Dark Poetry Prose Poetry April 26, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

4-26-04 monday 8am

open letter to a manic depressive

a thought occured to me. is it possible to be suicidal and not be mentally ill? i mean barring extenuating circumstances. it seems to me that if you don't want to live people automatically assume there must be something wrong with you. but why can't some people just not like it very much. or not really like it at all. no different from say, not liking strawberries or football.

10am

i mean, even if 99% of the world like something and only 1% don't, does that mean those 1% are abnormal or insane? i'll bet that 99% of people like to watch tv, but there's probably 1% or so who don't. does that mean they're crazy?

i just don't see the point to life. everything else we do has a purpose. we work because we need money. we need money because we need food and shelter. we watch tv to be entertained. we have sex because it feels good. i guess for some people life feels good and is entertaining. but what if it doesn't feel good and isn't entertaining. what if it's like work. something you feel obligated to do.

if i had enough money, i wouldn't ever work again. cuz i don't like it. and if i had enough courage, i wouldn't live anymore. cuz i don't like it either.

yes, i get depressed sometimes. and depression can cause suicidal thoughts and urges. but the scary part is, even when i'm not depressed. even when i'm having a good time, i still don't like life. it's still more of a burden than a pleasure.

dunno. maybe i have some new disease, yet to be accounted for. if so, maybe they can name it after me when i'm dead. then at least, even if in life i never saw a purpose, i would've found one in death.

04-26-04 monday 9:30am

talking to yoursself,
but not out loud -
that's what this is.

it's like your head is divided
into two aspects -
the one that speaks
and another that listens;

talking to yourself like
part of you is objective,
reasoning in
unreasonable conditions;

talking to yourself,
but not out loud -
that's all that this is.

cuz even if someone
else wanted to listen,
you couldn't talk to them,
wouldn't even know how;

this head my prison,
this heart my victim,
these words my own
personal altcatraz.

talking to yourself
because you have
to talk to someone,

but you can't really talk
unless theres no one
there to listen.

4-26-04 monday 8:27pm

drowning. drowning i've heard is a peaceful death. but i've been drowning a long time and it mostly certainly isn't. it's stifling and claustrophobic. it's blindingly dark and oh so lonely.

sad songs suddenly don't seem that much so when i compare them to my own. as this long suicide process draws on i become more and more selfish. less able to empathize with other human beings.

i used to feel detached. separate from myself as i'd take these somber notes. now instead i feel so far down inside. as if my head is an endless abyss that i'm falling in.

i watch television and think gee, i'd rather be any one of them. anyone other than me. it'd be different. exciting. less of a burden.

it must be nice to be beautiful. or rich. or a genius. i bet it'd be great to be alive then. or maybe i'm just being stupid. forgetting happiness is a fickle friend.

now i just spit out thoughts. don't compose. big phlegmy gobs of sorrow that rise up in my throat.

now i don't wish for what i can't have. i just wish for it to be happy without me. and the ones i do have. i just hope they'll understand when i leave.

now i laugh a lot because i just don't care. it's so easy to laugh once you lose all hope. that's what your therapist and your friends won't ever tell you. they want to save you. want you to be like them. but not everyone can. sometimes. for some people the only way not to hurt is just to abandon all hope.

now coma seems such an appropriate word. such a comforting song. coma. not dead. neither really alive. just sleeping peacefully somewhere inbetween. a beautiful loophole in reality.

drowning. on second thought it doesn't sound so bad. just a rope and a rock. and then no going back. if you drink enough. if you are careful to cinch the knot. doesn't matter if it hurts once you start the process. no going back then. suffer some more, to at last put your suffering to an end.

empty bottles foretold long before that collection had so rapidly grown. i have a second sight about myself. like i can step outside and see myself as someone else. it's both a gift and a curse. cause often you know, you realize just what you're doing to yourself, but it's not enough just to notice. it only makes it worse when you know it, but you don't give a shit. it only makes it worse knowing you're hurting yourself again, but no part of you cares enough to stop it.

4-26-04 monday 8:55pm

now that all my other muses have gone, death has become my inspiration once again. it happens. on and off like a light switch. someone enters my life and turns it on. then they later make their exit. and again it's dark.

it's strange, but as self-contained as i am, my emotions rely heavily on others. when left alone i love what i can. death being a constant presense in all life. i cling to it with a greedy hand. when left alone i fall in love with death again. resume that slow suicide. like a long long novel. a war and peace sized tome. as much as i can stray. i always come back to this.

can one friend be enough. can one friend ever go the distance. and could i ever trust in that. no. it doesn't matter how many friends. how much love. as much as they can distract. it's always there in the back of my head. that geiser of nothing spewing empty all over everything. can't plug the hole. or you'd explode. can't gain enough distance from yourself not to get drenched. so you just let it soak you. cover you in those deepest of emotions. the kind you could never write. and might've drawn. but can't ever meet. they hide secretly in the lowest ditches. apparitions from a time long passed. cryptic message you'll never understand.

and in truth, you'd rather not know. never have to face whatever past is repressed that's throwing these partial memories into your present. could it matter. i highly doubt it. most likely to know would only make it worse. more often than not, tis better to be ignorant.

now that i've fallen back into. no longer able to orbit myself like a moon that watches its planet. i liked that. it was almost like not being me for a while. just a molecule of dust drifting through a life untouched. seeing. watching. knowing that. but never having to own up to the fact.

but now everything is looking out from within. fishbowl vision distorts everything. now it's being a wave caught in the ocean's breath. watching. feeling every movement. unable to escape its grip. constantly digging into the sand for footing, but incapable of breaking free.

you don't know just how much i want to end this. every minute. every wasted second. but i'm so scared. i'm such a coward. it's so easy to live. you don't have to do anything. just sit there and exist. it's easy to live. just be. i'm not afraid of death. i'm afraid of being rejected by it again.

9:15pm 4-26-04 monday

turning words like dials. setting alarms in your head. will they wake you up or will you just turn them off and go back to bed.

nights torn asunder to seek what lies within. pus and blood and bile melting together in a broth of human flesh.

i hold on only because my fist is frozen. i'd let go if i could just remember how to open up these fingers and feel the air swimming through. like some whipping rollercoaster that turns you over and puts your stomach in your throat.

what is life, but birth, time, then death. what is life besides the fear of dying. or else the pursuit of it.

an army in your head. and inquistion in your heart. a disgruntled treaty with your loved ones not to hurt them.

what can i say except that i tried. gave it my best effort. but for all my searches. for all that i could find to covet. it never was enough. just passing highs and false romances. i don't blame anyone. why can't they give me the same chance.

i don't think that life is hard. just that it's such a chore. don't understand what i'm doing it for. it's like taking out the trash, only to have to take it out again and again. a neverending parade of garbage that never lets you rest. everything just goes on repeating relentlessly until. offering no reasons. no explanations. just expecting you to accept. but i don't want to accept. i don't want to submit. i don't want to watch the hours constantly repeating just for the sake of it.

i guess i've always been selfish in the most strictess sense. i've always dreamt of being a ghost. watching my loved ones live. observing their happiness and triumphs from a comfortable distance. the one and only dream i've ever had. it's true. to be a ghost at my own funeral. to be able to visit. and see them. to watch their lives being lived without the burden of myself having to do it.

i don't want to watch them grieve me. or wish i was there. i'd like to float quietly through their lives unseen. seeing them smile. hearing them laugh. i think that if i was a ghost i could find some kind of happiness in watching the ones i love find theirs.

but maybe i'm wrong. and it'd just be that much more lonesome than it is now. but now i can't go from house to house. friend to friend. never interfereing. just watching them.

can't rely on faith. since i have none. can't live for the future. since i've never really seen one.

4-26-04 monday 9:39pm

would you suppose, if you had time to, that life doesn't really know anything it ought to. that it's just as lost as we are. maybe moreso. that it clings to this flesh for a reason we can't provide it. that when you feel life too much, but can't distract it, that's when it's starts to weigh heavy. all full of everything it needs from you that you don't have to give.

would you say, i wonder, after reading this, that i'm stranger than you ever knew. lost like an orphan. or so found that i can't deal with it.

that i think too much, but that it's the feeling the thoughts that's my downfall. since just thinking doesn't hurt at all. it's when you feel what they are that they begin taking you apart.

would you say that when it rains at night that it's harder yet than when it doesn't. that those clouds so bloated with all those tears were to shy to release them until cover of darkness. that somehow, sometimes, our environments mimic us.

that all those thoughts and all that grief you set free into the shadows rises up lke oxygen into the atmosphere and pervades upon the outside world. that the butterfly effect happens on a regular basis. that every tear that's ever fallen has an impact on all the world around it. that one little drop of saltwater from a sad eye changes the balance of everything around.

would you suppose, if you had the time. that wanting what's already been claimed is akin to human nature. that love always comes too late or too soon. just like artists who have to die before their paintings are worth anything. just like poets who commit suicide and only then are considered great. or geniuses who are ahead of their time. and only years after their deaths are so noteably recognized.

it's just human nature. to not see someone until they're gone. to not really appreciate them until it's too late. cause it's their absense that makes who they were so very precious. that now it can never be had. that's why we want it.

04-26-04 monday 10:50pm

everyone has work to do. unfortunately. sad fact of living. pirce you pay i guess for the privilege. though i often think it ought to be paying you.

miming your secrets to an audience of none. stuck in your invisible box. they think it's a farce, but saddest is part is that it's true.

paint my face white. with little black tears drawn down my cheeks. cuz i'm nothing more than a mime. caught inside an invsible box no one else can feel. everyone hates the mime until they find themselves miming. it's never until they've been inside that imaginary box that they understand just how very real it can be.

never so much alcohol as when the writing goes on longer than it should. attempts to sedate it only cause it to cry that much louder. all those metaphors secreted. do nothing. they don't want poetry. they want a release your words can never give them. you try and try and try, but it's never enough. you love and love and love, but even if it does come back, you don't really want it. would rather just have never aksed. even though you did, that was a different part of you. the daylight person. who the dark won't acknowledge. the real words you can't publish. as much as you commited to the project. you never anticipated it would go this far. reveal so much. as much as your honesty beckons, can't give that much.

to nieither strangers nor to friends. to touch nor to the memory of. how it used ot feel. so absolute. like stringient vodka. no rocks to soften the abraisions as it would slither down your thraot. like a rattlesnake. you only let it cuz you were hoping to be poisoned. you wanted the venom more than anything. wanted to feel that final breath. to watch it tanspire and see the outcome of who you had been. how life gives and gives and gives. and never asks. but secretly wants. so much a ledge. so much a temptation to jump. like watching a hawk fly. pilotting the wind easily with its broad wings. like how they so much want to live. that they have so many reasons, but can't explain a single one of them. and in your heart you know every one is true. as true as truth has ever been. that even if they could explain. it would be lost in the ttranslation. that in your world life has no such luxuries.

every life has places. burning cigarettes that fester between angry forgotten lips. like weights you drag around attached to your ankels as you try to move. you velcroed them there, but you can't remember why you did. you walk off kilter like a boat without a captain. you let the water move you, beacuse you feel you've no more power left. better still to let it happen than to admit that you can't.

running in circles like a mouse trapped. not dead, but as close as the living can ever come to it. you've memories of before your inprisonment, but they're vauge and sporadic. like all those dreams you've ever dreamt.

you feel the letting go happening within you like a child's tiny hand realeasing a weightless balloon. the atmosphere is heavy enough that it can fly. and you wonder. so self-absorbed. why can't i.