A cry for help

 

                                                     Henry Wallis' "Chatterton" 1865

  "My dear friend, I have been at war with the grave for some time now." Thomas Chatterton 

I don't reach out when I need help, some would say it’s self defeating; personally, I don't think anyone really gives a shit. I’m so used to people who say they care about me get angry and upset, suggest pills or hospitalization when my emotions are an inconvenience to them, or they have nothing to say at all. I mean, what could anyone say? People with depression aren't equipped to help others with depression, those who don’t have similar issues couldn’t possibly fathom the desperation that occurs.

I’ve been stuck in this gaping maw for nearly a month now, whenever I feel as if I’ve pulled through on my own, I end up being swallowed—I stop showering, I eat too much if I eat at all, and just getting out of bed feels like I’m sprinting uphill. The emotional baggage affects my neck, shoulders, and back. I thought about going to therapy, but I’ve been down that road many times before. Without insurance, its pricey and time consuming. Most of the time, you end up going through multiple therapists before you find the right one. I don't think I have that kind of time…

As much as I want to reach out, ask someone for help, it feels like emotional black mail to tell them I’m suicidal; but I feel like I need to tell someone. Yet, whenever I get around people, especially large crowds; I feel lost, alone, out of place—I spend most of my time feeling like I want to jump out of my skin, but what I really want and I try to do is feel comfortable in it. I’m so tired of fighting…

I want to reach out and connect with others, but I feel selfish for even trying. I don’t know who I am or where I fit, I feel completely and utterly worthless. Expecting more feels greedy and narcissistic, I feel like I don't deserve to be loved or cared about because theirs no way I’m good enough. I feel like a mistake…

If anyone is reading this, yes, it is a cry for help; but I don't expect anything from you, I certainly don't want you to feel obligated to reach out and try to help. Theirs no use in feeling just as uncomfortable as I do, I’ve done this alone before and I pride myself in being able to do so, I just hope I can do it again.

I want to want to live, but I’m completely clueless, and I feel guilty for being alive.

I don’t know what to do…

                                                                                    

                                                                 Art by: NerdGhostWaffles 
                                                       

A Confounding Parallel

 

Jackson Pollock: Alchemy

    Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about relationships and how they affect our personal lives—she’s currently in a relationship with an alcoholic and seems to be dealing with the same problems I had in my last relationship; the constant fighting, the abusive and avoidant behavior, as well as the overall instability. Although I don’t regret my last relationship, it was an emotional roller coaster. Being in love with an addict is like being in love with a cancer patient, they love you, but they’re too sick to give you what you need. I realize now, that with Danny, I was simply repeating a cycle that I had grown accustomed to since childhood.

    Growing up my mom had a tendency to feign certain illnesses and encouraged me to do the same, all so she could receive a government check and not have to work for anything. Meanwhile, I was given absolutely no life skills; I was drugged, institutionalized, and surrounded by chaotic environments and unstable people. I learned to shut the world out because alone was better, alone I was safe. All I had to do to escape was daydream and write, so I could fantasize about killing people I couldn’t kill in real life. As I got older and realized I wanted more for myself, my mom would lose her shit and attempt to stifle my progress out of fear for her financial security.

    Danny was the shield, he was the one that had my back and told me that I deserved better and that I was capable. Unfortunately, he was a shield in a sense that a couple of gargantuan, soul sucking buzzards turned him into a Jackson Pollock painting by crapping all over him. This, I believe, really tore Danny down. The instability within the house compelled him to drink more, eventually making him sick and not much better than my mom who pops pills and sleeps all day. I was so angry at him, I felt like he let me down! So for quite some time, especially after he quit his job, I cut myself off from him. I crippled myself emotionally and yet, I stayed with him, trapping myself in this psychologically torturous limbo of being single and being in a relationship. I tried everything I could think of to make it work while distancing myself emotionally, all because I didn’t want to be left alone with my mom and her mountain goat with Down Syndrome.

    Although Danny helped bring me out of my shell, his addiction got so out of control that everything became a trigger, and therefore isolating. I wanted to do so many things with him—go to shows, go to the movies, travel. It got to the point that we couldn’t do anything together because he was drunk all the time, and going out with a mean drunk was not my idea of a good time. I feel shitty for feeling this way, or for even writing this; but if I’m going to be completely honest with myself, I have to admit that when Danny died, a part of me felt relieved. Relief coexisted with my rage, depression, and of course my guilt. For months now, I’ve felt a sensation of freedom that I’ve never felt before. Thanks to Danny’s support, I’m no longer my mothers cash cow. I guess that’s just how death works, just like love, it brings pain and relief.

It’s really fucked up that this is what acceptance looks like…

                                                             Jackson Pollock: Number 31

THE PICKLE OF TOP OF THE SHIT THAT IS LIFE

In a couple of months, I have to be out of the house my grandparents own. My grandparents are in their 80’s, their health is deteriorating, and insurance on the house keeps going up every year. I’ve been looking at apartments, houses, and duplexes—even motor homes!

Now, I have only one question… Are these places made of minerals that were plucked from the center of the earth, magically transported to the heavens, where they were encased in gold by the Gods?

Everything is so expensive and none of the places I looked at appeared to be worth it! I thought of buying a used van outright and converting it, but I’m not that handy. I mean, how do you build a shitter in a van without a bunch of shit leaking out?

I can’t handle the degrading monotony of working nine to five—I’m neurotic, misanthropic, and I never sleep. I can’t handle spending most of my life in a place that makes me suicidal, I know myself well enough to know that I just wouldn’t last very long, especially when it’s only to pay for some $1200 roach orgy.

I’m not without a plan, but I do know that things never work out accordingly, the only thing that scares me is the uncertainty.

My plan is to get a car, take on more dog walks, house sits, and drop in visits; continue to work on my writing, and travel as much as possible—then see where I end up… Who knows? Maybe I’ll die!!!

Pistol Whipped Asphyxiation

                                                                             

The smoking gun

Art by: Jeffrey Richter

http://industrialhumanity.blogspot.com/

    Thousands of children grow up in foster care each year. Most of those children are never adopted. In fact, most of those kids age out of the system; forever lost in a filing cabinet or a digital wasteland of empty hopes and dreams.

    Unfortunately, I am one of those statistics. Regina Louise and Dave Pelzer were two authors that brought me solace growing up. I don't know my real name, so I call myself Regina Pelzer. My earliest memory in the system is my first family. They were a nice couple with a nice house and a nice yard; seemingly cookie cutter. It was exactly what one might suspect, too good to be true. I was only 4 years old when I felt the first sweltering blow of a belt across my back. All because I spilled a glass of milk in fancy china.

    Now, I'm a 32-year-old coke and heroin addict; I work in a sleazy strip club where you can get a blow job in the VIP room for the right price. The hope that I had in my early youth had been buried; numbed by drugs and beads of sweat that splattered from the bodies of strange men. I was innocent then; with innocence, there is naivete with naivete, theirs only ignorance behind childish eyes. At this point in my life, I feel like I should've been aborted.

    I'm bitter, sad, and aging; my green eyes are sunken and hollow and my skin is dry and cracked. My red hair has no grey yet, but it's dull and lifeless. The rest of me appears rail thin and sickly. A few good years of drug abuse has devastated my once desirable appearance.

    I'm about to be 33, and I look and feel middle aged. I've decided that I'm ready to cleanse the planet of my wretched existence, but I'm not going out alone. If I'm going to clean up the world, I'm going to take out as many as possible.

    I met up with my drug dealer who sold ammo as well. I had no money, but as a woman whose sole purpose contributed nothing more than self-preservation, I had more to offer him and seven other men. 

    I pack an automatic weapon, a pistol; and a gorgeously sharp knife with brass knuckles for the handle. As I admired the Barretta 93R, one man who sat in a chair lacing up his shoes asks,

    "So, what do you need all these guns for anyway?"

    "Spring cleaning," I reply.

    Without hesitance, I unload a simultaneous round of bullets into every single one of them. I grab the car keys off my dealer's corpse, put the Barretta in the medium-sized duffel bag I brought with me, and quickly headed out the back door. I drove to the foster group home that I grew up in. It was late, so the building was dark and empty; all except for the receptionist. She's an older lady with brown hair and gray roots.

    "May I help you?" She asks skeptically due to my withered appearance.

     I made no reply, I took the knife hiding behind my back and swiftly slit her throat. I ripped her blood splattered badge off her blouse so I could get through the highly secure building. I wiped the card on my jeans and swiped it. The doors to the day room opened; it is just as I remembered; crowded and smelly. Kids slept on the floor, couches, and chairs; very few were lucky enough to get a bed. Everything stunk of discarded offspring.

    From my right, I notice an older black nurse approach me from the nurse's station.

    "Ma'am, what do you think you're doing?" She asks unequivocally.

    I noticed children stirring awake amongst shamefully self-made floor pallets. I hastily whip out the automatic weapon I used to kill my dealer and his indigent crew. The duffel bag drops to the ground; as if everything were in slow motion, bullets go flying killing the nurse and several sleeping kids near her. Blood splatters and pools begin to form then suddenly, I'm bombed by awareness. Children scream and cry and I know theirs no turning back.

    I wasted no time and I began taking out as many as possible. Children ran into their rooms as I followed them. I stopped at room 23B, a girl sat calmly in her bed. I looked at her and she looked at me; I felt like I knew her. 

    Ten years ago I had a daughter that I gave up to the system, ignorantly thinking she would be ok. I walk into her room, close the door, and sit down next to her. She did not flinch or turn away.

    "Are you going to kill me?" She wonders innocently.

    I lovingly brush some of her hair behind her ear and warmly reply, "Yes."

    "Is it going to hurt? I'm tired of everything hurting." She says.

    My baby girl is only ten, and she's already contemplating suicide. This time, I had to do right by her.

    "Baby, I'm going to offer you something that no one else was ever willing to give you; freedom from pain."

    She leans into me and I kiss her on the head as I wrap my arms around her. I sing to her as I pull out the .44 magnum. I put the gun to her face and quickly pull the trigger, blowing her skull off. I nuzzle closely into her neck, feeling content and at peace. My face wrinkles into a smile of tranquility as I put the gun under my chin.  Right as the cops bust in the door to my daughter's room, I pull the trigger. For only a fraction of a second, the lights flickered. I was then cast into oblivion and the world around me went black.

                                                   THE END

A Lucid Delirium

The snap of her spine drains the life from her cold ocean eyes.

She can no longer beg or breathe.

Instead, she lies there staring aimlessly

after her heart gave one last beat.

The music is silent now.

The words and proverbs she held so dear no longer matter

because she no longer matters.

I stand above her motionless body and watched as death whisked her away.

And now

I stand before you

Maniacal

Triumphant.

Nothing but dirt and gleaming eyes in a night sky to hear the screaming. 

Bleak Transience

She finds herself in an unknowing void that seems impossible to climb her way out of.

Her being had abandoned her as she lies motionless in the dirt.

Dirt was her coordinate.

The counterpart she could never rise above.

She became helpless

discouraged.

She wasn't even worthy compared to what once lay beneath her feet.

She was repulsed by her own self.

She's nothing 

Non existent

An incorporeal being that needed to be tamed before the time bomb within her detonates.

Who is she?

The girl with the motionless and expressionless imbalance.

Who knows?

Who cares?

She's dead...

Glass Cinderella

                                                                               

Artwork by Anthony Clarkson

There once was a girl I called Cinderella.
She paints herself in darkness and crimson dresses.
Her hair is as black as the midnight sky
Her skin scarred from distress
But no one knows the real her for she hides behind her porcelain mask.
She seems so normal and so sane
And she's loved for her beauty and enigmatic ways.
But when the clock strikes 12
She's all alone
And is safe to reveal her true self.
She wastes away into sadness and shame as she runs the razor across her alabaster skin.
She then hears the slurred speech and heavy footsteps of her drunken father
So she runs to the corner of her room trembling in fear.
But before she knew anyone
Her father had tainted her
Corrupted her
Poisoned the little bit of innocence she had left.
She lies there disturbed and nearly blind
Sheets wet from the blood that slithers down her arms and thighs.
Her mind flashes with intensity and rage.
All the sudden she lost all control
And let the sickness swallow her whole.
With all her hate and all her might
She took the kitchen knife and forever told daddy dearest
Goodnight.

Artwork by Anthony Clarkson