razorblade security blanket

I gather the sharp shattered bits of my life, broken like a mirror, about me like a blanket of thistles and glass shards. I cuddle up close in it, wrap it tight around me, the nicks and nips of the sharp edges the facsimile of a life I once knew but had cast aside for the shiny plastic existence I was offered.
I take my blanket of self-doubt and self-loathing with me to the beach. In the dark of the late night the ocean is a hungry mouth that wishes to feed on the leftovers of the me that once was. I smile.
I can swim out until my arms give out or the sharks eat me. Considering the lateness of the hour and the day of the week and the lack of interest in what part of my life is falling to pieces on the tile of my tiny dirty apartment, it will be two days before anyone notices I am gone. The idea of already being gone before anyone would even notice the departure makes me smile further.
I walk to the lapping ravenous waves. My toes are ice-cold in the bite of the water. I look up at the sky with  bitter blood-red tears, swallow up the stars in the onrush of the surf of my sobbing, laugh in a gulp.
And turn to walk home.

a knot...

i wish i could say this one is fiction...

"use your brain! don't be dumb!!"

as soon as i can, i escape to the woods behind the house, my eyes afire, my brain buzzing like a shaken beehive.

i'm not sure i am going to measure up. it seems impossible. it's so vast. maybe everyone would just be better off if i wasn't around...

i toy with the idea of running away, but ultimately know i wouldn't last long, that they would chase me down and bring me home, if for no other reason than to keep the neighbors from talking. i wish i could dive in front of a car to save someone, go out a hero, in a blaze of glory. leave everyone talking about what a nice kid i was...

i am alone. i can't even feel god looking in my direction. the universe is a big empty space that seeks to engulf me, swallow me whole.

maybe everyone would just be happier if i was gone...

there is the rope swing.

it would be so easy. it will be over. everyone will forget me quickly, and their lives will be better, and i will be happy knowing that everyone is better off...

i pull the rope up to the upper level where we get on the swing. i wrap it around my neck. it never crosses my mind that people will miss me. it never enters my thoughts the tears that will be shed, the hearts that will break, the pain and anguish this instant will cause. my only thought is that everyone will be happy. that i will have caused this happiness with this one quick, smooth action.

i swing.

i wish i could say that the spirits of my grandparents called out to me. i wish i could say my unborn children screamed within my mind "no!" i wish i could say that god gave me an instant flash of how important i am. i wish i could say that the eternal ripples of this one hanging moment all became clear to me and i was cured of my desire to leave this existance a better place through my absence...

oh fuck this hurts so MUCH!!

i dig my fingers into the small space between my neck and the rope with one hand, reaching up with the other to hold my body weight against the rope, support myself on the swing.

somehow, feet so far from the earth, i manage to extricate myself from the rope, and fall gasping to the ground.

i wish i could say i was better. i wish i could say i never thought of doing something like this again. i wish i could say that i realized how stupid it was, how important i was, how much so many people loved me. i wish i could say i never thought how much better the world would be without me again.

it took years. years of wondering why i am still here. wondering why i was still slogging through all the shit. of thinking how quick, how easy it would be...

while i still cry at movies like donnie darko and the butterfly effect, and oddly understand the thinking that would go behind that kind of thing, i am glad to be here. for the spirits of my grandparents. the spirit of my father. for my children. for my wife. for my mom. for my many friends. for mortgages and car payments and meetings with school counselors and all-stars and tom collins and lawn-mowing and puking my guts out in a tropicana bathroom and pizza deliveries and the opportunity that i have to do all these things, however stupid or mundane or ridiculous or unnecessary they seem.

i am glad to be here.

darth sardonic

(o my beloved non-existant readers, i have to apologize, but for whatever reason i needed to get this out of my system today. i know it probably wasn't an easy read for anyone. life isn't always easy, as we all know. but it is life, and i love it in all its forms. thanks for toughing it out with me.)