"Red Rose Filling the Skull. Heaviness. Heaviness."

 

    I have to write something. Everything within is wilting and slowly rotting under the annihilating sunbeams of perpetual existence. Writer's block to me is a stupid term, I don't like to think about experiencing it, I don't like to use that as an excuse for why I cease to write for a period of time, and I don't think it accurately summarizes exactly what causes a writer to stop writing. It implies a lack of imagination or a failure to be creative, an undetermined stopgap in your ability to create. Maybe that is what it is for some creatives, and I suppose that's all well and good. The act of creating is always cyclical in nature, the drive is never consistent. And I wouldn't dare say that I am constantly creative and my imagination is always firing off out of control, unable to be stopped. No. Writer's block just doesn't quite sell it for me. In my experience, the periods of time when I couldn't quite bring myself to write were a surefire, unquestionable sign that my depression had once again worsened. 

    When you spend most of your life in a toxic haze of severe depression and have thus used those feelings elicited from said haze to inspire yourself to channel the illness into nonsense creative writing pursuits that you're never quite happy with, then it becomes a bit difficult to identify within yourself when the disease has gotten worse. Now there have been numerous times throughout my life where a difficult event or series of events has sprung forth a powerful and deeply agonizing depression; an intensifying self-hatred that feels as if my insides were being perpetually gored with sharpened dead tree branches and all the words in my throat have been clogged with still burning ash. And through these periods I have been able to use whatever it was I was dealing with, whatever situation I found myself in, whatever overwhelming feelings I was stuck with because of said events, to then create and write. Usually, what comes out of this is a regurgitated nightmare pile of words, sentences, imagery, and imagined scenarios of pure, unfiltered emotional nonsense. One would then, if they were a writer that took their craft the least bit seriously, step back from the piece for a while, compose themselves, anchor themselves back to rationality, then return to the mess that spilled from their ailing subconscious and polish it up, edit it, and try to make it flow in some sort of cohesive theme. But I can't do that, I never do that. Instead, I rip my insides out and fling them onto a page, shut the notebook or the laptop, and never return to it again. I might reread it, fix some spelling or grammatical mistakes I didn't quite catch the first time, but that's it. I can't edit, I can't fit the nonsense I spew into some sort of point or easily digestible theme. Not intentionally, at least. However, when a more generalized depression becomes too heavy, when apathy becomes the principal feeling trampling all over all aspects of life and/or emotions, then nothing will be able to come out of my subconscious and onto the page. Every single word populating the blankness is like slowly pulling a tooth that has lodged itself from my gums all the way up into my frontal lobe. It is laborious, it's overwhelming, it's borderline impossible. And as the days pass with no writing done, or any writing worth a damn, the depression worsens, the sense of worthlessness takes violent hold, everyday tasks become nigh impossible, the world outside presents itself as an irrational nightmare of intensely overwhelming aspects, and the only salvation from the now maligned uselessness of your life is the sharpened edge of a blade moved swiftly down your protruding veins. 

So, in order to combat this mess, I'm writing this here. Writing nothing of importance, nothing of artistic merit, writing nothing that is originating from my imagination, nothing of value, nothing that will inspire or illicit any sort of emotional response from an unlucky reader, it's nothing - all nothing. 

Anyway...

    A little over a year ago, I believe it was November 1st (I could easily go back on this website and see exactly when but I can't bring myself to do that), I started this strange little blog/site for self-publishing my garbage. In a rare instance of me admitting something positive, I do think the creation of this site has helped me a great deal and simultaneously urged me to continue to write despite my present circumstances and through the unpredictable ebbs and flows of my horrible brain. It has also given me the unwelcome gift of providing a sort of map through the events of the previous year. Starting from sometime in mid-to-late November of 2022 when I knew something was amiss. I wrote an entry entitled, if I'm remembering correctly, "Everything Ends." In it, I tried to transcribe the horrific dread and seemingly boundless despair I was feeling at the idea of my then relationship, my entire way of life, and the world I have thus grown so used to, was on the verge of completely and utterly collapsing. Perhaps I figured. tried to tell myself, that it was all in my head; a byproduct of an already paranoid and self-destructive, prone to pessimism, mind. After all, I've always told myself to prepare for disappointment in a sad attempt to cushion the blow when disappointment does indeed follow...not that that ever actually helps at all - I feel every single thing way too heavily, every negative aspect of life is an impossibly huge weight the size of a dying star ready to supernova within my heart. Without exactly realizing and pinpointing the issue, I knew something was deeply amiss. I just turned 26 and I, admittedly, always tend to get worsening symptoms on and around my birthday. But this was different. I was "in love", I was sharing a life with an individual that I so deeply and profoundly admired, and felt such a profound urge to always protect her and keep her close, surely I had everything I could want in life at the moment. But she was slipping away, I just didn't want to admit it. So, in a dire attempt to get her attention (because I am awful at actually expressing my feelings, especially towards someone who ended up being as cold and devoid of empathy as this particular individual) I wrote that piece. And in that piece, now that I can remember it more clearly, I wrote in detail the mental process involved with and the appeal of self-harm...and how much I missed it. Which was true. I did not want to self-harm, I would never want to harm myself and upset the person that I was deluded into thinking loved and cared about me, but I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. Foolishly I thought that if she read this and saw how much pain I seemed to be in, how badly I was currently struggling, and how obvious it was that I was screaming out for help even though she was right there next to me, she would stop and finally talk to me about what I was feeling and try to help, understand, or simply just give me a hug and assure me that she was with me and I was safe and loved. 

But that didn't happen. 

    I finished writing the piece, it flowed out of me like a swift cut down the wrist and splattered all over the screen in ugly, revealing detail. Then I sunk into my bed in that freezing apartment and closed my eyes, hoping she would see I was in pain and join me by my side. Perhaps it would be important to mention that while I was quietly typing away at this piece, she was on her phone. Texting back and forth with an individual she used to convince herself she was a victim of my monstrous ways, an individual who took full advantage of her vulnerability, her trauma, and her lack of experience, and turned her fully against me just so he could have his shot at her and rule dominant in her head. I didn't know this for sure at the time, but I knew something was wrong. Regardless, I fell into sleep with her still at the other end of the room as she continued to text away. Sometime later, I woke up, I exited the room perhaps to use the bathroom or to make the two of us tea as I often did several times throughout each and every day, and once I returned to the bedroom I saw that she was in fact reading my lastest post. This was it, I won't say anything, I thought, and let her read it and wait for her reaction. Wait for her to put her phone down and either embrace me, try to talk to me, or question if I was okay. But, again, that didn't happen. She finished reading it and...she said and did nothing. Not a word, not a glance in my direction, nothing. 

That's when I knew, even if I was unable to admit it just yet, that it was over. I was right. Everything ends and my life, too, was about to violently tumble down. 

And it did. 

November has always been a difficult month for me. I deeply adore the encroaching grayness, the nights taking over more and more of the fading days, the dry coldness overwhelming, the leaves exploding in colors only to die and cover the ground as spindly dead tree branches crisscross against the sky. But it also represents so much more. Another passing year in my gray, anemic life, and a horrible reminder that I am still on this dreaded earth. Now, it represents the beginning of an end of something I held so dear in my heart. Something I allowed myself to become overwhelmed with positivity, optimism, and love. The beginning of a death. Not just of a relationship, of a life I was trying to build, of a family I was welcomed and accepted into, of the person I loved to a terrifyingly profound degree, but also of a dear and close friend. Someone I allowed to see all ugly facets of me and expressed openly all emotions I was capable of expressing. Someone I thought I shared so much in common with, a person I thought would be my companion to all ends of this disgusting world. Someone I foolishly trusted, took care of, protected, and put every ounce of my pathetic being in. Someone I could freely talk to, and someone I wanted to exist with for an eternity. Never in my life has anyone for any period of time successfully made me feel the opposite of what I have always felt; that being an inverse of my steadfast desire to die and instead given me a strange and confusing want to be immortal just so I never had to leave their side. Perhaps it wasn't all for nothing, perhaps it taught me that I am capable of feelings beyond self-hatred and suicidal ideation. But after being so grossly abandoned, disregarded, "gaslighted", taken advantage of, and tossed away like nothing...it sure does feel like it was all for nothing. 

Now it is, of course, November once again. Soon it will be the following year, then February, and the anniversary of the true end of everything I've ever wanted in my life. 

There's no point in writing all of this out. I simply wanted to populate the page with something so I could convince myself that I could overcome what everyone else would call "writer's block" and make up for the two weeks of silence on this pitiful website of mine. 

I don't know what really the point of any of this was or if it has benefited me or my mood whatsoever. 

Anyway, today also marks nineteen years since the artist, poet, visionary, singer, expert provocateur, and deeply troubled individual, Jhonn Balance fatally fell from his home balcony and exited this world.

I wish I could somehow reverse time, join him on that precipice, feel whatever he was feeling in his last moments, take hold of his hand, and fall with him. And I wish the fall would never end, only speed up faster and faster through darker and darker space, past the threshold of this world, through the very limits of time and space, until I burnt up from overwhelming velocity and assaulting cosmic forces, and not only died but fully erase myself from ever existing in the first place.  

But after all;

"In ten years' time, who'll care? Who'll even remember?"