I collapsed in triage, gaining VIP access to ‘resus’ where my stuttering Dutch doctor tried to talk me into a suppository for pain relief (which I refused). I’m hopeful to be discharged today… I got my own room so it’s not too bad but I’ve had way too much liquid pumped into my body than I’m used to (3 bags of sodium chloride later). I know I’m gonna sound like an ungrateful little bitch but I’d rather be at home cuddling up with my boyfriend :(

emotions i feel lately don’t make sense. it is now possible to feel the exact opposite of fear where there should only be fear. hollow yet happy. sad yet full. ambivalent yet bitter. angry yet peaceful.

It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.

I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a fifteen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on that back verandah drinking vodka-and-orange juice. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.) The other one, an eighteen-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished.

My babe and I were in bed and he was like OMG paddy by the reubens comes on in my head whenever I look at you and started serenading me it was beautiful.

“Only one thing remains infinitely fascinating to me: the mystery of moods. To be master of these moods is exquisite, to be mastered by them more exquisite still.”

Filthy lies, Wilde - or my misconceptions of your words. I re-read your sentences and I drift into a desire to smash your penman hand after you purged these letters onto paper, your words infuriate me. I see my answer clearly when backs turn. Fretful excuses for sleep with a frown drawn into my dream-time instead of a smile.

You enrage me, Wilde. You, and all your subordinates who would think that to be mastered by moods is a joy. Art does comes from sadness, yes - art comes from pain, true - yet the wish incarnate is to create art from joy. 

I hear the screech and the television of life shakes and the scurrying needles swell in my mind-vision. The human in front of me is nothing but flesh, pitiful flesh - Isee need my nails turn to sharpened steel and rip away handfuls of epidermis, look at you now - a cellular structure that is damaged, you are worthless goods - an opened present, a throwaway toy. Yet I reach for more - forget the physical - soul as goal. My tongue is a fishing hook, tearing at your psyche with a silken sin-slither, a silent shout - your damp skin sweats out your secrets. Tell me your secrets. I will resurrect them for you. I will re-incarnate as the girl who turned away your kisses, I will re-live the moment when that boy took the you you once were away.

My love, how can I tell you - we are naught but vessels for the void. The void that grows, the void that could consume you - if you weren’t stoppered from birth. I will avenge this void, and you will let me - an unplugged parasite. I revel in your skin-sin and your nightmares, and I feel no empathy for you - I feel no sadness for you - but I will greedily, inexcusably devour your madness, badness, steal it from you. I can feed on you, I will make you feel like royalty. The Shadow King that you all ignore and avoid, I will wrap up warm and mollycoddle. My life-talent lies in indebting myself to him, and taking his attention away from you, for no reason other than that I can.

The truth is.

The truth is true.

The Shadow Men are always here, and they need attention too.

A long time ago, when you were a wee thing, you learned something, some way to cope, something that, if you did it, would help you survive. It wasn’t the healthiest thing, it wasn’t gonna get you free, but it was gonna keep you alive. You learned it, at five or six, and it worked, it *did* help you survive. You carried it with you all your life, used it whenever you needed it. It got you out—out of your assbackwards town, away from an abuser, out of range of your mother’s un-love. Or whatever. It worked for you. You’re still here now partly because of this thing that you learned. The thing is, though, at some point you stopped needing it. At some point, you got far enough away, surrounded yourself with people who love you. You survived. And because you survived, you now had a shot at more than just staying alive. You had a shot now at getting free. But that thing that you learned when you were five was not then and is not now designed to help you be free. It is designed only to help you survive. And, in fact, it keeps you from being free. You need to figure out what this thing is and work your ass off to un-learn it. Because the things we learn to do to survive at all costs are not the things that will help us get FREE. Getting free is a whole different journey altogether

Things that are cool: being productive & motivated & functional. Things that are not cool: being a mess, melodrama, laziness.