1.06.2011

A conversation with "you".

I could just say all the things in my head, but I wouldn't dare cut out in front of the pack like that. I need you. I need that voice in my head that tells me what you would say. Even now that voice pounds. "Watch out, they're gonna think you're listening to evil spirits, if you say that." Well, am I?

Who are the people around me? Is my perception of them anything like they really are? Am I hearing any of the things they say in the way that they mean them? This wouldn't be such an issue if I wasn't desperately concerned with what they all think about me. And of course...I hear that voice again, seemingly warning me: "They are going to judge you for how shallow you are to care what people think about you." But I don't care, I guess. Well...it is ironic, and confusing. I tell "you" (The person I hope will read this and justify that feeling I get when I fantasize about the people who really relate to my words because I can't find anyone in real life to do that for me) that I care about what people think about me to the point of paralysis, but then am I really that concerned, because I just shot myself in the foot, metaphorically speaking. I just revealed my weakness. Or maybe I'm just self-destructive, and I seem to like living the corner I've painted myself into.

Either way, I'm rambling. I hope I can capture some significance in all this. God, I'm dying to say something true. This makes no sense at all, but it's all the sense I can grasp at right now. You. Who are you? I can touch you, with my words, with my eyes, with my hands, but not my heart. What makes you any different than a picture on a screen? A video? A mannequin? A synthesis of movements and sounds convincing enough to fool me into believing you are like me? Even if you are like me, all the sensory information isn't enough to add up to a person. A being. It just doesn't. It's not enough to convince me you understand. It only makes me feel the emptiness growing in me. Who are you? Really, who am I?

We're touching each other, alright. Fucking each other, killing each other. Groping outwardly to feel a life. To see if maybe you feel different than I feel. I hope that you do, but then I misunderstand, cruise right by that common factor. But if you don't feel different, then we're both empty. What do we have then? The math here doesn't add up to a hopeful outlook. So. Where do I go from here?

To grasp for something more than the pieces add up to I've got to make believe. I hate how faith really boils down to this. I hate how life boils down to this futility. This dependence. No way can I stop trying to live, trying to find something I can compare myself to. Something to define myself by, and add up to something good.

And then there is you. I am obsessed with you. I can't stop thinking about you. But I have started feeling like you are a more of a curse than a blessing. Maybe like a heroin addict who has passed the point when his drug was a control, and now it's controlling him. Yes. I do feel controlled by you. The trouble is that nobody cares about me. Maybe they do, but I have no way to understand it. I can't comprehend it. Sounds like another language or something. They say they do, but what good does that do me? It's like a bird who builds his nest with a winning lottery ticket. I am still thinking about you though. Maybe not the real you, but the you who is really just a projection of me. How can I conceive of a you that is fundamentally different than me? But if such a "you" doesn't exist then what hope have I? A "you" that is completely different than me at the core I have no means to relate to them, so even if they exist, even if every person I meet is that "you", I would miss it. I would miss it altogether for lack a way to understand them.

Then there is the opposite problem: if "you" are something I can understand, then I seem to taint it by the association with myself. How could a good being have anything to do with me, without being utterly ruined by having something in common with me. So...there is the problem with "you".

I need. I am drawing in. And You. How can I know that you are not me? How can I know that you are solid? How can I know that you are able to hold me up? How can I know that I can trust you. How can I know that I can rest on you. What...oh God. I'm tired.

Okay. If it is true that you abide in me, when I abide in you, then there will be no defining line of where I begin and you end. Even so, from the outside I long to know that you don't depend on me, because I don't trust me. Is that what this is really about? If you exist in me, how can I ever trust you? You know who you are, don't you. It aches to want you so bad, but to be unable to move toward you. I am paralyzed by fear. My own legs betray me. This fundamental division rips me from tip to toe. Mutiny on the Bounty.

I hope that I can I execute the rebel now. I'm just gonna lay down this hurt. My biggest fear is that in laying it down it will be taken from me. Somewhere in all this pain is a heart that is the fountainhead of my passion. I can't bear to lose it. I fear some real person will read all my pain and try to help me. And then I will be faced yet again with my inability to receive love. I will be face to face with my captor. Sigh.

I want life to be a song about me. I want someone to be devoted to me. I want to know that I will get to be part of something that tells me who I am. I want to be able to articulate my desire. I want to cry and never stop. I want to sing a song that is a weeping motion. I want to become the beauty that rules over me with cruel distance. I don't know anything about love. I want to stop cursing myself, but I want to speak words that feel deeply true, not just platitudes. I don't want to fake it till I make it any more. I want to be real. I want to know what real is. I haven't said his name this whole time, but he's been on my mind the whole time. I can scarcely acknowledge him, because he scares me so. He is so strong. He's calling me and I want to stay mad forever. I want to run him down with my steely cynicism, but I know he's going to win. I want to flee forever into introspective abuse, but I know he will catch me again. But I wait. I will not give in, I need him to show his strength. I need to see it. I don't care what the "you's" say. I will wait for rescue, and I may die here. But, I need a savior, not a belief.

Who am I kidding, I don't know what I need. I'm just bored now. Waiting. Unsure. I hope. I don't have some poetic clincher for this one. I'm still hanging here, hanging on, wishing I could let go or something. Whatever.

No comments: