"It looks like life's beat the hell out of you, man."
"It has."
I keep waking up from my dreams drenched in sweat. I'm terrified and I can feel my heart pounding out of my chest. I reach over and flick open my phone to see if there's a text, something, anything. But there's not. Turning back to my pillow I bite back the screams. It's 5 in the morning. My neighbors wouldn't appreciate that.
I haven't dreamed this much, this vividly, in at least 10 years. They're so real, so powerful, so heart breaking. And I remember them now too. It used to be just faint glimmers now and then of something crazy that actually occupied me in my sleep once in a while. It's been a week since they've started. And they're not getting any easier to deal with.
It used to be so easy, killing a part of myself. Just snap my fingers and it's gone. A small pit of anger used to slip in and swallow it whole.
At this point I just don't know if it's that my heart can't kill my head or that my head can't kill my heart. I know that neither wants to, but they both know they each should. But I guess that's the nature of hope. Stupid, pitiful hope that swells in your chest now and then. But that hope's far off into the distance. But it still manages to fight off everything that I throw at it. The truth, the consequences, the realizations. It still digs in its nails and refuses to totally be removed. So I try to smother it. But I can still feel it wriggling under my fingers. And deep down, I hope it continues to move beneath my outstretched hand.
I look out my window and see the black puddles forming around the edge of the parking lot. It's been raining non-stop for almost two days now. I used to smile at the rain and shoot out a text. Now I just stare at the circles forming on the asphalt and wish that it was raining anywhere else than outside my window. The sound itself, raindrops falling on the concrete window sill, splashing across my blinds, it serves as a reminder of happiness. Why should those reminders be so terrible?
Loss is a hard thing to cope with.
I sit here blowing smoke into empty beer bottles, hoping the echoing sound will show me some sense of direction. Shit like this happens when you're drunk.
But the dreams still haunt me. Treacherously dangling those shreds of fulfillment in front of my eyes. So much so that I'm almost afraid to sleep. I don't really sleep anymore. I collapse. I've worked myself hard, papers endlessly coming out of the tips of my fingers, children taught the basics of aquadynamics and buoyancy, members safeguarded by a watchful eye. I'm spread so thin that I can feel the cracks beginning to appear on my surface.
And then I'm stumble across a song. No. That's a lie. I'm reminded of a song I once heard in a woman's voice, so sweet.
And I can feel myself shatter on the inside. I can feel the shards creep into the back of my eyes and pour the tears out. I actually fell into bed with wet cheeks the other night. I thought I was handling things well. Going about my business and moving right along. It seems that the old habits of containing it all into one single ball of ... I dunno. Pain's too light a term. Anything else is too dramatic. It fucking tears my ass apart. That's more like it. I listen to the words I've heard, I remember when I said "Have I not been?" in response to them being sung inside my car, driving north on the interstate, another day passed that I can remember so vividly.
And who am I now?
"When all your dreams have died, and morning is in mourning, what are you?"
I'm really not sure what I am anymore. It's like I've lost the control I've taken pride in having. It's been noted by a few of my colleagues that I've been a bit bitchier than normal. In my writing class, the same word has come up again and again, even though nothing has been about my present situation: "bitter."
"So what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
People I've known have never made this observation. And it scares me. I'm losing my ... identity I guess. The solid features of my face have begun to waver and I'm mortified each time I look in the mirror.
Exercise has gone beyond beneficial gain and improvement. It's to the point where I'm punishing my body for not being enough. Subconsciously I've been calculating my calories. Subconsciously I've been charting the ridges appearing in my stomach. The arch of my back. The bulk of my thighs. The veins in my feet. All of this seems positive. But When I step back and look at my reasoning, I see nothing but negative effects.
Two packs a day and a respiratory infection haven't even slowed me down.
Something's not right.
I've been no stranger to psychosomatic illness. I've always been able to change in that point of realization. If anything, I've been able to control myself, through thick and thin and better and worse. And all of this shit.
I ain't no stranger.
And I've found myself questioning my instincts. It seems when I refuse to follow them, I'm wrong for that. When I bite my tongue and let the world flow around me at its own regard without dipping my hand in the stream to catch the errant debris, I'm wrong not to.
And when I bite down on the issue, feel the blood between my lips and rip the flesh away, it's unjust and incorrect.
But this time I have no evidence to such. So my instinct is intact. I at least have that. But I feel like my instinct has changed, the resolve that I buried deep inside my heart has amended itself with a few small, but disturbing changes.
But I'm not even sure where I'm going with this anymore. For once i just felt the need to put something down in text.
But I don't feel better. That little parasite of hope is still there.
And as far as my dreams...
I wake up, and put on fresh clothes in a finally clean apartment.
And I hear a knock at the door.
And I throw on a fresh shirt as I call out for their patience.
And I pet Eins heartily on the head.
And I don't bother with the peephole.
And I turn the handle.
Hear the jingling of three years worth of rum tokens.
And I open the door.
And...
This is the first time I've heard this song in almost four months.
