Everything changes but nothing really does
For a while now, I’ve felt like an ersatz human.
I do the things people are supposed to do
& say what they’re supposed to say,
within limits
‘I don’t like to do things I don’t like to do’
but if it doesn’t hurt me, why shouldn’t I
do something to increase Others’ happiness?
So, I try to compliment pets, for their owners,
go out of my way
to be kind to them
even tho I really don’t care for small dogs
or cats
If you don’t love someone’s cat,
they hold it against you.
They expect their cat, above all others, to be different
So I try to behave like someone who enjoys cats.
I ask people at work about their lives
even tho I don’t care about it.
I maintain friendships
with people I don’t really miss
Soberly, I don’t really miss anyone.
Not family, not lovers, not co-workers, not friends.
Seeing someone again,
I might remember what was
but not in absence
‘Old age is a form of leprosy.’
The numbness is growing.
It didn’t used to feel
like such a strain to do the normal things,
but now it does
That’s no excuse to behave otherwise,
to make others unhappy,
but I expected it to get easier,
not harder.
I feel old & very tired. Every day is exhausting
I don’t know that living
genuinely would make me any happier.
It would just involve being rude & selfish,
externalizing waste products
that are my duty to keep siloed
It’s happened before,
this long-rising dissatisfaction.
It peaks
or maybe plateaus
and suddenly, consistently, I don’t want to do anything anymore.
Everything changes but nothing really does
I need to start seeing a therapist regular
I don’t know what that will help.
It is the healthier thing to do than not,
Or so I’m told
Externalizing my consistent desire to self-terminate,
how everything I do is just a way to be productive
& good rather than die
has not yet helped.
Reading what I’ve written in the past, I was never happy
I used to be terrified of dying.
I thought I’d go to Heaven & live forever and ever.
Couldn’t sleep at nite as a kid.
But oblivion,
no longer having to exist
to endure consciousness,
is damn comforting
Right now
what keeps me alive is not owning a gun
(the best self defense)
and that solving my own problems
would not solve anyone else’s,
just make more
I would really hate to leave a mess