abailey

I.

Just give me a suitcase and I'll promise to not look back. Just point me, point me towards the railroad track. I've been staring at the gates, but I've never found a crack, so I'm just looking up, saying, "Deliver me a heart attack." If you're weary, I don't mind sharing the load, just keep me some company on the road. All I've got is a bottle that I ought to leave alone, but it's the only thing that I can call my own, so I'm saying goodbye, and no, I won't forget to write. It's just been too long racing towards a yellow light, and I know that I say this every night, but I don't think I've ever been so tired of life.

And if things should not get better, would you wait for me to change, or would I see you waving goodbye from the window of an aeroplane? If I told you it was hopeless, would you try to understand, or would you leave me for a palm tree and its shadow on the sand? Because I've been waiting all year for the temperature to drop, but now I've got a fever and I don't know how to make it stop. There's still one shoe that hasn't dropped yet. It's hanging on by an aglete. This world seems like a nice place to visit, but I don't want to live in it.

There is not a doctor that can diagnose me. I am dying slowly from Patrick Stickles Disease. There is not a medication that can cure what's ailing me. The only treatment they offer is to hang me from a tree. Life's been a long, sick game of "Would You Rather," so now I'm going to medical school... as a cadaver. Now if I could say only one thing with the whole world listening, it would be, "Leave me the fuck alone... or welcome to the Terrordome."

II.

Oh, I recall the last morning the sun would rise on the race of man, after which, it was clear, nothing could be the same again. When called to answer for their crimes, the only response that they could find was that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Now the sun in the sky has turned to dust, the rivers are running red with blood, and the cries of the helpless are never, never enough.

And those of us who were still alive were rightly afraid to go outside, when VuBu said, "This isn't shoegaze - this is suicide." Then they came with torches and pitchforks, carrying clubs, guns and sharp swords, when the loudest voice I ever heard said, "It's over."

"And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration." [Albert Camus, "The Stranger" (L’Étranger)]

III.

"I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth." [Abraham Lincoln, letter to John T. Stuart, January 1841]

Everything makes me nervous and nothing feels good for no reason. Waking up, it's rarely worth it - the same dark dread every morning. Senior year here in Mahwah, a new world just around the corner. Leave me behind, let me stagnate, in a fortress of solitude. Smoking's been okay so far, but I need something that works faster. So all I want for Christmas is no feelings, no feelings now and never again.

There is a faceplate all brown and red that stretches across my mouth. It's worn for protection, nobody gets in and nobody gets out. I used to look myself in the mirror at the end of every day, but I took the one thing that made me beautiful and threw it away. I was a river, I was a tall tree, I was a volcano. But now I'm asleep on top of a mountain, I've been covered in snow. Yes, I have surrendered what made me human and all that I thought was true. So now there's a robot that lives in my brain and he tells me what to do and I can do nothing without his permission; that wasn't part of the plan. So now in Rock Ridge pharmacy I will be waiting for my man. But there is another down in a dungeon who never gave up the fight and he'll be forever screaming, sometimes I hear him say, on a quiet night, he says:

"You will always be a loser, man. You'll always be a loser now, and that's okay."