My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

On of my favorite Alanis Morissette songs is Purgatorying, it’s from her Feast on Scraps CD/DVD set. To me, it’s a song about lifeless life, filing up with nothing meaningful, wandering toward nothing. It’s a song about being numb, spending so much time feeling empty, yet never acknowledging it because it’s terrifying to acknowledge being broken, and not knowing how to fix it. I’ve felt so much like this song for so long. I’ve felt it, and I acknowledged that feeling in pain and ink…

Tattoo by Colt, artist and badass at Doc Dog's Las Vegas Tattoo in Ybor City, Tampa

So, I spend a lot of time bored, lonely, feeling empty, almost never content, but I’m putting it in writing. I’m not pretending nothing’s wrong, not as of right now. Writing this, I’m starting to feel so much wasted time, I can’t stay like this, Purgatorying until my end. Lately, I’ve been so fucked up, afraid to say things because I honestly have no idea what might happen after they’re said, both in my writing and relationships. I’ve been afraid to say what I want to say, so I haven’t been saying anything. I’ve been confusing patience with abject fear, mixed with self-loathing. I want to look back on this time in my life, I want to look at this tattoo from a good place, and truly appreciate being there because I remember what it was like to feel lost, and empty, and dark. I could also never end up in that good place, stories don’t have to end well, but I’d rather get to that end having written everything, said everything. If zombies showed up in the morning, I’d feel pretty fucking stupid, like I wasted so much.

There’s a song in the Nirvana With the Lights Out Box Set, Verse Chorus Verse (Outtake). It’s a song about addiction, about the love/hate relationship one can have with a fix. It’s not a sad song about hitting a fix, it’s more an honest, rational look at how the relationship with a fix can feel. It’s probably my favorite piece of Kurt Cobain’s writing, because it’s so right. It’s all about knowing that you’re ultimately hurting yourself in exchange for moments of absolute peace, perfect clarity. Kurt’s said that heroin was the only thing that ever gave him any sort of comfort. He was a nervous, depressed fellow in constant physical pain, and as awful or as wrong as it sounds, I think heroin kept him alive and helped to kill him at the same time. My favorite line in the song, “the grass is greener over here, you’re the fog that keeps it clear…” From my experience, it’s very true. I mean, after I died for a bit and spent two months in the hospital, I was high on all sorts of pain-killers as often as possible. Sometimes, I wasn’t particularly in any physical pain, I was just so fucking scared all the time, that fog was the only thing that let me relax and feel like I could be okay. I knew that I couldn’t live on Fentanyl, that it was a poisonously beautiful illusion of safety, but I also know that I couldn’t have coped without it. I think I understand how Kurt felt, I understand the song. So… I had part of it etched into my arm.

Tattoo by Colt, artist and badass at Doc Dog's Las Vegas Tattoo in Ybor City, Tampa

There are fixes that are definitely dangerous, definitely destructive. Still, I don’t think all fixes are inherently bad. We all need something to soften the noise of the day, the week, the month, the year. A cup or twelve of coffee, a shot of vodka with dinner, a lover’s kiss before falling asleep at night, they’re all fixes. We all need little things that give some peace, that make breathing seem worthwhile. I have my set of fixes these days, the things that dull the static in my head enough to think, enough to write, enough to feel like waking up in the morning is a good idea. Fixes that damn, fixes that save, the trick is knowing which is which when you wake up in the morning.

Lately, I’m not writing, at all. I haven’t written a Goddamn fucking thing in a week. My head is a bad scene lately, really fucking bad. I have a whole last day of New York to write, my favorite day, but I haven’t been able to make myself write it. I can’t focus on anything. Part of the problem is that I haven’t had an assistant for something like four weeks. Katherine, who went to New York, moved, and I haven’t been able to find the right person since. So, I haven’t really been able to go out much, definitely not in a way that feels right. I’ve been out with my brother a few times, but it’s not the same. He’s a great brother, but it’s really not the same. Assistants are the essence of freedom, they’re paid to do a job. An assistant’s job is to do exactly what I want, on my schedule, my terms. Family’s different, it feels wrong. It’s depressing, to me, if I want to go out at seven, and end up going out at eight instead. It might seem little, but the little decisions I don’t get to make add up to a lot of depression. My brother has a life, a job, hobbies, a lady, friends, and that’s all great. Christ, that’s everything I want, what everybody wants. The thing is, going out with my brother, even if my friends are there, I’m still fitting into his schedule. I can’t live my life, particularly my social life, on someone else’s schedule. That’s dependence, dependence is depressing, to me. It’s claustrophobic. I’m still interviewing assistants, I still don’t have one. I have to fix the assistant situation, it would soften much of the noise in my head.

Noise, so much noise, and not enough to distract me from it. I have to, and sooner rather than later, silence the noise, not just cover it with a fix.

Still, noise or not, I have to keep writing.

So, my issue of Weird Tales arrived today, and it’s pretty fucking gorgeous. I never figured zombie erotica would get me into a Hugo Award winning publication, but here we are. I like zombies, and I love sex, I just never thought I’d put them together and end up with something that could be considered morbidly beautiful. I guess that’s kind of what I do, I write beautiful darkness.

Stay with me awhile, your head on my shoulder.

Stay with me awhile, looking at me the way you do.

Stay with me awhile, the two of us in the dark.

Stay in case the zombies come, stay in case tomorrow doesn’t.

Stay because I love you, and because I’m why you look at me the way you do.

Stay with me awhile, let me kiss you slow.

Let me hold you close, let me stay awhile.

I’ve been thinking about my writing the wrong way. Lately, I’ve been worried about how my writing is perceived from the outside, whether or not I’m upsetting people, making them uncomfortable. I can’t do that, it goes against everything I’ve created in the name of transparency. The purpose of this blog is to write and be known, exactly as I am. Honest descriptions of whatever’s in my head, that’s what I write. I can hate myself, hate what I’m writing. I can be  happy and write how it feels. Sex, liquor, suicide, love, depression, cheer, whimsy, it all gets written so long as it’s written as an honest description of what’s inside.

I’ve been thinking about my darkness, how I feel about it, and cope with it. I know there’s a lot of darkness in me. I understand and write about addiction, and loneliness, and depression, and suicide. My twenty-eight years of experiences have made me into, well, an often melancholy, introspective, cautiously optimistic fellow. Yet, I like who I am, I think there’s so much good in me. I think all my darkness helps me to deeply appreciate beauty when I find it. I don’t take love and people I care about for granted. Whenever I meet someone else who knows darkness, I try to pull them out because I know how absolutely bad loneliness in the dark feels. Deep down, I know my story doesn’t have to end badly, but I know it might anyway.

I think everybody has dark moments, dark thoughts. Some of us are darker than others, but nobody’s flawlessly happy. I think what makes me different is that I take the thoughts that most people hide and write them for anyone to see.

So, I’m re-focusing myself, starting new. Writing really dark helps me get back to clarity. It’s almost like cutting my wrists, feeling the end, but waking up and not liking how that end felt. It’s the only way I know how to start over when I feel absolutely lost.

All that stuff I couldn’t write, I’ve let it go for now. Maybe I’ll write the most important parts later, after a little distance, I’m not sure. Tonight, I’m focusing on what’s ahead.

My friend, Kim, and I were talking earlier about sad little girls and a possible theological sitcom…

we’re like Sarah, Plain and Tall, or Little Lotta. Little Lotta, though she’s morbidly obese, she still manages to find happiness. oh that Jesus, always getting into trouble. we should write a sitcom, “That Darn Jesus.” are you ok? Jesus, Judas, the other apostles, Mary, Joseph, Satan, God the Father, the Holy Ghost, and Jesus’ mad-cap best friend, Kenny. They’ll have crazy adventures every week on FOX. I think we need a bigger audience than Adult Swim. no? Jesus and Kenny are the main characters, and Judas is always startin’ shit.

So, writing hasn’t been easy for awhile. I’m depressed, distracted, very uneasy. As much as I believe in transparency, the things that are bothering me are things that I just can’t write. Well, I could write these things, I just don’t feel comfortable writing them. I don’t know what to do. I can’t write what’s the loudest in my head, and if I can’t write that, I can’t write anything.

I’m so absolutely tired of almost being happy, then not. I’m tired of decisions that aren’t mine. I’m just tired. I want to say, “fuck all.” I want to put my fists through glass. I want everything to burn. I want oblivion.