Pennies on her eyes, dead inside
Fragments of a shattered heart.
The wind is still, the timepiece cracked
Forever locked in now. Quiet.
Demon lingers, smirking smile
Watching sadness permeate.
She looks away, her tear stained skin
In cold hallways, echoes eternal.
Timid lies and forced betrayal
Disemboweled and on her face.
Forever snuffed yet within reach
Choices bruise and so we die.
Imagine, if you will, a person has cancer and is dying on the inside. Also imagine someone who is a chain smoker for most of their life and on the inside their internal organs are barely functioning any more. And for good measure, maybe picture somebody who just contracted HIV and the internal chaos going on there.
On the outside, no one can tell what’s happening. I mean, barring hair and weight loss but I’ll touch on that aspect in a minute. And not only will this person, male or female, appear normal and the same but they could even make, through their eyes, improvements on their outward appearance. Upgrades. A new boyfriend. A new car. A vacation. Possibly even healthy, maintained weight loss. And they might even find this gives them a sense of happiness, as though they were blessed. But we know what’s going in on the inside and it’s what they are masking that is way more powerful than what they use to hide behind.
If you have a disease like cancer, whether terminal or not, there’s a regimen of meds, chemotherapy, abstaining from certain behaviours and a revolving door of doctors and specialists. Same with HIV. A lifetime of smoking causes great destruction of internal organs, often to the point of failure. There’s not much you can do to reverse the curse, as it were, though quitting might be a start.
All similies and metaphors aside, one cannot simply begin a new life and think they’ve beat the system. Money can buy you things, sure. That’s its purpose. But it can’t fix how broken you are on the inside. A different companion that currently loves and adores you, as many before him, doesn’t heal the wounds you received decades ago. It all still festers inside you. A nice week or two off of the daily grind and somewhere tropical is fantastic, but it won’t repair the total destruction inside your heart.
The illness doesn’t just vanish. If it’s there at all, even as a seed, and it’s been eating and growing and faced new batches of similar sickness, it all starts turning malignant. Then still left for years as people, homes and jobs come and go, all the while pulsating and growing like some living entity inside you. But you just mask it yet again. You change gears. Give your heart away once more. Always the same pattern.
If anyone could see inside you right this very moment, the first instinct would be to run for the hills, screaming and terrified at the atrocity that has taken over you. The deception and lies of trying to hide it is draining you yet you carry on, thinking maybe happiness is just ahead. Lying, crying and dying. The sickness is real.
Is time standing still? Am I invisible? It’s all blurring together. Sleep. Work. Does it matter if I shower? Hunger isn’t what it used to be. Maybe I’ll sleep all day tomorrow.
Ever feel like you’re in a glass tube, moving through life? You can see things as normal but sounds are muffled or non-existent. You can’t reach out for any help. You’re very fragile but you have nowhere to hide. It’s often hard to breathe. You just can’t get back to the normal, regular you.
On a lighter note, I picked up a new kitten today. I told the kiddies it was for a playmate for Nigel but secretly she’s for me, she’s my other half. She’s beautiful, never complains, sleeps a lot, has lots of love to give and nails for days. Dream girl. Oh, and she purrs when I pet her. What? Purrfect.
Maybe I should be learning something from within this tangled web of melancholyistic downtroddeness. I’m not, I fully assure you. I mean, is there really any such thing as true happiness?
Look at the state of the world. Look at your own definition of being happy. Is it finding your “one true soul mate” and putting all your life’s eggs into that basket, only to one day not only lose him but your entire world? If there’s anything I’ve learnt these past 8 or so months, it’s that a marriage should never equal your happiness. You need to know that on your own first. Or, backwardsly enough, after. In the wake of.
What about the person who has everything? She’s worked hard and she deserves the stuff she has that fills her mansion and her garages. All her trips and all her personal staff are the result of what she has put in. Yet that empty void inside… no degree of purchased happiness can fill it. And she will literally die trying to achieve her state of happy, throughout a long, painful life of sheer emptiness.
And so it goes. Are you happy? Fleetingly probably and I get that. But even for me, until now anyway, the fleeting happiness is still based on shallow surfaces that were made to collapse under that kind of duress. I dont have anything to stand on that won’t wash away when the tide rolls in, in this world at any rate.
I wonder how that kitten is doing, all segregated away in my bedroom so as to ease in to life here, especially in regards to Nigel. She’s similar to me in that sense, kind of on the outside of the world and not even looking in, just walled out. She hears the defensive hissings of Nigel and sees the paws reaching under the door but like me, she retreats. She lays down, puts her head down and waits. And this is all she knows, at least for a day or two.
She is pure and she is beautiful, just like I am somewhere deep down inside. I can’t see that now and maybe in her, I will remember.
It’s like I’m stuck in a place I don’t want to be and it’s all too familiar.
I just spent half my life chained to an alcohol addiction, with me, the high functioning master at arms. I know what it’s like to feel stuck. An unfortunate truth is that it’s been such a mainstay in my life that it no doubt supersedes other more positive feelings or emotions.
My current state of stuckyness is a degree of self-loathing intermingled with a room full of loneliness. And like when I struggled with the bottle, I now too know the remedy and it is to surround myself with friends and family. To not feel alone, the healthy fix is to make myself un-alone, yet my lazy comfort is in the art of being alone so it becomes a cycle, of sorts. And its dark; really dark. No way for a man to live.
I’ve cried a lot lately. Probably not compared to a neglected, PMS’ing woman watching The Notebook but to me, this has been many tears a-rollin’. And I’ve found I seek out things to trigger me, whether it be yearning for someone I can’t have or viewing a specific movie knowing that it has bawl worthy moments, or at least one. Almost like a release, it feels good, reveling in the sad state.
With this current health scare, I’ve taken some time off to accomodate all the appointments and I’m thinking this extra time on my hands might not be the greatest thing for me. Am I spiraling into some kind of mental illness? Is this what depression feels like or am I just teasing the surface without allowing myself to plunge into the dark, deepness? Sinking sucks but treading water gets old real quick.
Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis. Dating women half my age is nothing new, though I’ve never made a spur of the moment Lambo purchase. It doesn’t seem like the right title for me so I’m gonna discard that one quicker than a Snicker(s).
I know what I need to do, I haven’t lost my way. Though will I do the smart thing, albeit boring and unattractive? Sometimes that’s the way life has us living. I need to invest in people, my writing and staying positive. There. I said it. Now what’s my first step? Make a call? Get even more creative and sit in front of my computer? Listen to or read something self help or even the Bible?
First, I believe I will peruse my copy of The Notebook. I mean, it has been a while.