My clothes are sorted into my cupboard.

Nothing major. But for some reason, it feels good.

Cordon Sanitaire.

The brain is real, but the mind is an abstraction. And so the mind is free.

The body is real, but the soul is an institution. And so the soul must be maintained.

What does it feel like to feel like you're losing both?

The answer, shortly after these commercial messages...

Sensationalism

My skin is a canvas. Organic. Natural. Crawling to get off. But my insides threaten to tear away if the skin unravels, and so the skin unwillingly stays in shape. It knows within snarls a beast, waiting to be unleashed. So it puts aside its dreams of an escape to resolution. Duty forever overshadows desire. It must have been written in the stars, just as it will be etched in paint and blood.

Fluid.

Empty as I was, I poured myself into a vessel as empty as I was.
As empty as I was, I felt myself flow out of myself
into this vessel that felt empty. A vessel I tried to fill with my emptiness.
Empty as I was, this vessel was not. It was full as could be.
As empty as I was, I found myself emptier than before.

---

When you shoot the bottom of a bottle, it always explodes, but the neck manages to stay intact. Of course, such results are best achieved with an empty bottle. A bottle with liquid in it is going to slow down the bullet somewhat, and change the explosive nature of the impact to some extent. Right now, life is the liquid that is missing from the empty bottle that is I. I feel so drained, so dry, so sparse, that at times, I wonder if I have never felt differently. I tire easily of things. Very few instances bring a lightness to living as we know it now. There is she, there are the kids, and then there's a few sights and sounds I cherish and (I would like to say) appreciate. But this short collection is rather miniscule. And is surrounded by a void so gaping, it dwarfs any substance in its presence.

I might as well be void, through and through.

A thought occurred to me. It was strange. I thought, strangely enough, that people who tend to write a lot tend to question as (in)frequently who they are. But I've cut down on how much I write. And I've never had as many questions to find answers to. But I care not to write the answers to these questions. It is as if, truly, my words are lost to me. As if they refuse to fuse into sentences that make coherent sense, as if they defy my reason and my will for ascertainment.

I feel as if I have surrendered to my words, as they swim in pools before my eyes, but resist my hand when it forces them onto paper. I feel as if I have lost the right and subsequently the will to command these words as I once felt I could. I feel as if I have not shown enough respect to the things and people I loved, or claimed to have loved, and thus do my words forsake me.

I feel as if I have lost. And I feel I should stop now, because this is enough grovelling at nothing. Even I cannot find in myself to deliver redemption unto myself. Damned is, as Damned shall be. And Damned shall I be. Alone.

Conventional Wisdom

They always tell you to be careful around sharp objects, knives, glass, razor blades, barbed wire, the road. They'll never tell you to be careful when turning a goddamn fucking doorknob. Cuz there's no way in HELL you're ever going to fuck yourself up twisting a fucking doorknob.

All you conventional wisemen can go suck a fuck.

Case.

She takes the papier mache in her hands, and bends it, testing it's durability. He looks up at her with pleading eyes.

She tears along the imaginary perforated line. He withers and floats with the love she discards.

Proportionality.

In the grander scheme of things, I am unimportant. What I want is not what I want. What I want is what all of you want. What I want is peripheral, a means to what you want. The Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number. The number 1 is not greater than whatever number I choose to take upon myself. I don't care about myself. So will you please stop riding my ass about it?

There.

Broken branches trip me as I speak...