This empty life…

He called me “hon”.

He is not prone to terms of endearment. This isn’t a man who slips into language like a diner’s waitress.

After no communication for days. Maybe a week.

I’ve lost track of time.

These days time is like taffy. Stretching, clinging, sticking.

The point is it just slipped out so casually.

And I want to bash my head into a wall repeatedly.

There’s a reason I grew up loving paperback mysteries, Stephen King, and Wes Craven movies. This isn’t a girl who believes in fairy-tale-happy-ending bullshit.

I am my father’s daughter.

And I know better.

I know that there isn’t some white knight who is gonna swoop in at the last minute and make all the hurt disappear. There isn’t even a constant weight on the other side of my bed, much less in less explicit facets of my life.

I am on my own. Always. Regardless of where I’m stuck in time.

Only a single friend has told me “You deserve to have him stay. You give so much.”

All others are silent. And it shows me what I already know, in that deepest heart of mine. That truest heart. That constant companion that’s been there since when I was little.

There’s no point in giving. There is no deserving.

There is only the taffy stretch of time and the constant stickiness of pain.

“Cigarettes” by The Wreckers

Tomorrow dawns…

“It’s a dirty business, dreaming
Where there is silence and not screaming
Where there’s no daylight
There’s no healing, no no

You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
In your dreams everything is alright
Tomorrow dawns like a suicide
But you’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight”

-“Sleep Like a Baby Tonight”, U2

Letter to Father

Dear Dad,

I don’t understand why the universe is the way it is. I know you’re a realist but I can’t make myself be that every moment like I’d like. I don’t understand why people like Rogers who do so little adulting, don’t try to look for a job or way of income; keep getting these windfalls that allow them to continue living in the avoidance way of life they’re used to.

Meanwhile I work so hard at trying to get the sort of position that could actually handle my bills and way of life and come up wanting every time. So many job applications. A handle of interviews. Nothing further. At all.

I won’t say “it isn’t fair” because you and I both know that’s a trite excuse for the cards the universe deals each and every person. I get that it isn’t supposed to be fair.

But it certainly isn’t easy to process or handle or deal with.

And I can’t deal. I would if I could but there’s only so many “no’s” and turn downs a person can take. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong and I don’t have the drive, desire, or energy to continue to try to discover how to solve this problem.

I don’t have the friends or relationships to give me any level of support to get through these black thoughts. I learned early to not share those inner thoughts and keep that mask on, but usually I had at least one person in my life I could let it slip with a bit.

No longer.

It’s exhausting having to keep this mask on all the time. I just can’t keep doing it like I have.

I just want to sleep.

Take care and enjoy all that perfect family portrait life that Teresa’s family offers. It’s better that way anyway.

I was always the black sheep in everything.

-K

Pride/Humilty

Pride

Stiff rigidity and tempered steel.

To bend this habit is like breaking bone.

But in the days following my stark refusal to release my pride…

It’s sharp regret.

I find myself unable to say what I think is expected.

It’s like dirt in the throat. Sand in the mouth. Broken glass along the tongue.

Wishing I had learned differently.

Grown up in a house of strong affection and open emotions.

But such is not my world. I wish it were.

It’s entirely a weakness, pride is. I know this. I know this with every fiber of my being.

And yet I still cannot break the habit.

The masks, the boxes, the robotic responses.

Co-dependency crippled me all those years ago. I carry a scar so long, so deep that I can feel the rippling skin tightening with thought. So calloused yet so paper thin.

Don’t show weakness. Don’t show need. Don’t show want.

Don’t break character. For the love of god, do not cry.
Do not ask for help. Do not show desire. Do not be vulnerable.

Just let him go. Just like you let them all go.

Pride is a prickly bedmate. A cold companion.

But I know no other better.

---

Humility…

That fear bubbles up and locks my tongue so neatly when I think to be otherwise. And the moments happen more and more. I think of every bright shinning piece of the past years.

When he’d go out of his way to check on me when I had been my quiet, reclusive self.

When he knew what joke to make to get me to smile.

The way the heat rushed through me so easily when he brushed his fingers over me.

The natural way my head tilted against him when I sit close.

The way he knows to stroke my hair when I’m feeling nervous.

The way he gets just the right level of teasing and sarcasm to make me smile.

The way he kisses the top of my head as an afterthought of affection.

The way he knows I carry all my tension in my neck and shoulders.

The way he recognizes the look of self-loathing in my eyes and knows the right words to make me actually feel solidly beautiful..

I miss that syrupy thick feeling while lying on the cool sheets and allowing his fingers to dance over me.

But that fear, that victim mindset leaps to attention.
It hisses-snarls-screams at me…

“Remember what happened last time.”

The one time I tried handing my heart over. I tried full, unconditional trust.

Unconditional trust is overrated.

Unconditional trust is what turned me into the victim.

Conditions are safe.

Source

Letter to Germany

Dear Germany,

I remember when we went to see Captain America before you left (hah, was it really that long ago that the Avengers were a new thing?) and I cried when Bucky fell out of the train and Steve had to mourn losing him. You thought I was a dork. I totally was. But I think now, I may have been that sort of precognizant dork that recognized a loss of my own coming. There is no one I’ve encounter that I have the bond with that I had with you. I suppose part of that is age. Such is being an adult. The world is your own; wholely.

God know Rogers has been a good friend. I can’t really fault him in any way. I’ve been withdraw for years now. There’s no new friend who could get under my skin and into my soul like you did back in the day.

Obviously not anymore.

Honestly, I don’t know whether we truly ever had it like that. Did we? Or was it just the innocence of youth that sort of gave us those rose-tinted glasses and the idea of this other person that could be part of our soul (without the messy romantic bullshit).

It was a beautiful idea regardless. Whether a lie or not.

These days feel like shadows. I can’t recapture that ideal of before no matter how much I reach. It could be that I’m not trying hard enough, but my ability is such that I’m not able to try harder. I would that I could. Such is my mantra for the moment. For the year. For this lifetime.

I would that I could.

There was so much shit in high school. So much. And yet, I would pry out the bit of idealistic friendship I had there for a couple years if I could. Because god knows I’ve never found it since. There is nothing wrong with my current group of friends. I know they try. But I just don’t open my soul like I used to. I don’t let anyone, platonic or otherwise, pry their way into that dark dank recess of what used to be a giving and loving place.

Obviously no longer.

I don’t have any magic excuses or apologies really to give you. I’m a selfish person at this point I suppose. Or weak. Or tired. Whatever you want to brand me with is fine. You’ve had your own thing now an entire ocean away anyhow. I’m sure I’ve be relegated to a blip on your radar at this point. And it’s fine. Distance is a bitch.

So is life.

-K

Suicide: An Examination

(TW- pretty obvious I’d say. Don’t read if you can’t handle frank suicide talk.)

The past month I have tried to kill myself twice. Overdosing on pills and slicing my wrists open.

I failed twice.

Due to interventions by people who contacted EMS and police to force me to the hospital.

I’m sure those more optimistic sorts of people would say it’s that I was “rescued” or “saved” from that whole “permanent solution to a temporary problem”.

It isn’t feeling much temporary to me. It’s been over a year now. I am an utter shell of a person. Can’t get a job. Can barely keep my head together for longer than a couple days. Time ebbs and flows and dribbles and spurts.

The only constant is pain and despair.

I find little joy in anything. I’ve been through so many different anti-depressants and such that I can’t even remember all their names. None of them help. Many of them made things worse (fuck you Prozac). I am trying very hard to remain here due to promises I’ve made to family and friends who at times I feel are being selfish in their demands of me. But perhaps I am the selfish one. It’s hard to know.

What I want to do though is record all that happened. So this entry is obviously after all the ODs and psych ward and hospitalizations and pills-pills-pills. I write this while sitting in my own bed with Zoe nearby. But the next series of entries are copied from a composition journal I used to write both my “goodbye letters” to various people and my entries during the psych ward stay.

Eventually the idea is that I will not be in this suicidal mindset anymore and looking back on this entries might be informative to me. I suppose. I just need to get it out anyway. I’m sure it will not strike many people on here as that fascinating of a read and god knows none of you are required to read any of the following posts. They are mostly for me.

For me and the universe.

I would like to dissect and examine the mindset behind the desire for suicide.

The Fitted Sheet

Source

Putting a fitted sheet on a mattress fucking sucks. I swear it’s the workout of a marathon in one room.

You try that whole “diagonal sides first”; the whole “back sides first”; whatever other “trick” you got from family or Youtube. They make it look so simple. A breeze. Obviously a fucking simpleton should be able to get a damn fitted sheet onto their fucking mattress.

That’s the metaphor of my life right now.

I have this life “fitted sheet” that is well-worn, perhaps a bit faded. The pattern is super funky. Couple decades old.

But it’s mine. And I’ve heard it isn’t easy to get another.

I also have this brain “mattress” that I think may have somehow obtained the incorrect size. I’m not sure whether I meant for a full instead of a queen or maybe I need a king?

Honestly, it’s sort of hard to tell whether the mattress is too large or the fitted sheet is too small. Or perhaps the opposite. It’s all just wibbly-wobbly.

No matter how much I fucking groan and shove and twist into all sorts of fun shapes, the damn sheet never seems to fit properly onto the mattress.

I think I’m going to have to saw a corner off. Which is a bit sad, as I love this “mattress”. I don’t want another. I don’t want to really change it. To trade it out for something else. This one is just so familiar, despite the stains and weird lumps and sort of frayed bits on the corners. The whispers in the stuffing and the smudged sort of writing in spots that never seems to rub out.

If I can get the sheet on after cutting a corner off the mattress, then I can just face the weird malformed corner to the wall so no one visiting can tell.

Problem solved, right?