Down
It’s hopeless.
That’s why my fingers won’t move. Why these tears won’t fall. Why my fist clenches but never strikes this bright ugly screen.
I can’t create. Some can. I’m not one of them. I can’t make anything worth a damn. I could, at one point. When I was younger, sure. I wrote phrases and passages that made people react, made people feel. But I just can’t anymore.
Or maybe I never could.
And this, I can never come to terms with. It’s not okay.
My days are spent doing nothing. Running in place. Working for a paycheck that I will use to fix my car, which has to keep running, so I can get more money. That doesn’t make sense. That’s wasted time. Not time that would be wasted otherwise, mind you.
And even this, even this isn’t an original thought. This is a rant that countless characters have gone on in tons of movies and books.
I am nothing. I exist solely for the entertainment of others. I am a comedian who believes himself an actor.
I am talentless. I am unoriginal. I am nothing.
I used to be a son, a good son. Now time spent with my parents seems forced and unnatural. I feel caged, and explosive. But when I’m not around them I yearn for their presence, for their hugs and acceptance.
I used to be a boyfriend. I had someone to hold and kiss and take care of. I could make her laugh. I could make her smile. And not just smile, but the smile backed up with a kiss. And there was nothing better. But I can’t imagine myself with any girl, it’s been so long. There is no attraction, perhaps out of self-preservation. It hurts too bad to fall in love every five minutes, so I just refuse to.
I used to be a creator. I used to make stories and characters and prose, not attempt to write down my generic and mindless thoughts. I have created universes before, so why can I not call upon this again? Where has my touch gone, where has my voice gone? Why do I sit to write and all that comes out is drivel? My writing, like me, has become pointless and mediocre.
So what am I left with? Well I deliver pizzas. Terrible, cheap pizzas. Fucking dog food. I am a delivery boy. What else? Well I leech off other peoples creations. I watch and read and listen and absorb every one else’s art, selfishly, never giving back, never doing anything of my own. I am a delivery boy, I am a leech. I make people laugh, oh Lord, I make people laugh. Uproariously, on occasion. But what is that? I alleviate. I am a band-aid. I am temporary. I am a clown. I am a delivery boy, I am a leech, I am a clown.
This, my friends, is a dreary state of affairs. And this affair never stops. This constant questioning of where I am, where I’m going to be, is incessant. Especially on Sundays. Especially when this house is still, when my loving and caring and incredible and untended dad is asleep above me, when I come home to a home that is not mine, I do not belong here, get me out of here. And my mother’s home is out there, and is the same. And my friend’s home is out there, and is the same. And there are all these homes out there that are not mine, I am just a nomad wandering through them.
I am a delivery boy. I am a leech. I am a clown. And now, I am a nomad.
My clothes are dirty. My car is broken and creeky and cranky and hurt. My most valued things are packed up in boxes, getting smushed and destroyed the longer they go without a place to land.
If any plan of attack made sense to me, I would change it. But I think and strategize and weigh and research, and all I come up with is wait. And I’m so tired of waiting that I want to jump through this window behind me to keep from waiting some more. I want to scream, and wake up my family, and make them kick me out, make them force me out in the street, just for something goddamn fucking shit different.
So end it, I think. Why not? From the way I make it sound, I’m hammer fucked. I’m done. I’m toast. There. Is. No. Reason. For me to be on this planet anymore. I will not ever effect it. I am just one of the many, instead of one of the few, despite fighting it my whole life.
And the reason I don’t do it is a many numbered things, and I will go over several. I am scared. I am a friend. I am loved. I love. I hope nothing I am saying is true. I hope that my feelings are lies. I hope. That there is more, that I can somehow balance my parents and my friends and my jobs and my creating one day. I hope I do something great. I hope people that aren’t me are right. I want to be a father. I want to be a boyfriend again, I want to give that another shot, a better shot.
I don’t do it because I know that this hopelessness is temporary and extreme.
And because that air outside tastes so sweet when I breathe deep, and I don’t want to give that up.
I love this life. I just can’t see it right now.
