The room was dark and a voice cried out "I'm gonna hit you so hard, that cartoon words will suddenly appear to cover up the physical violence I am going to do to you."

   Thinking back on my childhood I begin to realize that I really had no place in the world with this family. Mom and Dad were not very nice people and had major drug problems. Plus the fact they were fucking assholes. Raised by my Father's grandparents. Despised by other immediate family. Viewed as a dysfunctional interloper into and already dysfunctional family unit. My time growing up was one of mere tolerance, disdain and burden. Always there, always weighing the family down. Hushed whispers about the truth of my existence between aunts and uncles and cousins. Always begrudgingly included and always certainly made to be left behind while the others had their fun. I was the anchor. The adopted stone. Holding down and holding back the enjoyment and advancement of others. So I must suffer their rage and frustration and suffer it I did.

   Name calling and bullying, broken toys, and physical abuse. Mental abuse as well and all because I simply existed through no fault of my own. It's only years later... now that many suppressed memories are coming back and all of them unpleasant. I face what I can on a day to day basis and days where it all becomes to much I run for the safety of Ativan and Gabapentin and mind numbingly sit and play video games till nothing stirs in my brain but white noise.

    As I got older I started to notice certain things that were going on with me. Had I seen it or heard about it as if another person was experiencing it I would have immediately said PTSD.  We so often attribute PTSD with those that may have suffered through the tragedy of war or natural disaster but we so often forget those that have suffered physical abuse at the hands of a family member. Time really does heal all wounds, and you learn to cope, deal and soon to function beyond the PTSD, the memories of ass-whooping, smacks to the side of the head. The beatings, all out of no where, suddenly, unwarranted, landing like a artillery shell right on your face. Explosive and damaging far beyond the physical realm. As far reaching as the rest of my life will carry me. They say that you must learn to forgive but that's a process I never want to have. Never will I forget or forgive and if there is a hell in the after life I hope that fucker is in it and there's a special place for him there.

   My hope comes from Ativan, Gabapenten, sometimes Dilaudid. Maybe, occasionally a frozen mixed drink pouch from Walmart. Sleep comes in sweet, dreamless, soft, all encompassing pharmaceutical blankets that I cuddle in and with it's toasty warm mind numbness I find peace, and solace. And after I took enough drugs all the pain and seizures subsided leaving me feeling as empty as the pill bottles and empty casings on the floor. But I was alive and that .... had to count for something.

   My heart was already on the other side. I just needed a way to move the rest of me there. It's hard to exit from that perfect moment. It pulls you in and plays itself over and over in your head. There's a terrible wanting need to be touched and to touch. The way lovers do when lying close to one another. My hands, cold and longing for the feel of warm flesh in their grasp. Tracing, delicately sliding along living tissue. Glory in the senses of touch. My love is always lost. Just a bit out of reach and it's ever so maddening never to touch it. 

   My body is so broken, beyond physical repair. No hope for recovery. I'm so tired it hurts to move. It just makes me hate the world more and it just makes me hate myself more and more. It makes me hate everyone who's happy and successful. Those perfect families, with their perfect kids, going on perfect vacations, posting pics of the wonderful time they had. All the wonderful places people go and the exciting things they do. Those perfect little romances that happen and those school crushes that turn into wonderful marriages and people that can keep their shit together.

   I got left behind as a child as a school mate, as a friend, as a husband, as a father and I'm finding new and interesting ways to fuck up a terminal illness. Where is my way in all this? What was the purpose of all this? I only wanted to be included. I only wanted some acceptance.

   So many people denied me that back then as a child and the emotional wrecks of yesterday is where people like me continue to live them on daily in our thoughts and at night in our dreams. I thrive on them. They are the life preservers of tomorrow. Some of you left me adrift and drowning in the ocean of false friendship and some of you went out of your way to make life miserable. I've never forgotten anything. Sometimes memories are what keep me going. Other days I wonder.....  Maybe sleep comes later and total dreamless unconsciousness till morning. My ability to function hinges on those times where life becomes a chemical black hole of forgetfulness and therein can I carry on normally and laugh and smile at the sunshine on my face.

    I knew that existence was subjective. Life truly is what you make it. I now understand the world is a psychotic schizophrenic. Psychopathic with sexual, cannibalistic, PTSD and identity disorders.

Seems silly to think about all that now. There were darker places to discover within the imprisoned me. It had always been dark in there and the voice never stopped taunting. Ever since he was trapped in this god forsaken place. He kept thinking and he didn't know why. What was the point? Fat and stupid and dumb .... ... because no one can ever really change who they are on the inside. Maybe it was boredom or maybe he was trying to remember something. Remember, what was the point? His name, his job, his life gone. All because of this room. This damn room. What the hell had he done to deserve this fate. Where is the door? Why try. It's locked, and you know it is. Maybe someone would hear him. The walls were thick and padded. Nothing was getting out or in. Most times I never meant to cause any harm, but suddenly there were times that sent my soul screaming and I needed to intervene for the sake of providence .. and then sometimes I just wanted to cause chaos. Chaos. Where did he read about chaos?

"And all of Nether emptied out in one great, gloriously, evil belch and all the Devils came here to us because there was such fun to be had the like of which that had NEVER been seen in Heaven or Hell." - The Hangman's Knot

   The first thing you lose when you start give up on love is a sense of family. If indeed it was not was destroyed within the dysfunctional-ism of the family to begin with. This then leads to lack of love, trust and commitment issues later on when attempting to become romantically involved with someone. It's a sorry state of affairs to attach oneself to another knowing that there is only failure and heartbreak at the end. I suppose it's expected of most people that they should settle down and pop out a brood of children. In moments of despair I find that the closer the pill bottles are to the bed the more comfortable I sleep. I am far, far away from me. Through hills & valleys of thought have I walked & walked them in measured steps that are unending. 

   I guess dying alone would be better that dying in front of someone one. All that gagging and gurgling and farting and shitting everywhere. Ew. Internet and cable has been down for the last 12 hours. I have officially lost my shit. Vehicle crash took out power n cable poles last night at 6:30- 7pm EST. It JUST now came back on this minuet.

   I'm not going to dress up for Halloween this year. Just going to lie around like always stare into the abyss and slip slowly into madness.

All those naps I didn't take in kindergarten I want them all back right now

   It is the curse of man to seek glory in battle. Even worse, he cannot realize the hopelessness of his attempts. Oh, he may feel some regret, cutting down a mother and child, a warrior may feel that the blood staining his hands will never wash away but the human race forgets all the shame and pain of taking a life, blinded by ...the ideals of victory. Such was the fate of mankind. To destroy itself. They never comprehended just how close to that destruction they truly were.

Do you hear that? ........That's the call of a wild me... not giving a fuck.

Now that I'm all grown up I'm watering my house plants instead of smoking them.

Instead of going to therapy, I’m using Buzzfeed quizzes to figure out my life.

   When I was younger I'd wake up and say "Holy shit, I'm alive." Now that I'm much older when I wake up I say, "Awe shit, I'm alive."

   What type of comedian am I? One of the cool ones that over analyzes everything & by asking I've answered my question.
  
 I'm thinking about getting a cat ...
  ... or a small retarded dog.

   So after a weekend of anxiety and panic attacks I managed to pull myself together and get back on routine. I promised myself 3 laps around my apartment building and I did 4. See I always promise myself what I know I can do, then I always try to do one more. Now next time I will promise myself 4 laps around the apartment building and try for 5. That took about 21 min to do... so I came up and got on the excer-bike and did almost 10 min on the low setting before my legs gave out.
    I've always believed that emotion ties directly in with the physical. As the saying goes healthy body healthy mind, cleanliness is next to Godliness, happy wife, happy life. Ok, well, 2 out of three ain't bad and that fucking bitch can go fuck herself.
 My health like many other people is tied to my emotional well being. Coming from a shit family, with shit lives it's no wonder that I am in the condition that I'm in today..... BUT the blame only goes so far and at some point you have to pull your panties up, put on your big boy, or big girl pants and start taking responsibility for yourself, for your actions, and for that inordinately large ass behind you back.

Can I get a prayer!!!!
 When I was alone you comforted me.
 When I was so very sad you made me smile.
 In times of need you were there in my hand.
 When the world laughed at me you made me take that frown and turn it up side down and laugh right back at the at the world.
 When they said I wouldn't run wild naked up the interstate you gave me the courage to do it. AMEN! Thank you Jose Cuervo. From the bottom of my heart thank you!

   Sorry everyone. Panic attack. Fight or flight mode activated. Bunkered down for the last 15 hours. More later. Time to go back and hide in my pillow fort. This liquid diet of vodka, NyQuil, SlimFast, and tears is really working for me. Life don't ever hold anything back. When it comes... it comes crashing down around you, crushing you till you can't breathe. I deactivated my Twitter... to fucking toxic, to miserable, fucking losers.

   Everything fails 100% of the time. Everything is shit again.. always shit. I must have been a real assholes in my last life.

   I'm missing a page out of my thesaurus so I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that.

Whew.. That was nice. Air out all your dirty laundry and get that personal private shit off your chest.
 NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP NO ONE CARES.

Can I get a AMEN and PRAYERS, a LIKE, and a SHARE and a smiley emoji and an amusing GIF, because somewhere, something bad is happening to some people and vegetarianism, glue is made from horse hooves, a sack of puppies in a lake, and the floor is lava. God Bless!

   People say they want you to be happy but what they really want is for you to be the version of yourself that makes them most comfortable. What you all have failed to realize is that there is no end to my weirdness or how far I am willing to go to impose my weirdness on you.

   I didn't know what was inside me anymore. Nor could I express desire of any outward kind. I was an aging lump of flesh just passing the time till the end." However he kept thinking..........

It was total madness.  I think back over that day. At first it seemed as if it was just anxiety and I am here now and I know, it was madness...
     

     It all began on the worst day of my life. My wife had died and I had loved her very much. It was a Monday when I got the news; a phone call at work, around lunch time; car accident; drunk driver; no survivors. My whole world shaking itself to pieces and I just walked around the office, from room to room as if looking for something. 
     

     That was a year ago today. Leaving work early I returned to my now empty home and more empty life. Running through he motions of cooking dinner I thought of all the times I had been with her. A fresh wave of sadness over took me. I walked to the couch and collapsed in a fit of sadness and depression. I did not move from the couch. Not to shower, not to go to bed, not to eat or anything. I lay there whimpering and sobbing till morning. I decided not to go to work. I left some sort of mumbled message on my voice mail to cover for my absence. One day turned into several and everything in my life was suffering for my inaction. I knew it all had to end. I needed it to end. I just woke up one morning and forced myself to go to work. I had slumped through the corridors and cubicles with no smile on my face, puffed and bloodshot eyes. In the cubicle of the office where I sat, I could hear the whole room chatting away happily, oblivious to me as I was to them. I was stuck in my own world, caught up in a torrent of pain and sadness for every time I thought of her. I felt as if a hole was where my heart should be, a blob of pain where my brain was. I was snapped out of my trance as my boss called out my name and asked why I was away. I simply replied with no emotion in my voice that I had been sick. I could hear mumbles and failed whispers about my 'condition'. The words 'depressed', 'suicidal' and 'nutcase' were being silently bounced around the room along with half stares and side glances in my direction.
      

     I looked up to see the group of co-workers from another section. My sadness grew into anger, they had messed with me often for the past two years and all I could think about was the various ways that they could die painfully. Something in me gave way and I told them about my wife. I blathered on for 10 minuets barely vocalizing in between the crying and sobbing. The whole room was silent for a moment as they all digested this. I had thought then that they should have apologized for treating me so cruelly and I told them so. Suddenly they sensed something was wrong about my expression and something that started at the back of my skull, slowly crept over the top of my head and slid down the front of my face.    As I rose to my feet, the anger practically dripping off me, a group of them moved into an office still whispering and chuckling amongst themselves as if I could not hear them. They closed the door behind them. Good, I had thought, no escape. 
     

     Reaching down I picked up the leather valise I had brought with me that day to work. I brushed past my boss and stopped for a moment. My boss's mouth was open as if he started to say something but he didn't and maybe he thought I was leaving but he was wrong, dead wrong. I opened the door, went inside and closed it behind me. The guys were still talking to each other around a large conference table and didn't notice me at first. I locked the door and dropped my bag to the floor and brought out the 9 mm handgun that I had purchased just that morning. I turned to them, dimly aware of the screams as the light reflected off the shiny chrome surface. One of my co-workers caught my eye and looked like she was going to shit herself. She promptly hid behind my other co-worker. I had not cared; I was only killing assholes. That's all, and I would be doing the world a favor.

     I had not noticed as my boss had broken in the door; so focused on my thoughts, come up behind me and grabbed the hand that held the gun. It startled me so that I dropped the gun and he stood triumphant, grinning like a hero when it fell to the floor. I elbowed him and pushed him away, picking up a nearby chair I smashed at his legs. He fell to the ground with a thud and an agonized groan. I turned back to the group, they were looking like little frightened rabbits. I giggled in spite of my self thinking be very, very quiet. I'm hunting rabbits. Maybe they were thinking I wouldn't kill them. They were wrong; they had pushed me over the edge, no more taking shit. No more abuse. I moved towards the man furthest right picked up the chair again and threw it at his legs. He tripped and fell. Reaching over quickly I picked the gun up off the floor, the handle sliding into my palm like a well fitting glove. I advanced and the other people cleared away as I came closer. As I held the gun, about to pull the trigger I felt hands come around me, my fool of a boss thinking I didn't have the gun anymore. I turned to him and shot him in the gut, heard his scream, then I aimed higher and I shot him directly in his left eye. His bowls evacuated as his head snapped back and he toppled over just like you see in cartoons sometimes.
 This made me giggle a little more and the room erupted. People were screaming and running in all directions. One woman actually ran into a wall and knocked herself out. I advanced on the group who were trying to scramble past me to the door. I didn't care for their pleads of mercy. I did not care about the tears and cries, and if they had cared about their own life they would have stopped messing with me sooner.
 I stabbed down a moment of pain, through the layers of suffering and left it in my heart to rot. Revenge tasted ever so sweet. I fired the gun until the clip was empty. There was smoke and the smell of sulfur and death swirling around my head. Turning around and surveying the room I saw my boss lay in a pool of his own brain, blood and feces. Some people stood outside the door looking in, horrified. Too horrified to move. I ejected the used clip walked over to my valise grabbed another one and inserted it into the magazine. I could hear fresh screams of panic and people running away but they had nothing to worry about, I was done. Empty like a clay jar baked by a suffering sun until dry and cracked with the lack of substance. I put the gun to my temple and pulled the trigger.

     Then of course like all good things it had to be ruined. I had to wake up in a emergency room surrounded by beepy things. My mind had registered awake, alive, strapped down. I found the wires for the machines with my fingers and pulled it out. The darkness set in again and yet I awoke again. My mind was seething. Why wouldn't they let me die! I was going to die anyway. I had just wanted to die by my own hands! I felt around and found the wires again, though when I reached them a hand grabbed my own held it still and tightly and someone injected something into my arm. I had slept a red dream of hazy telling. No deep blackness and bliss. Time passes in moments of light and dark shapes and sounds, transfixed by the ticking clock of my pain.

     I awoke again to the face of some Doctor and this time I was not in the emergency room. I tried to stretch my arms but found I was strapped to a bed. So this was what they had wanted me alive for. Mental institute. Must be the old one downtown. The big dark brown one behind those tall brick walls. The Doctor's words flew straight past me as time seemed to move extra fast, like I was an insect in a far larger world beyond my understanding but I did know, only all to well. As time passed the straps came off and the interviewing began. Non-stop day in and day out; talking, talking, always talking. Questions about how I feel, how I felt, how am I doing today, how was my night. I would have liked to have seen a fresh face once in a while, but no one else came except the doctors, nurses and orderlies. The betrayal I was performing was extra sweet. I had told them I was insane and I told them that only an insane person would say that they were insane and I they told me that if I was insane I'd never know it. How insane it that?
     

     In the end my life had been worth nothing. They couldn't even let me die; no they had to stick me in here and let me rot. This got my psychosis going into overdrive and I started a fight with this fat orderly named Fred. Fat Fred I called him. I bit his right ear off before they subdued me. He lay there holding the side of his head looking at me in horror and anger. I spit his own ear back at him laughing my fool ass off and screaming "Fat Fred, fat Fred!" He got up off the ground and walked to where the others were holding me down. The last thing I saw was this fat shit's size 12 shoe coming at me. 
     

     I awoke in a padded room to find my self jacketed. So, this is what they really mean when they say "The booby hatch." After half an hour and one dislocated shoulder later I had undone the clasp and broken part of it so there was a sharp edge. I cut through the jacket so my arms were free and snapped my shoulder back into place. It was a roughly sharp edge and I put it to good use again. Sitting down, I cut my wrists lengthwise, right on the vein. It hurt like fucking hell but it was done. No points scored by the visiting team for straight jacket design. This time I decided to leave a message. I wrote it on the wall in my own ink, being careful I wouldn't die before I finished it. When it was done I lay back against the padded walls and took in a deep breath. The wounds in my heart opened afresh and I accepted the pain and the bittersweet bliss of the darkness that followed.

On the wall near where they found me was written:

"Death is only the beginning, yet the beginning of an end and betrayal comes to us all."

And this time, I did not wake.

     I died on a Saturday in that awful place. At least I believe I am dead. I thought I was supposed to go someplace else, but I did not at that moment. It was raining when they buried me. I know this because I could feel the rain drumming against my coffin as it was lowered into the grave, a vengeful staccato beat blending with the soft thumps of soil hitting wood in the dark. I wanted to dig my fingers into the thin velvet lining, to gnash my teeth and tear out clumps of my hair. The embalming fluid was thick and frigid in my veins, and I could not move them.  I like to think that otherwise I could have willed movement into my corpse, splintering rough wood and tunneling through damp earth to freedom.

     They did bother to dress me, fixing me up as best they could, even though they just shoved me in this box. Why make the living look upon the deceased any longer than they have to? Bury the dead before they stink up the place. That's my motto. When I died I was staring through the bars on the window. I could see the big brick walls and part of the brown building I was housed in. It was raining then too. I was drooling on myself and trying to think why I couldn't get my mouth to speak or my body to move. I just sat there staring and suddenly, I was standing beside myself.

That was how they found me.

    Time does not move inside you; It moves around you. It doesn't rain in the in-between place. At first I thought I was still in the coffin, it was dark there too, but then a stream of light shot by, leaving a comet-trail of glowing ivory that illuminated me for long moments. I say it illuminated me only because there was nothing else to reflect the light. I studied myself in cold assessment, moved my pathetic excuse for what appeared as my limbs experimentally.

     I glided, with no ground beneath me. Pausing now and then to watch joyous, gleaming souls shoot up like stars. I assume it was up, at least. It was one of two directions in which they all went, and if they were descending, then I was upside down? It was more than I wanted to think about. Were they souls? If I looked hard enough, I thought I could distinguish shadows of faces.

     I decided that there were others there like me. I could not see them clearly, but occasionally we brushed each other. Even in the fleeting light brought by soaring ectoplasm, they were mostly hidden from me.

     Acidic tears streamed from the gaping holes where my eyes once were. I almost missed the first window into my life. A glimmer, the size and shape of a keyhole, at the level of my waist. I paced around it, not noticing as another toe cracked and fell off. I was down to three toes by then, and four fingers. Pieces of me kept dropping off. A bit of cloth here, a chunk of rot-mottled flesh there. Watching as my body decomposed in slow motion, I continued to see from my ragged sockets and so I bent over slightly to examine my discovery.

     My mother, folding laundry with jerky, stiff movements, setting aside clothes I recognized as my own. Biting her lip, her crystalline eyes were heavy-lidded and red-rimmed. I looked away, no longer having eyelids for protection, and let my mother go.

      It was harder when I found my father. As much as I loved my mother it was my Father who held my heart the most steadfastly growing up. I don't know how long I stayed at the keyhole. Watching him go through my meager possessions. Watching his pain as he gathered the small items and placed them on the kitchen table. As I watched him, he carefully arranged my things in neat little rows. A meticulously carved cross, a framed photo, a dog-eared book of poems, a china figurine ? I watched him plan my true memorial, and I let my father go.

Little by little, I let all of them all go.

     Finally there was nothing left of me. The bones became dust that disintegrated into nothingness. I chose to see myself as a form of mist. With nothing left, but my soul, and the threads binding me to life severed, I rose. Gaining speed as I shot in the direction I envisioned to be up, leaving a path of glowing essence behind, I shed it all. Life, body and soul. They no longer shackled me. As I dissolved into blissful oblivion, one thought lingered.

I am free.