This Machine Eats Souls

We've all had those times. The times when you want to slit your wrists and drown in the blood. The times when you want to slip that noose around your neck and dangle in a final dance. The times where a bullet that tears through your brain is a far easier thing to deal with than the emotions that loiter there. Those are dark times and places, and I've been living there for over a year.

Yeah, it's gotten worse. I spend most of my alone time in the dark these days. In fact, as I type this, I'm in the dark. The only light is the cold glow of my aged computer monitor. (The only thing on this computer that still works well.) I go through the motions. I fake all the right emotions. But most of all, I understand.

I understand that my daughter, the thing I love most in the world, would miss me if I were to perish. I understand that I would create a ripple that I wouldn't have to deal with ... and I've never been one to shrug off responsibility.

But I'll be damned if it isn't getting harder to face myself every day.

Most recently I was talked out of taking that final step by someone who is pretty near and dear to me, and if she read this, she would flip. And rightly so. When you start to get honest about those dark holes, people start to get a little frightened.

I see people all around me smiling and going about their business as if they had not a care in the world. They don't think about the abusive parents who kill their own children. They don't think of cancers that are starting to spread in a manner very similiar to a virus. They don't think of the crass consumerism that is cannibalizing our society. They don't think of religious wars or corporate terrorism. They don't think, period. They smile. They buy. They eat. They fuck. They move on. If they have emotions, they suppress them with medicine, drugs, alcohol, television. Anything to keep from facing reality.

I've never shyed away from the "real" of it all. I've always embraced it. I've always faced it head on with bared teeth. If you can't beat them ... destroy them. I was almost always above it all. Lately, though, I've been under it all, and I'm worried.

I go to a job I don't like (thankful that my co-workers are some of the best people I've had the pleasure of working beside -- most of them at least). I start arguments for the hell of it. I face financial ruin. I sense my world quickly going to shit, and I want to bail. I don't think anyone can blame me, either.

I've never been a drinker. I've watched it ruin too many lives. Vodka, however, is starting to have an almost sexy appeal to me.

I always thought that if I was going to take myself out, I would take a bunch of people with me. Not so sure I have that in me too much these days, but I do feel a bit of the GG Allin side of me seeping in around the corners more often than not.

So what to do? Trudge on? Keep the mask on? Smile so no one asks questions they don't want to hear the answers to? Pretend it is okay so it will be? What is that saying? Fake it to make it? Is that what I should do?

There are things I want out of life. First and foremost, I want to see what kind of adult my girl turns into. Second, I want to leave my mark. I just wonder if these things are in my future. I don't know. I just don't know.

I've never hid the fact that I feel alien in this world. I never lied about my contempt for my fellow humans. I never trusted them. Never liked them. Never wanted to turn to them, either. Now I think I need to.

I don't want lies. I want truth. I want to know that things will really be okay. I want to know that these fools walking around with an ignorant grin on their faces really are ignorant. They don't have some magic formula. They simply don't know any better. I want to know I'm better than that, and I don't have to accept what has been forced into my face.

The problem is, nobody can tell me these things. I have to figure them out for myself. I have to burn. I have to dissect. I have to suffer. That is the only way I can progress. It's the only way anyone can progress.

How much suffering can one take, though, before the thought of ending it all becomes more than just an easy, weak solution and instead turns into an overwhelming desire? I don't know what point I'm at. I don't know if anyone ever does. All I know is that I have spent years turning this type of pain onto others, using their stupidity and complacency to amuse myself, and I don't know if I have it in me anymore.

I used to think I'd be dead by 27. I now wish I would have been right.

Tomorrow's another day, however. I'll be damned if I know what it brings.