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Let It Turn into Something Else

What I know would make a psychiatrist weep with fear. There is an angel cadaver hovering over me with deliberately beating, wind-whistling wings that punish the air with leathery slaps, splattering fresh dark blood on me and around me.

Vooomp
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It hunts me, drives me. There are dark rings around my eyes. Thin adrenalin always in my blood. Always rattling tight. Free weights attach themselves to my hands. I will move them, over and over. A slave. There is no choice. I drink coffee to keep up with it all. What would we do without scandals and celebrity gossip and shootings and the thieves and the bombs going off all around us? We'd go insane, that's what. Believe me, I know. I locked myself into a shitty apartment in New Jersey for 2 ½ years. I ate my own shit for breakfast. When there wasn't even that, I had music for breakfast. I created and abided by the five people per day rule. No interaction of any kind any kind with more than five people per day. I heard voices at night, close enough and soft enough to scare the shit out of me. This thing that happened years ago is not always the gift into which I have often transformed it. Sometimes it is a real anchor. And sometimes that anchor gets thrown into the deep dark blue ocean and I get dragged down too, hard. No one understands when I bark in response. No one knows where I am coming from, what was left behind. This decaying angel, hovering thunder, always. Even at night it is a shadow that follows me. Shadow boxing. Can't hide for long, can't outdrink it, can't out stare it. All you can do is continue on. Humming as loud as you can, singing fighting songs at the top of your lungs, armed only with reason, tools beyond reason, to deal with real physical problems. Sleep-dep is leaning hard on me. Continue on, hopefully bundled and strapped in all the right places. Let not one strap, not one knot come undone. God help you then. And approach those who are hurting to offer them comfort and offer yourself a moment of forgetfulness.

The plane will take off without me. I will be standing alone in the desert with a face full of dust. I will not be waving goodbye in your rearview mirror. I will be driven out, eventually caught with my back against the wall.

Vooomp
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Oh no yes I can walk over to the abyss on sheer willpower. Can you dig it? Can you get to this? I just arrived here, at this moment and place. Can you dig it? Who the hell are you to make me hurt, to make me cry? Who the hell are you to make me lonely? I fear being driven into the mental hospital, into prison. There are nightmares. Imprisoning revenge. The wings are strobing the sun from my face and splattering me with blood. I see a beauty decayed, a beauty no more. Only the promise remains, only in just the right light, blinking and flashing. Horror. Hanging around, waiting for the orders to come in. Without this, there is nothing. A shameful, fattening, weakening time. I feel like a prisoner who is always encountering life beyond the bars, always beautiful, always terrifying, always whispering thanks that it is still familiar, always with no point of reference, no database. A good soldier, loyal, but not on my own terms. Does it come across to the civilians I encounter. Do they say, Asshole, Freak, Poor guy. Nothing distances you like pity. Being alternately wistful and sincere and then spastic, nervous, careless in word and deed. It's my nerves, you see. Sometimes my stutter comes back. Sometimes it is hard to focus. At night, even when you don't hear them, they are there in the room with you. At night you can see my shadow upright and heaving on the wall. I am at your door with hot stars in my eyes, a gaping Joker's mouth. You didn't really think I could forgive you. Did you. I will herd you into Poverty. At night you see my eyes glowing hot, patrolling the perimeter. Everybody else, they carry themselves with the trappings of glory. I want to beat them with their Rolex-wristed arms. I want to shove their shit filled, bloody intestines down their throats. I want the horror. I want to see it in their eyes. I want to see the horror behind my reflection. Before I go back to my hole and cry. Cry until my face and back hurt. I will grab you by the arms and punch my foot through your chest. I will rip you in half like a circus strongman rips a phone book in half. I will use the lower half to beat the upper. When you fight me, you are not fighting for the girl. You are fighting for your life. I am not fighting you, I am fighting an Enemy. You have no choice. You have no chance. The vision of a man in sleep-dep, standing with clenched fists, dripping blood, fresh from the kill. Running, blinded with hate and before you know it, the abyss appears, flying out before you. And then to whimper, like a puppy being coaxed off the couch for the first time. Snarling over clenched teeth with tears running down your cheeks and piss running down your leg. Pitchblack sailing out and sinking down. I hear wings beating over my shoulder. My rotting angel.

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JESUS CHRIST PLEASE STOP WHY CAN'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE PLEASE

The priests have gone deaf on me. Truth is not a friend. Truth is just someone who stares at you, wordlessly, as you walk by. You look back: yes, still staring. Truth is the sound of a tire on hot asphalt, a voice heard shouting somewhere down the street, dirt under your fingernail, the way the sheets look on the bed. Truth is a sharp stick in the eye, even when it is good news. Authors and rock stars visit me in spirit. Not to hang out, but to observe. They look at me, bored and/or annoyed, then they put out their cigarettes on me and leave. I like in bed at night, shimmering underwater with tear-filled eyes, in and out of sleep, gasping, smelling myself rot. To be 26 years old, in decent health, and to have to recover deep breaths because your body is too apathetic to breath. Lying there in the heat, feeling your breaths become more and more shallow. Your chest barely rises. Depression. With grey skin and purple scars, pull back the tarp to reveal sheer, brilliant sunshine. I am weary. Let me rest. I have knelt down into my threadbare carpet with the carpet tacks sticking up underneath and to the air I quietly choked out, 'Fuck.' Live by the sword, die by the sword. I will be put down, like a dog is put down. I will load on the last straw. You will give up on me. You will call me a loser and walk away in disgust. I will be put away like a chair is put up in the attic. I will be left with the void sucking the screaming air out of my lungs.

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