Relapse.

Accepting things I don't want to has always been a bit of a struggle for me. I don't suppose I'm alone in this fact, though. No one wants to tell themselves the truth. Fact is, the truth hurts like a bitch. No matter how honest I think I am or say I am or prove I am, there's one person I can always trust myself to lie to. That person is me. People who I trust can throw the obvious out there plain as day and I shelter under anything and everything if it involves me. I'm such a fucking hypocrite. It isn't something I want to be, but I am. I go to sleep each night telling myself there is nothing I can do about who and what I am. I'd give my life to change. I really would.

I'd die to be different.

I'm relapsing, slipping backwards, failing. I didn't want to admit it, but it occurred to me when I woke up that it's all too true. Death has come to plague my mind once again, my dreams are nightmares I can't escape but can't live through. I've died three nights in a row, and that's just the ones I remember. I almost never have this sort of crystal-clarity when recalling what passes through my head when I'm asleep.

Last night, I sent a text to Facebook along the lines of "I'm sorry, I can't live with this anymore. It's time to say goodbye. I love you all, but I just can't keep doing this. Goodnight, goodbye. Forever." At least eight phone calls came in, I was unable to answer any. I was laying in a pool of blood on my bathroom floor. Police officers broke down the door. I died on the way to the hospital.

The night before, I was going for a casual walk in the forest behind my house, for absolutely no reason ... except I had a rope. Next thing I knew, I was hanging from a tree over the river.

The night before, all I can remember is a pool of blood surrounding my head with a bullet hole between my eyes, a gun on the ground next to me.

I can't stop these overly-vivid nightmares, they plague my waking mind and destroy my sleeping one. I'm terrified to fall asleep. I've suppressed the thoughts to follow through with the suggestions coming to me in my sleep, but they're not gone.

I almost feel like I'm being told what to do.

These things I imagine are almost too vivid for me to have reasonably thought of. I'm not one for paranormal or religious bullshit but ... there's something wrong up there. In my head. I hate not knowing things. I hate not being right. It's what I strive to be. Right and knowing. If I could just be those two things, forever ... I'd be just fine. I want to know what the fuck is wrong with me.

I'd kill for an answer. Why am I relapsing, why now, why after six weeks am I falling backwards?

"Just keep coughing, smoke another cigarette. Dream another big dream, just live and regret. So fuck the warning signs, I'm already dead inside. Dying for a feeling, so say goodbye, say goodnight." - Top 5 Addictions by Hidden In Plain View

Really fake.

Some days I wake up and wonder just how much of myself I should show today. Not physically of course, but deep down, how much am I going to radiate for the general population to ogle at and soak in? Should I show any of it at all? How much do I want people to know and how much they do know are two things I have a difficult time controlling.

No matter how well-masked my thoughts, emotions and intentions are, someone somewhere is always able to read me like a book. Maybe I'm horrendously, predictably mysterious. I do my best to keep everyone and everything out. Separate my innards from my flesh, keep an iron curtain between the two. Alas, my efforts are often in vain and people who I can show the brightest smile to will ask if I'm alright, and the people who see the darkest side of me haven't a doubt in their mind that I'm perfectly okay. I'm not.

It often comes late at night, that gnawing, burning sensation from deep within me, a sadness I just cannot shake, a hopelessness that holds my fucking heart like a clamp, a loneliness that's killing me. I'll never understand why, but maybe it has to do with the lying. Maybe it's about time I stop broadcasting and start talking, really sharing. Maybe it's about time I sought help. Not some nutjob in a lab coat or a man in a box or a chair, but someone who genuinely cares, someone that I can relate to. I might know a person. I'm not entirely sure if that's an effective way of opening up and letting go, so fuck it I'll keep writing. I'll write until my fingers break and turn brittle and my heart turns to ash and my mind to applesauce, I'll write until the sun doesn't rise and tomorrow never comes, I'll write until every last thought of mine is wrung out for the entire fucking world to read and then I might be happy.

I should stop being a fake. Not the pictures, mind you. The pictures are all me, anyone can attest to that. It's just ... I feel a bit like a forced smile in a photograph - no matter how well done the shot is you can just tell they're lying, that they're unhappy. You can tell they're fake, and that's a bit how I feel. Don't be fooled by any smile in a photograph, I do it for the art. If you can call the pictures I rarely take art, that is. Who knows, I'm not the judge.

I wish I could stop this faҫade and drop the act, play the part I'm supposed to play instead of every other role. Some days I want to be who I really am instead of doing my best to disguise that from the world. Some days I wish I wasn't me.

(On a blog-related note, there is now a chatbox on the side!)

"You felt the coldness in my eyes, it's something I'm not revealing. Though you got used to my disguise you can't shake this awful feeling. It's the me that I let you know 'cause I'll never show, I have my reasons." Blood On My Hands by The Used

Techology.

I'll be open and honest, because I always am: I hate technology. I hate the 'me' it has helped shape. Most of all, I hate it for saving my life. I was never very good at building relationships with people, technology breaks the barrier that I just can't speak well. I need time to think, being face-to-face doesn't give me the opportunity to think out what I'm saying until it's too late. It's so much easier to get close to someone with a keyboard.

Which is how I got people to care when they shouldn't. It seems that every few days, someone tells me that my views are amazing, or that my honesty is a rare trait that they enjoy, or that I'm just an awesome person. And each day, I go to bed knowing I'm a liar. I always say I'm the same behind a keyboard as I am in person, but truth is; I'm not. I am to a point - I'm still a sardonic dickhead that uses sarcasm like some people use body language. But I'm nowhere near as clever. I'm nowhere near as smart. I'm nowhere near as brutal.

I'm way nicer.

And I hate it. I hate the fact that no matter what I say or do, I'm not the same. My internet personality has literally taken over the 'me' I used to be. I'm not the boy I once was.

But back to my original point. The Internet saved my life. Would I still be breathing if I hadn't found people who care? Everyone I know uses me, lies to me, talks to me when they NEED something from me. All my plans fall through, no one includes me in theirs. My real life is a joke, and honestly this is the first time I've ever fully admitted it and not told someone I was joking.

Do they (the Internet people) really care? They say they do. They sometimes act like they do. I don't care whether they do. It's nice to think someone cares. It's nicer knowing someone cares. I know people that care. I just can never bring myself to really get down to it. I put up this twisted shield of sarcasm, I dance around the question. For someone so honest, I have a really hard time telling myself the truth. I guess it's just a natural coping method - avoid my own flaws, my own problems. Keep it all bottled up. I'll keep bottling it up, I don't know if I can let it go, let alone want to. I know one day ... I'll be out of room. I won't have a bottle left. I go to bed each night, wondering if I'll make it back to my sheets.

I don't place stock in the future. It's not worth hoping for that which may never be. I can prepare for the future, but I can't predict it. Why am I going to waste my time paving a road which may never be traveled? My life will take itself, never question that.

In spring of '09, I had a blog, purely to vent and write and leave something to tell the world why I died. I wanted all the "why?" questions answered before anyone asked. Someone I hadn't talked to in pretty much a year read it, and got me help I never wanted. I can't tell whether to thank them or hate them. This was slightly over a year ago. I'm alive today. I just hope that this time around, no one thinks I'm going to do it. I'm not. I swear.

"Sometimes, I wonder why I have to live here when the only people who care are thousands of miles away. I'm certain that without the internet, I would be dead." from SixBillionSecrets

Thoughts.

Yes, I realize it's been a week or so since I've last blogged. I apologize for that, I just simply couldn't write anything.

Someti- Okay, a lot of the time, I find it extremely hard to write. No matter how much I rack my brain for questions and answers and thoughts I need to share, sometimes nothing comes to me. Sometimes, I don't want to share what I think I want to. 

Sometimes, I'm not sure I want to share anything.

But I do it anyways. If I died tomorrow, I want someone to know what went through my head. Sure, I don't share everything with people, and a lot of things that exist in my head will stay with me to the grave, but sometimes I need to share if I don't want to, and sometimes I need to NOT share when I want to. It's all about figuring out which information I really think people care about. I get so little feedback on the blog (a.k.a. few readers) that sometimes I wonder if anyone cares passed the first line. But eh, that's attention-whore whining. It's not my concern. I can give people a link, it's their choice to follow and stay. Free will exists, sadly.

But enough about personal blog-related grievances. That isn't why you came. Hopefully. If it is, sorry to disappoint, give me feedback. I named this post Thoughts, and I'm not sure why. I will be completely honest, it was called "Days." before I starting typing the line where I pointed out the obvious. I guess it IS about personal blog grievances and whatnot. I just think too much, sometimes. I over-analyze. A lot. I worry a lot, too. It's just something I do, I guess. 

Thought is kind of my ... escape, you could say. I trap myself inside my own head so that life goes on around me without a notice or thought from me. I avoid life within the confines of my skull, simply because it's easier. Not necessarily happier, or faster, or better. Just easier, and ease is subjective; I think it's easy because I'm in the situation, that's all there is to it. 
I can't think of much else to talk about the confines of myself without actually having to go in there and figure the place out. I just go there, I don't explore.  It's easier that way. So I'm going to give a brief follow-up for continuing readers:
Some of you may remember my blog about a month ago about Alex. I still think about him. I can eat, I can sleep (with effort), I can live. Suicide is no longer an overarching, prevalent thought that clouds my mind day-in, day-out. I'm functioning again. I still have a gaping hole left inside me. I might recover one day, I might forgive myself. But it's been over five weeks, and I still can't decide whether I want to recover. I definitely can't forgive myself. I can still remember the words, clear as crystal. Including the ones shared with me after his death. 

It's pretty evident he loved me. Alex wasn't the type to love many people. Why do I lose all the people I build the strongest, quickest bonds with? This is the second person to be stolen from me shortly after we bond quicker than super glue. I often fall asleep, wondering if I'm forever meant to be at arm's length with everyone. I just can't figure out why. Everyone who clicks dies or is in some other way incapable of continuing communication. Everyone I let in normally gets pushed back out. Everyone I don't give a flying shit about gets the equivalent of a ten-tonne nuke dropped on them should they cross me. So, people are either stolen, pushed, or kept away from me. But why? I know I'm not supposed to ask questions... but I really want this answer. Why is it completely impossible for me to let and keep anyone close? If anyone can answer, I'd love to hear.

Another note, about the people leaving me. The count is still estimated around six. I finally went through my phone and got rid of most of them. One is an "on hold" person, one apparently still wants to try talking despite hating my guts, and the third one has my number and wants me to keep his but doesn't really want to talk. Maybe I should just delete them all. Maybe I should just delete everyone. Re-build the technology aspect of my life with the people that matter to me, not the people that want to matter. Most people don't matter. A few do. I slowly feel myself pushing some of them away.

I hate it. I hate it so, so, so fucking much. I wish I could stop, change this monster-esque thing I've become. I wish I could stop destroying myself, and stop being my worst enemy. I'd like to change, but it's oh-so comfortable to stay the same. Comfortable and painful. Unbearably so. I'll push you away, I know I will. Give it time. It'll come. Please don't let me.

"Leaving all the things that you love is a must just to find out who you are. I'd rather be out on my own than sinking deeper into a place I can't escape." No Saturation by Halifax

Feelings

Yeah, I'm a dirty rotten liar. I said time, now we're talking about feelings and emotions. I tried doing Time, I promise you. I just couldn't come up with anything, so here's what I was able to type before burning out:

"Time is to blame for most everything. Time heals, time hurts, time does everything. As time goes on we're more likely to forget things, move on, forgive, cope better, etcetera. It heals. Time also kills people, breaks buildings, wears things out, and takes things from us. It hurts."

Told you it was insanely weak. I was going to write about how time is the greatest healer and the biggest murderer, about how we should blame time, but what point is there? That's not the way I look at time. I don't really believe in time, just existence. Memories, the happening, and what is yet to come. That's just the way I see it, take no stock in my beliefs.

Though I guess in explaining why I strayed I achieved the original goal of talking about time and then further strayed from my intended subject, so insert a lovely /tangent here.

I'm going to talk about those notoriously-unpredictable and obnoxious things called feelings (see also: emotions). Feelings and emotions drive us; they define what we do to an extent. If we like it, i.e. have feelings for it, we're more likely to do it. If we dislike, i.e. have no/negative feelings for it, we'll be more apprehensive/unwilling to do it. That's just part of it. Feelings decide not only what we're willing to do but how we act. If we like someone, there's probably a higher chance you'll be nice to them, and vice-versa (I'm getting tired of redundantly restating myself).

Lemme start a tangent again and say to ignore any obvious grammatical answers, I'm dead-tired, I just need to get this off my chest. Okay, back to the topic!

Feelings are the downfall of us all. I can't tell you how many times my own personal feelings have ended up fucking things up, especially of late. As I said in Fresh Snow, I've had people walking out of my life on a near-daily basis for over a week now. I count about six people. I'll give the first letter of their first name. K, D, D, W, T, and Z. Maybe more, those are just the five that have announced they're leaving. Why? Because I developed feelings for them and let them develop feelings for me, and then got involved with someone (T, but not the one I mentioned above).

I can't tell what bugs me more. The fact that I let them develop feelings, the fact that I let myself develop feelings, or the fact that they can't accept competition from someone I can actually form a relationship with? Ah well, doesn't matter. Feelings destroy just as much as time. I now find myself down six previously-frequently spoken to contacts. Everyone has an irreplaceable spot in your life, a hole that will never again be filled when they inevitably leave you. It's hard to give an analogy, but I hope you get the meaning of that last phrase. Every person is a part of you, how many support beams can you take out of a skyscraper before it's like the Twin Towers?

Okay okay, the analogy sucked, no attacks please. The fact of the matter is, no one can truly be without another. I guess that under certain circumstances it would be technically feasible to be completely, truly alone, but one of our most core and desired built-in values is that of companionship, be it a pet, friend, lover, or whatever. And our feelings help dictate who we want to build that fatal link of companionship with. And nine times out of ten that link breaks and we've got this big, gaping bullet hole in our heart, the shot fired from the one we got close to without thinking of the unintended side-effects.

Maybe I just have a bad experience with feelings. Maybe I look at them the wrong way. All I know is, most people aren't worth it, and the ones that look like they are usually aren't either. I'm slowly watching the ones that were never worth a second of my time leave, but I can't help but feel lonely about the whole thing. Who knows how many more are to come? I pose too many questions; this is supposed to be about how I see. I don't know how many more are going to come (well, I guess I should say 'go'), and I don't really want to. Those that matter I'm keeping close, and when they don't want me close then I guess it's just a fact of life that I have yet to accept. I'm just getting sick of people leaving holes in me. I'm not Swiss cheese.

We'll see what you get next time, you non-existent reader you.

"I can't stand on my own feet now - I can't crawl forever and a day. Felt like I was getting stronger before you turned and walked away." - Hit The Ground by Zebrahead

Fresh Snow

Not literally, it's the middle of the summer. The two posts before are imported from my old blog because they're still relevant. All of the past is still relevant, but these are the only two I want to share with the world. Not that the world is going to read.

I decided it was about time for a reset, a refresh, a fresh coat of paint (or layer of snow), if you will. Not a time for change, for it's always a time for change. This time it is about a new perspective. Times have changed, over a year has gone by since I first started blogging on my other page. A lot has happened, some good, some bad. As per usual, I undermine the good and blow the bad out of proportion. But as of the past month, there's been a lot more than usual. More than I'm used to. You get the picture.

Now I sit here and watch as people walk out of my life on a near-daily basis. I watch as everything I've built is demolished with me riding it down to the last. I watch as the shell I've so meticulously crafted is shattered and broken by the hearts of those I crafted it for and with. The very foundation of who I am, shaken to the ground and trampled, trapped under the roof of my own fortress.

But I'm rambling. As for the blog. I felt that "Snow Globe" was an appropriate name. First and foremost, it's the title I gave one of my less-old songs (I say less-old because it isn't recent but it's one of the more recently written ones. I don't write much anymore.), which just happens to be one of my more powerful and realistic/true songs. It's also the symbolism. A snow globe is just a toy, yes, but it means a lot. A snow globe is a peaceful, secure, simple, snow-blanketed utopia, forever trapped in the daily cycle of uncontrolled snow fall and encased in a glass ball.

Those damn little glass balls, worth so little but meaning so much. I chose "Snow Globe" for the song because of the symbolism and the connection. How much of our lives do we really control, and how much is about the other people, i.e. the ones that shake up the snow? Another question without answers for the history books. "Trapped in the damn glass ball, life goes on until we fall." It's overly-dramatic and meaningless but oddly true. One day the ball breaks and our utopia is laying shattered on the floor, the stark and utter horror and shocking jolt of reality surprising and scaring us.

There's only so much we can take in at a single time, devoting all our attention to rebuilding this shell lest we ourselves are destroyed. There are only so many distractions we can handle, only so many diversions from our goal of being safe and secure from the world. A broken security only time can fix, if it can be fully fixed at all. Snow globes are glass, and glass does not mend well. How many times before the shell is forever broken and you're left unsheltered and exposed to reality? How many times can you lose utopia?

There's a reason for all this. Today marks the fourth week since Alex died. 13th June, 2010. A death I still haven't forgiven myself for. A death that still haunts my head whether I'm awake or asleep. It's torture. I still dream you'll come back some day, that you'll wake up and see the morning. The morning you promised me you'd see, and that I was foolish enough to not let you.

I think we'll talk about Time next time. Time sounds like a good subject. Now to follow my tradition of ending with a quote from a song, or a poem, or a story, or something else I feel like quoting...

"Four weeks of breath we didn't deserve, being alive is the sentence we serve. Our lives in a snow globe have shattered and cracked, we're left alone on this one-way track."  - Endless Breath by Self