alltheavenueslookugly

imagine running for years. it’s a long run that you were unprepared for. a run that you started when you were a child, and you have been running ever since.

once or twice or nine times a day – never a scheduled time – somebody that you don’t know and cannot see will come up from behind and kick your legs out from underneath you. you fall, you break your nose, along with teeth you might swallow dirt or gravel or whatever, and rather than being able to sit there in shock trying to figure out what happened – you are forced to stand up, smile, and just keep on running. hourly, daily, or weekly, the surface changes and you find yourself running in thigh-high shit water quicksand or tiny pebbles that somehow find their way into your shoes.

often, your friends and loved ones will run up next to you and tell you just to keep going.

‘it’s going to be wonderful someday,’ they tell you. ‘i know you are tired, but you have to keep running because you don’t have any other choice.’

‘i don’t know where i am going.’

‘we don’t either,’ they say. ‘just keep running.’

you are handed pills. they are supposed to help make this all easier. they are supposed to give you a destination. a reason to think it is possible to eventually get to where you are going – a place where you can rest and catch your breath and where you can smile at everyone who visited you while you were vomiting, sweating and choking on dry medications and your own tongue – when your shins were covered in scratches and when there was blood in your eyes. but these pills didn’t work as they were supposed to. they helped make you slower, fatter, less confident, amazed at your own inabilities and instead of making it easier to concentrate your mind begins to wander and fuck off dancing all around you and seeing everything that you should see but cannot and it wears a skirt and does twirls and flips and you cannot even keep your eyes on it.

sometimes a stranger arrives and tells you they are there to help you. they are going to carry you for awhile, until you can run on your own again. they are going to help you where the pills couldn’t. they are going to help show you that you can in fact run this and you will beat it and it will be awesome. it won’t be easy – nothing is – but they believe it can happen.

and they wrap their arms around your waist. and they lift. and nothing. your feet are still hitting the ground and you can feel the pressure around you. and you are trying trying trying and it just won’t happen. it isn’t your fault. it isn’t their fault. it’s just how it is.

eventually you grow frustrated. they grow frustrated. they slow down. pretty soon you cannot even see them anymore. sometimes you are mad, but mostly you understand. it was just never meant to be easy to pick you up. and person after person tries. and with each person comes a new hope and an inevitable crashing fucking disappointment. now you look at the people when they arrive and want to tell them not to waste their time. both of you should know how this will turn out. it’s better just to be realistic.

you know that one day you are going to fall. it’s going to happen. the road has just been too long and you are exhausted. one day you are going to stop running. you will stand there for a couple of minutes – in shock because it is all about to be over – while all the muscles in your legs are screaming at you and they are knotted up and they look like ugly tree roots that have never seen the sun. and then you fall to the ground. your body will be still. the people that you love will come stand around you. some of them will cry and others will shake their heads and say ‘what a shame. if only he could have kept running…’

they probably won’t remember when you started running, but they sure as hell will remember when you quit.

they have no idea just how it feels to run for over half of your life. that understanding is reserved for a select group of people.

i’ve grown exhausted. i am tiny and running through tall blades of grass that are covered in ants and dead flies and dog shit and i am tired.

i am ready to hand my brain over and let them do whatever they want. i’ll pleasure myself while they stab it with needles or hold it up with electrodes and zap it until it stops moving and limps and just melts into the drain on the floor.

the medications, the twitches in my eye, muscle spasms and nightmares and sugar cravings and disinterest in sex and all those things that i love doing. the dopey stoned look on my face, the heavy feet and the dragging myself through each day of my life with only a bed to look forward to. the tears when i think about it all. the tears that i cannot stop crying. the anxiety that makes me feel like there is an angry layer of flies just below my skin. the books i wish i could read. the words i wish i could write.

~ by alltheavenueslookugly on 2014/02/13.

Posted in february14
Tags: apologies, bipolar disorder, depression, dreams, electroshock therapy, guilt, insomnia, isolation, medications, mental illness, nightmares, posts about suicide, therapy