Don Mann: Focusing on my Craft

Monday, Dec. 01, 2003 - 4:27 a.m.

I no longer understand this thing that I have become. My thoughts are all over the place, my writing henceforth probably unintelligible, its meaning lost in some bizarre translation I know you will administer to it.

My mind is in darkness now. I'm beginning to believe that the mask I have created has grown, disproportionate to my needs, encompassing all of my frailty and weakness...making not even a nuance of my true self reveal itself.

I wonder if it really is true, if when someone looks into my eyes, when they stare at my face if there is no glimmer of pain, no real outward appearance of inner grieving, no solid proof of what I say.

I could take your head in my hands, in that moment as we are face to face I could scream, explaining all I feel and this tangible pain of this life and how it burns inside of my soul...but you'd laugh and truly believe it was some sort of complex joke.

My sense of humor a coping method, avoidance at all costs of real life consequence and pain, all left in queue to build up and weigh down my tired soul. I have no sense of humor, I am a rat which climbs the walls to escape the maze.

With each second I live I understand more and more the "Cry-for-help" suicide scenario, the triggers pulled in moments of tangible and unsurmountable misery, the nooses tied in silent acceptance, the wrists and veings torn in a vague hope in another world not quite as stagnant as this one. I understand that rebellious scream which resounds silent against stone walls, and falls upon deaf ears.

I'm not certain my spirit can support this corpse which drags it down to this cold rock...

I try so hard to isolate this problem, to figure out what's beating apart my brain, what's tearing through my insides like a thousand razors, this raw pessimism and bleakness which haunts my every step. What does fate have in store for me, this empty dream that my life is predetermined? My past clouds my perception with guilt, my present a flurry of pessimism. Optimism died in halls which echoed with the screams of the helplessly out of control. Pessimism was born from the death of a helpless boy whose life was held carelessly in my unsteady hands. Life is not worth living when you hate the life you've led.

If you stare into the eyes of someone you love, and there is no one there loving you back...that is when the pain will come. It won't strike you there, it will tear at your brains in dreamtime, it will mutilate your heart in the black gloom of solitary desperation. Perhaps someday you may understand. I sincerely hope you do not.

I just wonder if every letter I type, ever syllable I speak is really making any kind of impact, either on myself or on anything at all. A yell could upset an ant and never stir an army.

I could pour my heart out more into this heartless machine, but as ardent and selfless as I try to be all I feel is regret and guilt. I'll never atone for who I was by being someone I'm not.

~Don

11 Days, 21 hours, 40 Minutes, 8 seconds

Delve Into The Past - Onward Into The Future