I sit here with so much noise in my head, and all I can think about is how everything seems to be going wrong.
How am I so easily shattered? I don't remember putting that much stock or faith or security in my marriage, but that's silly to say that, because of course I did. I put a lot of stock and faith in assuming that when I got home there would be hugs and kisses and kids and food and sex, and sleep in a bed, and netflix, and internet, and video games.
Now I look at all of it and I see that it is nothing but complete vanity.
I guess I hadn't thought about it, but I really do rest a lot of personal worth on my home, and what is waiting for me back ashore. Is it because I'm a sailor, or has it always been that way? As a Christian, am I supposed to have faith so solid, that if I went to work one day, and came home to find my wife and kids had all been slain in some tragic sort of house fire, or explosion, or earthquake, that I'd weep with my hands in the air, worshiping God as the creator of all things, with the ability also, and right, to remove all things from my life?
To make matters more complicated, it seems that I've married a woman who (seemingly) expects me to never tell her my feelings, even though she asks me to, and expects me to, tell her my feelings. I feel like usually they're presented in a constructive enough manner, but no matter what I try, no matter the tone of voice or word choice I use, her first reaction is always to make herself to become backed into a corner. At that point I pursue her to find out what's wrong, to which she responds with actually backing into a corner [emotionally] now as I approach. As if to say, oh no, here he comes, wanting something. Oh no, my husband needs something other than food and watching his kids. Oh dear no, he expects some kind of response; what do I say, why is he waiting for me to answer, I am freaking out. At this point I'm the bad guy, and I am continued to be seen as an attacker, regardless of if I apologize and drop the conversation like she wants, or if I try again to speak my mind in a different way (this just makes it worse, now that I think about it--first I jab, then I cross, with two different forms of saying whatever it was that initially made her feel attacked).
Part of me keeps saying use it. Use it, Derek, fuel your book, but I feel like it's just Satan working in the background, trying to corrupt me and my novel into something dark. Use your backslide into sexual sin, Derek, how you can't go more than a week without it. You should explore it, he says, for research, of course. Sin, then mentally record how that makes your brain feel. It's ok if you're making a book with religious overtones, if overall the work is good, right? Use it, Derek, when your wife doesn't understand you. Use it, Derek, when the finances somehow become the topic of conversation, even though you wanted to talk about how being in the military supports murder, no matter how indirectly. Use it when you feel devastated by your lack of faith; you put more stock in homely securities than Godly ones. Turn it into your main character, while you explore the depths of the filth in your mind. Don't clean out your gutters, Derek; photograph them, dig through them, and leave all the filth there, so you can come back to it for inspiration. Even this, Derek, use this journal to improve your word count. You can draw on this. All the worry, the self-doubt, it makes you real, it makes you keep banging out word after word as you explore the ultimate answer to the ultimate question.
Is God really real? Look how easy it was for you to make your own religion in your book. Are you C.S. Lewis, or L. Ron Hubbard, Derek?
How will you sleep at night? In your book, Alyss uses sleeping drugs to sleep, to quell the noises of doubt and fear and shame in her head, to avoid fighting through it for God's sake, avoiding a righteous life and right relationship with God. Just like you, wanting so badly to get some porn onto your computer, so that you can self-medicate. You know, deep down, that it won't really help you sleep, and all it will do is numb your mind, blacken your soul, and leave you wanting even more, night after night, and ultimately destroy not only your life, but your family's as well. Your wife will leave you, or you her. Your son will grow up a sex addict, a man-whore just like you. Your daughter will sell herself on the street.
Hate yourself, Derek. Good, this is good. Look at you frowning at the keyboard like it means something. Next you'll upload this to a website where you can feel good about yourself, and edit your feelings into a useable format. Someone will read it. Maybe a russian bot will link you to penis enlargement pills. Maybe your wife will give a damn enough to read the things you write, but probably not. She just wants you to come home so you can hold the kids for a while, right? Right?
Shut up.
Shut up.
Shut up.
That can't be it. Can't be true.
There's more to life than this, right, God? Some sort of divine point, right? Because I'm not feeling like there is. I'm feeling like at this point, there's no point. I can live righteously for you, but for what?
To hate my family, and my own life, by comparison to loving you, what will that ultimately achieve? A pile of bodies that died for nothing? A broken home full of confusion and anger, where nobody talks to each other? A worn out bible that never seems to have the answers, only convicting, hurtful truths about myself, that I am the scum of the earth, that I am completely useless and worthless, and nothing I do will ultimately matter in the universe. An invisible dot, on an invisible dot.
Who am I, that you should give a crap?
Where do you get off, O God, caring about an individual like me?
Monday, November 16, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Escape from the Meadow
Walking through the passageways of the USS Patuxent, a refueling supply ship, I run my fingers through my hair. I beat on Justin's door. It's 1 in the morning, but he and I have had trouble sleeping lately, so I know he's awake. Sure enough he is, and I tell him about the events in the Meadow.
While talking to him, as it is through discussion I realize most of my best ideas, I realize that while I despise the invasion of my dreamscape by a foreign entity, now I can talk to this, this part of my mind I've been tucking away. Ramona is a part of my mind that I don't want to talk to: my lust, my past, my dirty secrets and desires.
I decide to go to sleep without any self-induction. I don't sleep for hours.
While talking to him, as it is through discussion I realize most of my best ideas, I realize that while I despise the invasion of my dreamscape by a foreign entity, now I can talk to this, this part of my mind I've been tucking away. Ramona is a part of my mind that I don't want to talk to: my lust, my past, my dirty secrets and desires.
I decide to go to sleep without any self-induction. I don't sleep for hours.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
The Meadow: Intruder
"What are you doing here?!" I ask Ramona, trying to shrug her off.
At the time this was happening, I only vaguely knew who Ramona is. All I knew was she felt familiar, but not distinct enough to be anyone in particular; typical dream character.
She ignores my attempt to shrug her off of me, and instead cuddles closer.
I shrug her off again, and this time I prop myself up on my elbows and look at her. Her large, sad eyes glisten in the moonlight, like two beautifully dark holes in her porcelain skin. She smiles a nostalgic, knowing smile at me.
"What are you doing here?" I ask again.
Her smile widens and includes her eyes. "You want me here."
"No I don't, you aren't my wife. Go away. I'd rather be alone with my thoughts."
"Exactly." Ramona puts her hand delicately on my chest and guides me back down onto my back, then cuddles back up onto me, as if to bid that I simply let it happen.
I understand now. I conjured her up to keep me company, unused to being alone. When I am alone, it's usually accompanied by lustful thoughts and actions, anyway, so this is a comfortable place for part of my mind. However, I distinctly remember creating the Meadow to escape people like her, as well as the usual business with a character of her morals.
I stand up, casting her aside, and when I look back, her top has been removed. Black bra. More porcelain skin. She acts hurt and pouts. Damned dreams.
"Leave me alone," I say emphatically, and stamp off in my wet boots to the edge of my mind.
"You'll be back," she calls after me, "You always come back."
I rip the Meadow apart and crumple it into a ball, throwing it back into the Filing Cabinet. Sitting up in bed, I turn the light on, as well as some Counting Crows. I begin to journal.
Your manhood is lost somewhere beyond the sea, I wrote in the corner of the drawing pad, next to a doodle of a cityscape on the water. Your father couldn't find it, and you most certainly can't.
Just give up.
Just give in.
Blue morning, blue morning wrapped in strands of fist and bone...
All your life is just a shame, shame, shame...
Disgusted with myself, I get up and go for a walk.
At the time this was happening, I only vaguely knew who Ramona is. All I knew was she felt familiar, but not distinct enough to be anyone in particular; typical dream character.
She ignores my attempt to shrug her off of me, and instead cuddles closer.
I shrug her off again, and this time I prop myself up on my elbows and look at her. Her large, sad eyes glisten in the moonlight, like two beautifully dark holes in her porcelain skin. She smiles a nostalgic, knowing smile at me.
"What are you doing here?" I ask again.
Her smile widens and includes her eyes. "You want me here."
"No I don't, you aren't my wife. Go away. I'd rather be alone with my thoughts."
"Exactly." Ramona puts her hand delicately on my chest and guides me back down onto my back, then cuddles back up onto me, as if to bid that I simply let it happen.
I understand now. I conjured her up to keep me company, unused to being alone. When I am alone, it's usually accompanied by lustful thoughts and actions, anyway, so this is a comfortable place for part of my mind. However, I distinctly remember creating the Meadow to escape people like her, as well as the usual business with a character of her morals.
I stand up, casting her aside, and when I look back, her top has been removed. Black bra. More porcelain skin. She acts hurt and pouts. Damned dreams.
"Leave me alone," I say emphatically, and stamp off in my wet boots to the edge of my mind.
"You'll be back," she calls after me, "You always come back."
I rip the Meadow apart and crumple it into a ball, throwing it back into the Filing Cabinet. Sitting up in bed, I turn the light on, as well as some Counting Crows. I begin to journal.
Your manhood is lost somewhere beyond the sea, I wrote in the corner of the drawing pad, next to a doodle of a cityscape on the water. Your father couldn't find it, and you most certainly can't.
Just give up.
Just give in.
Blue morning, blue morning wrapped in strands of fist and bone...
All your life is just a shame, shame, shame...
Disgusted with myself, I get up and go for a walk.
Friday, August 7, 2015
The Meadow: Following Night
My desire to return to the Meadow was intense. I was excited. Here was my happy place, carved out for me and myself alone, by my mind's own architecture. I could go here and finally get some sleep before 0200.
I'd been wrestling against sleep for the past three or four months, ever since I was deployed. I can't figure out why, except for maybe a night, my mind is still ablaze with desires, inventions, burning stories, a need to socialize, and simply a lack of desire to sleep. Sleep came easily when I bade it most nights, but most nights I fought it with caffeine after 2200, chatting with the night shift, and episode after episode of TV shows on a hard drive.
As I settled down into my mind, into the lazy stream of the Meadow, I opened one eye and saw not the happy sun, but stars and a quiet, yet bright full moon. Try as I might, the sun would not come out to greet me. I realized only then that the sun had been bright on my face in my last visit to the Meadow because my rack light was on, pouring lumens of synthetic light directly into my eyes. I shrug and decide the moon and stars are fine, I'm trying to sleep anyway.
The sky is charcoal and pristine, like the sky on a clear night out to sea. With no light (or toxic) pollution over my meadow, I need no flashlight or lamp to get around. I step out of the lukewarm water, sparkling in the moonlight, and tramp up to the Great Oak. Looking about, I see that everything against the bright sky is a dark, velvety black. I grin. I flop down onto my back in the grass and close my eyes in the dark. I smile, feeling a humid, lukewarm breeze caress my wet body, but feel no need to be dry any time soon.
My calm is interrupted by a presence. There's someone cuddled up next to me. Fully expecting to see my wife, I smile and look down. This isn't my wife, I think to myself as my pupils dilate, my brow furrowing, confusion building up inside my chest as the figure turns its large eyes to me, batting its eyelashes sleepily. No, this woman, for it is a woman after all, cuddled next to me is Ramona, who is most definitely Not My Wife.
I'd been wrestling against sleep for the past three or four months, ever since I was deployed. I can't figure out why, except for maybe a night, my mind is still ablaze with desires, inventions, burning stories, a need to socialize, and simply a lack of desire to sleep. Sleep came easily when I bade it most nights, but most nights I fought it with caffeine after 2200, chatting with the night shift, and episode after episode of TV shows on a hard drive.
As I settled down into my mind, into the lazy stream of the Meadow, I opened one eye and saw not the happy sun, but stars and a quiet, yet bright full moon. Try as I might, the sun would not come out to greet me. I realized only then that the sun had been bright on my face in my last visit to the Meadow because my rack light was on, pouring lumens of synthetic light directly into my eyes. I shrug and decide the moon and stars are fine, I'm trying to sleep anyway.
The sky is charcoal and pristine, like the sky on a clear night out to sea. With no light (or toxic) pollution over my meadow, I need no flashlight or lamp to get around. I step out of the lukewarm water, sparkling in the moonlight, and tramp up to the Great Oak. Looking about, I see that everything against the bright sky is a dark, velvety black. I grin. I flop down onto my back in the grass and close my eyes in the dark. I smile, feeling a humid, lukewarm breeze caress my wet body, but feel no need to be dry any time soon.
My calm is interrupted by a presence. There's someone cuddled up next to me. Fully expecting to see my wife, I smile and look down. This isn't my wife, I think to myself as my pupils dilate, my brow furrowing, confusion building up inside my chest as the figure turns its large eyes to me, batting its eyelashes sleepily. No, this woman, for it is a woman after all, cuddled next to me is Ramona, who is most definitely Not My Wife.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
The Meadow, an Introduction
“Just focus on the sound of my voice. You feel yourself becoming more and more relaxed...”
I awake in a lukewarm pool of water. I look about, squinting in the midday sun, taking in my surroundings. I appear to be lounging in some sort of lazy stream, in my clothes. I don't remember owning these clothes: black v-necked shirt, leather belt with pouches, black pants, brown leather boots. I'm aware that I own the boots, at least here in this reality, but I don't think I'm wearing them. No matter, I probably left them near the tree. I look around beyond me, and an external view of myself fills in all I need to know: this is The Meadow.
The Meadow is a place I seem to have borrowed mostly from a Hayao Miyazaki film; it's actually animated. The blades of grass have outlines. The snow-capped mountains in the distance are a cel painting. The trunk of the tree to the viewer's right is impossibly brown; its leaves impossibly green. There is a nigh-constant soft breeze, blowing at about the pleasantly lukewarm air. Somewhere downstream from my original position I am vaguely aware of a beautiful blonde elven woman, lying dead in a wooden boat with a dagger in her heart; I dismiss this as something I will investigate later. The stream is somewhere in the front of my current (third-person) view, and the moment I become aware of this, my view shifts back to first-person.
My head is resting against some part of the stream's bed. I cock an eyebrow, wondering if the ground immediately surrounding a stream is called a bed, and decide that whether or not it's called a bed, I'm definitely as comfortable as one laying in a bed. I drape my arms out in either side and close my eyes, letting the sun greet me with its warmth.
I decide this is probably one of the only situations I enjoy the warm sun in my face: when I'm wet. Without a conscious decision, I get out of the stream and flop down onto my back just outside the shade of the large tree, arms spread wide as I allow the lazy water to evaporate in the happy sunlight. Justin, a hypnotherapist and a fast friend, is on the ship, in my stateroom, trying to help me relax. Instead of relax, I'm too busy processing everything around me. There's a constant voice in my head, my homunculus, narrating everything I'm seeing, hearing, processing, down to whether or not my eyes are twitching.
Ah, my eyes are twitching, that means I must be processing and storing, or dreaming, or both. This is cool, it's like a daydream. Wow, I'm so relaxed right now. So very very relaxed. Wow, it's like maybe I could move parts of my body but I'm not going to, because that would ruin it right now. Or maybe I can't move them because I'm too busy being relaxed!
Absolutely terrible. I try to push the voice away, but it's not going away, only getting quieter. I grin with my eyes closed and go back to the sunlight. I shake my head slowly, realizing that the voice might never actually go away. The more I try to quiet myself and listen to everything else, the more loudly it returns after only a brief respite.
“You see in front of you a filing cabinet, which is where your mind files things away.”
Crap.
Now I'm wearing a burgundy tie, decent brown shoes, and a gray suit. My hair is gelled and business-casual. There's some sort of gray cubicle-area with tile floors and tile ceilings apparently on the edge of The Meadow.
Maybe I should have said something out loud about where I was. Then again, he told me not to talk constantly this time. I'm still talking constantly, but he can't hear it.
I sigh and look at a folder in my hand, which has an 8x10 glossy photograph of The Meadow and a few pieces of paper with text more than likely concerning the same. Crouching down, I first reach for the bottom drawer. Then, thinking better of it, I stand up and open the chest-height drawer, for easy access. I don't think I'm keeping anything important in here, but it's impossible to tell with the amount of clutter in my mind. I shove everything in that drawer back, and it all compresses with a satisfying scrape of metal and slight rustle of papers. I put the folder, clearly marked now in bold, black marker “The Meadow,” in the front where I can pull this out later.
You can come here any time you like, the voice says, and I grin like an idiot, as if I hadn't even considered this. Maybe I haven't. The other voice, the constant rambler, tells me of course I can come here any time I want, I knew that, but even the Rambler has to admit it was a pretty good idea that somehow wasn't entirely my own.
"As I count slowly up from five, you will start feeling yourself becoming more and more alert.”
No, I don't want to leave, I think loudly, pulling the tie off of my neck, turning as if to run out of the disedificed filing area with its tile, cubicles, water cooler...
And it's too late. I'm already floating away, and there they go, my eyes are open.
I awake in a lukewarm pool of water. I look about, squinting in the midday sun, taking in my surroundings. I appear to be lounging in some sort of lazy stream, in my clothes. I don't remember owning these clothes: black v-necked shirt, leather belt with pouches, black pants, brown leather boots. I'm aware that I own the boots, at least here in this reality, but I don't think I'm wearing them. No matter, I probably left them near the tree. I look around beyond me, and an external view of myself fills in all I need to know: this is The Meadow.
The Meadow is a place I seem to have borrowed mostly from a Hayao Miyazaki film; it's actually animated. The blades of grass have outlines. The snow-capped mountains in the distance are a cel painting. The trunk of the tree to the viewer's right is impossibly brown; its leaves impossibly green. There is a nigh-constant soft breeze, blowing at about the pleasantly lukewarm air. Somewhere downstream from my original position I am vaguely aware of a beautiful blonde elven woman, lying dead in a wooden boat with a dagger in her heart; I dismiss this as something I will investigate later. The stream is somewhere in the front of my current (third-person) view, and the moment I become aware of this, my view shifts back to first-person.
My head is resting against some part of the stream's bed. I cock an eyebrow, wondering if the ground immediately surrounding a stream is called a bed, and decide that whether or not it's called a bed, I'm definitely as comfortable as one laying in a bed. I drape my arms out in either side and close my eyes, letting the sun greet me with its warmth.
I decide this is probably one of the only situations I enjoy the warm sun in my face: when I'm wet. Without a conscious decision, I get out of the stream and flop down onto my back just outside the shade of the large tree, arms spread wide as I allow the lazy water to evaporate in the happy sunlight. Justin, a hypnotherapist and a fast friend, is on the ship, in my stateroom, trying to help me relax. Instead of relax, I'm too busy processing everything around me. There's a constant voice in my head, my homunculus, narrating everything I'm seeing, hearing, processing, down to whether or not my eyes are twitching.
Ah, my eyes are twitching, that means I must be processing and storing, or dreaming, or both. This is cool, it's like a daydream. Wow, I'm so relaxed right now. So very very relaxed. Wow, it's like maybe I could move parts of my body but I'm not going to, because that would ruin it right now. Or maybe I can't move them because I'm too busy being relaxed!
Absolutely terrible. I try to push the voice away, but it's not going away, only getting quieter. I grin with my eyes closed and go back to the sunlight. I shake my head slowly, realizing that the voice might never actually go away. The more I try to quiet myself and listen to everything else, the more loudly it returns after only a brief respite.
“You see in front of you a filing cabinet, which is where your mind files things away.”
Crap.
Now I'm wearing a burgundy tie, decent brown shoes, and a gray suit. My hair is gelled and business-casual. There's some sort of gray cubicle-area with tile floors and tile ceilings apparently on the edge of The Meadow.
Maybe I should have said something out loud about where I was. Then again, he told me not to talk constantly this time. I'm still talking constantly, but he can't hear it.
I sigh and look at a folder in my hand, which has an 8x10 glossy photograph of The Meadow and a few pieces of paper with text more than likely concerning the same. Crouching down, I first reach for the bottom drawer. Then, thinking better of it, I stand up and open the chest-height drawer, for easy access. I don't think I'm keeping anything important in here, but it's impossible to tell with the amount of clutter in my mind. I shove everything in that drawer back, and it all compresses with a satisfying scrape of metal and slight rustle of papers. I put the folder, clearly marked now in bold, black marker “The Meadow,” in the front where I can pull this out later.
You can come here any time you like, the voice says, and I grin like an idiot, as if I hadn't even considered this. Maybe I haven't. The other voice, the constant rambler, tells me of course I can come here any time I want, I knew that, but even the Rambler has to admit it was a pretty good idea that somehow wasn't entirely my own.
"As I count slowly up from five, you will start feeling yourself becoming more and more alert.”
No, I don't want to leave, I think loudly, pulling the tie off of my neck, turning as if to run out of the disedificed filing area with its tile, cubicles, water cooler...
And it's too late. I'm already floating away, and there they go, my eyes are open.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Predator
"Why does it have to be raining outside?" I asked, running my hands through my hair. I twirled one of the longer locks, distracted. "I have to wash my hair again."
"There you go with the hair again. For corn's sake, Kristin, every time it rains, that's all you talk about."
Jacklyn, of course, was right. She was always right. 10 years my senior, my roommate had a knack for pointing out things I wouldn't acknowledge.
"I know, I need to stop being so vain."
"Darn straight. Now help me clear the table."
I was too busy spraying her with my blood to help. My invisible killer pulled its blade from my neck and jumped onto my roommate. So this is what it feels like to die.
"There you go with the hair again. For corn's sake, Kristin, every time it rains, that's all you talk about."
Jacklyn, of course, was right. She was always right. 10 years my senior, my roommate had a knack for pointing out things I wouldn't acknowledge.
"I know, I need to stop being so vain."
"Darn straight. Now help me clear the table."
I was too busy spraying her with my blood to help. My invisible killer pulled its blade from my neck and jumped onto my roommate. So this is what it feels like to die.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)