Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Gilded Cage

Can one feel guilt on top of guilt? Can you be condemned for your actions when all you wanted to do was erase your existence, knowing that your existence causes pain for you and those around you? However even knowing that your own existence causes you pain, and that ending it would bring you peace it brings others pain. What is right and what is wrong? They don’t want you to die, yet are tortured by who you are. Feeling pushed and pulled, there is no right answer, whom are you doing this for, for all the people that want you to try? For the guilt you feel if you don’t try? For the children you don’t want to scar? Why do they want you to try when truly, having you around haunts them, the effort drains them, the responsibility of your existence a burden. Angry with you for your weaknesses, but not proud of you when you make a decision. I made the decision to die, not for anyone but myself. I wanted it, I felt it, but the back lash, the responsibility for these actions, you are now forced to live and deal with them, all that you wanted to get away from, now placed before you, guilted before you, because in the never ending circle you cannot win, cannot win for yourself and for those who love you.

Do they think I’m happy, I wonder to myself. Has anyone asked me whether I am glad I am alive that I didn’t die? Have I asked myself, am I happy I was “saved”? Am I happy in my hamster cage, with my trainers, my pills, my exercise and my guilt? I know the answer, and the answer fails all your tests but mine. Ask me how I feel! I didn’t want to die to hurt you, I wanted to die to take my hurt away, not to ask for help, not to show my needs, not for anything outside of me, I didn’t do it for you, I died for me. And I lived for you. And I am in my cage trying to pass the tests, cheating at the answers because I cant tell you I’m happy I’m alive, you want me to be, but I’m not. I wake up every morning looking for enough to make it through the day, till the sun has gone down so I can sleep. Sleep is my death, my peace, and morning is my punishment, my life.

Even in the act of death, my need to please sabotaged my need to leave. I should have gone quietly but the guilt of not telling you hung on me. Would you feel guilty knowing that you let me die, feel like it was your fault? But if I tell you, and you know and tried to save me, but I still died, does it make it better for you? You feel like you tried, you didn’t fail in trying to save me. How can I feel responsible even in process of ceasing to be? Responsible to how you feel even when I am no longer with you. When does this end? They ask me why I want to escape, run away, be invisible? Because I become an unknown, not beholden to anyone, no one cares, I am nothing to anyone, my life becomes insignificant, and easy to give away. What a fairytale, the modern princess, there is no prince, no frog, no cake, no castle atop a hill, just a gilded cage, some happy pills, your fairy godshrink, and a good heaping of guilt.

Fuck the prince, I suppose that is what I do, fuck the prince and send him away, there aint room in the damn cage, the fairy godshrink is going to turn you into a toad, and I secretly love you but hate you, and trust me, life sucks in the pretty cage. You can’t win, you can be the best fucking prince in the world, and all you’ll get is a fuck, you’ll give me all the treasures in the world, I’ll love you and then kill you. Kill you for having all the feelings I can’t have, kill you because you make me guilty, kill you because you make me feel, kill you because feeling hurts, kill you because that’s all I know what to do. Gilded cage: occupancy: 1

Sunday, July 17, 2005

The Suicide

It was so calm, the moment. I woke that morning detached, almost in my skin but not, lagging behind watching the sensations and motions ahead of me. It seemed like a normal day, normal like all the days had been, a trance of subdued emotions, imagine a flat line on the heart monitor, not dead but never expanding either up or down, interacting with my body but not my mind.

Walking in a bubble, perhaps shrouded by a mist, I was in myself but working within a trance, unfeeling and going through the motions. My morning cup of tea, I sat with my computer and survival routine kicked into gear of its own accord, the body following its rout path of safety and distraction.

Then the anger came crackling through, but the serenity remained on the outside, talking and performing on cue. Normalcy was the backdrop, calmness were the lines. Burning, burning anger that heated in my core and threatened to spill out like bile onto the carpet, staining the stage, rose in me, strangling my heart. I walked out of chaos, eyes blank, and body moving; mouthing words I couldn’t hear to appease the audience.

I needed to be clean, clean to die. It was so calm, like the eye of the storm, I saw with clarity, death. A single directive, one order in my self, I knew the goal, I felt the ripples settle, and I knew without a doubt I was going to a destination. I locked down the hatches of doubt in the shower, naked and crouched in the corner, water washing down my face and body, alleviating the voices with its steady beat on my skin, and under the sheets of water another being came to be, a robot with a single line of code, not human, I couldn’t find me, didn’t want to, I ceded control, and it felt so liberating.

My bedclothes on, I climbed into bed, and working with limbs that did not feel like my own, watching like a spectator in a hushed crowd, I picked up the bottles of pills one by one. It wasn’t me, but it was, and there was no fear, no guilt, nothing, I felt absolutely nothing, flat line, I was in a vacuum of space, nothing existed, just my motion. I took them slowly and surely, still looking on from the stands, wondering how I would die, would I feel it? And as if I was somebody else, like the puppet following the movements of the strings, unconscious of what he would do next, I picked up the phone and said good-bye. Good bye, nothing more, I did it, I am going away, smile, I did it, put the phone down. Wait.

An angry child, why are you here, in my space, don’t enter my reverie. I block you out, you’re not here, I continue to take the pills, hand to mouth, and you don’t exist. I don’t see the tears, I don’t hear my voice of despair, its all an act, and a show for you, take my bow, and the understudy is on. I can’t see you, just the bright shining light at the end, I am making it there, each pill a succession bringing me closer, I can sense, eyes open but closed, the enrapture of being there, and nothing else matters. Keep talking, keep grabbing, keep pulling, I don’t see you, I am waiting for nirvana, I am waiting for the pills to melt into my blood, suck the anger out, seep the warmth of calm through my bones, make me melt away, bring me to relaxation, I want it so much, I am waiting for the eyes to close, for nothing to begin, for the light to take me to darkness.

Never have I felt so absolute in a decision, and though death did not come, the hand on the clock did stop, my world cyclones to a cocoon of unknowingness. Nothing moved, not even a whisper of a wind in the mind, we had shut down, closed the doors, and like sleeping beauty’s castle, darkness gave us solitude and calm and within it we slept the sleep of the dead.

Monday, July 11, 2005

The Crevasse

A crevasse in my heart that yaws open, plummeting to the deepest reaches of my soul, with an ache that permeates, so hollow in its pain, seeking fulfillment to fill the void that aches with everyday that goes by. Emptiness so lifeless that it exceeds pain, where pain becomes a relief to the inconsolable hungriness of this yearning needs to be fulfilled. Like sorrows that stack up starting from the ends of my toes, building as it creeps up my body, permeating my pores with a sadness that leaks from me. I at times wonder if people can feel this sadness that pours from me, a misguided halo that never leaves, that behind the smiles and even the times of happiness it sits on my skin, like a tingling blanket that rests so lightly on me, the faintness bringing a pulsating nervousness to my hands and feet. A tension that curls my toes and emanates from the tips of my fingers like darts, begging for a release from the nerves of sadness.

My arms wrap around a beautiful child, a child that finds more safety and comfort in my arms than I ever will. To him I am his beautiful being, his cloak and shield against the world, a haven where no storms can touch, his absolute refuge from the world. At times my baby stares into my eyes, his eyes in their innocence lock into mine and I wonder if he can see the burning flames of hell racing through me. I breathe in their essence, their breath lapping against my nostrils, gentle waves of warmth and love. I inhale their being into my core, wanting to fill my void with their beauty and strength. Like a black hole the moment is fleeting as it plummets into my crevasse, the energy dissipating, torn and eventually gone, increasing the ache, widening the gap, tightening my pain. I stare at them, grief encompassing me, remembering every detail of their perfection, searing it into my mind. I never know if this will be the last I see of them.

Tired, always tired, behind my eyes the war to keep the gates from falling, a battle that repeats, the walls shudder, the heavy doors bend with the weight of the enemy pressing to get in. Always a battle, a battle of strategy and deceit, deception, masquerade, detour the enemy, fend them off, keep them running. Always a game to stay a step ahead, to plan the game, make the rules, and always at attention. A lull, a false sense of security and the rush will bring you to your knees, the conquerors pillaging and raping the kingdom of your mind, and you are helpless, watching, chained, and willing yourself to die than witness the annihilation of your core. Because they don’t care, their mission is not to care, to make you scream, scream for mercy, for the saviour, and when all is lost, you scream for your death, the warmth, the escape, the closure from the raging battle behind your eyes.

Hearts do ache. Mine aches. As if I am in there, in a hollow, walking through emptiness and pushing at the wet walls, reaching up and trying to envelope myself, curling in a corner, covered in dampness and moisture listening to the metronome of my heart beating its plea. The sound echoes through, pulsates in the hollow, spreading the walls, and reverberating an ache through to the surfaces of my organ. A steady gong, a white noise, an aching that wills me to try and reach through my chest, to squeeze the compartments of my heart into one, to mesh the walls, swallow me, and force the hollowness out, make me whole, make the constant pulsing reminder of my void find another home. Find a satisfaction in squeezing my heart, like a sponge, twisting and smashing it between my hands, grasped so tight in my fists, to feel the gush between my fingers, every last drop of sorrow and ache dripped out. How scary to know that I can visualize that act, can feel the relief in creating that picture in my mind, wishing that I could, wondering if I would, tear my heart from my chest to free my soul.