Current Music Selection: Breaking Benjamin?Phobia

Current State: Hungry

Current Mood: Exhausted

So I?ve had a long week. After taking three months off, I?ve recently begun working at an up-scale restaurant in Palo Alto as a server. Not only has this new job interfered with my writing but has contributed to my depressed state as of late. Let me explain.

Have you ever heard of the theory of doppelganger? Basically it?s the theory that everyone has a twin somewhere out there. Like maybe two people with the same soul separated somehow in the cosmos. The bad part, they say one is evil and one is good.

If you?ve read my poetry then maybe you?ve read about a boy named John that dominates my thoughts. Well, I met his doppelganger.

Not that Brandon is the evil one, far from it actually. If anything John was the evil one and Brandon is like this brilliant light shining in the darkness. But it still sucks, because now I have to see John on a daily basis. Like I need more reminders about that fucked up relationship and that olive skinned boy that mind fucked me.

It?s really uncanny, their similarities don?t end at looks, though I swear they could be twins. Both are slight of build and short, same dark hair filled with product in a mess of spikes. Both have intense green eyes that are filled with mystery and hint at unknown passions. They speak alike; enunciating the same, drawing out the vowels in an accent that can only be Northern California?s mix of culture. They have the same tastes in music, movies and both have addictions.

John fucked up my world and now, I have to work with his other self. The first time I saw Brandon, I actually said, ?John.? And even now, I still at times call him John, much to Brandon?s amusement. Though I?ve never told Brandon about his resemblance to John, I don?t think the twenty-year-old could handle it.

In the last ten days, I?ve thought a lot about John and our summer of sex and drugs. And the reasons I seem to attract such disturbing relationships. I know my past haunts me and dictates my behavior. I know if I can?t find some way to lay these demons to rest, I?ll never find peace.

So with advice from my roommate, Daniel, I?m going to voluntarily seek help. I?ve made an appointment with a therapist and Tuesday I?ll have my first session. I don?t know how much help she can offer but I don?t want to feel this way anymore.

So one last time, I?ll let John dominate my thoughts. Below is a piece I wrote three years ago called Nothing Like Human. It shows my state of mind and despair. One last time I will share it before putting it away forever.

Cheers until we meet again,

Jason R.

Nothing like Human

By: Jason R.

I?m afraid of my own mental state

I believe you know it?s a tenuous grip on reality at best

And I can not stand to face my fears

The longer I wrap myself with lies

The longer I can deny my fear

I am nothing like human

No?not I

Humans have a desire to be happy

To know love and to be loved

At least I know where my fear began, do you

I understand my webs of deceit even as I deny them

My life has been one long secret

Love hidden in shadows

Scared to let the sun penetrate the darkness of my love

Joy realized only in the embrace of the night

Scattered illusions when the sun crested the dawn

Pretty ironic for the boy who only wanted to find the sun

I need some blue skies

Maybe I am Hemmingway

Tortured you once claimed

Not quite right in the head

Honesty is the enemy and I hated you for that

I hated your clarity and intuition

I hated your knife that cut through my delusion

And forced me to reflect with the truth

I hated your manipulations

Your icy silences

I hated your volume

I hated the calm before the storm

I hated your coercion

And I hated your intimidation

And I hated your complete disregard for me

I hated your explosions and your casualness of coldness

I hated your alcohol breath

And I hated your seduction

Even as I was consumed by your words

And torn between fear and lust

Even though I was uncomfortable

I allowed it to happen

Your manipulations were as deft as mine

Neither were harmless yet maybe

Both were unintentional

I hated your temper

The drama that surrounds you

Pushes you to end things noisily

But mainly I was afraid of rejection

Nothing started on a fabricated destiny will last

My own web of bullshit returns to haunt me again

And there was fear

I feared you

And to a point?I still do

But now for different reasons

But only to a point

Since I now understand you

You were easy to understand

When I took the time to look

I no longer hate you

Hate is an emotion I can no longer afford

Could it be we two are alike

Stolen innocence long before toys were put to rest

Long before we should have ever had to choose like adults

I was a child

Innocence taken by a priest

Forced to grow up

With scratches on my back

And bite marks on my ear

I wonder what was your instrument of damnation

An Uncle perhaps

Or some other relative

I had to be close to you

For to this day prompts you to be wary even in slumber

Shallow and scared you still run from the dark

I know, I wake up in sweats still reliving those months of torture

Sleep eludes me

Even without stimulates I sleep in stolen moments between nightmares

Maybe the drugs ingested are a substitute

For the nightmares that haunt us

Or you may be right

That my own perverse mentality leads me

Drives me?Controls me

Until my jaded outlook on life destroys all things good and pure around me

Until happiness eludes me

Jaded

Looking back on the mess of shit I spewed around you

Can I blame you for the reception I received

When all you have are the lies to piece together the puzzle

Then the distorted picture that emerges could only frighten you

Push you away

Force you to make that decision

Maybe not the decision you wished

But the only decision I gave you

Realistically a choice was never made

One avenue of escape was presented

You took that step

I pushed you

And it was easy

You wanted that push

I fulfilled it

I can not be trusted

Those words ring in my head like a mantra

Repeating over and over until even I believe them

But for every lie I entrusted to you

I received two in return

I lied to you

And you lied to me

About me

Against me

Hatred fueling your words till perceptions were skewed

And for a time

You won

A brief season of celebration you enjoyed

I know

I heard the clapping

I felt the jubilation in your words

And I smiled

My greatest strength is I truly don?t care what others think

I always said the greatest joke in the world is the joke no knew you played

For through this all

You?ve amused me

I sit back and wonder how badly I must have crept under your skin

To cause those feelings inside you

After all

Hate without love is powerless

And your hate was strong

Again I laugh at the perfect hatred emanating from you

My manipulation was deft

My target destroyed

For my life is a jumbled mess of misconceptions

Interpreted by those that saw through my bullshit

And called me on it

I respect those that see me for the liar I am

I respect you though I hate to be around you

No one likes to be reminded of the failure they?ve become

But respect is there

An unspoken fondness for you

Yet you seem to struggle with this fondness

Unsure of how to proceed

I like to believe you only wished to help me

Change me somehow

Or maybe you only wanted to understand

Understanding is the key to change

And can I change

Not in your eyes

And I really can?t blame you for that

Nor will I try to make you understand

For I have no cause to explain myself

Right or wrong

Past is past

And I?ll live for today

And sometimes

Some people just aren?t worth the effort

But how long can you try to understand

Before the struggle becomes more than you can bear

Will it drain you

Change you

Alter your meager threshold of pain

Will it break you mentally

Until there is no gesture of goodwill left in your already fragile mind

You lasted longer than I thought possible

Longer than anyone else

The respect grows

So does the un-comfortableness

I sat there in the dark

Plotting

Night after night

Wondering what it would take to finally push you to the limit

What could I do to break whatever feeling you had left for me

Hatred

Now that?s something I understand all to well

Seeing the avenue before us was life changing

For it was wide and straight

Opposite of the twisted subversive alley you accuse me of dwelling in

Telling our friends I walk in shadow

Jaded

I saw my way out and made you make the decision

For if anyone couldn?t handle us

It was me

You were right about a lot of things

Your intuition astounds me

Even when your motivation is in question

After all

Your motives were never clear

I know

Mine mirrored yours

Manipulation is my weapon

I?ll give you that one

But sex is yours

Your body the knife that cuts deeper than any sword

Your smile that destroys

Mirroring a hurricane ripping and tearing the shore

But who is affected most

The victim

Or you

When I couldn?t make myself over

Into your distorted vision of what we should be

I manipulated you into hating us

It was easy

One conversation

One fight

One word

Goodbye

Marionette on wires

You danced to my tune

The puppet master

The piped piper

And if I made you uncomfortable

All the better

Self-preservation is paramount

A lesson you know well

You perfected it even as I have

But you have nothing to fear from me

Only those I hate need fear me

And I don?t hate you

These words may not reach you

I know you

You?ll walk around them

Ignore them

Wishing them away will be your game

And though on the outside you will discount them

On the inside you?ll be grateful to have read them

To understand the right side of my mind

This part of me I hold close

Close like a junkie holding his syringe

For these words are alive

Brought forth by my own desperate need to understand myself

Given breath by every keystroke of my hand

I will affect you

Complicate

And erect you with these words

This spoken question in written form

Will confuse you

But also wrap you tightly in a kind of tangled hope

That I am not the man I was

Or the man you thought me to be just a few weeks ago

In a fit of anger

You once told me to write down what I wanted to say to you

Accusing me of being unable to convey my emotions in spoken words

I hope I made myself clear in these words

Though I believe it will not matter

Scar tissue erodes my soul and suffers me a fate of loneliness

My life is one long scar

I wear it proudly

Invent reasons to stay hard

Unfeeling

And when I begin to feel

I create situations to destroy that feeling

Why

A question that will never be answered

For no one will try long enough to receive the answer

I will not allow it anyway

Just as you weren?t allowed inside

Seeing anger

Hate

Indifference in your eyes

Is easier than seeing any form of love

Surrounded by my fantasy

My delusions accept me like no human will

Looking back on my life

I can blame no one for the choices I?ve made

I can hate no one for any reactions I receive

Though maybe someday I?ll prove I?m something like human

Until then

Don?t think of me in anger

Hate

These emotions will ruin your life

Instead

Think of me in pity

It?s more than I deserve

And all I ever receive

Wednesday, April 15th, 2003

7:08 PM