I try not to talk as much, these days, about the things that break me down.  The things I’ve lost…  people I’ve lost…  friends who died young, for no real reason…  senseless, stupid loss…  I try not to talk about these things, because I’ve been trying to keep myself together.  And, certain subjects cause me to fall apart.

I used to retreat into my own mind, a lot.  Not just daydreaming – no, this was a whole other level of escapism.  I was mentally writing myself a different reality.  One where, I still had the people that were stolen from me.  People I loved…  like Jazz, who intentionally OD’d.  Coke and heroin…  it was his choice, but God damn it…  one moment, someone beautiful exists, in the world, and in a blink… 

in a breath…

"Like a cloud his fingers explode
On the typewriter ribbon, the shadow grows
His heart’s in a bowl behind the bank"

I try not to think about what I’m trying not to do.  It’s not easy.  I feel so broken down, sometimes.  Even the name…  just saying it, or hearing it…  I just can’t take it. 

I tell myself all the reasons I have to keep going.  It’s a dead end.  My life will just spiral until I’ve lost every last, little thing in it.  I’ll wind up alone – someone people have given up on and forgotten about.  Like some overweight, middle-aged person who sits at their favorite bar, every day, from lunchtime on…  I see those people, when I walk past the pubs – always there, all day, every damn day.  I’ve seen what it looks like for junkies, too.  I don’t want to be someone that people have to cut loose.  For so long, it’s been so hard for me to reach out and make friends.  I don’t know how quickly that’ll change, but I know NOTHING will get any better if I go back to living that way.  Nothing will ever get any better.

"And every evening when he gets home
To make his supper and eat it alone
His black shirt cries while his shoes get cold"

Alone too long, with my thoughts, I start to scare myself.  I tore out of my house yesterday, with no idea where I was going.  I just knew if I stayed, I would break one promise or another.  I would call dude, and get high, or I would get so angry at myself that I would take a knife to one of my arms.  Desperate to keep my word to the one person who’s stuck by me, without fail, every second that I needed him, during this thing, I just took off.  I didn’t get too far, before I called Ace.  Then, I was able to go home.

"It’s just a dream he keeps having
And it doesn’t seem to mean anything"

Maybe, forgetting all that loss was part of the reason I did what I did to myself.  Drinking every night…  trashing my kidneys…  I tore myself up with alcohol, and pills, for a good while before I found a drug that could turn off the pain without eclipsing my awareness.  No pain…  no sadness…  it all just gets washed away, in a rush of euphoria.  I couldn’t feel anything bad, but I could still feel good.  To a person in the depths of dispair, that sounds reallly f@cking appealing.’

And, it only takes one bad decision…  one misstep…  during the darkest hour, of your darkest day…  to start a slide that you don’t know how to stop.

And, it robs you, so slowly, that by the time you lift your head to look around, there’s so much damage already done, that you don’t want to look up long enough to fix it.  You just want to keep your eyes fixed on the ground, or straight ahead, and keep making yourself forget how much it all hurts.

"One summer, a suicide
Another autumn, a traveler’s guide
He hits snooze twice before he dies"

I never got into gambling.  It’s just a vice I never grabbed onto.  I figured I’d like it too much.  I guess I’m a sucker for anything that involves a rush – free climbing, drugs, endurance sports, kinky sex, whatever…  maybe, it comes from having had such terrible experiences at a young age.

Being raped, and stabbed…

and, its not like I had a normal, happy childhood.

Maybe, these things left me craving pleasure in the same extremes that I’d been dealt pain.

"He feels lucky to have you here
In his kitchen, in your chair
Sometimes he forgets that you’re even there"

One of the crappiest things about disliking yourself is that it makes you paranoid.  You’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop, because you don’t think worthwhile people should really want anything to do with you.  You keep thinking they’re gonna figure you out, and ditch out on you, because you’re actually loathesome, and they just don’t see it, yet.

"It’s just a dream he keeps having
And it doesn’t seem to mean anything
It’s just a dream he keeps having"
(Wilco, "Summerteeth")