Not this time.

When you spend enough time alone, you learn that there’s freedom nowhere. Even if you only commit your most horrible of acts all by yourself in a darkened room, you will still be judged. They will be there, trailing after you like a shadow, passing on their useless ideas to you, barring you from what you need should you permit them. And how easy it is to let them. How easy it is to feel as though the world is like this god, peering down at you, condemning you for what you are. But now it comes from yourself. Now the enemy has infiltrated your inner sanctum, and once it is let in, there are very few ways to get it out. It will cling until you tear it into pieces, until you find something, somewhere that validates you and makes you good enough to stand up for, to fight for. But sometimes you never find that….

I used to be afraid that if I thought anything bad, God would punish me. I’d wake up the next day and something terrible would happen to me or my parents or my friends. I used to spend a good five minutes in the night with the blankets up to my chin,  praying endlessly in this cycle. For anything and everything, for things to go alright the next day, for no one to die…. I’d say the same parts over and over again, until the words became jumbled. Repeat it over and over, like the fucker couldn’t hear me, like if I didn’t say it a hundred times he wouldn’t do it for me. You have to be like a slave to get him to listen, I used to think.

I’d walk up to the holy water in church sometimes and drop something in it. A necklace, a bracelet. Like somehow some water in a dish was going to do something to me. Things like that only have power because we believe they do. And what did I believe, really? I was clearing my conscience. I was trying to feel like I was doing everything that could possibly be done to keep everyone safe. Ah, what it is to be a child!

The prayers eventually turned to curses. I’d spend ten minutes facing the wall, white-knuckled, saying this darker mantra in my head.

Dear God, I hate you.
Dear God, I hate you.
Dear God, I hate you.
I hope you fucking die.
Dear God, I hate you.
Dear God, I hate you.
Dear God, I hate you.
I hope you fucking die.

It’s funny to me now, to admit to it. It seems almost crazy even. But no matter what happens, I always believe somehow. I can’t seem to fully fade into atheism, regardless of how pessimistic I get. I will die believing, and I will die still hating. I don’t even remember why anymore, how it all started, what moment it shifted. I hate him for being here, maybe. I think that’s what angers me so much; that I’m here and feel I had no choice. In the end it translates to an anger at myself for not doing anything about it. It’s me that I really hate; God is like this backdrop I can use to make it less inconspicuous.

Eventually that rage came back to haunt me. And I know now that that’s the voice in my head, the one that laughs and thinks this is all such a great game. I feel like I drown myself over and over, barely letting myself up for air.

You like that? Does it feel good?

I’m the one that I believe has failed. I’m the one that doesn’t want to do it. I’m the one who won’t die but yet refuses to really live. I don’t understand it. I have nothing in me that really wants to go forward, just this blind apathy to lead me around in the dark. And why? Why can’t that too leave me?

I wish now for some of that emotional clarity, where I wake up for the briefest of instants and suddenly I can’t stop crying for all that I’ve done, where I can’t think back and see a single reason at all to go on. Months ago that happened. Before the mountain. Before….  Was it before I started working? I still don’t know why I lived. I don’t know how I could hate myself so much and still continue to breathe. It feels impossible. But it was pure in all the ways this is not. I felt something, believed something. It wasn’t a blank, numb acknowledgement of self-loathing, it was something that felt real.

Never again? I was wrong to swear it off. I should have used those feelings when I had the chance, because I may float on forever in this apathetic void and not have that again. I may do it in a moment of weakness instead of a moment of strength where I am truly living with that feeling instead of feeling nothing, going on memory alone.

“There is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.”

 

I won’t edit this. I don’t have the time.

The road to nowhere leads to me….

I’ve been surprisingly busy lately—mostly writing. I’m vaguely enjoying it, though at times I get irritated, because I realize that in the end it’s all useless.

I’ve applied for a few more jobs, no replies, which is to be expected. I’d like to get a job by Christmas, but that might not happen, unfortunately. I was hoping I could get my first check before then, so that maybe I could give my parents something for Christmas. I don’t even care what I do at this point; I’ve applied for various jobs that have little to do with one another.

Lately I’ve been considering joining up with the Marines or the Navy or something. It’s what I first considered when I turned 16 and graduated; I knew I could leave right then if I wanted to. I just don’t know if I’m cut out for it, as I get depressed so damn easily, and am pretty much always in such a low mood. I don’t want to live with a bunch of people or have to deal with them on a constant basis. I hate being ordered around and told what to do, and honestly I have no idea what I would do in that sort of environment. I would either revert back into myself or lash out, depending on how much it impacts me. The last thing I need is to get into trouble. But I figure my chances for death would at least be a hell of a lot higher than they are now. Maybe it would be enough for me to finally get pushed over the edge and do something about it instead of bitching and whining all of the time. I guess all I’ve been thinking about recently are the best ways to die or put myself at a higher risk.

I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I’ll keep applying for jobs and see what happens. If nothing, then I suppose I’ll just take it from there, then decide what it is I want to do with this wasted piece of life.

Failure. Failure. Failure. What else is new?

I failed my driving test. Big fucking surprise. I knew that I failed it about halfway through, and stopped giving a shit.

I’m a good driver, I know that. I’ve seen the way other people drive, and it just so happens that actually believe in using a blinker and not cutting people off. Even during my test I got cut off twice in just 20 minutes. Some guy changed lanes, pulled right in front of me, no blinker, then went moseying on over to the other lane again—surprise surprise, no blinker. I guess he couldn’t make up his mind. And I ask myself, HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU FAIL? If completely worthless twats are allowed behind the wheel, that says a great deal about me failing. It makes me look like the biggest fucking idiot in existence.

I was so nervous. I got stupid. We were going down these one way streets for awhile, then he told me to turn…guess what? I never even stopped to think, “hey, is that a one way street, or a two way?” So guess who ends up on the WRONG SIDE OF THE FUCKING ROAD? He had to tell me, because at first I didn’t even notice, because there was no oncoming traffic, and the tiny little road looked exactly like all of the others (and it didn’t help that the yellow line was dotted and faded). I was too far up in fucking numb-land to notice much of anything. I was just trying to pretend that I wasn’t there making a moron of myself as I am so inclined to do. Fucking idiot. Godfuckingdamnit.

When we pull into the DMV again, I pretty much knew I’d failed. I drove 25 through the school zone (supposed to go 20), because I honestly had given it all up already.

I’m quiet. Somehow the whole time I held every ounce of that self-hatred deep in my gut, buried under layer upon layer of cold, bitter numbness. I even smiled and laughed at the man’s attempts to make me feel better. I see my mom over by the door smiling and waving and I’m thinking to myself, “When I get home, I’m going to shoot myself.”

My mom had decided to do all the grociery/WalMart shopping on the same day as the test, much to my annoyance (I got nervous having to stand around all morning waiting for 11:00 to roll by). So right after the failure we’re about to go back to another store. I finally couldn’t hold it in anymore, and let myself cry quietly. My mom went back into the DMV to schedule another test before we got back to the weekly shopping, and all I could think, was “if I only had a gun…”. It’s ironic, because we had just finished picking up bullets at one of the stores we were at, so they were right there in the back seat with my name all over them.

Instead I dug around my purse, and much to my delight, found my little tool. It has a nice little knife on it. I finished before my mother got back, rolled down my sleeve (which lucky for me, was black) and continued staring out the window listlessly. It must have taken 2 hours to get home, with all of the bullshit she stopped to do. I told her again and again, “I just want to go home”, and ended up staying the car while she did whatever hurriedly. It’s probably good she took awhile, as I’ve had some time to calm down a bit. Not much, but enough that I should be able to keep myself from a nice suicide mission in the woods.

My father hasn’t even said a word to me since I got back, didn’t ask or anything. Whatever. I don’t care anymore.

Everything was hinged on that one fucking test, and now I’m back to square one, yet again. And because the DMV is so busy they could only get me in for the middle of fucking November! So I opted to go to another town (quite a ways away), for next Friday. I’ve never even been there, which in my book, makes it a VERY bad idea. I don’t know if I will go with that one or not; I don’t care at this particular point. It’s virtually over as far as I’m concerned. I failed too badly anyway. I can’t even look for a job now, because I still have no driver’s license to show them.

I’m beyond pissed; I can’t even feel anything right now. All I want is sleep, preferably something permanent. But even in that area, I am a failure. Too much of a coward, too fucking stupid. I just want it all to end so that I don’t have to pretend that I care anymore.

Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day….

Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. Not my words, but fitting nonetheless. We live, we fuck, we die. Over and over and over. No, things are not static, not at the lower levels anyway. In the scheme of things, however, all there is is one simple thing: a cycle. In that sense, the world is static. Perpetuate until system failure, basically, then things will be back to the entire “evolving, falling apart” bit.

When I stand back and really look at the world, I see…grey ugliness. Everything that is human is tainted, ugly, degraded…second best. We imitate nature in the most unflattering light, daring to call it “beauty” when it came from filthy human hands.

When I ask myself if I care, on any level whatsoever, I get a resounding “no”. I don’t care about this ugliness of humanity, I don’t care about the beauty of nature. I would stand above it and watch the world burn with a smile on my face. There is nothing in any of it; death is its master. Struggle all you like, save those rainforests, give food to the starving, it will all decay and die away sometime or another. Now just later rather than sooner, all so you could selfishly watch it suffer just a little bit longer, for your own enjoyment, for the enjoyment of your children. Fuck everyone else’s children; it only counts if yours are there to see it.

I’m near the end and I don’t care. I like the decay, I wish I could see it. I’m just a walking billboard of fake smiles and forced laughs, I have a bag full of seamless masks that the world is too stupid to see…. This isn’t my face, nothing is, because I don’t have one. Lift up the mask and find nothing, no being beneath. I live through lies. Each person is exposed to a different character, whatever one suits my needs or hides darkness best. There is not one person in the universe that knows what I am, at least not really. Oh, but they all think they do.

I woke up and went to my godparents house so I couldn’t stay alone in my room and kill myself. I was really considering it this morning. The only cure for that is another mask. I knew if I went to their house and stayed there all day, my stronger self would take over, fill in for me with the fake smiles and feigned interest. I don’t know how I do it, I really don’t. Whatever that part of me is, the one that will do anything in its power to stay undetected…why can’t it be used for other things? All I hear myself saying is, “I can’t, I can’t”, and I hate it. I hate to feel powerless, because I shouldn’t be, I pride myself in being in power, not out of it. Yet…there is no drive, no willpower. That’s the hilarity of it too: no willpower. I don’t have enough willpower to live, and I still haven’t quite had enough willpower to end it. Haha. How ironic.

I just bitch and moan and do nothing. Worthless beyond a doubt. But what does it matter? I’m just going to fucking smile and laugh and inside I’m going to scream and rage…. Until something snaps. I’ll either pull myself out of the hole I dug and face it, rather than being a weak piece of shit coward and doing nothing, or I’ll just die. What lovely options. I can quit school, work at the grocery store and call it a day, or I can keep going on a path that’s going to kill me. My choice, right? Supposedly it’s all my fault that I want to die, that I’m too weak to face anything. Everyone is so big and strong in the world, and here I am, the pitiful outsider who can’t deal with it, right? That’s what my father thinks, I’m sure. And my mother, she just doesn’t get it, period. But hell, who does!

Just laugh and smile and pretend you never heard a fucking thing.

Only more mistakes and no improvement.

It’s late. 1:40 am, but my brain hasn’t shut down yet.

A lot of times I try to convince myself that I hate the world more than myself. But the truth is, there is not a thing about me that I consider salvageable. I’m above and beyond a fool; I made so many mistakes today and did some really stupid things (though most would consider it justified, I still HATE the way I behaved…). When I’m angry I say a lot of things I shouldn’t, and I bluff to no end, as that’s my way. I know how to get under people’s skin, and I use it. I have this really ridiculous need to prove myself, not only to them (which in and of itself is sheer stupidity), but to me.

My brain tends to get muddled when I’m with others, to the extent that I become a stuttering useless piece of shit. I can’t get my thoughts out properly if I’m not riled. And well, it’s difficult to get an emotionless zombie “riled”. So generally I just end up in situations where I’m extraordinarily uncomfortable, and can’t speak as I normally would.

I hate myself, and it cut my soul even deeper today. I am nothing. I have no confidence to hold myself up anymore; I’ve overused my mask. The confidence was never there to begin with, and now that that fake show I put on is no longer working, I truly have lost what little defense I had.

I’m weak, stupid. I don’t know anything beyond my own existence, which is utter bullshit. There is absolutely no purpose for me to live, not any sort of redeeming quality that makes me think I’m deserving in the least. I’m a waste. I was never meant to be. Mistake.

Fuck, I hate myself so much right now, I can’t even express it. I hate all of this stupidity that I allow to go on and on and on…. For what? Why? There is no fucking reason. I should just do it, yet I never fucking get up the courage to do it. FUCK FUCK FUCK.

I want to just not wake up, not even know that I’ve died…. Either that or I want to go out screaming in agony like a proper animal should. I don’t want this, I never wanted this…. All I wanted was to be left alone, to have no family no nothing. I wanted to be some nameless person sleeping under a bridge, or living out in a tent by the river. At least then, maybe I could find some fucking semblance of something instead of this nothingness…..

The only emotion I’ve been feeling lately is shame. I am completely ashamed of who I am, the fact that I even have the gall to show my face, to pretend that I am a creature deserving of life. I’m like a fucking tick. Nothing but a leech draining the life of everybody near me, and truthfully I don’t even give a fuck if I’m hurting them at this point, because all I’m feeling is the weight on my chest of being a complete failure at living. Worthless, nothing. I can’t even fathom how it is people can be confident, how they cannot feel this…disgust with themselves. Happiness? Love? I’m not even fucking capable. I can’t even tell my parents that I love them, even after all they’ve done for me. I feel nothing toward them, and it’s infuriating. There’s never going to be a time when I care about anyone, and isn’t that what this fucked-up humanity seems to believe is the “point” of being? Loving and being friends and sharing your life with other people?

It’s other people that make me miserable. If I could just be alone…fuck. Maybe I could forget. I could go on pretending that I’m strong and capable when I’m really the weakest and the most incapable. It’s nice to have fantasies; it makes me forget the sickening mess that I am. Everything about me…. I hate my being. I hate my mind, I hate my smile, my humanity. I hate how vulnerable saying all of this makes me, and the fact that typing it out makes me feel relief. I shouldn’t fucking need it. I shouldn’t need any of it; I should be completely beyond petty human stupidity, yet I’m not. The few last things left in this living corpse are all the things that I can’t bear to live with. And it just gives me all the more reason.

I want to give my life a chance, but at the same time I want to snuff it out before I fuck it all up even more, and humiliate myself beyond recovery. I don’t know how it’s possible to feel so much self-loathing and contain it…. I should just explode, but nothing happens. I get worse and worse, yet nothing happens. I can’t fucking do it. I fail at it as much as I fail at everything else. And I keep living and letting it build, so toxic and suffocating….

I think I’m secretly hoping holding it all in will somehow finish me off.

Punishment that never ends.

Sometimes I tell myself that it is alright that I want to die, that there is nothing wrong with that. This place is far from wonderful, far from perfect, and in truth it can be close to Hell. If there are levels in Hell, I must be in one of the easier ones. Even so, it’s still Hell, and I am still the person I always was, with no drive, no dreams, no goals. I live out of pure boredom and a sense of false, all-consuming loyalty, nothing more. Every reason I give is just another lie, another strike on my private record.

So many strikes the paper looks black.

I am disgrace. I plague even myself with my own existence. An existence that is taxing even on me. If I am such a burden to myself, it must be twice as worse for the ones who hold me up. On my own I would collapse; a malformed structure that was never meant to stand. I was designed all wrong, and all of my “improvements” have only suceeded in worsening matters.

School draws nearer. I know that my pathetic reasoning is starting to burn from my anger…the rage at being trapped in a cage that is inescapable except for one path. I don’t want this. I never wanted this. I’d take anything over this. I want it to end.

Anxiety eats at sanity
Unwelcome cannibalism of self
Hatred that never stops.

I will never feel normal. There’s never going to be a day where I wake up and it all feels okay. I will never have that day, not even a single one.

I have to say another lie: it makes me stronger.
The torture makes me stronger.
My chosen torture makes me stronger.

Today is not the day to die.