rivers-of-consciousness

[rivers-of-consciousness]

[rivers-of-consciousness]

It's been two months and a week now. I've had a lot of time to think. Most of that time I squandered in distractions, trying to avoid the harshest reality in favor of my own quiet, safe little bubble. It's time I faced the music, for my own sake. I have no energy left to give up for you; you never appreciated it anyway. Just like my very presence itself, my time was something you felt you owned. Something you took for granted. I hadn't realized it until you were long gone, but I hated you for it. I still resent you.

I don't miss you for who you were. Rather, I miss you for who I wish you could have been - nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Every day I wish you could have lived as happily as when you came to me in my dreams. But since you didn't, since you were so cruel to the world you were convinced hated you, I don't want to spend energy on you anymore. You can't hurt me anymore, even though my heart and soul still bear your scars.

I don't know what happened. I don't really know when or why you changed. I don't even know if it's cruel or kind to say I wish you hadn't. But I still miss a part of you. Wherever you are, whether you know that or not, I hope you are finally at peace. Despite the pain and destruction you left in your wake, I know you deserve it. I miss who you could have been; I wish somebody could have helped.

I was one of your many victims, so I will not say I'm sorry. I owe you no apologies. I missed you, and I hated you, and I wished I could see the version of you I could laugh with again. In the end, I couldn't. I knew I wouldn't. It was nobody's fault.

I wish you could have been someone else. I wish you could have been someone I was proud to call my brother. I wish you could have been 26.

Happy birthday.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

18 days since I lost so much. If you told me it was yesterday I would believe you; if I told you it was a year ago I would believe you just the same.

There was so much I never knew how to say, but I'm glad I saw you the other night. You have no idea how happy I was to see you smile, no trouble in your eyes. You told me you were okay; I'd never wanted to hear anything from you more than that.

We were best fair-weather friends, you and I, but I would have defended you and helped you, fought for you tooth and nail if I had known it would help. I wish you would have said something; I'm sorry for not having the answers. But it was nobody's fault. You're okay now, and we're trying to pick up the pieces in your wake.

Feel free to stop by anytime.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

If you really loved me, you wouldn’t just say it as an apology. You would care for me on an emotional level, not just an obligatory one. You do so little to appreciate the actual help I offer - and you don’t even realize that even though you tell me that I can confide anything in you, I know it’s false before you even finish the sentence.

You’re both liars. If you saw what I’ve been hiding - and chose to acknowledge it for once - your promises would blow away like ashes in the wind. You’ve done hardly any good to teach me, and you’re too stubborn to realize that you’ve ruined your only potentially functional child. I don’t care how hurtful it is to anyone when I say that. I have been wronged, and now I burn hot and bright with the fury of decades of injustice. Where will you be when I choose to quell those flames?

If I have any say in the matter, you won’t be there to witness it. Your mistreatment of me grew old long, long ago, and I won’t have it any longer.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

I had always wanted to think that I was special somehow.

I tried too hard to see things that other people couldn’t, or to think in ways that I knew would probably confound a lot of the people I commonly interacted with. I looked up at the sky and instead of seeing blue, I wanted to see a mosaic of millions upon millions of tiny dots of all the colors: reds and greens and purples and everything in between. I was desperate to stand out to someone. To everyone, really.

And to be honest, I still am. I know that I’m still trying desperately to be seen and felt and noticed and liked, but every time I feel that temptation to reach out I just... Fall flat. The reactions I see are never enough, and when I get something that I feel is satisfactory just once, after that it’s no longer enough. I know deep in my heart that I should give up and try to live life as I know a normal person would want to, but for some reason I can’t. I don’t know how to pull myself out of that cycle.

Another thing about that is that the times people really didn’t care - they said they did, but it’s obvious to me when they’re lying - really got to me. By now I feel as though I’m at the point where nothing I do will really live up to anyone’s threshold for liking someone else. Damn near every fiber of my being wants to just give it all up and pull myself away from everyone that I love, because I feel as though I don’t deserve people as good as them, and they don’t deserve to put up with the bullshit I spew on a daily basis.

I have always been looking for someone who was receptive to my interests. And sure, I’ve had occasions where that wish has been granted, but it really never does last. As soon as someone shares that interest with me in a genuine way, my mind wants to move on due to my overwhelming desire to be someone who’s unique. I want to be admired for being different, but I want to fit in at the same time. It’s a destructive cycle that makes me feel as though I’ll never be good enough for anyone else, and I’m so strongly caught up in it that I don’t actually have enough time or motivation to improve any of my skills to the point where someone would actually be impressed with anything I have to offer.

I flake on people constantly. I skirt talking about their interests because I’m too afraid to tell them that I don’t share them. I say I don’t want to talk, but then spend the next half hour or more venting all my thoughts and feelings to that same person. I don’t want to listen to anyone else’s problems, though. I’m self-absorbed and I’m tired of it. I want to be genuinely happy for people; I want to care for them; I want to know what it feels like to be unafraid to love and to reciprocate the love someone else may or may not feel for me. With all of my flaws, though, I know the chances of someone loving me are painfully slim. At the same time that self-destructive, attention-craving piece of my brain wants to believe that everyone loves me and is just waiting for my next move so they can have something else to fawn over.

I know, and have known, that I’m dead wrong. Everyone has a life of their own, and ninety-nine percent of the time I’m sure it’s better than what I have going on. They have their own friends. They have their own hobbies and requirements. This all seldom involves me. I don’t know why I feel it’s so necessary to stick my nose into so many things for which I know I should be irrelevant.

And I would just like to say I’m sorry for who I am. For who I’ve always been, really. I’m trying to get better, but I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t expect you to be any more patient with me than you have been before. Hell, I don’t even expect you to have read this much of my god-awful rambling. I just want you to know that I regret how I feel.

But I still love all of you dearly.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

Friend: *gets a cool thing and tells me about it* Me, who doesn’t have the thing: Nice! My piece of shit brain: Hey, this means you’re garbage. Hate yourself even more lol

[rivers-of-consciousness]

Even when I don’t believe myself to have been in the wrong, I must always present myself as having the utmost patience and humility. I’m usually in the wrong anyway, so I shouldn’t bother.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

I know that I must love myself and put myself first.

And yet, at the end of each day even now, I still bite my tongue so that others may live in an ignorant bliss. What I hold back is mere, trifling, and trivial; however, in the fear of offending them or upsetting their original plans, I hold myself back. They do not know who I really am. I doubt they even believe what I’ve told them. I feel these things on a near-daily basis.

I do not know if I’m supposed to know that they are or are not okay with what I would say I truly feel. My silence is complacency to them, acceptance even, but what I truly mean could not be more contrary. I wish people would understand that when I say nothing, I am objecting while in fear of their rage and backlash if I were to vocalize this.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

I stepped out of the shower and closed my eyes. Droplets of water streamed off my body, still hot. I relished the sensation. Knowing I could no longer cry, I stood there and felt the water slowly leave my skin, drop by drop by drop. Even after the rest of my body had long been dry, I continued to squeeze my wet hair and feel the now-cold, tinted blue water run down my arms again and again. This was the only emotional release I’d feel for ages.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

“Your words have rubbed me red and raw Was it months? Or years? It’s far too long.” That’s what you said; it pierced my soul And while you’re free, I’ve lost control

[rivers-of-consciousness]

[rivers-of-consciousness]

A sea of mustard flowers, all swaying in time with the breeze

[rivers-of-consciousness]

Mine is the arrow that will sever a suffocating bond.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

Loves me, loves me not

Praying for the latter And that I can make a clean getaway

[rivers-of-consciousness]

Day and night may be opposites, but dawn and dusk are not so. One is simply the other happening in reverse.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

I've always liked collecting things. It's just one thing among many, but I was never able to hold on to my composure.

[rivers-of-consciousness]

"That is the face of a broken man."

No, not a broken man. Just a small one.