• Contemplation and restlessness are the keys to the ignition that is my addiction to this accursed machine. I sit and lie and wonder, staring at my wall and remembering things that happened and imagining things that could. I chant their names in my head to bring back the pictures, each broken thread in the unraveling and close to threadbare tapestry that tells the ongoing story of my amorous misadventures.

    Trust misbegotten,

    admiration traded to the vain for fleeting glimpses of their self proclaimed beauty

    faith mislead and wrung like an old dish cloth,

    pouring the crimson of my heart into the sink that is my masochistic numbing ritual

    Images flicker onto the screen, shades of an existence that lies just on the edge of my tangent perception. The illusion of a reality created by people whose existences I have no way to verify by sight. The internet is a wonderful thing. Instant messages flash onto the screen and I evaluate each by the sender.

    I don't want to talk to you now, I can't look at you the same way since last week.

    It was fun until you told me.

    I don't feel right talking to you now, I'm still mad over last night.

    I don't need to talk to you now, despite how much you say you need to talk to me.

    I can't help but chuckle at the silent bastardry that is my feigned disappearance from the face of the net world. It's so unlike me I say, but at the same time if what defines us is the repeated behaviors we exhibit, then I guess it's woven into me somewhere. The blank white of a word processing screen against the dark of a closed room spells my sanctuary, one designed for my thoughts but I always find too sacred to tarnish with words.

    So to myself I mutter my continued contemplations, aimlessly, hopelessly. I suppose I like the sound of my own voice, a louder conscience that's easier to ignore as I hear the same chastising and plans I've been thinking on for years.

    You shouldn't think about this,

    You shouldn't have said that,

    You have to think about the consequences.

    I find myself laughing at the last entry. throwing off some joke that coaxes me into a more comforting racor. How silly to think that I'm more or less than the biased projection of my residual self. How silly to debate on or dispute the obvious truth that there is two sides to every coin. The only question is which side deserves more to see the light. I find myself enamored by those who choose the underside of the coin. It alludes to a greater sense of self satisfaction and peace.

    I have no disillusions of who or what I am. I find myself uttering these words frequently, especially as I throw myself into a fascination with the depression I evoke to investigate and probe. I'm not depressed, not clinically nor figuratively. But if I can chant the right combination of words and memories I can work it together just fine. It's a fine exercise of the empathy for humanity I find myself constantly needing to check to affirm exists. A fixation for bleeding rivers that spell NaCl and H20.

    Let me remember that hurt again.

    What was it she said to me...

    I said it felt like sleeping on a blanket of broken glass

    I also say I don't care anymore

    I say a lot of things

    Clouded diamonds,

    tarnished brass,

    withered grass

    and broken glass,

    in the center of it all

    something I adore.

    Eyes of sapphire,

    golden strands

    run through my hands

    I cannot stand

    the tragic beauty of this broken

    porcelain China doll.

    There’s an unspoken mystery in the allure of despair. There’s a deep and selfish want not to fix it, despite my inherent and trained need to do so. Life is full of odd paradoxes.

    They want to be a part of you,

    Plumbing deeper till they find

    The broken pocket watch that is your heart

    And you let them,

    Lead them,

    Forward, onward,

    Spiraling further and further downward.

    Crystalline Venus Flytrap

    change the color of your leaves,

    And hides the prongs that are your teeth

    Pull them closer,

    That much closer.

    They should pray for vinegar

    Flash, new alert, something has arisen. It stirs me to see something new happen on this boring and otherwise uneventful weekend. I read on and read on until I find what I’m looking for; that quintessential sunset of carrion gore. It’s always the parasitic synergies that fuel the heart, or at least one in particular.

    .

    And suddenly I find myself in this familiar space again. This odd inspirational frenzy, a untraceable flurry of words and thoughts. Suddenly the cold November night doesn’t mean as much and I trade the beautiful and sublime for the surreal. Very curious. I hear their names in full swing now, I could swear this all could get addicting. Then again, what masquerade isn’t? This aptitude for launching headfirst into the blaze of an inferno leads to interesting places, familiar places, cherished and hated places. It seems never to steer me wrong.

    Admire her from a distance, that one…

    Trouble is her favorite contagion.

    She’ll weave her spells upon you

    And make you dance.

    She makes herself fragile,

    And watches in the mirror

    As she brings the mallet down

    Upon her head

    Her every word is poison,

    Every vow a lie.

    The only place she’ll ever lead you

    Is to an early grave.

    I watch them drink it deep

    And learn the steps,

    And with cut and bleeding hands,

    Try desperately to put her back together again,

    Then I watch them fall,

    One in all, each the same,

    Clinging to her golden stair.

    Repunzel, Repunzel. Let down your hair

    The laptop closes and I feel a strange disquiet rising in my chest. Aftereffects of the draughts I guzzle. There’s a cold chill and the restlessness takes me again. I lay and watch, thoughts flickering like a thousand unsynchronized strobe lights. Each flash takes me to a new ‘her’ and a new memory. There’s something in that closed contraption that makes me love it. For a moment the flashes subside and a clear image stays frozen; abstract, surreal, an ideal, a figment. As it begins to fade into the darkness I reach out my hand and try to grab it before it dissolves. In that instance the morbid joy of masochism and the satisfaction of my folly fades with it, leaving a chilling, sobering feeling. In that moment I know I’ve been snared. In that moment, my blood changes. In that moment, a somber unity is formed. My eyes drift down the wall and find the new irregularity the figment occupies. I try to close my eyes but the sun drifts into my window. My mind becomes displaced and logic fades. All that remains lies in the echoes my new double-edged parasitism.

    I can’t help but smirk, pressing my hand to that spot on the wall

    rolling up and down with the masks this new figment trades

    and laugh at my sense if irony.