#first draft only draft

Seeing as I’ve been mean to Blake & Bethany recently... have something cute.

“You only ordered that for the free hat, didn’t you,” Blake said, eyeing off the fishbowl of frozen margarita the waitress had put in front of me. 

“Why wouldn’t I? Look how cute it is on me!” I put on the sombrero I’d been given then rested my chin on my hand, batting my eyes at him. “Don't I look cute? It’s rainbow. Totally my colour.”

Across the table from me Faith nodded, her pink curls bouncing. “So cute!  I should have got that too!”

Blake kept his face straight, but I could tell he was trying not to smile. “You’re ridiculous,” he said instead. 

“You love me,” I insisted, leaning in for a kiss and bumping him in the forehead with the brim of the sombrero in the process.

“I do.” He pulled away from me, despite that admission. “But you’re not getting a kiss while you’re wearing that.”

That sounded like a challenge. 

“You two are disgusting,” Faith announced as she stood up, resting her hand on Kenzi’s shoulder. “Like, I’m really happy that you’re happy and I hate to say it but you’re perfect together but… ugh. Vom.” As she spoke Kenzi had reached up, gently squeezing Faiths hand, something which immediately made Faith melt.

“Mm, because you’re not a sucker for cutesy displays of affection, are you.” I winked at Faith, smirking at the face she pulled in return.

“Whatevs, babe,” Faith said, “You know I’m right.” She headed off towards the ladies room, keeping hold of Kenzi’s hand until neither of them could stretch any further.

Oh how bothersome, to be back, to say it’s happening again.

I thought I had left this behind me, the listless nights and frenzied thoughts. I thought it finally behind me, the blank eyes of a stranger in the mirror. I thought I had left this behind me, the wired exhaustion and endless spirals.

I thought I had managed to abandon the zero sum, and yet it haunts my halls like echoes of years’ past. I thought the chapter definitively closed, and yet here sits its husk of faded memories. I thought it all behind me, and yet I’ve stopped speaking; I’ve stopped writing. Music rings out tinny and hollow, muffled by the vast expanse of the nothingness housed in what is meant to be my chest. The pit in my stomach has become bottomless again, ravenous with an insatiable hunger that I don’t know how to satiate anymore than I did before.

I don’t know which is worse: how naive or how desperate? For how naive, to believe I could ever get back this, to believe that there was ever an end to this. No number of hollow thrills and emptier frills could satiate the canyon stowed in my bones. How desperate, to put faith in the same process even when the product remains the same.

It remains a fruitless pursuit, an unresolved chase. I cannot afford to be in the depths again but I am stuck in the dark of it. The lights don’t matter. Escaping the hole doesn’t matter. Clawing my way up its sides, scaling its sharp, steep incline, just to inevitably hit the bottom once again seems a pointless endeavour and yet remains what is expected of me.

It’s happening again and I don’t think I can keep having it around. There is no fixing this. There is no improving this. There is no alternative to this.

It’s happening again and my hands are tied and I can’t do this again.

I won’t.

I refuse.

i had the dream again. with the long twisted corridors and tiny goblin men. the dream where i always end up half-awake by the middle and there's a little man standing at the foot of my bed with a spear pointed at my face and a hand hovering above my leg. i try my best not to move -- i don't want it touching me -- but also can't move my head or neck to get a better angle to look at him. he just stands there. and hovers. and eventually my leg or his hand moves and touches the other and there's a flinch as he completes the contact and i'm just housing shock in my body.

i had the dream again. yanno, the not-quite hallways and the not-quite people and the not-quite but evidently, completely, sleep paralysis. i had the dream again and i woke up -- actually woke up -- filled with such panic that the fact i didn't call you impressed me.

i had the dream again. and processed the dream again. and processed having to process the dream again.

i had the dream again and, for once, i didn't call you.

(and of course i remembered you after, as what else would this be for, but the fact of the matter is that the remembering happened After, not During; it's still a win in my book.)

i’m sure there’s a joke in here somewhere, about how we’ve got to stop meeting like this.

no prose poetry this time around for once. i’m sure the lot of you -- the lot of who? what are you talking about -- will be surely bummed about that but alas, here we are. no, no prose poetry or any existential think pieces. i think i just wanted to write, get some thoughts somewhere, without thinking all too hard about how it might look. how it might sound.

some simple housekeeping, for anyone -- ???? who are you TALKING to??? -- who cares: today is my younger nephew’s sixth birthday; i am official two months post-op which is equal parts “oh my god, holy shit /pos” as it is “oh? wild,” so take that as you will; it’s been nearly a year since me and Little Man stopped speaking which fucking blows; my brain has basically become sludge; i’ve been smoking so much that even *i’m* concerned about it.

that just about covers the main shit that i can list off the top of my head i suppose?

time is fucking weird, man. like, how am i twenty-one now? how did we get here? do you have ninety minutes? like if -- and here me out here -- but if life, is indeed, a highway and i, a humble passenger, am going to drive it all night long, it seems as though i’ve somehow slipped into cruise control but not in the fun way. does that make sense? who are you asking? grain of salt, because i am someone who has never driven nor plans too, but the vibe i garner from the words “cruise control” stems from like,, going with the flow. wait no i’m mixing my metaphors aren’t i. like i was going to say go with the flow, don’t worry about the journey just focus on getting there, but i feel like it shouldn’t be encouraged to be like,, checked out while driving?

forget the metaphors for a moment, will you? the key points i’m trying to convey is that i’ve been crushingly aimless this last little while. i don’t feel like i’ve had an unburdened positive in a while what’s a while? it’s been three days, relax your melodramatic ass. and it’s kind of kicking my ass? just a little bit? thankfully it hasn’t gotten, like, Bad bad yet, i’m still getting out of bed some days and brushing my teeth more like swishing some mouthwash and little housekeeping things. hell, i even went on a walk today! smoked half a pack of cigarettes, is what you did.

i think i’m at that little bump in the road again where i didn’t exactly plan to get this far? and i haven’t really made any plans since realising that. that feels so fucking cliche every time i say it and yet, here we are. like, of course i’m feeling aimless and listless and unmoored! i haven’t set up anything to look forward or be tethered to. but i don’t know how to fix that. i don’t know how to pursue an enriching yet chronically purposeless existence. like am i just supposed to exist? how do i do that? what’s the point of just sitting around all day and filling the long hours of nothing with meaningless somethings, just little shit to make those long hours somehow seem shorter? like do i just continue on this cycle of wake up do fuck all with significance and fall asleep again? i don’t understand what i’m doing here. not in a like... existential “does life has meaning” shit. been there, done that, that’s *so* seventh grade. but like... if my options are whatever i make them be then why am i doing all of these little bouts of nothing to pass the time when i could just save everyone the headache, save ME the headache, and hop, skip and jump to the ending.

i feel like one of those really long fics on ao3 that’s just about nothing. like, you get maybe a solid first couple chapters but then at some point while reading you realise the author didn’t really have an outline to get them this far and instead of have a goal or something in mind, they’re kind of just writing something plotless, something not even all that engaging. does that make sense? am i making sense?

complete sidebar: for a fandom that i have only engaged with via fanfiction, that one 80s show (name redacted to save me the headache of any of that engagement, dear christ) has me in a fucking chokehold and i would like to be released actually. if someone could get my brain to latch onto and hyperfixate on literally anything else that’d be SWELL.

i think what i’m trying to say is that i’m tired of living a life that just feels like filler. like i don’t even feel like the main character in my own major motion picture? i’m just some background schmuck a viewer sometimes sees at parties or some point of tension that some other main character has to like process and navigate or some shit. like, if were in a book or a movie, i’d be that one asshole you hear about... well, you wouldn’t actually hear about them would you? like, it’d be some newspaper headline or some blurry photo being featured on in the news, the broadcast itself just some set dressing as main character grabs like a single grape from the four course feast their parent made them before they rush off to school.

i love how i said i wasn’t gonna have an existential think piece and yet here we are. i still don’t understand who you’re talking to. are you talking to you? are you talking to them? who are they? why are here? how did they find us? how the fuck did they Find Us-

i think that ‘s enough of this, anyway. it’s one in the morning now. i am tired, i am quite clearly spiraling. i need water and sleep and less caffeine, probably.

part of me is like genuinely wondering who i have in mind when i write these like,, directionless thought to keyboard pages. in my head i’ve got a little man with a camera and i’m monologuing at the lens, if that helps at all with the image. i’m just also convinced that no one will be seeing the footage anymore.

okay, that’s enough now, bye.

m,

Sometimes I have to remind myself:

I had a life before you; I'll have a life after.

While I oft yearn for our time once spent,

I know that I lived without you once.

I'll be able to live without you again.

Until then, I shall try and think of you fondly.

No matter how you haunt me.

No matter how changed songs sound or food tastes or places look.

I've been dead to you a long while.

I hope I'll let you go the same way soon.

Despite it all, I love you. Despite it all, I miss you.

Despite it all, I hope you're doing well.

I don't want you yearning in the same way that I've been.

I couldn't bear it.

It's been almost a year since you left me

and I wish I was able to say I've finally left you too.

Damn you, you silly man. Damn you.

josh,

i think i've gotten so good at playing a background character in other people's stories that i forgot how to be the main character in my own.

i told you in bare bones details about the solo dnd campaign i'm trying to run through for myself. zerrakas, the tiefling fighter who's seen so much war that he chooses the road and the mercenary life instead of being at home with his once wife and two children. hexxus, the wood elf ranger raised by wolves in a nondescript forest, living in the shadows and on the edge of the world's periphery. aaliyah, the human cleric abandoned by her church the moment they caught wind of her necromancy. celine, the high elf bards who's weapons of choice are her honeyed or barbed words depending on the evening; who carries a lute and a pan flute and a well of magic that she only taps into when she has to make a retreat.

celine's my favourite. i think about her and think that that's who i want to be. a reserved person who doesn't wear their emotions on their sleeve; who's quick to anger but doesn't let it boil over but rather simmers until it's cool and controlled. someone with the capacity for violence fueled by a past of anguish but refuses to brandish it as the weapon it could be. a little slick and a little sly, someone who meditates on their options before making their choice. someone a little predictable yet hard to read in an endearing way. someone who knows what people want but, more importantly, what people need. someone beautiful and poised; flawed but not in a surface level way.

i crafted celine and poured all of myself into her, into her party — whatever there was to pour anyway. all that i am, all that i have: a storyteller; a musician; someone who dons a different name every few months because that is what's safer. no permanent residence in an identity, or bridging connections that eventually fizzle out. in the end, celine and i always end up alone. collect the fruits of our labour after a long night and go home to an empty feeling house, an indisputably empty bed.

i crafted celine in the hopes that i could give her a better story than my own. to help her shed the things i couldn't; to help her break through the walls i never will. i crafted her a flawed found family that could establish ties that would never break. i crafted her someone who could love and protect her unconditionally. i crafted her with anguish and trauma and flaws that she will never be able to throw away but could build around and alongside of.

i am not good at crafting a main character, however. no matter what i write or the encounters i build, celine and her party remain in the background. the charlatan you see at the gambling tables. the mercenary that sits alone in the corner. the scorned acolyte with no real past. the wanderer who resides in the woods where no one goes. i hoped to write out a life i would never have and not only failed but also damned them away from the foreground.

i think i've gotten so good at playing a background character in other people's stories that i forgot how to be anything else.

i don't think i can be anything else.

i think it is time to close my chapter in the woods. with you. find a different story to exist as flavour text in. if i can take anything from celine, i can take this shedding of an unfruitful past and of painful connections. to instead look forward and never glance back; to cease clinging to the things and people that were never mine to begin with.

i am but a bucket after all. to be filled with things then emptied out again. a bucket is to be damned to the background, no? no matter the story.

i love you. thank you for the best main character i've ever played background to.

this will be rambly and perhaps incoherent at times. today i am writing and not revising and posting before i lose my nerve to write it at all.

i keep thinking about my behaviour. and my perception of self. and how i go through names like coats in a closet, picking out how i want to be seen that day. a name being just another accessory, like choosing if i am wearing laces around my wrist or the beaded bracelet they gave me or the necklace from my aunt.

today i think i was jason. a little mean, a little quick to anger; passionate and uncompromising and a little miffed at the world and its order. traits gleaned vaguely from todd and inserted into the day to day.

yesterday i carried celine. sorta quiet and a bit intimidating; insecure about an inability to do more with my hands and overcompensating with the bite in my words. traits i gleaned certainly from a blank canvas of a PC in a playthrough of skyrim.

sometimes i am bucky. a blank canvas in itself. self-abasing and cruel, hollow and empty. a bucket with a hole at the bottom that cannot be patched no matter how many try. taking rain water to be filled before draining draining draining and becoming but an empty vessel once again.

lately, it's been a lot of steve. and billy. working up to it, at least. studying them and choosing traits that reflect in the others but still remain wholly themselves. insecure is a common through thread. misplaced anger, as well. misguided, maybe. usually though just mean mean mean.

i am not a person. i am a mirror that gathers and reflects. without external input, i output nothing and am nothing. i am but a container that i put other people into and pour back out into the world until there is nothing.

i am in this liminal space where they won't let me kill myself and i won't let them "treat" me. how do you make a bucket better? i am not a person, but a thing, and i don't want to exist like this. i do not know what i want for my future because i don't know who i am. who the bucket is. all i am capable of is taking and holding and tipping over to let it go.

why should a bucket plan to last more than a decade when its purpose is to be a thing in someone's house, left in basements or forgotten corners until they're needed, used and put back away? buckets eventually break and get replaced. i was never meant to be a permanent fixture — i could never be a permanent fixture.

this bucket and its handle broke a decade ago. it has a gaping hole in its bottom and is only useful when resting against a level surface to collect rain water or big, bulky things that eventually are removed and relocated.

i pierced my nose because i was billy that day. i want tattoos because sometimes i am sean and i want to reflect that. but who decorates a bucket? who finds sentiment in a once glorified bin? again: a vessel, a container; something hollow meant to be filled then emptied out.

i am not capable of making myself full. so what is the point of continuing to exist when i cannot do it for myself?