The Difference

Right now, I hate my imagination. I use it too much as a substitute for genuine emotions, connections, friendships and love. Every time I pick up a pen, I wish for understanding in the results. Imagining connections, I do nothing but write more; it never seems to pan out into truthful human relations. As my desperation spirals out of control, I think the answer can be found at the bottom of a page through the efforts of an empty inkwell. No matter what I write, I find myself alone at the end. That's why my failed tries at relationships infuriate me; when I think I've found genuine understanding and love, I eventually find those emotions to exist entirely in my imagination. I write my feelings furiously, only to find those verses meaningless but to themselves: no matter how I write, my efforts bring me nothing. "Stitches" means nothing to anyone but me.

Without my writing, I feel I'm nothing. Like Rilke says, I must write or I do not exist. Without my poems, and increasingly this blog, I don't sense a reason to continue.

Tonight, my demons will haunt me. I'll lie and say it's ok, eventually. I'll write and I'll live a life in conditions I considered unacceptable in 1997. That's the difference between 1994 and 2006: the writing. In the black expanse of my thoughts and memories between the years live my verses. They are loose collections of depression, obsession, psychosis, and hope that never connect except in my imagination.

My imagination is enough to say that everything on this site is copyright 2006 by Thomas Jackson, so don't steal it.