Is this how I get better?

It is 9:30 in the morning. I have already had more depressive, masochistic, suicidal, and pessimistic thoughts than I could bear, at least on most days. But there is something about today...
Each time my stomach started to turn due to the self-hatred of my current thought, I stopped it. I stopped everything really. I stood in place, looked around myself, actively remembered why I am here, what I am doing, the goals I have, people that matter to me.
It seems to be working pretty well. At the very least this technique will get me through the week. I might end up drinking myself 6 feet under then though, I don't know yet, I guess we will just have to see.

War Memories I'll Never Have

I really wanted to be a soldier.
I will never become a soldier.

Growing up I heard story after story after story about the brave souls who gave their lives for the freedom of others. That was pretty much all my grandfather talked about, oh and how he used to be poor. He was the last of the men in my family history to go to war for this country, a tradition that started 150 years ago. Stories of war heroes so firmly engrained in my mind, scenes from war movies play through my mind's eye as I laid awake at night. Only, it is me, I am taking cover as bullets fly over my head. Advancing up hills and through bushes, we charge toward the enemy position. Planes flying overhead dropping napalm and shells on nearby objectives. It all feels so real. The smell of the gunpowder, the rumble of the explosions, the deafening sting of gunshots, the pain, the blood, the screams, the death. All of seems so real to me, even at an early age I knew it. I knew an experience of war.

At first I thought this meant I should join the military, that I was destined to fight. But I realized that I didn't need to, that the war memories I'll never have taught me enough to mourn the tragedies of war, to mourn the sacrifice of my ancestors, and to hold them up proudly such that future generations well not need to.

I have always been a soldier.
I am just now finding my own orders to follow.

Wow I had some stuff on my chest (a work in progress)

What is the self?
Does it matter at all if it exists?
tonight, i have been stuck in my mind, zooming in and out, from the experience of thinking my thoughts, to viewing them from way above. At the same time disjunctive and cohesive; continuous but with some 5th or 6th power variables.

Mornings are a challenge

Is the smile put on and worn like a pair of heels worth the work? This morning I doubt I have the energy to pull it off today, sadly all to common these days. My stomach is oscillating between cramps and loud noises, and I can't get warm. This is at least partially due to my heat being off, but nothing is separate, it is all part of my self. A self that is self-destructive, in pain, uncomfortable, burnt out, and struggling to maintain movement.

But that is only half the story.

Feels Today

This is how it must end.
this must be what needed to happen all along.
I... love you so much but know that I am not what you need right now.

I don't challenge you, don't excite you, and don't help you anymore
You have watched me grow up as I have watched you, so now all that is left is to leave the home in search of the next phase of life. The phase of life where we are 'together' is over. It has to be. My heart is aching like it is over, and I feel like I've been dumped.

We got in over our heads. We were actually about to move in together, planning a life together. That was never supposed to happen. How did that happen?

All I know is that you are by far the most important person in my life today, while your life seems to be growing away from mine. I grew my life around you for a long time, and you grew yours tangential to me. You have told me many times that it bothers you how easily you can abandon your own life for the sake of another person's. I thought I was aware of it, but I was wrong. I didn't realize how integral you had become in my life. How much I depended on you.

So I sit here craving your voice, your touch, your mind. I am trying to not attempt to pull you back into my life. You deserve better than me. I know this. But my stomach is in knots and I am afraid. That I won't be able to move on, that in order for me to move on I will have to entirely give you up, I fear that I will give up myself in the process.

I want to dedicate myself to school. To fall in love with the process of doing work. I need a project, or many. All the notes and problem sets and journal articles in the world will never replace the support you gave me. I'm dubious that anyone or anything will ever.

I am going to make hard cider. I am going to make whiskey, I am going to create my window garden, I am going to sell my material goods, I am going to ace O-chem, I am going to think up an amazing thesis idea, I am going to write a really good ES paper, I am going to do a legitimately badass independent project, I am going to rock my qual. I am going to rededicate myself to friends. Eliot, Aaron, Elaine, Brice, Dwayne, Tim, Hanna, and Liana. I am not going to go insane, I am going to survive.

Am I self centred? probably yes. But I'm at peace with it. I need to realize how important it is to myself that I be able to see people for whole human beings and deal with them on that level.

But for now I just need to figure out how to deal with you. I need to figure out if we can be friends. I need to figure out how to be your friend.

Mind Space Today

I'm taking a sledgehammer to my brain
nothing is exempt
nothing is safe
freedom at last!

taking one bottle down from the wall
i drink
red and hot it burns my lips

perfectly

the heat starts down in my belly
powering my every breath
seeping upwards, beating against my heart
tasting its goal as it laps up against my brain,
filling my neck with heat

it is hard to swallow.

my only hope is that this one final levee holds
the great flood that beats against it threatens
no, promises
to sweep me away on its hemato-waves
into the beautiful darkness of the setting sun

night is where the devil lays in wait
so i carry my offering of green and glass
in a shaking clammy hand
ready to ignite my offering to the devil
"one more day, i just need one more day"

those words
painstakingly engraved on the walls of my mind
shatter

sledgehammer playing out the role of my will
too tired to go on

I set the tool down, wipe my brow, and look up
the levee stands tall and bowed, a testement
to convictions I once had.

red, hot, rage splashes my ankle
a wave had crashed upon the lip of the levee
dripping early warnings down into my socks
into my sole, separating me from the ground.

it is coming.
there is no time to wait.
i must get back to work.

with one last long breath
the sledgehammer is in the air again
back at the work of undoing

in hopes that when the bottles of rage
rise above that final levee's wall
there will be no lies left

in hope that when the flood takes me
down to the red hot depths of the night
i will be ready,
at last,
to say,
"take me"