We are the Hell we are most afraid of and the worst thought we can think of.

Here's a monologue I wrote a while back... I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking about when I wrote it... All I know is that I'm glad I don't think like this anymore.Warning: it's dark. And depressing. Sorry.

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Never knew what I was supposed to be, don’t even know what I want to be. I guess I’m just not beautiful. Nothing I said came out like I wanted. Nothing I found funny was laughed at. I didn’t want everyone to stare. I just wanted to fit in. I only wanted you to smile. Like that little child… shaking their heads back and forth, and waving from the wrist. Does it impress you? Will you tell me I’m beautiful? Will you say you love me? Why do I need you to say things that you don’t really understand? What is it about me that got ripped off? Is it my mind? Is it my heart? Is it my hands? Is it my soul? Maybe when He made me, something cracked in the mould. Maybe the design was eaten by mold. I don’t have the answers. All I know is that something’s wrong. Something’s missing. Something never fit, and I don’t know what or why.

And even if it was wrong, why can’t you just tell me why? Why can’t you tell me what I’m doing wrong? Why do I always ask why? I’m still that child. I’m still that little child.  I can’t come to grips with the way you react. I still don’t understand why you got so mad. I don’t know why I can’t stop being sad. I don’t know why I can’t stop this bitter resentment from growing. I can’t stop being depressed. How did I end up so depressed? I think I’m starting to lose my laughing heart.

I’m turning into something I hated when I didn’t know what hate was.

People told me I was fun to be around… What happened? I know. I gave in. You didn’t see it, but I gave in. I caved in. I was tired of being hurt. I was tired of being left alone. I was tired of running away because I couldn’t bear to see your face so fallen, so disappointed in me.  Cause when I tried to make the world go away so I could understand, no one came to hold my hand. I was left alone. Why didn’t you reach out to me? When I was trying so hard to reach you?

 It’s been too long… too many years spent alone. I’ve tried my best, but it’s never enough. It’s never enough to be the best I am. It’s always about the best I can. But if I’m doing it, isn’t it what I can do? Other than that, what do you want? How do I make you smile? How do I fit in? Or maybe the question is how do I break the mould? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to conform to everything you wanted. But that’s not right, right?

All eyes on me… cause I need to be what you want me to be.  I need to be what you want just so I can be loved. I need to be what you want just so you’ll smile. I need it. I need you.  Then again, I’ll be gone any day now… I won’t change you. I won’t change anyone. I won’t change anything. If I’d never been here, you wouldn’t have felt anything about me, you wouldn’t have been any different. If I die, I would leave nothing behind but empty thoughts and broken pieces of my heart.  Stolen fragments of a broken mind. Shattered flames of a burning soul.

What’s the use in trading shoes? Shouldn’t we trade souls? Shouldn’t we trade consciences? I know those torture me more than anything physical ever could. I can’t go a day without remembering the horrible things I’ve done, or without cursing my own soul. Cause God, I know I deserve to burn in Hell. But hell, maybe this is Hell. It sure isn’t Heaven. Or maybe it’s Heaven for someone out there. Someone I’ve never known, never touched, never seen. But it’s a Hell for me. It’s a prison for me. It’s a cage with burning bars of diamond. Beautiful, but breaking. They won’t break, but they broke me. And now they eat at my burning soul, turning it into an empty pain. A pain that doesn’t exist for anyone but me.

Maybe they’ll use the ashes of my soul…? Maybe they’ll turn them into coal…? Maybe they’ll force me closer to myself…? And turn me into diamond bars for the next tortured soul…? Am I just a punished soul waiting for my turn to punish another? Am I just here for the prison bars? Is that why you never laughed? Is that why I can’t fit in? Maybe I’m made to sin…? What a wicked existence. What a hell. What a terrifying thought. But then again, so am I.

October is Eternal.

I want this day, week and year to be over. But I want this month to last forever. I want the world to eternally be lost in October’s crisp winds and golden sunshine. Why? Maybe it’s because I want to be able to take long walks and feel good about something for once. I haven’t felt really at peace about anything, except the weather of this month, for the past few years of my life. I’m missing something I never had and wishing I could still go back to it. Back to the beginning of an eternity that started so long ago. We speak of eternity as if it’s always just about to happen, yet never quite here… But it is already here. Eternity began before we could comprehend what eternity meant.

But I digress.

Today, as I walked through a cemetery of forgotten souls, I realized that I am alone.

I didn’t realize it and then weep… I wept until I realized that I knew what the truth was. I wept for myself. I wept for the sorrow I felt for years. A sorrow I couldn’t understand. Then, suddenly, I knew… I knew that it would be like this for a long time. Maybe forever. Some people never get married. Some people never have a serious relationship. Some people never have a relationship, sexual, marital or even friendly, period.

So, I finally understood. This is how it will be. What’s the use in crying? What’s the use in drowning in my sorrow? No use. No point. No reason.

I stopped crying.

The wind picked up in that cemetery, and the trees made a melody that only some will ever hear. A song for the dead and the dying. We are all dying, but some live in denial of this simple fact. I almost pity them, because they will never be able to hear this music. They will never hear this enchanting lamentation that the wind, the trees, the grass and the graves whisper out to me, for eternity.

Being alone can be eternal. But so can October. October will not fade. Not from me. October is in the remains of my soul. Within that damp grave of my life, a life made for dying, the shattered mirror walls of my hollow heart now reflect only the broken light and screaming winds of October. And that’s fine with me.

How could I say such a thing? Isn’t the whole point of life to find truth? To find beauty? To find freedom? And most importantly, love?

No.

Life doesn’t have a reason. Or if it does, we don’t need to discover it. I don’t need to know why I am alone. I don’t really even want to know. The truth is a terrible thing. It drives you to the brink of love, life and sanity and throws you into the darkness of the pit. Isn’t that why it’s called falling in love? Someone, something pushed you off the edge, and all you can feel now is the adrenaline coursing through your veins and the wind rushing past your body, leaving you breathless.

I’ve come to the conclusion that people who suffer mental disorders are not crazy. They are simply hyper-aware of things that we weren’t ever supposed to know. Panic attacks… you become hyper aware of your surroundings and it drives you insane. You can’t fully take it in. You can’t truly comprehend the death that you know is coming, but you do know that it is coming... slowly and surely.

It reminds me of a Metallica song… You finally see that “the soothing light at the end of your tunnel was just a freight train coming your way.”

But I’m getting off of the point.

I may never find love, truth, freedom or beauty. But does that mean I can’t feel them, as ghosts in my dying world? Does that mean I can’t breathe their sweet, musky scent as they pass me by? No. I can. I will. I have.

                                          

I took a walk on a Sunday afternoon in October. I felt the wind whip my hair across my face. My eyes squinted nearly shut as I look toward the mid-afternoon sun. I was cold. But the cold thrilled me. My pupils were tiny specks of black ink in my eyes, yet I continued to look West, into the sun.

I am eternally enthralled by the sheen of October’s bright orb of an eye. Enthralled by October itself. On this walk, nothing can crush my absolute certainty that life, though dying, is beautiful. Love, though broken, is real. Freedom, though trapped, is found in every corner. And truth… truth is an everlasting gobstopper... a glass of wine that will never be drained, though it may always be half-empty. But does this mean that we should not try to drain it? Of course not. I know that now.

And I know that October… my majestic October... is eternal.