― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
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There are reasons why at times my interactions with people seem strained. I say the wrong things. I limp through my social circles, everyone making way for my awkward presence. I bring up subjects deep and poignant. I provoke thoughts, thoughts you’re not accustomed to. I speak in a way you find odd. My accent tainted, not pure, not from any one place. The same with my mannerisms. I fidget with my hands in a crowd, unsure of how to hold them. I wonder if the way I’m standing is threatening. If a purse is left close to me, I walk away, believing you’ll accuse me if something is missing. Trying to drive with a thousand choices that are made instantly, provokes these social swerves that seem ungainly and make others uncomfortable.
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Pieces. Making up a whole, many parts nested together, each influencing another, producing new parts by virtue of the interaction. I pick out a few, examine them closely and find interesting details. They’re beautiful, when held away from the fray of the many tentacled reach of memories and fantasies. After holding them up to the light, seeing their potential array, I shudder to place them back into the filthy nest of my mind. Pulling out the best pieces, I shake them violently to break them free from the sticky strands of complexity and insanity. It encourages me to see the good in the midst of the shadowy world of loathing self esteem. I go through life in this juggling act, bringing out the best, keeping them out front, trying to not corrupt them or damage them. It’s true that others caused the breaks in my beautiful things, but I cannot put them away, even if it means harm, they’re all that I believe is good in me.
If you need help for racing thoughts, GET IT
Also Published in Wingposse
05162011
If you need help for racing thoughts, GET IT
Also Published in Wingposse
05162011
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late-on-time |
Listen, while I tell you a story of grey. The grey wraps around my soul in a haze of unwanted anxiety, a watered down black, like dark swirls in spoiled milk. These streaks of deteriorated joy cover my lens, my warm blanket soaked with fruitless tears. Feelings are sharp and cutting, nothing is gained by the sorrow. My grey love backfires, I point it toward her but the pain is set loose on my soul. This grey soaks me, in vain I try to keep myself warm in the breeze of cool emotion. Grey is my elixir of madness. I drink deep from the drought of darkness gone bad. Stormy clouds gather, a condensation of holiness evaporated from the lake of my soul, leaving it a lifeless puddle of unfathomable sorrow. Now you know of my affliction my curious companion, my lifelong condition of grey. Pray that you escape its mesmerizing effects and that you with the brightness of healthy hope, avoid this quicksand of a tortured mind.
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sagennext |
They said to me, “Walk!”. My feet wouldn’t move, frozen by the accident. Appendages that are normally useful, mobile, and independent, I drag them along, taking care that I don’t injure them. The accident, as I call it, was not an accident, but a purposeful intended act, inspired by lust and hate. What they did to me I cannot tell, the acts so horrific. Regardless of the details of their brutal incursion, what I was left with is a handicap, one of the mind, not the body. Having to make do with a shredded normality, crawling through my life, instead of walking, never able to run. What was taken for granted, now became a challenge for me. While others run, leap, climb, and move about with impunity to mental mobility. I must develop new ways, ways that hurt, ways that require intense concentration, intense discipline. Still they taunt me, “get up and walk”, “why can’t you just be like the rest of us”. They can’t see I’m disabled, bound by forces that were neither chosen, nor desired, but forced on me in a cruel and harsh manner.
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a-sinister-kidd |
The cabinet was open. I fancied the .38, it’s slight sheen producing a dull rainbow of metallic colors. I loaded it with hollow points, short and thick, like me. Looking curiously at the soft lead, its deep hole a receptacle for my soul, I held it up to my temple. Looking, without seeing, in the glass of the gun cabinet, my reflection taunted me, but I felt nothing, ignoring the repeating insults. Not satisfied, I put the cold barrel in my mouth, tasting the metal and bitter gunpowder residue. I cocked the hammer back, almost slipping, figures I would shoot myself before I was ready, just like the rest of my life, fumbling and awkward. My heart hurt, my chest was heavy, depression, lost love, rejection, a lifetime of bullshit. I always ended up a loner, never popular or following a crowd, no entourage to accompany me through my days. I’ve shared my experiences with many lovers, counselors, friends, acquaintances, and drinking partners. Many stared in disbelief, claiming I was full of shit, no one could have all that happen to them, so many horrific events…I would gather my brokenness together, and stuff it back inside. No matter how I tried, no one would believe me. No one believed the rapes, the molestations, the beatings, the humiliations, the rejections, the tortures, the fear, the disconnected feeling of having no family, a stranger everywhere, the loneliness. Loneliness and fear, they followed me everywhere, and now I sat next to them, with this instrument of death, toying with my life. I held it for a long time, feeling the coolness of the barrel, playing with the trigger, testing the pressure needed, which, being modified, was barely a touch, a hair-trigger. I felt the texture of the pistol’s grip and holding it up backwards, stared down the black hole to infinity. Intriguing, I can leave this place in a second. I can end all the pain, the despair, so easily. This wasn’t the first time, oh no, I did this before, this time though, I felt tears lubricating my will decreasing my resistance, from attempt to success. My stomach felt, hollow, a deep hunger gnawing at me, a hunger for someone to care enough to reach out, but how could they? No one knew. When I did tell them, they wouldn’t believe be, laughing at times, staring in disbelief. I admired the gun, it offered no ridicule, only relief. I loaded it again, emptying the chambers, reloading, emptying, reloading. I had control over nothing in my life, being forced, with no mercy, to do the will of others, who had no remorse or compassion at what they did to me, to my mind. I was beautiful, my mind whole and brilliant. Now, my mind suffered violence. Daily, the visions rushed in to terrify me, thoughts racing down black paths of paranoia, self loathing, violence, and lust. The pistol gave me power, I could change the course of my life, not only mine, but I could execute revenge on those, my tormentors, my mockers, the laughing crowd that refused to respect me, or at least respect the fact that I could end their lives in a hot quick second. Would they poke a bear in the eye? No, they respected that the bear would tear them to shreds. They would respect an animal, but not me. That’s really funny to me. I smiled many times, through my shame, back at them. My mind hadn’t lost its brilliance, it just was transformed from lightness to darkness, creating a monster. I dreamed of how I would torture them, tease them, watch them puff up with pride thinking that their size, their alliances, their mind, would grant them advantage and victory at every turn. I smiled at them, through my tears, their life in my hands. I thought how easy it would be to make a name for myself, to ravage the bullies and tear their life apart they way they did mine….so easy, so easy. But for now, I pulled the trigger on me.
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a-sinister-kidd |
The cabinet was open. I fancied the .38, it’s slight sheen producing a dull rainbow of metallic colors. I loaded it with hollow points, short and thick, like me. Looking curiously at the soft lead, its deep hole a receptacle for my soul, I held it up to my temple. Looking, without seeing, in the glass of the gun cabinet, my reflection taunted me, but I felt nothing, ignoring the repeating insults. Not satisfied, I put the cold barrel in my mouth, tasting the metal and bitter gunpowder residue. I cocked the hammer back, almost slipping, figures I would shoot myself before I was ready, just like the rest of my life, fumbling and awkward. My heart hurt, my chest was heavy, depression, lost love, rejection, a lifetime of bullshit. I always ended up a loner, never popular or following a crowd, no entourage to accompany me through my days. I’ve shared my experiences with many lovers, counselors, friends, acquaintances, and drinking partners. Many stared in disbelief, claiming I was full of shit, no one could have all that happen to them, so many horrific events…I would gather my brokenness together, and stuff it back inside. No matter how I tried, no one would believe me. No one believed the rapes, the molestations, the beatings, the humiliations, the rejections, the tortures, the fear, the disconnected feeling of having no family, a stranger everywhere, the loneliness. Loneliness and fear, they followed me everywhere, and now I sat next to them, with this instrument of death, toying with my life. I held it for a long time, feeling the coolness of the barrel, playing with the trigger, testing the pressure needed, which, being modified, was barely a touch, a hair-trigger. I felt the texture of the pistol’s grip and holding it up backwards, stared down the black hole to infinity. Intriguing, I can leave this place in a second. I can end all the pain, the despair, so easily. This wasn’t the first time, oh no, I did this before, this time though, I felt tears lubricating my will decreasing my resistance, from attempt to success. My stomach felt, hollow, a deep hunger gnawing at me, a hunger for someone to care enough to reach out, but how could they? No one knew. When I did tell them, they wouldn’t believe be, laughing at times, staring in disbelief. I admired the gun, it offered no ridicule, only relief. I loaded it again, emptying the chambers, reloading, emptying, reloading. I had control over nothing in my life, being forced, with no mercy, to do the will of others, who had no remorse or compassion at what they did to me, to my mind. I was beautiful, my mind whole and brilliant. Now, my mind suffered violence. Daily, the visions rushed in to terrify me, thoughts racing down black paths of paranoia, self loathing, violence, and lust. The pistol gave me power, I could change the course of my life, not only mine, but I could execute revenge on those, my tormentors, my mockers, the laughing crowd that refused to respect me, or at least respect the fact that I could end their lives in a hot quick second. Would they poke a bear in the eye? No, they respected that the bear would tear them to shreds. They would respect an animal, but not me. That’s really funny to me. I smiled many times, through my shame, back at them. My mind hadn’t lost its brilliance, it just was transformed from lightness to darkness, creating a monster. I dreamed of how I would torture them, tease them, watch them puff up with pride thinking that their size, their alliances, their mind, would grant them advantage and victory at every turn. I smiled at them, through my tears, their life in my hands. I thought how easy it would be to make a name for myself, to ravage the bullies and tear their life apart they way they did mine….so easy, so easy. But for now, I pulled the trigger on me.