Used to Ways

Now this is the law of the jungle-as old and as true as the sky...

Maybe it used to be that I was different. I don't know.

I struggle fifteen seconds at a time now, beating back the darkness that creeps up on me still...but it's different.

There was a time when I fought it with raw power, using every ounce of strength I had to come out on top. It used to leave me tired, and beat down. Then I outsmarted it. I danced around that shit, tossing an occasional jab, just enough to keep it at bay. And as it lingered an arms length away I laughed at it, just to show I wasn't afraid.

But Blow One Blaring Trumpet Note Of Sun, To Go With Me, To The Darkness Where I Go...

I have had people, doctors, other suffererers, tell me that what I have is a type of clinical depression and that I should have it checked out, and like I do with anything that afflicts me I laughed at that. And like everything else I didn't get it checked out. I considered the facts on my own, and made my own decision. If I don't let myself be depressed how can it be depression? If I can stop it on my own, how can it be a sickness? If I won't let it hurt me, how can it be a problem? Everyone gets a little sad now and then. So I made my own decision. Granny used to say the only reason to have guns is so you could stick to them...and I have. I beat it back at every corner and though the melancholy often swallows me whole, it never beats me. And I rest easy in the knowledge that it never will.

So Huge So Hopeless To Conceive As These That Twice Befell, Parting Is All We Know Of Heaven, And All We Need Of Hell...

Life can be a struggle. Not my life in particular. I would never dare to say that. But life in general I suppose. And as I watch everyone struggle through I just think to myself, "You poor bastards, you just don't get it yet do you?" Because if they knew, if only they knew.

And The Heart Must Pause To Breathe, And Love Itself Have Rest...

I started writing this on Thursday morning. It seems like eons ago. Thursday night we got together to send off our old friend House, who is moving to Oklahoma to become whatever it is that people become when the move to places like Oklahoma. It's sad that we only get together for stuff like that mostly anymore. To say goodbye to someone we care about, or say hello to someone we used to. I've seen Gonzo three times in the last seven days. It's been a really long time since that last happened. That's sad too, considering I used to see him every day. It was damn near 3 A.M. by the time I got home Thursday night, glad to have seen everyone, but heavy with the knowledge that a good friend was about to go away. 7 A.M. all hell broke loose. Things didn't quiet down for the next 14 hours. A little over an hour after I got out of work Vilaboy, Jere, House and I were heading down to New Brunswick to see Gonzo's band play. You see when it comes to support and attention from his friends Gonzo is sort of a needy bitch. And we all love him for it. But it makes him the only one of us that is like that. My friends? We don't discuss our feelings. We don't go to each other's shit. We don't give a fuck about what the others do for a living, or how they spend their free time, or what they want to do with their lives. We care about each other...and have for a very long time now. And as gay as that sounds, it's nice. With the exception of one or two people who have drifted off, I hang out with the exact same ten or so guys that I hung out with over ten years ago. We don't see each other as much, we don't get everyone together as often, but that bond is still there...how many people can say that?

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same...

Something is stirring inside of me...it makes me feel vulnerable and scared. It's not new, it's just more persistent. Standing in a hot crowded bar in New Brunswick I was happy, but I could feel them coming. When The Darkness hit me I knew there was nothing I could do for the moment. Just grit my teeth and ride it out. The Fix came next, just drilling into my skull over and over again. By the time The One I Would Call Vertigo, But I Don't began I was already over. And then I found something. Like so many times before a beautiful face out of the crowd saved me. I don't know who she was, probably never will. Don't really care to. But for a second it was something to focus on, something to beat back The Afflictions. It didn't work for long, but if kept me afloat just long enough to survive. Which in the end is what it's really all about. So I suppose I owe yet another thank you to yet another stranger. I don't even mind so much this time.

Sleep on, sleep on, some fairy dream Perchance is woven in thy sleep — But, O, thy spirit, calm, serene, Must wake to weep...

This week was the drop off. We'd been doing so well with the Antioch group, but this week I just felt it all tip over the cliff. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's not over. But through no fault of anyone I fear it is. I wish I could say I did all I could, but we would both know that was a lie. Just because it's over, doesn't mean it's finished. Doesn't change the way I feel about any of it.

You shall be taken sweetly again and soothed with slow tears, you shall be loved enough...

My heart hurts. But not in a sad way. Just in a way that lets me know it's all almost over now. That everything is about to change. Part Six is almost over. Part Seven is ready to begin. The beginning of the end is beginning...here we go again.

In the beginning there were saints and there were sinners, there was good and there was evil, there was right and there was wrong. And then, with time, those lines which had divided blurred and the certainty which had defined the world was no longer.