I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you might stomp on it. It’s the Day blood. Something’s wrong with it. I was never a good little girl, and I got worse after the incidents. Little neglected me grew up sullen and boneless, shuffled around a group of lesser relatives- second cousins and great aunts and friends of friends- stuck in a series of rotting homes. Sleepless nights left me with bulging pockets under my eyes, drunk landlady eyes. My face- blank- with a grudging curve of the lips where a smile should be. Maybe.
I was not a lovable child, and I’d grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs.
I pushed a foot out from under my sheets, but couldn’t bring myself to connect to the floor. I am, I guess, depressed. I guess I’ve been depressed for about 6 years. I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there- hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen within my stunted, childish body- a me that’s telling me to get up, do something, grow up, move on. But the meanness usually wins out.
Finally, I pulled myself out of bed with a stage effect groan and fell to the floor with the sheets still wrapped around my half naked warm body… Pushing unkempt hair away from my face and rubbing my eyes and temples. Something was hammering my head. A few minutes later I got up and wandered to the front of my house. I rent a small worn-out apartment within a loop of other small worn-out apartments… My neighbourhood doesn’t even have a name, it’s so forgotten. It’s called Over There That Way. A weird subprime area full of dead ends and cat crap.
It’s cold. Grey clouds had gathered over my head…
I always wore a cloud over my head…

It’s 7:30.
I’m late.
Again.

Who cares. As long as I make it eventually.
People are so selfish.

And
I’m mean.

I guess that makes it even.

It sounded as if someone were opening a giant door in the wall of night itself and stepping in from another world.
Her heart raced and her dry mouth was filled with the slightly metallic taste of feverish anxiety. Her breathing turned to gasps as she teetered on the brink of quiet hysteria. Tears choking into her throat. She slipped back into delirium.

Then all at once there was silence; the memory ended as abruptly as it had started, leaving behind the black bottomless pit of the unknown. Though her head had begun to pound, she concentrated with all her might to recreate the segment of reality but it eluded her like that of a fleeting dream one tries desperately to hold onto to dissect and decode. Tears fell along her cheeks as she fought to hold back a desolate sadness.

It’s said that our minds can process fifty thousand thoughts a day. I’ve no idea if this is true, or how thoughts can be counted, but I do know that trying to pre-guess events within a knowledge vacuum creates intolerable anxiety. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell yourself “no news” is “good news,” your brain will always assume the worst. And in the end your instinct goes with what you know to be true.
Shit happens.

Some debts can only be repaid with loyalty.

…I can’t eat anymore. I force myself to try but everything tastes the same…

Twenty feet away, a woman smacked a toddler on the back of his head. I couldn’t see what his offence was, but the heavy-handed blow seemed disproportionate to any crime a two-year-old could have committed. I felt a rush of sadness in my throat- the precursor to tears- but I’d lost the ability to cry and gazed dry-eyed at Sarah.
Cold sweat.
She saw the malevolence pass through my tired, weary eyes and it made her shudder.

I reached for my glass of water and downed it. Breaking the eye-contact between us.

My mind had automatically blocked the droned voices of the people around us… concentrating on her voice of reason.
But it’s been an hour now and her words started fading into the alcove of my mind as my thoughts drifted.

I’d been fooled.
Lived a life of lies and deceit.
Sacrificed for nothing but betrayal.

When I dream of revenge it’s always in retribution for my stolen relationships. What gives anyone the right to make me suspicious of people I’ve liked and loved? Or them of me?
I can rationalize as much as I like but I know that nothing will ever be the same again. Whatever happens, I am not the person I was….

But if I’ve learned anything from this ordeal it’s:

Pain is merely a part of life. By embracing it, one can find surprising satisfaction in suffering.
And…
There are no explanations for human evil. Only excuses.

When we first met I was in pieces.

You put me back together… piece by piece.

I repaid you with nothing.
I hardly showed gratitude.

Tomorrow I stand before you and other witnesses to restore a forgotten promise.

You saw me when I was invisible.

Thank you… S

The craving is overwhelming!
I long that closeness… not the physical-touching closeness… not the feeling of breath on my neck closeness… not the smell of lust closeness… I want closer… I want to wear her skin and feel the internal touch of her skin next to mine… The feel of her balmy blood flowing in me… To hear her thoughts… and recognize every cell in her body.

I take matters in my own hands. Change is needed pronto.

I cut open her chest and massage her heart with my bare hands. It trembled along my fingers. Beautiful. I wiped away the filth that clung to it.
Others watch closely with burning genitals wanting what they can’t have; wanting what is mine. I swallow an evil chuckle that is immediately replaced with a smirk. I’m too busy to look up and scrutinize their reaction… I’m too mesmerized by the passion and lust in my hands to notice the buzzing of an annoying fly. No offence fly… I admire your sticky devotion to keep returning but seriously enough, it’s getting old and people are really growing tired of you… I’m sure you can find some nice garbage dump or sewage line to love and cling to… You definitely don’t belong here and we don’t want to have to endlessly humiliate you… just savor what’s left of your pride and … Be Gone.

I elevate her heart close to my lips and whisper something… Before I’m done her heart starts beating like mad, jolting in my hands elatedly. I calm it down with antiseptic strokes from my tongue reaching for crests and curves… her heart tones down. The taste of her blood on my tongue makes my own blood rush to throbbing vicinities making me warm.

It’s done.

I deftly place her heart back in her chest and seal the wound shut with compassion- before an infection hits again. Her eyes flutter as she regains consciousness… looking at me as her blurred vision fades. She seizes me from the collar with her fingers resting on the scruff of my neck… She glowed with desire and want; love trickled down her body. She was stunning. She knew what she wanted. She knew who possessed her.

I bent down and kissed her deeply.

When something is frozen giving it an irrational violent blow just shatters it… giving it a sequence of hesitant yet soft blows… inexorably shatters it as well…

You want to retrieve what’s inside that ice block safely?
Warm it…
It takes time and patience…
But it’s thriving.

And it beats crying over shattered pieces, doesn’t it?

You don’t have the time and patience

Then just walk away.

A block of ice won’t judge you.

You can lie to some people all the time
And…
You can lie sometimes to all people

But…

You can’t lie to all people all the time.

This is were you have to wear a mask… to blend in with the rest of the jokers.
I hate masks. But they are a social obligation…
Not like I ever felt comfortable at these forced efforts of conviviality.

Being a misanthropist has nothing to do with my following bottom-line-conclusion:

People are either shallow or blind.

Why do they assume they can always see the pain someone feels and if they can’t see it then it’s not there?
Not all scars show.

Why do they assume they can always heal someone’s wounds and if the wound is not entirely sealed then it is that someone’s fault for not cooperating?
Not all wounds heal.

Sometimes good command decisions get compromised by bad emotional responses.

My little monster heart has actually started beating… I think it’s about time I took it back to my cave and crushed it with a rock.