Picking at every scab on the scalp,
under each fingernail a thin gluey layer of blood.
pick, pick.
Just like in the old days: 16 years old. 17. 18. 19 years old. 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 and 25 and then it stopped. A few months pass and I haven't even run my fingers through my hair, maybe it was just the weather drying my scalp, or a harsh shampoo.
So much of my life is simply out of my awareness. Not in any deep philosophical sense, but rather an inane one. Can't seem to pay attention to reality, nonetheless grasp it. I thought I was a dreamer, at one point in my life. Now I see it as daydreaming, the sort of daydreaming symptomatic of melancholia. Relationships become hazy, I'm either abusing someone, or myself it seems. I feel lost in the hubbub, maybe similar to running through an exciting room; ceiling speckled with hanging multi-colored streamers that touch the floor. The intentions seem clear enough, get to the exit. I never do, though. It's more of a mindless plodder, or sometimes a frantic pacing back and forth. It's a bit overwhelming, this is a big room and it's easy to feel very small in it. The lights are bright and distracting, I cant help but feel vulnerable. Somehow I have to protect myself and blot all this out.
and just like that I become ignorant.
Friendships and well-being between acquaintances becomes jaded, confusing, misguided always missing the target. It's all so narcissistic and self-centered: this whole scenario that could easily dote itself as a complex that esteems oneself as something that which it is not, but under all of that simply lies the fear. Fear paints the walls of this room black and the streamers are blood-red, the lights aren't so bright anymore, they're dim, and not as bright as a candle burning at wick's end. If you're lucky Someone comes along and sets up a street light in the center, and you see the way out.
But what's on the other side of that door? Is it a greater hell than this one? Are there bigger flames and more insults? Or is it peace and calm, is it Okay-ness? Surely there are more people out there, which is a horrid thing to imagine. There's surely so much out there that could harm me, and my pride. If they hurt my pride they'll all see that scared little boy, the weak one, the feeble one with the weak mind that insidiously disguises itself with pride and pretense. The one that wasn't popular, the one that jokes were made against. The lazy, the stupid, foolish one. The one that tries to hide his deformed image with vanity and "pride."
Go ahead friend, take your light, close the door on your way out. I'll sit here with my legs crossed, it may be dark and scary in here, but at least I've kicked everyone else out.. now it's just me.
and I do believe that candle has just burned out completely.
I can't even see my hand in front of my face.
*pick, pick.