Thursday’s Questions: 72 Hours to go

Dear diary, why can’t I keep things together?

I want to confide in you my past. When I was younger, when I was, say, ten years old... Everything was pleasant. I was popular, the world was innocent – or was I the innocent one? Every day was about laughing, learning and socialising. Tears were inevitable, but never important. If I fell on the playground and ripped my trousers asunder at the knee, I’d cry when I felt pain. That was normal. Now, when I cry, it’s got nothing to do with my skin. It’s all about what’s inside. I can slap a plaster on my bleeding knee, but what can I do to fix my mind?

When I was a child, people took care of me. If I made a mistake I was forgiven. At some point this changed, and when I made a mistake I got punished severely. In fact, I’m still reminded of it every other day. If I ever try to start anew, someone makes sure to remind me of something terrible I did.

Everyone does terrible things. I don’t care if people say otherwise. Everyone lies, everyone cries and most certainly everyone dies. So why am I made to feel like an outcast who’s the only one who ever hurt someone? People have hurt me too, but I don’t spend my time reminding them. That’s why I write it all down here. You’re merely a written version of my thoughts.

Why do people insist on labels? Universal labels cannot apply to human beings: we’re always changing. Take a drug addict: say he injects for five years of his life, becomes a slave to his addiction and finally breaks free of his deadly cycle of depression and substance abuse. Is he still a drug addict? Is he a failure for becoming addicted or a success for beating his habit?

I feel like people ignore these facts, I feel like they watch reality television and get absorbed by the absurd, by nudity beamed onto pixels in front of them, and that these facts become lost in the humdrum of our dull and repetitive world – when beyond the living room it’s so beautiful and complex...

I suppose I’m a hypocrite, too: I used to wander how people could become “bad” and do the things I always had no intention of doing. So when I experimented, when I succumbed to peer pressure, when I committed a faux-pas – does that mean I’m still the innocent kid I was, or a fuck up? Or perhaps I’m just a normal human being who wants to bend his psyche because he’s fed up of the same –old, same-old.
The thing that I can’t get over is this: I have all these thoughts, and I swear they’re original – but why do I become drowned out by the very banal talk I try to accept, alongside my way of thinking? How come I don’t get a say, but Piers Morgan does?

Why, diary, why?

* * *

Friday’s Heartbreak : 48 Hours to go.

Dear diary, why is my heart broken?

I fell in love. Isn’t that what I was supposed to do? Isn’t it the greatest emotion? I don’t know. It starts of like a swelling within, a balloon that grows bigger and bigger and fills you: I felt so fulfilled, so complete, so worthy.

That’s all excellent, until you encounter the many pins of this life. Pop goes the balloon, and now I watch my sanity crumble away. No, not crumble: there it is, the balloon, flying all over the room and I hop and dance trying to catch it... I need it... But there it goes, out the window.

How’s this happening so fast? One day I was smiling so hard I nearly cried: now you couldn’t pay me to smile.

“Oh toughen up, don’t be so pathetic,” say too many people: to say that to a grieving man would be offensive, so why must I endure so much misunderstanding when all I want to do is shrink away? Do these one dimensional folks truly believe I enjoy it? Why do they mistake my cries for help as purely cries for attention?

I think everyone has a confidence issue, and with this point of view I can tolerate people very well. When they say things I know they didn’t mean to say I can forgive ... So why don’t I get that favour returned to me?

I was single for so long, and I never felt pain in this way. It’s like an amputation, but emotionally too. We’re creatures of habit: I’m used to waking up next to you. So what can I do but bemoan my day when I’m staring at nothing but a cold pillow?

I don’t like being so self-centred in my thinking: I’ll think of her. How’s she feeling? I hope she’s OK. I try to contact her all the time, she replies on the odd occasion. She seems fine, but why am I so broken? All I want to do is spill my emotions; all she wants to do is forget the past.

I know things aren’t going well, I know my mind is falling apart. I’m not going to deny it whatsoever. I’ll try to meet up with somebody, try to get this all out in some other way. I need some advice...

But no one will meet me. They don’t want to “set me off”, when all they could ever do is help me just by being near. I’ve been along for far too long; then I cast my mind to her and she’s out painting the time red.
I see photos and she’s smiling like I’ve never seen her smile: was I an anchor on her lips? Do I really bring people down?

Dear diary, I think I feel sick... Some people say I’m evil and I think I believe them. I’ll try to fight these thoughts but I’m not strong enough. My body’s in its prime but my mind has never been worse. What can I do with this juxtaposition?

* * *

Saturday’s Violence: 24 hours to go.

Dear diary, I’m at the limit.

I know violence is wrong, I know it doesn’t solve anything. So why am I sitting here, a mound of muscle? I sit with my hand under my chin, and I ponder the universe – when my brawn is an asset, and my mind’s a liability.

Why can’t I be the one who roams the streets, looking for a fight? Why am I the one trapped inside my mind, where I’m too reasonable? Why do I let people insult me, when I could crush them without a second thought?

I’m sitting here writing in this diary, instead of writing history in other people’s blood. I think of someone like Napoleon, and I wonder what he had that I didn’t. He was responsible for many deaths, yet he’s got his place in history. I would think he had a pretty excellent life with the wealth and fame he amassed, for his military expertise.

So what have I got? The tools to get the job done – I could be feared if I so wished, I could be renowned: so why am I following the sensitive route?

I feel it now and there’s no hint of joviality: I’m being drawn into the black, my coping processes are all but empty. It’s time to take control. I’m sorry, diary, but I think we’re going to part ways. I have carnal desires and the means to achieve them. You’re holding me back.

People are intimidated by me, but they still jab me where they know it gets me: right between the eyes, in my mind. They pick apart my exposed weaknesses. When I feel confident there’s always a way to strip me of my armour. If I rely on the physical, I’ll be so much calmer.

I get respect from sport, and people fear me. When the match is over I get a cheer and a pat on the back... Then I return home and I’m unimportant again. That’s when I let my mind take over... That’s the only time I feel in pain.

... There it is, that sharp stabbing pain. I think of her and what we had; now I realise she’s out right now, and intoxicated. Who knows what she’s doing, where the flirting ends. Why doesn’t she realise it’s killing me? I only stay inside so I don’t offend. When I do I let guilt take me over. I’m tired of this. Diary, I think I hate you.

It’s been a long time now, feeling great and then abysmal: how long am I supposed to put up with it? I’m clearly weak: I truly fell head over heels for the first girl I ever loved and now she’s over me. I’m not the first person in this position and I won’t be the last: but that doesn’t stop me having no control whatsoever. My whole life will be ignorance from now on, there’s no argument you can counter with.
If I somehow dampen my love for her it will never go completely...

There’s that slice again: she said “I’ll always love you”, but she admits she was lying. She says she doesn’t know what love is, at her age. So why do I know it? I know it because it stops me wanting to speak, stops me wanting to sleep, stops me wanting to be.

Life is just like war: exceedingly long periods of boredom, with very brief but important moments. So what can I possibly do? I could try to be impose my superiority, but am I really superior in any way at all?

Dear diary, I think this is it. I looked in the mirror today and it told me everything I needed to hear.

* * *

Sunday’s Silence – 0 hours to go.

...The End.

A Short Story,
Published 23 January 2012

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If you wish to discuss my work, or its themes

While I no longer stand by the work itself, the themes remain relevant: the meaning of life, finding purpose, exitalism, philosophical depression, nihilism, and the eessential questions of existence.

I was, and remain, open to discussion and to advice.

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