pray your gods
who ask you for your blood
It has to end, at some point. Ultimately, everything that we do has to end. Everyone we know, everyone we love, everything you see will die or deconstruct or in some way...end. No matter how good or bad we think or know that we have it, it is not going to last.
Usually this is not something that I care to think about. The end of things. The end of my friends, the end of my children, the end of the trees that are just now tall enough to stand without stakes. But I know this is true, and sometimes it makes pretty things prettier and nice things nicer and goodness, well, better. Because you know that it will be gone, thus you take the best care of it while you can.
Other things. There are other things, because not all things are good or pretty or nice. Things are cruel. Things are bad. Things are ugly and you wonder how anyone could live through that, how anyone could put someone else through that, how anyone, anywhere, could allow something like that to happen to another human, another person. It is not always war. It is not always genocide or violence or the systematic destruction of a way of life. Sometimes it's so small and personal that you wouldn't even know it was happening if you did not walk up on it twice in one week.
These are the times that I smile at the idea that it cannot last forever. Eventually it will stop. At some point. If I just wait long enough nature will force its end. One of us will die. One of us will leave the other behind, for good and for all, and we will sever whatever it is that connects us. Because right now, still, after everything, there is still that thing. That thing that draws me to you and the thing that sends you to me and the thing that keeps you in ink and me in shock. Whatever that thing is, it cannot last forever. I know this. Maybe, if I just wait long enough.
I do not know how to live my life. I do not know if the things that I believe make any sense. I don't know why things happen the way they do and I don't know why things that seem to be right turn out to be so, so wrong. I don't know if kindness and consideration are the best idea under all circumstances, anymore. I don't know. I don't know how I am supposed to keep doing this, months, years later, I don't know how I can continue to hold off what I know is coming, which is the inevitable confrontation. I don't know what I would want the result of that to be, to answer her question. I have no idea what I wish would happen. I want things that I cannot have. I do not want things that are thrust upon me. I want to be the best I can be and I selfishly want to be rewarded for that. With happiness. I want to pull out my kidney and offer it to something, anything, and in return ask only that this thing, this other, be taken away, so that I can live my fucking life without it. I would give anything.
But if it went, I would not know how to feel. Because as much as it eats at me, it is like the tar that protects your lungs from the cancer. It's like chemotherapy. It makes me sick. It makes me weak and tired and it makes me question whether any of it is worth the work, but it also gives me something to work for, it keeps me up. It is motivational. Keeps me sharp. On the lookout, you know. I can't get away from it but what I can do is workworkwork to make sure that I am prepared, that I am always ready. Which is necessary. And exhausting. I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to wonder what you want and I don't want to wonder what I am supposed to do and I don't want to wish that you would disappear and I don't want to wish that you would show up at my door. I don't want any of that. I want to make those decisions. I want to decide that I have had enough, that I can cut that off and not miss it, that you will lay it on MY altar and I will deem it unsuitable. And that I can go, and continue, and not be forever wondering whether you were going to brave it one more time. Because as painful as it is to do this again, I am really scared that I will convince you to do what I want, finally.
It has to end, at some point. Ultimately, everything that we do has to end. Everyone we know, everyone we love, everything you see will die or deconstruct or in some way...end. No matter how good or bad we think or know that we have it, it is not going to last.
Usually this is not something that I care to think about. The end of things. The end of my friends, the end of my children, the end of the trees that are just now tall enough to stand without stakes. But I know this is true, and sometimes it makes pretty things prettier and nice things nicer and goodness, well, better. Because you know that it will be gone, thus you take the best care of it while you can.
Other things. There are other things, because not all things are good or pretty or nice. Things are cruel. Things are bad. Things are ugly and you wonder how anyone could live through that, how anyone could put someone else through that, how anyone, anywhere, could allow something like that to happen to another human, another person. It is not always war. It is not always genocide or violence or the systematic destruction of a way of life. Sometimes it's so small and personal that you wouldn't even know it was happening if you did not walk up on it twice in one week.
These are the times that I smile at the idea that it cannot last forever. Eventually it will stop. At some point. If I just wait long enough nature will force its end. One of us will die. One of us will leave the other behind, for good and for all, and we will sever whatever it is that connects us. Because right now, still, after everything, there is still that thing. That thing that draws me to you and the thing that sends you to me and the thing that keeps you in ink and me in shock. Whatever that thing is, it cannot last forever. I know this. Maybe, if I just wait long enough.
I do not know how to live my life. I do not know if the things that I believe make any sense. I don't know why things happen the way they do and I don't know why things that seem to be right turn out to be so, so wrong. I don't know if kindness and consideration are the best idea under all circumstances, anymore. I don't know. I don't know how I am supposed to keep doing this, months, years later, I don't know how I can continue to hold off what I know is coming, which is the inevitable confrontation. I don't know what I would want the result of that to be, to answer her question. I have no idea what I wish would happen. I want things that I cannot have. I do not want things that are thrust upon me. I want to be the best I can be and I selfishly want to be rewarded for that. With happiness. I want to pull out my kidney and offer it to something, anything, and in return ask only that this thing, this other, be taken away, so that I can live my fucking life without it. I would give anything.
But if it went, I would not know how to feel. Because as much as it eats at me, it is like the tar that protects your lungs from the cancer. It's like chemotherapy. It makes me sick. It makes me weak and tired and it makes me question whether any of it is worth the work, but it also gives me something to work for, it keeps me up. It is motivational. Keeps me sharp. On the lookout, you know. I can't get away from it but what I can do is workworkwork to make sure that I am prepared, that I am always ready. Which is necessary. And exhausting. I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to wonder what you want and I don't want to wonder what I am supposed to do and I don't want to wish that you would disappear and I don't want to wish that you would show up at my door. I don't want any of that. I want to make those decisions. I want to decide that I have had enough, that I can cut that off and not miss it, that you will lay it on MY altar and I will deem it unsuitable. And that I can go, and continue, and not be forever wondering whether you were going to brave it one more time. Because as painful as it is to do this again, I am really scared that I will convince you to do what I want, finally.
posted by machine central at 10:13 PM
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