Every Form of Refuge Has Its Price

Sooooo... three cheers for the overly-optimistic nut. I like to think I'm not too picky, really, I like things to be mostly upfront. I mean a little mystery now and then is lovely, but sweeping things under the rug just isn't my style.

Apparently, it doesn't have to be, because I'm the one getting swept under the rug. Dandy. There are many tiny moments that corroborated my opinions, made me think I had a chance. Like how they played my song, him and his band, when I asked them to. How comforting he always was. How, when we went out on a proper piss-up, then had to take one girl home, which killed the mood a little and made a couple of people call it a night, he stayed out with me because I didn't want my night to be over yet. The things he said to me and the way he properly listened to the things I said. There was something so delightfully genuine and organic about the whole thing. It was lovely. Sometimes it's not hard for me to smile, to be giddily joyful for no apparent reason. I thought I was out of the woods, I thought I was free and clear from when he told me to put down my cup of tea. If it is true, that thing that he couldn't say without sounding like a prick, and I didn't make him say out loud (maybe I should have) then why did he tell me to put that cup of tea down? Something changed. Likely, he sobered up, realized what had happened, and kicked himself for it. It wouldn't be the first time.

But I'm back to being let down. Broken down because I'm not a good idea. I'm not worth my past. Well, at least I'm not beige in this one. Because the stupid things I've done in the past and the hurts I've caused myself and other people have caused me aren't enough in and of themselves, they now get re-validated as the reasons for more hurts. Maybe it's because he's afraid.

I've had a lot of late nights and early mornings this week, which perhaps accounts for my slightly warlike stance by 3 am. I am not one to take things sitting down. And when the person I most want to confront is, for one reason or another, impossible to confront, I tend to go on the warpath against the person or people I find most connected to the problem. Yesterday was unusual because my target, unexpectedly, was myself. There was a little bit of railing against the people in my romantic past, particularly the past year, but for the most part I was my own victim. Sometimes I say the words I'm most afraid someone else will say just to lessen the blow of it if they ever do say them. As though if I've already said it out loud, already acknowledged it, they're just restating things I already know, and it won't hurt as much. I aired a huge number of my insecurities, well, mostly just a couple many many times in the form of jokes at my own expense. Not particularly well-thought out or funny jokes, but jokes nevertheless. I am the girl who, even wearing the shirt I had on last night, can't get a guy to buy her a drink in a bar. I am the girl who is so much more attractive when you're drunk, and who you regret kissing the next morning, if you even remember her face. Perhaps this honorary man business isn't all it's cracked up to be.

As tempted as I was, I didn't do it. I wanted to, fairly desperately, but for some reason last night the toxins just didn't happen. Could have been a lot of reasons. It could have been Bear's presence, it could have been the little white plastic thing. It could have been because hurting myself emotionally is getting to be enough for me, I don't need to fuck with my body too. I'm not sure which reasons in what concentrations are responsible, but I didn't wake up with that familiar stale taste in my mouth, and I'm glad. The war paint is back on with a vengeance though.

Oh what can it mean?
Daydream Believer

Harm and Foul

I hate sleeping through alarms. I've lost my moral high ground. Maybe that's just as well. Maybe it'll be better without the antagonism. Or maybe it won't. Who knows. I've thought about it, I've wondered and considered and chosen a course of action. I'm feeling a little Frost-y at the moment. I spent part of the evening with a friend. A good friend, better than I generally have any right to expect. An inversion of friends I've had before. Not to say that I don't expect and hope constantly, because that's just my nature, and I'm bound to do it. But I have those expectations, those hopes, and when they don't manifest, or manifest a little differently, it's okay. An inversion, it doesn't have to be a fight, a test of wills, it's honest. It feels good. Safe in a backwards way. We're not making it any harder than it needs to be. I usually make things more difficult than they should be.

The damaged attract the damaged, and it's a little like the blind leading the blind. I want to make it better, I always want to fix people. I'm not sure why. Has to do with want and need, and probably daddy issues too. I always worry. I worry and I overthink and I can never use the excuse of not having thought it through because I always do. I do the things that people make excuses for. They say they were drunk, or punch-drunk, seeing red or looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses. They say they didn't know what they were doing, what would happen, that they can't think, that they don't think. I don't have those excuses. I think it all through, calmly, rationally, and still do it. Knowing the consequences, knowing what can or might or will happen, I do it anyways. After careful consideration, I make the conscious decisions that people tend to blame on their unconscious minds, on the id, on their reptilian brains. I don't get to cover my ass, I've just made choices and then have to live with them. Some have been the least of evils, certainly, but by no means all of them. I sometimes wonder if I am really some sort of monster, or if I'm damaged beyond repair. If either is the case, how can I justify wanting to fix people? Maybe I first need to fix me. Only thing is I'm not sure how.

Dance With Me?
Sing once again with me, our strange duet. I play with fire. I like it. I may be an adrenaline junkie, but I'm picky about my triggers. I'm drawn to the darkness, convinced, perhaps, that the light lies at the end of the tunnel, or that once my eyes adjust the best things are the ones once obscured by darkness. Crazy, but that's how it goes. The closer you get to the light, the bigger a shadow you cast. I want to see what the shadows hide. I want to know. I want to understand. And if you want these kind of dreams, it's Californication. I need to connect to something, connect to someone. I let myself get drawn in and it's never enough. Feeling as good as love, you could, you can. I like duality. I like the underdog. I'm drawn to the damage, like a rubbernecker on the highway. I don't have guilty pleasures, or at least I try not to. I make my choices and I deal with the fallout. No harm, no foul. Either way I don't want to wake up from this, sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare. I have an overactive imagination, I spend too much time living in "if" land. If only, If I, what If? Sometimes I play with fire and it warms me right to the core. Sometimes all I get is burned fingers, and sometimes the odd welt on my thumb. I've always liked games of chance. I'm steady but I'm starting to shake, and I don't know how much more I can take. I've never really been one for games of skill, mostly because skills can come and go so easily. My bets are usually with the green lady. One or the other. You're the right kind of sinner. I'm not. Sin is a tricky concept. If it's bad, why do we want it? If it's good, why would we be punished for it? More ifs. Ifs ands and buts. There are always exceptions. What you feel is what you are. I wish I could sing like Pat Benatar. I forget how much I love to sing, how much I need to sing. That's the way, though, isn't it. Sometimes you forget what you need until you have it. I think I thought I saw you try. Nothing's going to stop me from trying. Nothing ever does stop me from trying, at least nothing external. I'm stubborn as anything. I got it from my mother. Well, she jokes that I didn't because she still has all hers. But you get the idea. I want these words to make things right, but it's the wrongs that make the words come to life. I want what I want, and half the time you'll never know what it is. Because I'm afraid. I was surrounded by enough cruel, vindictive, competitive people in the past that I learned not to share my goals, because once someone knew about them, they became an obstacle to them. Guess I'm really on my own. As though if I say it out loud it's true, and I have to really deal with it when I fail, rather than just saying I didn't care anyways. I care too much, but I have to. I have to care about something, about someone, it's a compulsion. I am falling, and if I let myself go, I'm the only one to blame. I have to care, I want to care, and that's what usually hurts me. I like the duality of it, to be honest, the contradictions, the paradoxes. I like paradoxes. Paradoxes and balance. Both hydrogen and oxygen burn, but together they'll put a fire out. I don't want to put the fire out. I like it, it's warm and it makes everything else go. Isn't it messed up how I'm just dying to be him? I've never been one for Pascal's Wager, but strangely that doesn't stop me from believing in something. We always wind up talking philosophy. Not that that's a complain by any means. I wish I could make that pattern expand. People need more hugs. Take a backseat, hitchhike, take a long ride on a motorbike. My scars are mostly on the inside, lining my lungs, my stomach, filling the spaces between the muscles and the fat, stretching between the tendons. Let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worse. The ones on the outside are nothing special. Chicken pox, a couple of childhood scrapes. I've never broken a bone, even twisted or sprained a joint. This world if you let it will drive you into the ground. I won't let it. I can beat this. I have to be able to. I have to believe that I haven't been set up to fail. If I don't, if I can't, there's nothing else I can do. Well, there's always one thing I can do, but that would require a trip to the chemist. You're no problem at all.

Mistakes can only happen with the benefit of hindsight. Unless we're speaking empirically, of course. But empirical really isn't my style. Mistakes are just risks you wish you hadn't taken. Sometimes you can only see things from the outside. Sometimes beauty is in the mind of the beheld. There should be more love. The stigma shouldn't be in having done it. The celebration should be in having recovered. Everyone needs more hugs.

I've been more introspective than usual, which is saying something. I must be making up for the extraversion of the last little while. That's right, I'm an extrovert. Shy as I am. Another paradox. No wonder I've got such an affinity for them. I'm full of them.

Keep Dreaming
Daydream Believer

Poison

Destructive behaviour is a funny thing. Funny peculiar, usually, although I have been laughing an awful lot lately. A means to an end. I wonder where the end will be. I know what will likely happen if I continue. I've seen the pictures. It isn't that I like it, it isn't that I need it. But oddly, it makes it all feel better. The willing intake of so many toxins, it makes me feel better, strangely. Like bringing the turmoil from the inside into something concrete, something of which I am the commander. Something that's between me and that little burning tube. Someone made the hypothesis that in order to do this kind of thing, one must hate oneself. I freely admit that I hate myself from time to time, but it is not at those times that I crave the toxins, not usually. Something to focus on, something to bring myself out of myself, something to make the rest of the world real again. Art on the edge, going not quite to the point where you lose control, but close.

And it makes it easier. Easier to forget. I already have that foul taste in my mouth, it lets me ignore it. Easier to act, not to think, not to wonder, not to compare. Easier to keep the secret. I once felt relief, a strange, twisted kind of relief that all I needed to trigger a sensory memory of that strangely comforting time was to smoke a couple of cigarettes and drink a case of cheap beer. It was that easy, and the taste in my mouth when I woke up the next morning was exactly the same. And here I am drawing parallels with that time again. Much as I say it's the same, it isn't. Fundamentally, it has this major, gigantic difference which I can only see being totally honest with myself. I won't call this a game, even if there is some play involved. I toy with the idea of opening up, of telling tales. If I did, the inherent betrayals aside, would it change the act, force me to change the qualities or quantities of it in the telling, in the reactions? Adjust the past in my memory based on the reactions of someone who wasn't there? Colour the experience with the eyes of the present? Force me to qualify and quantify my own reactions? I don't know. You have to be honest about what you want, and I don't know why that has always been so hard for me. But now I am honest about what I want. Both in the short term and the long term. At least to myself. At least as far as I can figure out what I want. That's all I can ask of myself.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried. I'm reasonably sure it's not a motorcycle accident, since it's supposed to be packed up for the winter by now, but I'm still a bit sketched out. It's unusual for it to be like this. Some people, you don't worry if they don't pick up the phone, some people, you do. With him, I do. I'm worried, I'm afraid. Not just about now. About later. About whens and wheres and what ifs. I'm pretty good at being realistic, but what happens when the thing you've tried to be most practical about becomes the thing which not only can, but must, defy rationality, the thing that makes everything else take a back seat, the thing everyone's looking for whether they think they are or not. The thing I thought I couldn't have, and so petulantly declared I didn't want. Maybe I still can't have it. That would be poetic, wouldn't it?

Keep Dreaming
Daydream Believer