.
tonight i saw a picture of myself and thought i looked pretty, but behind my eyes i was dead.
tonight i hurt you and felt too sad to make you feel better.
tonight i realised people are disposable, because i can turn a switch in my mind and they're dead to me.
tonight i realised you're my romeo, but i dont deserve to be your juliet.
tonight no matter how much i tried, i always failed.
tonight no matter how many times i said sorry, i knew you'd never forgive me.
tonight i felt so low that i wanted to get high.
tonight i felt so broken that i wanted to stamp on my pieces instead of fix them.
tonight i rot in my skin, a piece of me dies every day.
tonight i know i'm nothing, and theres nothing i can say.
tonight i realised i couldn't live through another day.
tonight my throat got so tight from crying i could barely breathe.
tonight i realised that being remembered doesnt matter, neither does being liked, all that matters is being dead.
tonight i realised i'm selfish enough to do it.
tonight i realised that i need a cure for me, not a cure for cancer.
tonight i waited for the dawn and the sun, but it never came, only clouds and rain.
tonight i found the only way to lose the feeling of sadness is to lose hope entirely.
tonight i didn't cut myself, not because i was strong, but because i didn't want to feel better.
tonight if i killed myself no-one would save me, but it didn't stop me from trying.
tonight i wished that love survives death.
iLy more than life <3
tonight i realised that things would never be the same again, but you've not figured that out yet.
tonight i saw a picture of myself and thought i looked pretty, but behind my eyes i was dead.
tonight i hurt you and felt too sad to make you feel better.
tonight i realised people are disposable, because i can turn a switch in my mind and they're dead to me.
tonight i realised you're my romeo, but i dont deserve to be your juliet.
tonight no matter how much i tried, i always failed.
tonight no matter how many times i said sorry, i knew you'd never forgive me.
tonight i felt so low that i wanted to get high.
tonight i felt so broken that i wanted to stamp on my pieces instead of fix them.
tonight i rot in my skin, a piece of me dies every day.
tonight i know i'm nothing, and theres nothing i can say.
tonight i realised i couldn't live through another day.
tonight my throat got so tight from crying i could barely breathe.
tonight i realised that being remembered doesnt matter, neither does being liked, all that matters is being dead.
tonight i realised i'm selfish enough to do it.
tonight i realised that i need a cure for me, not a cure for cancer.
tonight i waited for the dawn and the sun, but it never came, only clouds and rain.
tonight i found the only way to lose the feeling of sadness is to lose hope entirely.
tonight i didn't cut myself, not because i was strong, but because i didn't want to feel better.
tonight if i killed myself no-one would save me, but it didn't stop me from trying.
tonight i wished that love survives death.
iLy more than life <3
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Monday, 3 May 2010
Monday, 12 April 2010
i hate love
have you ever been in love? horrible isn’t it? it makes you so vulnerable. it opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. you build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…you give them a piece of you. they didn’t ask for it. they did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. love takes hostages. it gets inside you. it eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. it hurts. not just in the imagination. not just in the mind. it’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. i hate love.
my anxiety is getting worse and worse. my mind just can’t let go of the past, the memories, the mistakes, the emptiness of tomorrow, and everything in between that i haven’t written down. i just want to get this useless life over with. i’m DONE. and to think, i have 50+ years of suffering to endure in this shithole of a life i’ve created for myself. my mum keeps telling me to pursue the things that would make me happy, but it isn’t a THING – it’s a person that i wish to spend my life with that would make me happy and get me out of this misery. i feel the void every single waking minute that i’m “alive,” and i’m tired of it. will i ever get over you? will you ever let me find peace or will you haunt my heart forever?
Saturday, 10 April 2010
rant at men.
women have more opportunities than men to get laid. i mean, have you LOOKED at the guys complaining that they can't get any? they have bad haircuts, they don't bathe, and they have no concept of how to dress. they tuck shirts into pants so that we can see their beer guts hanging out over their belts. urgh! and they try the LAMEST lines on women who look like they just stepped off the fashion pages of vogue. i mean, if all we are talking about is sex here, and raw sexual attraction, let's face it, the bulk of the male race is damned UGLY. you want to get laid? try looking HALF as good as the woman you are drooling over.
a silent echo rings through me
like a mountains mad crash
the scream of a mad man
released from closed lips
the answers fail the questions
time should mend it all
but i know i don't want to
forget that you were there
and i know there's no tomorrow
yesterday has left you there
but i feel you here with me
but i can't reach you to touch
you never said you were going
but i still hear your voice
today is here without you
flowers grow where you rest
like a mountains mad crash
the scream of a mad man
released from closed lips
the answers fail the questions
time should mend it all
but i know i don't want to
forget that you were there
and i know there's no tomorrow
yesterday has left you there
but i feel you here with me
but i can't reach you to touch
you never said you were going
but i still hear your voice
today is here without you
flowers grow where you rest
Monday, 5 April 2010
in a rabbit-fear i may hurl myself under the wheels of the car because the lights terrify me, and under the dark blind death of wheels i will be safe. i am very tired, very banal, very confused. i do not know who i am tonight. i wanted to walk until i drop and not complete the inevitable circle of coming home.
i thought about ending it but the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that i couldn't do it. it was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.
i wonder why i don't go to bed and go to sleep. but then it would be tomorrow, so i decide that no matter how tired, no matter how incoherent i am, i can skip on hour more of sleep and live
i thought about ending it but the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that i couldn't do it. it was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.
i wonder why i don't go to bed and go to sleep. but then it would be tomorrow, so i decide that no matter how tired, no matter how incoherent i am, i can skip on hour more of sleep and live
Thursday, 18 March 2010
dave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZtS6idkym0
emptiness is loneliness.
and loneliness is godliness.
and godliness is cleanliness.
and god is empty jsut like me.
emptiness is loneliness.
and loneliness is godliness.
and godliness is cleanliness.
and god is empty jsut like me.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
i used to be a lot of trouble, a serious "problem child". i had problems because i was both ignorant and passionate. i was on fire and i let it show, and during the periods of my worst excesses, i used to say to myself, take it all the way, take it too far. if you push yourself over the edge, things will turn out alright.
i might be doing something like burshing my teeth and suddenly feel asthough i just wanted to die right then, and then, as if my life depended on it, i would try to get in touch with all my friends from my past. i often focussed a lot of my energy on planning my death, but i always concluded the desire to die was just an urge like any other. like a common cold, it would come and go.
what would happen to my parents if i died? whenever i thoguht abotu this, i abandoned my plans. in the past i'd never so much as considered other peoples feelings. love is something that has to be learned.
i am someone who sees herself as a problem. for me writing is a method of transforming corruption and decay into something wonderful and miraculous. i used to be the sort of person who was always on the look out for excitement and novelty, but now i've somewhat come to sense that if any marvels are going to appear in my life, they will undoubtedly spring from the act of writing. actually, the prospect of marvels doesnt really excite me anymore. i feel that writing is the only thing that has meaning for me ( lately ive been playing that depressing game of "what is the meaning of life?" yet again).
i might be doing something like burshing my teeth and suddenly feel asthough i just wanted to die right then, and then, as if my life depended on it, i would try to get in touch with all my friends from my past. i often focussed a lot of my energy on planning my death, but i always concluded the desire to die was just an urge like any other. like a common cold, it would come and go.
what would happen to my parents if i died? whenever i thoguht abotu this, i abandoned my plans. in the past i'd never so much as considered other peoples feelings. love is something that has to be learned.
i am someone who sees herself as a problem. for me writing is a method of transforming corruption and decay into something wonderful and miraculous. i used to be the sort of person who was always on the look out for excitement and novelty, but now i've somewhat come to sense that if any marvels are going to appear in my life, they will undoubtedly spring from the act of writing. actually, the prospect of marvels doesnt really excite me anymore. i feel that writing is the only thing that has meaning for me ( lately ive been playing that depressing game of "what is the meaning of life?" yet again).
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
poem
please believe me,
the little scream told me,
it wanted to hold me, hold me so tenderly,
floating free,
falling free,
and the stream rushes on, never stopping,
underwater, i'll breathe in that stream, until the end of life.
only the stream, knows how it will happen.
please believe me,
if you dont need me anymore,
i'll be gone soon,
i promise you, promise
i'll drown my body in wine.
the little scream told me,
it wanted to hold me, hold me so tenderly,
floating free,
falling free,
and the stream rushes on, never stopping,
underwater, i'll breathe in that stream, until the end of life.
only the stream, knows how it will happen.
please believe me,
if you dont need me anymore,
i'll be gone soon,
i promise you, promise
i'll drown my body in wine.
Monday, 15 March 2010
sometimes
sometimes i need to leave the surfece of the earth.; sometimes i need to be full of love for the entire world, i need some ecstacy; sometimes i need to nourish my brain. theres nothing else but me and the starry sky, and the moon looks like a childs face, i don't dare smile at it. it seems as if maybe i'm a child too. children are the true observers in this world.
Monday, 8 March 2010
psych ward, aged 19
with shaking hands, i carefully unscrewed the bare light bulb hanging in my room and smashed it to the floor. carefully, i picked up the tiny glass shards and swallowed them down with a glass of water. i expected to feel intense pain, but i didn't, and instead i was swamped with a sense of relief. i'd needed to slash my arms, but, locked in the bare room of a psychiatric unit without even a hairbrush, the light bulb was the only way i could hurt myself.
Saturday, 6 March 2010
rock bottom
rock bottom is an inability to cope with the commonplace that is so extreme it makes even the grandest and loveliest things unbearable...
rock bottom is feeling like the only thing that matters in all of life is the one bad moment...
rock bottom is everything out of focus. it's a failure of vision, a failure to see the world as it is, to see the good in what it is, and only to wonder why the hell things look the way they do and not some other way.
rock bottom is feeling like the only thing that matters in all of life is the one bad moment...
rock bottom is everything out of focus. it's a failure of vision, a failure to see the world as it is, to see the good in what it is, and only to wonder why the hell things look the way they do and not some other way.
sometimes i wish i could walk around with a HANDLE WITH CARE sign stuck to my forehead. sometimes i wish that there were a way to let people know that just because i live in a world without rules, and in a life that is lawless, doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt so bad the morning after. sometimes i think that i was forced to withdraw into depression because it was the only rightful protest i could throw in the face of a world that said it was alright for people to come and go as they please, that there were simply no real obligations left.
the first cut is the deepest.
i guess the cutting began when i started to spend my lunch period hiding in the girls' locker room, scared to death of everybody around me. i would bring my CD player and listen to the scratchy sounds of the finger marked CD's that i'd accumulated, mostly popular hard rock like Foreigner, which, trashy as it was, sounded like liberation to me. I'd sit there with my CD's, eating cottage cheese and pineapples from a stout thermos I brought from home (i was, by this time, also certain that i was fat), and it was a peaceful relief from having to deal with other people, whether they were teachers or friends.
at school every so often, i would sit in the locker room on the floor, leaning against the concrete wall while my CD player sat on the bench, and I would fantasize about going back to the person I had been before. the reverse transformation couldn't be that much of a leap. i could just try talking to people again. i could get the astonished look off my face, as if my eyes had just been exposed to a terrible glare. i could laugh a bit.
i would imagine myself doing the things i once did, like playing tennis. every so often i would make a decision, first thing in the morning as I headed out the door for the school bus, that I was going to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that day; i would be friendly, i would smile, i would raise my hand in maths class from time to time. i remember those days, because i could see how my friends got this look of relief on their faces. i would walk toward them, standing in a huddle in the blue-carpeted hall outside of the classroom, and they would half expect me to say something like 'everything's plastic, we're all gonna die' and instead i would just say, "good morning". suddenly, their bodies would relax, their shoulders would drop comfortably, and sometimes they would even say "oh wow, you're the old Bev again" kind of like a parent who has finally accepted that his oldest son has become a Shiite Muslim and is moving to Iran when, suddenly, the kid returns home and announces that he wants to go to law school after all. my friends, and my mother for that matter, would be relieved to find that I was more the me they wanted me to be.
the trouble was, i thought this alternative persona i had adopted was just that: a put-on, a way of getting attention, a way of being different. and maybe when I first started walking around talking about plastic and death, maybe then it was an experiment. but after a while, the alternative me really just was me. those days that I tried to be the little girl I was supposed to be drained me. i went home at night and cried for hours because so many people in my life expecting me to be a certain way was too much pressure, as if I'd been held against a wall and interrogated for hours, asked questions i couldn't quite answer any longer.
i remember being in a panic one day at school when I realized that I could not even fake being the old Bev anymore. i had, indeed, metamorphosed into this nihilistic, unhappy girl. just like Gregor Samsa waking up to find he'd become a six foot long roach, only in my case, i had invented the monster and now it was overtaking me. this was what i'd come to. this was what i'd be for the rest of my life. things were bad now and would get worse later. they would. i had not heard the word depression yet, and would not for some time after that, but i felt something very wrong going on. i felt that i was wrong - my hair was wrong, my face was wrong, my personality was wrong - my god, my choice of flavors at the Haagan Dazs shop after school was wrong! how could I walk around with such pasty white skin, such dark, doleful eyes, such straight anemic hair, such round hips and such a small clinched waist? how could I let anybody see me this way? how could I expose other people to my person, to this bane to the world? i was one big mistake.
and so, sitting in the locker room, petrified that i was doomed to spend my life hiding from people this way, i took my keys out of my knapsack. on the chain was a sharp nail clipper, which had a nail file attached to it. i rolled down my knee socks (we were required to wear skirts to school) and looked at my bare white legs. i hadn't really started shaving yet, only from time to time because my mother considered me too young, and i looked at the delicate peach fuzz, still soft and untainted. a perfect, clean canvas. so I took the nail file, found its sharp edge, and ran it across my lower leg, watching a red line of blood appear across my skin. i was surprised at how straight the line was and at how easy it was for me to hurt myself in this way. it was almost fun. i was always the sort to pick scabs and peel sunburned skin in sheets off my shoulders, always pestering my body. this was just the next step. and how much more satisfying it was to muck up my own body than relying on mosquitoes and walks in the country among thorny bushes to do it for me. i made a few more scratches, alternating between legs, this time moving the file more quickly, less cautiously.
i did not, you see, want to kill myself. not at that time, anyway. but I wanted to know that if need be, if the desperation got so terribly bad, i could inflict harm on my body. and i could. knowing this gave me a sense of peace and power, so i started cutting up my legs all the time. hiding the scars from my mother became a sport of its own. i collected razor blades, i bought a Swiss Army knife, i became fascinated with different kinds of sharp edges and the different cutting sensations they produced. i tried out different shapes - squares, triangles, pentagons, even an awkwardly carved heart, with a stab wound at its center, wanting to see if it hurt the way a real broken heart could hurt. i was amazed and pleased to find that it didn't.
at school every so often, i would sit in the locker room on the floor, leaning against the concrete wall while my CD player sat on the bench, and I would fantasize about going back to the person I had been before. the reverse transformation couldn't be that much of a leap. i could just try talking to people again. i could get the astonished look off my face, as if my eyes had just been exposed to a terrible glare. i could laugh a bit.
i would imagine myself doing the things i once did, like playing tennis. every so often i would make a decision, first thing in the morning as I headed out the door for the school bus, that I was going to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that day; i would be friendly, i would smile, i would raise my hand in maths class from time to time. i remember those days, because i could see how my friends got this look of relief on their faces. i would walk toward them, standing in a huddle in the blue-carpeted hall outside of the classroom, and they would half expect me to say something like 'everything's plastic, we're all gonna die' and instead i would just say, "good morning". suddenly, their bodies would relax, their shoulders would drop comfortably, and sometimes they would even say "oh wow, you're the old Bev again" kind of like a parent who has finally accepted that his oldest son has become a Shiite Muslim and is moving to Iran when, suddenly, the kid returns home and announces that he wants to go to law school after all. my friends, and my mother for that matter, would be relieved to find that I was more the me they wanted me to be.
the trouble was, i thought this alternative persona i had adopted was just that: a put-on, a way of getting attention, a way of being different. and maybe when I first started walking around talking about plastic and death, maybe then it was an experiment. but after a while, the alternative me really just was me. those days that I tried to be the little girl I was supposed to be drained me. i went home at night and cried for hours because so many people in my life expecting me to be a certain way was too much pressure, as if I'd been held against a wall and interrogated for hours, asked questions i couldn't quite answer any longer.
i remember being in a panic one day at school when I realized that I could not even fake being the old Bev anymore. i had, indeed, metamorphosed into this nihilistic, unhappy girl. just like Gregor Samsa waking up to find he'd become a six foot long roach, only in my case, i had invented the monster and now it was overtaking me. this was what i'd come to. this was what i'd be for the rest of my life. things were bad now and would get worse later. they would. i had not heard the word depression yet, and would not for some time after that, but i felt something very wrong going on. i felt that i was wrong - my hair was wrong, my face was wrong, my personality was wrong - my god, my choice of flavors at the Haagan Dazs shop after school was wrong! how could I walk around with such pasty white skin, such dark, doleful eyes, such straight anemic hair, such round hips and such a small clinched waist? how could I let anybody see me this way? how could I expose other people to my person, to this bane to the world? i was one big mistake.
and so, sitting in the locker room, petrified that i was doomed to spend my life hiding from people this way, i took my keys out of my knapsack. on the chain was a sharp nail clipper, which had a nail file attached to it. i rolled down my knee socks (we were required to wear skirts to school) and looked at my bare white legs. i hadn't really started shaving yet, only from time to time because my mother considered me too young, and i looked at the delicate peach fuzz, still soft and untainted. a perfect, clean canvas. so I took the nail file, found its sharp edge, and ran it across my lower leg, watching a red line of blood appear across my skin. i was surprised at how straight the line was and at how easy it was for me to hurt myself in this way. it was almost fun. i was always the sort to pick scabs and peel sunburned skin in sheets off my shoulders, always pestering my body. this was just the next step. and how much more satisfying it was to muck up my own body than relying on mosquitoes and walks in the country among thorny bushes to do it for me. i made a few more scratches, alternating between legs, this time moving the file more quickly, less cautiously.
i did not, you see, want to kill myself. not at that time, anyway. but I wanted to know that if need be, if the desperation got so terribly bad, i could inflict harm on my body. and i could. knowing this gave me a sense of peace and power, so i started cutting up my legs all the time. hiding the scars from my mother became a sport of its own. i collected razor blades, i bought a Swiss Army knife, i became fascinated with different kinds of sharp edges and the different cutting sensations they produced. i tried out different shapes - squares, triangles, pentagons, even an awkwardly carved heart, with a stab wound at its center, wanting to see if it hurt the way a real broken heart could hurt. i was amazed and pleased to find that it didn't.
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