lingering thoughts

                As my thoughts linger, causing cancerous lesions in my mind, my fingers hover uselessly, unsure of what to type. Unsure of how to save my life. The longer I pause, the more time the lesions have to grow and spread until they consume my entire psyche. Until they become me. Thoughts corrupting thoughts corrupting thoughts until all that remains is simply corruption. Yet still I cannot type. Still I cannot expunge and heal. The corruption lingers.

                Once, in a fit of normalcy, I scraped clean an old rusted blade. It had been hanging, worthlessly, on a wall in the old garage for years. Alone and forgotten; neglected until it became corrupted. I felt pity for it. Why, I do not know… perhaps I felt a kinship towards it; after all, I too was neglected and corrupted. Therefore, I took it off the wall, sat down, and I began to clean it. As I worked away years of rust, my mind emptied. I lost myself in the work, and I became the work. At the end, I had a blade as clean as the day it was bought, but my mind was no more clean than it had been hours ago.

                The idle work of my hands allowed me to be distracted from my thoughts. It allowed me to pretend that I was not sick.

                It was a lie, but, to borrow a phrase, it was a pretty lie.

                Of course, as soon I was done the thoughts came crashing back with almost enough force to stagger me. Unfortunately, I was prepared for that. And it is unfortunate that anyone should be prepared for the sudden crushing weight of their own thoughts. One’s own thoughts should be uplifting and weightless, not a burden to bear.

                That is how I move through life: always looking for the next activity that can lift away my burdens for a short while. In those brief periods, I can pretend to be blissfully healthy and whole.

                I wish I knew of a way that I could just sit down and scrub away the corruption in my mind. Spend an afternoon mindlessly cleaning, at the end of which I would come away clean and whole. Alas, that remains merely a fantasy. A true cleaning of the corruption would take a lifetime of effort and will, and somedays I feel as though I lack all three.

                Through my writing, I heal, and yet most days I cannot bring myself to write even a sentence! I merely stare at an empty page until my self-loathing consumes me and I am left bitter and empty.

                So few hours in a life with so many things to accomplish, yet we waste these hours on what? Work so that we can pay the bills that allow us to continue to work? I cannot remember the last time I felt truly alive—it was summer, and the sky was clear. The lake which I stood waist deep in was a mirror and I was surrounded by the heavens. Everywhere I looked, I could see the stars. I could reach out and touch them. For scant moments, I was alive. Beautifully and truly alive. Instead I just feel empty. I would not say I feel nothing, for I do feel a deep and unending regret coupled with a yearning for something more.

                Amidst the regret lays a burning desire for something better. To find someplace where I truly belong.