Sunday, July 31, 2005

More

Today, the meds hit me hard. I could barely stand up most of the day, and I've felt totally sapped since last night. The evil hours after midnight plagued me all this week; I couldn't stand to write here. Every day is pain. Every day is hurt. Somehow, I manage to put on a good act for family and friends, but I can't take much more of this. The days drag on, and I can't tell what's real and what's imagined. My memories get all mixed up almost as I have them. Every day, the shuffle is different. Take this to heart: when I go, when I make my promise, you who read will be the first to know, and you won't be surprised.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Awake

I didn't want to deal with the evil hours of the morning after midnight today; I took three tranqs and my enormous pile of antipsychotics, antidepressants, with a thin little pill to ward off tardive dyskinesia, plus a pepsid to make sure it stays down. Like my doctor said on Friday, "It's not from lack of medication" that my problems continue. I woke up about a half hour ago, checked my email, my blog, and the blogs of my friends. Things seem better for them; it makes me happy. After reading Jaci's blog, I got a little bit of a pick-me-up and decided to make my first entry today not about madness, poetry, or loneliness. I decided to make a wound report. They're healing over, but I think I'll probably get a set of scars when it's all said and done.



Jaci's Blog

She's amazing. If only more people could be like her.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Let me go

Please. They won't stop. I can't get away. There's no rest, no peace, no normalcy, and no end in sight. The wounds on my hand only show the surface. My crow feather of discontent is too damn heavy. I think it's probably about 220 lbs, give or take. I feel like tranqing up and tranquing out. Nothing is safe.

Doctors

I've decided to tell the doctors everything. When everything turns irreversibly badly, I want there to be no doubt as to my state of mind, and the state of my condition. I'm close every night.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Take Notice

everything on this page, and on this site is copyright 2005 by Thomas Jackson

The Passing Glance

As I passed a bookshelf this morning, I saw:




I don't remember anything about the original picture, but I can gather that it was taken early in Cub Scouts as a Wolf scout. I'm sitting on a fence; I don't remember where. I was happy then, I think. Every day, I walk past this picture and I struggle to remember the happiness of my early youth. Nothing is off limits to my new perceptions. All memories are at hazard. I can't keep anything safe.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

On Trying Not to Read the Koran

I just had an IM conversation with a friend, and the topic turned to Islam. Now I'm sitting here trying not to read any more of the Koran. I don't need the conflict in my head right now. I've read the book before, and looking at it now just makes me angrier. Ugh. Why can't I keep my research focused on weird things like The Questing Beast? Why am I torturing myself by reading again a book that only causes pain to me? I don't want the knowlege this book has to offer, no matter how important it is to know what I know. I wish I remained ignorant in high school. Maybe then I would be able to act without counsel. Now I just fight an uphill battle with ignorance that won't believe in monsters, long leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night, no matter how monstrous some people become.

My friend Tarik is not evil. I hope he hasn't read what I read. I pray for him a lot, if only to keep a bit of contact through the haze that's been opaque since high school. Back then I knew many good muslims. I thought their book would reflect well on their manners and easy friendships. Now I read the Ninth Chapter and wonder if they considered me immune or not. The other day, I got called a bigot by a friend, someone I love. I read. I feel. I love. I'm not a bigot. I'm just a confused man who knows too many good people, and too much of the Koran. I don't want what I read to be real, but I'm confronted every day by the evidence at hand. When my friend Tarik visited New York in the late nineties, after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, he said that the security would not let his family take the tour. I thought it was awful. I thought that bigots ruled the world, and that Islam was on equal footing with every other faith. I wish I remained that way. If losing my knowlege of Islam would mean that those that have suffered would not suffer, I would gladly trade it in. Now I just wonder about the ninth chapter and the Immunities. My father was recently offered a job in Baghdad. He was a U.S. Army intelligence officer for twenty years. I read the immunities in the Ninth Chapter to figure out his status. I don't want to remember my conclusion: He would be immune to Allah's protection. He would be next.

I hate my life. If I could be next, and my death meant everyone would see the truth, I'd gladly die. Of course, the question isn't about dying as Christ died. The question is killing how Christ refused to kill at the Garden of Gethsemane. The question is how much do we want to be immune from Allah's protection? We, as Americans, are not often presented the opportunity to die as Christ did. Our deaths would either be meaningless examples of religion gone mad, as interpreted by the liberal press, or our deaths would be ignored by a world that considers death commonplace. I would like to think that three thousand dead Americans is enough blood money to buy worldwide sympathy. It is far too little. Now we're faced with thousands more dead, and ten times that many by our own hand, just to prove that Allah's protection is meaningless.

Now, my vote has to choose: more dead Americans for more blood money, or more dead Muslims to prove their god is powerless. My desire is to be ignorant, because then I could just choose to look away no matter who dies.

Monday, July 18, 2005

The Questing Beast

When he was new, I wanted power. I sought power through adopting his ideals: strength, endurance, and willpower. I saw him and I became one with him. He is of me as much as I am of him. The strange beast on the back of my left hand is the result. I can chase him, I can poke his eyes out, and slash his lips apart, but I cannot catch him so others may see the object of my torment. Now, as the chase lengthens and leaves a long shadow on every evening of my life, I cannot make others see him as I see him. This is my best result, as it stands witness to Friday. If looked upon hard enough, the traces of his features are presented in pain.



The mythological Questing Beast eluded King Pellinore for the knight's entire life. It bears the head of a serpent, the body of a leopard, the legs of a lion, and the feet of a hart. It is a product of demonic consort over a jilted woman's incestuous lust for her brother. It appears every so often in Arthurian legends such as Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur as a reminder of Arthur's encounter with Margause. Even the best men can be unwittingly condemned by fate and circumstance to chase glory in the form of a prize, be it questing beast, round table, or holy grail.

Close

I'm close. I don't think anyone wants to see that, but my problems are Legion. This is not about being down, being blue, lovsickness, loneliness, or unhappiness, although I know all those; this is about how far I have to go for peace. I want to tranq up and sleep forever. My every waking moment is laced with suspicion, false information, and an uncanny ability to misinterpret even the smallest bit of my life. Everyone that hurts me gets ahead in life, from Dad to Gary to the rest; everyone seems better off when I'm in pain. A moment or two of normalcy and society would help, but I can't grasp it. I could wait for more information before I make the decision, but what's the point? Doctors will mislead me, family will demand progress where none is possible, and people in general will expect of me acomplishment beyond my now-meager faculties. I don't want to be fed twelve step garbage by people with voluntary diseases like alcoholism and drug addiction. Those programs assume there's a salvagable person and a choice to be made alongside or beneath the substance. I'm all madman. With me, it's never about choices, decisions, or repairing the past. I never had a choice to be sick. I can't decide not to be schizophrenic, and my past is never the same thing twice in my decaying memory. If I hear one more addict tell me to go to therapy, stick with it, and talk it out, I'm going to off myself on the spot. Don't you fools see? There isn't any therapy for this! There's no will strong enough to break it, and no special little program that can make it all feel better afer a few weeks. There are only false hopes fed by doctors, relapses as sure as taxes, just as common but less regular, and lies I feed those around me to avoid the shame of complete exhaustion and defeat.

The only time when I can choose my own destiny is when I'm close, and nobody wants to see that.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

I Can't Escape

It's before midnight, so I'm ok right now. However, they never leave me alone these days. I can't get away from the laughter or the rest. Every thought is pain, every moment is haunted by the hurt in my past. I don't want to be so damn lonely, isolated, and down, but it doesn't really look like I have a choice. Usually, if I'm around people, I can keep it in more, but lately that doesn't even work. I'm tired. I'm so weary of it all. I want love, understanding, and a clear mind; I think those things will always evade me, no matter what.

Am I OK?

"Are you OK?" it's a question I hear a lot. Usually, I give an uninspired affirmative because people in general don't want to hear the truth: I've come to accept life at a significantly lower level of participation and achievement than I did in the past. If I knew in 1997 what I know now, I would have pulled the trigger again. No question, no compromise, just bang. I feel like my doctors mislead me into false hope, while my friends and family ask unreasonable conditions of my continued existence. How exactly am I supposed to tell my Mom that I seriously think about suicide several times daily? My fantasy this week is swinging on a cable wrapped around the I-beam in the basement. The doctors have no idea what it's like to be on the inside of a psychotic mind. Every thought is trapped, and every memory is subject to change and alteration, usually for the worse. I don't feel safe around the doctors; they stuff me full of pills. These pills are toxic; I just want some of them to operate as prescribed. The people closest to me demand that I don't off myself, demand continued improvements in my symptoms, and furthermore demand that I smile and like it. "At least you're not dead" some of them say. Those people don't have to listen to prester Bane, and can be reasonably sure the memories that matter most stay the same, like a first love, a true love, and the first birthday party when no one needed to help blow out the candles. I want to make everyone happy; I want to make the doctors feel vindicated in their prescriptions, but I can't. I want the strength to soldier on, stoically staring madness in the face and not flinching an inch. I want the tools to express myself to where I'm understood, and not so lonely anymore. Unfortunately, the medication proved itself to be ineffective over time, and I've proven completely useless. I don't even have the strength to suffer gracefully. I'm not starving, freezing, or dying of thirst; I have a mental illness. There are people out there who cling to lives less rewarding than mine just to feel the thrill and sensation of life. There are some people who will beg at gunpoint to see tomorrow, and I will beg the same way to never rise again. Tomorrow will come, and I will be no closer to happiness than I was in February 1997, everything I'd call happy has proven to be a lie. The crow feather of my discontent is heaviest in the morning's wicked hours before dawn, and I'm too weary to continue. Take me home, with a pill, or a Luger, or a fall.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Look at Me

Look at me. This is who I am. My eyes are a devil's workshop. Stare me in the hand. Maybe you'll finally see how right I was all along. This is not treatable. This is not a cry for help, or mercy. This is just desperation to be understood. My whole life hurts me; there's nothing it won't touch, and nothing it touches survives. I'm weary and at my wit's end. Stare me in the hand, and maybe you'll find a bit of me. Prester Bane tells me to look beautiful, but all I see is ugly; he has no face, and this evil in my hand has no name. Listen for a while, and you just might hear him beckoning; don't listen too long, or you'll hear too much.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Tiny Voices Grow

Hello our old friend. You should know our names by now. He doesn't want your help, or your love. He only wants our mercy. When none is forthcoming, he will make a promise. Tonight his promise is three tranqs and the will to see tomorrow. Tomorrow always held such promise, didn't it? Tomorrow is today, and he will die alone, we promise.

Friday, July 08, 2005

Constructions

It started with the dawn: red hanging about white with little bits of blue peeking through the crimson ringlets. I stared into the sunrise, and it took me from my origins in deep water only to leave its impressions on me reaching for the distant sky in a moment already gone. For the rest of the day, I scoured the sky for crimson ringlets and round white puffs. I wrote poems on my memories and examined every cloud for remanents of the dawn; I found nothing. Even the tremble of a superficially similar sunset seemed inadequate. By the time I stopped looking for a red sunrise, I stood in a different moment, as clouds became drawn against the impending night, with only the last hint of artificial red. In the darkness, I blinded myself to the future and the truth: every step trusted the night and only the night. A cool drink of water, and an undying devotion to the directions of the night lead me back to the water's edge. Despite my better judgement, I followed the darkness down into the water; the night promised me its secrets, like a diary or confession in the muted words of a long-kept secret. The phantoms in the night swim better than my battered body; whether they escaped me or I escaped them is an issue for argument and rhetoric, but my hand is empty, my future is uncertain, and I don't know where to begin again. Nothing was real, from the dawn to dusk, to late evening, and the wicked hours of morning before dawn. My imagination seized my common sense, and now I'm back in the deep water, lovesick none the wiser.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Last

This is the last line I want to write of her.

The Monster Speaks

I hate who I am. Everything around me always turns worse. I had to tear someone down on my friend Jaime's blog. Nik is evil, but I still hate doing this. I don't want to be a monster, but the costume follows me around. Jaime loved him in a way I don't think she can love me, ever; I had to show her his predatory nature. I want to bring her happy news, but apparently I'm good for nothing but verbal fisticuffs. The truth is sad, but the lies are worse. I walk the straight and narrow; sometimes it's harder than it should be.

http://xiporah.blogspot.com/2005/07/changes.html#comments

Why the hell am I crying?