Picking It Up Again

philosophy - it gives me a sense of how little I know, how little I understand, some measure of how much I don't know what I know, and don't know what I don't know.

it made me curious about what will come next. it made me realize how permeable these unnatural, arbitrary, societally-membranous boundary-dividers are. the power of an illusion of something is just as compelling, just as potent as the power of the actual thing. the power of belief. the red strings that bind us - i love you and we are more alike than we are different.

That the worth of a human being, or even the worth of existing, is like the magnitude of a countably infinite set. The trolly problem is impossible to answer (at least for me); because it's like having two countably infinite sets, bijecting to one another, and asking which one has a greater magnitude. The worth of a human being is countably infinite, so how can we evaluate if one person is worth more than the other?

But. I wish you could tell me. I wish you would tell me. I want to be your secret keeper. I wish you would tell me what happened on New Year's day. Like you told her. I don’t want to ask you.

I wish you would tell me what you tell her. Tell me what I am doing wrong. Why am I always here, always here for you. With no reciprocation. Vulnerability goes both ways. I am so tired of constantly being a fucking consolation prize. The dumber sibling. The uglier friend. The awkward classmate.

I am trying so hard not to be jealous.

And I am so sorry, I am so sorry I am so ugly, and unhappy.

I am so sorry I talk too much about my depression. I’m trying incredibly hard. I am trying so hard not be a walking *trauma core* aesthetic.

I just want someone to care for me as much as I care for them.

I want somebody to like me as much as I like them.

Will it sound like the crack of an egg, its shell splintering, the slick trickle of the white, the splat of the yolk? Or will it be a crunch, or a snap, or perhaps, a pop?

The thing is, I thought children were supposed to be improvements on their parents. Upgrades. Software patches.

But I’m not.

What did I get from my dad? Not his intelligence. Not his eyesight. Not his ability to problem solve. Not his high cheekbones, his build, or any of his handsome features. Not his ability to observe. Not his calm. Not his cool. Not his ability to reason and debate. Not even his capacity to analyze and hurt. I lack his independence, his quiet confidence.

I pretend(?) to share his cold, aloof anger. But this pretence is just a manifestation of the desperation I feel to have any connection to him; good or bad. I don’t feel like his child.

I didn’t get anything of value from my mom. I didn’t get her sheer determination, her tenacity. I didn’t get her beauty, her height. I didn’t get her long eyebrows, her large eyes, or her straight, silky hair. Not her strength, her shrewdness, her pragmatism. Not her smart retorts, nor her ability to read and do. I didn’t get her street smarts. I didn’t get her financial acuity. Not her resilience. Not her ability to endure.

But what I did get, was the very thing I feared as a kid, the only thing I have never wanted to get. The depression, the anxiety, the inability to focus. Indirectly, through her, I got my grandfather's rage, his violence, the force of his obsessions, his tendency to abuse, his terrible eyesight. My grandmother’s compulsion to hoard, her impotence.

At best, I don’t exist. All the stolen jokes, the personalities borrowed. A chameleon. A fraud. Long dead. the embodiment of others’ ugly ghosts.

You’ve been calling, and I haven’t been picking up for days. Then I call at 2:00 am my time and end call 10 minutes later,

I’m so sorry I am frustrating.

I’m not trying to be elusive.

I love you. I’ve always loved you from the moment we met in the bus. And this isn’t some kind of poetic exaggeration. I adore, I love my friends. And among them, I love you most of all.

I am sorry I am so frustrating.

It’s not you. It’s just I can’t.

Face calls make me throw up now.

I see you and I panic.

I don’t know what shadow of me you want.

The dead, the driven girl from high school.

The ghost that inhabits these bones right now.

Should I pretend like everything’s fine? Everything’s fine. Dress well. Chisel a smile on my face while I obsess over every miniscule action. Everything’s peachy.

The anxiety. The depression. Nothing prepares you for how it feels. it corrodes everything in its sight.

Every day I am in a state of radioactive decay.

I am imploding under my own gravity

You try to empathize when I tell you how depressed I am. And although you’re trying your best, you can’t understand it. I am in a perpetual state of self immolation. the knots of anxiety are landmines buried in the cavities of this body, others threaded at the surface, others beneath the skin. sputtering.

You’ve stopped staying what’s on your mind. it’s scaring me. I can’t stop panicking.

I don’t know this you.

I don’t know this you who gives refined little half smiles.

I don't know this combative side of you.

Why does everything we say have to be a competition?

I am tired of our passive aggressive little skirmishes, skirting around the changed nature of our relationship.

I can’t tell if it’s just me.

Is it just in my head?

You’re scaring me; you remind me more and more of my dad. All fake smiles, penetrating eyes, warm sometimes, but cold. Unspeaking. Watching. The hidden glacial anger. Capricious. Mercurial. Drifting.

I think you despise me, like he does sometimes. Are you finding me as pathetic as I find myself?

Make me your monkey. Please don’t leave.

Always alone, alone and never alone, alone alone alone

The second choice. The recourse. The alternate

Alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone

Alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone

alone and never alone alone and never alone alone and never alone

Is it too much to ask to be someone’s favorite person?

Alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone

The future itches

Alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone

how do you erase your existence

Alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone

All tidy and crumbly, little pink commas of rubber on paper

Poof! Gone!

Look, you never existed!

Is it too much to ask?

Rewrite the threads

Is it too much to ask?

Alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone

Alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone

Is it too much to ask?

alone and never alone alone and never alone alone and never alone

Never alone never alone never alone

again and again

The thoughts don’t leave they stay they cling, sticky residue between gaps of your head.

Never enough never enough never enough

Nothing ever leaves, nothing ever stays.

You will be the end of you

A snake devouring its tail

spirals; a wheel within a wheel

The start and the finish

Never ending or beginning.

People say their goodbyes to you, the footnote in their lives, a ghost in your own.

Is it too much to ask?

alone and never alone alone and never alone alone and never alone

Never alone never alone never alone

Alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone alone

A shopping cart; used and left.

Exchange of hands. A different owner.

Everything is temporary