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

You share your bed with all the ghosts of dead relationships

It’s summer, and the forest is burning. It’s summer, and the coast is flooding.
——The recent widower moved everything out & put his house up for sale. But
——the Yorkies went up for sale first.
I never get to remember my dreams, except the bad ones. Maybe all I ever have
are the bad ones. The ones I recognize for what they are while I have them are
good for me but no one else in with me. Maybe they get back at me for it. Maybe
I deserve it.

You’ve loved this much before & know how it ends

Knowing & behaving are cousins, but only
kissing cousins. To be fair, well, we already lost.
——Whores know better than to kiss on the
——mouth. That’s how you mix up work & love,
——esp. when both are pleasurable. But I havent
——learned that yet, or ifI have, I cant
——quit doing it. You cant come back.
There is inside me a powerful critic, good & useful
& worthwhile when pointed at a great many things.
But at myself, in a depression, it is nothing but a
magnificent rot, spreading horrible into everything, esp.
what I love. The peculiar genius is to connect all
that makes me happy back to some triggering incident of
unhappiness. ‘Your grandmother is dying & you’re too
old to be enjoying cartoons.’ ‘Your family is in pre-mourning,
and you dont even bother to tell them about those you
love or why.’ ‘Everything you write is embarrassing,
not just too you but anyone who is connected to you.’
——Your happiness is no less worthy.
I dont see how ‘I ruin people’ is a good addition to my
resume, no matter how accurate it is. She knew better.

Piss in my bed, piss on my life

On a Friday, I lost my job & with it my healthcare.

On Monday, I learned that my longterm ex had been sleeping with my housemate, and that his infidelities in their relationship—and her complaints about him doing so as her direct superior—led to his firing & her continued mental breakdown.

On Wednesday, I learned my teeth are in need of much attention that will need dental coverage I probably can’t afford.

Thursday morning I awoke to find a sexual partner had drunk herself to excess & pissed herself in her asleep (again).

Thursday afternoon, a woman who’d just gotten out of a break-up let me know that when she wanted to hang out with me, she had no sexual interest implied.

Very little in this actually related. All of it feels like it is.

A smartphone is a fine excuse to avoid self-interrogation

July 2, 2016
——I dont know what my word cloud would show.
Some things known cant be unknown.
——’Birth control is a women’s issue’ is not trans-inclusive.
‘Civil, right?’
——It’s stupid to continue to invest in past relationships
——just because they are safely impossible.
I want to leave her, but not for that.
——It may have been my fault anyway. But honesty never was
——something to benefit anything but my own vanity.
How else could we have done it?
——Whatever. I am what I am.
Tell the story of yourself with actions, not words.
——The depths of my compassion is visible from the surface.
A collection of accidents, connecting the dots. A life, a narrative.
——‘The truth is not a luxury.’
History forgets all; most it never remembers.

All coffee & whiskey & goddamn

I’m sick of spending all of time thinking about & telling myself I’m going to write something, then not.

I’m sick of wanting to be everywhere else that I ‘m not, and telling myself that if only, if only I had more time, or if only I werent spending so much of it with a girl or at a particular job, I’d be so much more creative & wonderful & live up to all of those expectations I have & others have for me.

But here I sit at a bar, drinking way too much, having drunk way too much already, with a job interview in the morning & more to memorize after that, and none of it fucking matters because I’m not FULFILLING MY TRUE PURPOSE, whatever that means.

(Hello double well-whiskey neat.)

Yen yaw ken: a credo

Darlin, you are a beautiful & gorgeous thing, like archetype of modern American life, and it’s fabulous & fantastic ‘cept yr hangups with one fellow, which is sad & limiting & unfortunate.

To live & exert, to be lusty for everything, esp. life & chronicalling it is the chief end of (wo)man. ‘Sex is good, and people should be happy.’ Yen, yaw, ken. (yearn, deviate, understand).

April 2012: Human relationships are strange & stupid & sad, but funny & sweet & addicting

Of course it’s April Fool’s. How damnably appropriate.

• My dick has a tendency to wear out its welcome.

My eyes are open.

Suicide is often a major theme in fiction, and a widespread hobby among persons tired of having birthdays. This is common knowledge.

But what exactly is so awesome about suicide? Honestly, we all know it is. Not all forms of suicide are created equal, let’s get that out of the way right now. Swallowing a bunch of pills or cutting yourself, come on. That’s lame. It’s extremely anticlimactic and if you’re a man, you have no excuse. Women can do better, too, don’t get me wrong, but a woman falling asleep or bleeding out is this kind of tranquil scene we come to expect. But it’s still way lame.

When I say “suicide is awesome”, I of course mean throwing yourself off something very tall, or ideally, gunshot wound to the face. Because that’s when you know you’re a badass: closed casket. If there’s something left of you worth displaying, you obviously fucked up somewhere.

See, you have to express how pissed off you are at the world in your death. If it’s just a lethargic, “Oh, I’m filling up the bathtub with my blood,” then no one is going to care. Even if you put it on a webcam, that would be the most boring thing ever. But filming a gunshot wound to the face? Tell me with a straight face that wouldn’t be all over the internet in a day. You can’t. Know why? Because your face is blown off and you’re the most famous person in the world for a couple of weeks.

Bad. Ass.

I mean, I guess you could always try getting through whatever problems are causing you angst and try to make your life better and not hurt your loved ones, but FUCK THAT. Dude, your girlfriend broke up with you. Someone stole your iPod, it’s time be an hero.

Death to impress.