Safe In Misery

Yesterday I promised myself I would write.

I thought it over, right before I went to sleep. I mulled over how I would address my current state and the problems that create this sticky plateau. I thought of the best ways to blame circumstances and people for this immobility and how I would deflect the blame from myself.

That was yesterday, and today I have nothing to say.

I am staring in the face of some imaginary universe, bewildered. I stutter, I mumble, I fall.

And that’s exactly how I feel – I’m falling short and I’m falling deep, and even music hasn’t been able to scoop me from underground.

It’s easy to talk in riddles and metaphors without saying anything but that is precisely how I feel.

Like an unfathomable paradox, a Jester whose only purpose is to amuse; when I fail to entertain and I’m discarded I stare: empty, misunderstood and poised for my next chance to impress.

But the show must go on. Even if I’ve stopped completely.

Even if I’m going backwards and deteriorating.

Somehow I’m lonelier the more I surround myself with others.

I am angry over unspoken words, absent deeds. ‘Lack’ shouldn’t affect me as much as it does. But it does. Oh, it does. Because I live in void, lack and absence; I plot my nest in emptiness. The shell is all I’m concerned with, not the essence.

Still I search for that essence that will complete me, for that spirit that will inspire me… Where should I look for it?

– Not within myself.

Another part of me, wishes to intervene: it wishes to brush the melancholy away and nestle this broken, angry bird that is my spirit. It wishes to nurture me with love, but is it too late? Is it too late to fix something that’s no longer broken? It’s not the plateaux, it’s not the circumstances, the people – or the lack of  them – it’s the absence of these problems that brings me to a halt. Traces of what once was, like distant lights from dead stars, flicker and their remnants leave me incapacitated.

Even if they don’t exist I find it necessary to invent them. I find new ways to torture myself, I find new excuses and ways to deflect the blame from me. I’ve fed myself on loneliness for so long, how can I be happy with being happy?

I hate you.

I hate everyone.

You hate me.

Everyone hates me.

I hate… myself.

– I love myself.

I love myself to the point that I’ve made it my life’s purpose to prevent myself from getting hurt. I prepare myself emotionally for disappointment, for anger, for loneliness, for lack – so that I’m never surprised by it again. So that I’m always safe in anger, hate and loneliness. I hold onto my old problems so that I don’t have to deal with new ones.

I’m safe.

But I expect someone else to shake me to the core and throw my anxieties out the window. It’s funny isn’t it? Expecting the unexpected which will never happen? No one can do what I can’t do for myself. And those I hate for disappointing me, ignoring me, not understanding or comforting me can never succeed at something they aren’t meant to do.

But I suppose it’s human nature to spend life searching for someone else to solve your problems. Prince charming, someone beautiful, someone you’re worthy of… but why would they settle for you?