I'm sorry.

Being angry made me do things I would never do in good faith. Or in love. Or in friendship. Being hurt brought out the most petulant, vindictive version of me - a place I go to only when I'm unable to man up to what I'm feeling and just, you know, say it.
No, I have never steered away from the truth because even anger won't make me do that. But I presented the facts knowing fully well that minus the little inflections, pauses, circumstances and contexts that give words their potency and true meaning, the cold colourless facts would get you the worst sentence. I did that intentionally and I'm sorry.
Sure, there were times I feebly protested at the harsh judgments that were being meted out to you based on my words and my words alone, but I didn't mean it. That was me pandering to my own guilt and self pity. I'm sorry.
The truth is you were the best and worst thing for me. How much you gave equalled how much you took. Not more, not less. You made promises you never kept but you also did so much that you never promised.
You're not the bad guy. You actually never were. And is it twisted that though you didn't eventually accept me, you've accepted me more than anyone I've ever known? And you betrayed me the way only someone who has come to be your second nature can.
And to date when I have a joke to tell, it is not until you have laughed that I feel pleased with myself.

Disquiet

Colder than dry ice
Quieter than silence
Less frightening than horror
more unnerving than fear
Smudges of consciousness
Told only by the hair on the back of your neck
that prickles slightly
And by wakeful sleep

Here's what I'm going to do for You

I'm going to make you feel lovely.

I'm going to make you feel smart.

I'm going to make you feel kind.

I'm going to make you feel worthy.

I'm going to make you feel wanted.

I'm going to make you feel funny.

I'm going to make you feel musical.

I'm going to make you feel thin.

I'm going to make you feel interesting.

I'm going to make you feel quirky.

I'm going to make you feel alive.

I'm going to make you feel calm.

I'm going to make you feel valid.

I'm going to make you feel bloody fantastic.



Why? Because it's the least I owe you. The very least.

Sometimes it takes a swift kick in the pants before you realise you've got to learn yourself and fast if you're to keep your head above water.

I have decided I don't know myself very well. Or at all, for that matter. I'm one of those people whose answers to anything have always been something to the effect of "I don't know, could go either way." Which is why, too often, I end up relying on other people to tell me what to do or give their opinion way more consideration than I should.

Then it occurred to me that a big reason for this lack of self awareness is that I'm very hillbilly shit-kickerish with my introspection. For example I'll ask myself broad generic questions like "What do you want?" and I'll get broad generic rejoinders like "To be happy." And then I start thinking about potato chips and we all know how that story goes.

I'm very generic the few times I make a courtesy calls to God even - "Dear Jesus, give me everything I want. And also give everyone else everything they want. Thankyou." If I'm specific, I strongly suspect it's not the right kind of specific - "Dear Jesus, please don't let her (the parlour chick) fuck my eyebrows up. Thankyou."

I think the other reason I have failed to know myself enough so far is that I tend to judge my answers very harshly. The classic 'Damn, everyone else is asking for the cure for cancer and I'm asking for weight loss' syndrome. I feel guilty and lame and superficial and then I'll kid myself into thinking I want all those deep things when really I just want to very badly look smoking in my new pencil dress. Is that so wrong? I am coming to think not. I have just come out the other side of a very bad phase and even though I'm seeing lights in the distance, the repair takes time. I read these words recently and they made perfect sense to me:

"When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life, it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

So I have decided to ask myself a series of very pointed questions to which the only rules of answering are - Specificity and truthfulness. Wish me luck. And if I feel brave enough, I'll put 'em up here. Now I go hold down my day job.

"Cellphones are the Devil incarnate. The sooner they all perish in a brute fire, the better mankind shall be," she said downing a bunch of inordinately sour grapes.