thanatos does not make you unique

It only makes you one of the dead, like the millions before you.

a moment to process

I can't remember what she looked like on that day, only that she was beautiful.

I asked for a hug on that day, as she left - it seemed out of place, a grudging token of whatever flicker of feelings lay broken between us. I fought the urge to hold on for a moment longer, but it was too late - with a condescending pat on the back, she had let me know that it was time to let go, and so she stepped away towards the car.

In my memory her eyes were grey, as grey as the muted emotion I felt, as grey as the chilling winter clouds that swirled above us on that day. Her eyes always seemed to reflect the sky - in spring they danced with a lighthearted periwinkle, in summer a beautiful baby blue, all innocence and happiness. But in autumn they faded from brilliant silver to troubled ash grey, and now, in the winter... now, her eyes were as cool as steel, as silent as the sun.

Feeling all too sharply the cold bite of winter on my arms hanging awkwardly, I reached out again with a question. She rolled her eyes, and a smile came to her face, but it wasn't a smile that warmed any longer, colored with an edge of mockery. Of course, she had said, with the smile and the confidence of one long over the past.

I watched her go. It was quiet, save for the hard rhythm of my breathing, and for the soft rhythm of footsteps.

She pulled open the door, her legs swinging in graceful arcs before she disappeared behind inches of steel and plastic and glass that separated me from her, my gaze from her image. She was gone in moments, grey eyes and grey walls and grey clouds steadily pulling away, though I knew that it was more than simply distance that separated us.

Her smile lingered in my mind as I wandered back towards my empty house, but it was her voice that I remembered most clearly. A hint of derision in her smile, but in her voice I felt the opposite - I felt something small, something melancholy, something... grey. Just as small and melancholy and grey as I had felt for even asking the question, from her leaving like this as much as I had felt for watching her leave.

I wonder if it was real; if she had felt it too; if she had let out a broken sigh in the car with her mother as she wondered aloud if this was the way things were going to be from now on, if it was always going to be like this. I wonder now if she remembers that day as I did, or if our memories now are colored by the wounds we inflicted upon each other in the following months, or if she even remembers that day at all.

[and a bit closer]

curious how some things don't change

destruction

I wish I'd dream of destruction

I am quite aware of how public this is - and so let it be found, for those that have the curiosity to type my name and see the kinds of public faces I put to private madness

but the only dreams I have are those of things I've lost, and worlds where I do not exist

I sleep and it's another year in the past - I awaken and I forget where I am

still it is not the self speaking to the self as was, but the self speaking to the unknown other, a projection of thoughts that take on the shape and likeness of that of a human being, attributes arbitrarily chosen from the wild unconscious landscape of the mind

and then -

imagine what it feels like to hang

While solace can be found in the embrace of glory or the jaws of villainy, there is nothing more striking than the feeling of inconsequential unnecessary mediocrity. Living as a hero is by definition meritorious, while living as a monstrosity - well, it is better to be loathed and feared than forgotten.

feet swaying in the breeze

And yet to envision oneself hanging means to imagine the excruciating pain of suffocation, the choking edge of death's hemp fingers pressing into soft flesh dull in comparison to the glory of the pounding, writhing need for oxygen - legs flailing against insubstantial air, the same restricted air that is so absolutely essential for life - yet this was beyond recognition, for that pain was incomprehensible when compared to that of existence, at this particular juncture in time. A moment of violent suffering - and then, relaxation into eternity.

face black with blood

The mind, despite its cruel intimations, remains utterly self-preserving. There is no chance to return, it says, and the damage could be irreversible. Doubt lingers, festers, it takes on the shape of a guardian, a saint - preserve the mind; preserve your intelligence. It is clear that the individual cells wish to live, but they remain half-awake. They sleep once they are fed; they never unite towards a common goal, a unified whole - and so it is the same infestation of doubt that returns and quells any thought of risk, any desire, any passion, for these things interfere with mere survival.

what is that horrendous look upon the face - a smile? or a grimace

Better to dull the passions enough so that the energy of life is simply preserved, while spending enough to entertain the fantasy of suicide. Thus the mind is satisfied - it slovenly consumes what is presented to it, and when it ventures beyond it is quickly curbed. Dissatisfied with itself, the mind can only turn inward, and so the ultimate fantasy - to end this absurd cycle - takes root. But there is no end, for the fantasy itself is not illusory, but real - an object, the crowned desire of desires - the passion that satisfies, and destroys all other passions.

Wretched.