The demon claws wrap around my head.
Reality floods me, trying to remind me it exists: dry eyes, a mildew taste in the mouth, muscles aching from an awkward sleeping position. Heart racing. Never mind that.
Stumbles, dreams, clouds filling my head.
Stealing my sanity in the night,
trying to convince me that nothing is real.
Dreams
take away any confidence I have of the world.
Black edging near my head, laughing at me.
Light threatening to take me away
back to....
Reach for the remote: no, I promised myself. No television. That's weakness.
But... what is there to do besides waste the time?
Mr.Samsa has gone..... he's morphed back into Gregor....
everyone gives in after a while, everyone goes back to being human.
Human instinct.
But no... if he had relented, then I would have nothing more to believe in.
Time goes by so slow when you sit and stare at the clock.
4:23. I wonder if that's AM or PM. Having been exiled into a lower level of my house, not even the daylight can touch me now.
There is nothing to do.
4:24. I had been dreaming of something. I noticed, when I woke, that I was afraid. I jumped and looked around paranoid before I realized, with regret, that I had been dreaming. Trying to forget the dreams, because remembering would confuse things. But something had been chasing me.
A monkey. I laugh. But no, then it had morphed into something quite more.... sinister. But - scare me? No, how silly. Nothing can touch me, not even death. How can I be afraid of anything?
And perhaps - there was a girl...... no
no, nothing of that. Some silly dream. Goddammit, why hasn't the clock moved to 4:25 yet?
Oh, there it goes. 4:25: ho, hum. Time is passing. I'm getting closer to the end of it all. Perhaps I should make my own sect, of meditators; sit still, feel nothing, and become one with the world. No, no, that's not the way it should be. Sit, and realize that you're above the world. Yes. Out and beyond. Don't let them drag you into this sickening physical reality.
Close your eyes and meditate. Time passes. I am nothing and everything. Transcendence. Nothing else matters because everything is shit. So let go, and in that, find a real truth. Something beside this petty stupid world. I know it's gotten bad when all I can think of is how stupid and hateful and pointless everyone is. I need something to turn to, I can't just hate, until the hatred becomes me. That's what happened before, with the doughboys. Consumed with hatred of those who don't even deserve to be thought about. I can't waste my time on them anymore. I have to become something else, go beyond them.
Peace; Transcendence. I squint an eye open: 4:25??? STILL! Shit, you've got to be joking me. I glare at the clock. Move, damn you. You can't trap me, I'm gong beyond you. I stare at the dull red letters, spilling an eerie bloodish glow about the otherwise black room. After a while the set of numbers begin to dance and spin. Eyes playing tricks...? Dry; sleep refreshing... but I can't see any clearer. What?
4:26 spins from left to right, mocking me, 'you don't know reality.' nothing is concrete. HAHAHAAH 4:26 screams at me. Wood splintering into my fingernails; holding the chair too tight, maybe? 4:26 pauses; so do I.
Come on. Move. 4:26 teeters on the edge of a cliff. Time passes, or appears to; 4:26 is rolling on the floor laughing at my discomfort. It refuses to budge. "FUCK YOU!" I shout at it. But it remains indifferent to me. Shit, anger is an emotion. 426 doesn't hate, doesn't frustrate, doesn't care. 4:26. 4:26.
The red blurs and distorts, slowly melting like warm chocolate, into three red drops of blood hovering in the darkness. They slide away from each other, closer; I can't even tell if they read four twenty six, four twenty six, anymore. An intensity; eyes? They could be eyes, if there were only two. But again, 4:26 confounds me, refuses to conform to a nice clean metaphor. Instead it remains this ambiguous three eyes glaring deep into my soul, that is if I had one.
Then they blink, longer than they should; three full minutes by my own internal clock pass in darkness, before the red eyes return.
"You want me to passssssssss......" Something hisses. Scratched voice, like a record. The last few words "me tooooooo passsssssss" slow, as if on purpose, but maybe it's just my perception of time that's fucking with me. "tooooooooooooooooo............. passssssssss............" in slow motion, drawing out the words painfully and carefully. Followed by a fast, but not high-pitched, cackle that abruptly stops.
Wetness; blood dripping from my hands; I pull them off of the wooden box. Pain only slightly tingled my hands.
"This is ME!" Surprise, and then a flood of images.
Running through the woods, sunlight spilling in rows of rays that shatter the green growths that threaten to swallow me whole.
Being punched by a thick, hateful bully at school, the smack oozing of blood and delicious pain, some acute sense in my head being awakened: I'm ALIVE.
Leaning forward to embrace someone who will make it all better, make the loneliness and hatred dissipate....
Protesting the idiocy of government issues, joining a group and gaining strength in voice.
Hating a person out of jealousy, wanting them to burn in hell not because of their idiocy (that was worth only pity), but because you respected them, and they looked down on you.
Sadness, hatred, envy, love, hope, failure, physical pain, all burst through my body at the same time, lifting me off of the wooden box and high into the air, dancing with the red glaring eyes, telling me, this is me, this is you, this is the world. Fuck you, fuck that.....
seething water
fills the hole
and inside
one drowns. or swims.
but it doesn't really matter.....
and that makes it worth trying.
"AAAAAA" I find concrete ground by my own voice, and at once the images let go and I shatter on the floor. The eyes watch me incompassionately. Why is my body shaking? Why do cold chills skitter down my spinal cord, almost bewitching me to attack my back in an attempt to brush off imaginary ice? The room is very cold. And black. The red has dimmed, but I still feel it laughing. My head rolls without my control and I fall in a heap on the floor.
"You want time to leave? You want to give it all away?" 4:26 comes back into focus, and then flips to 4:27. 4:28. 4:30. 4:37. 4:45. 5:00.
"Wha---" I mumble, senseless. 5:40. 6:56. 8:00. 1:00. 4:00.
"Stop -" the numbers quicken, spinning, relentlessly, forward and faster. A day has gone by, and I am tired and hungry again. Another day, and I am weak. Time is spinning fast, and I am helpless.
"This is what you wanted, right?" The voice sneers. The clock spins even faster and it is next week. I drop to the floor, wanton with thirst. My insides are caving in. I slowly realize if time keeps up the pace, I will waste to death on the floor. It's destroying all the lovely visions it just tempted me with. It's all slipping out of my hands.
"Stop!" I shout with what strength I have left. A month passes. Panic quickens my heart and I cannot breath.
no..... I want to feel.
I want to live.
Time laughs and a year has gone by.
I collapse, in what seems the third time, physical reality heavily oppressing any other thoughts.
Johnny, empty stomach, shit in his pants, in a puddle of drool, sweat, blood and tears, lays motionless before a clock.
Reality floods me, trying to remind me it exists: dry eyes, a mildew taste in the mouth, muscles aching from an awkward sleeping position. Heart racing. Never mind that.
Stumbles, dreams, clouds filling my head.
Stealing my sanity in the night,
trying to convince me that nothing is real.
Dreams
take away any confidence I have of the world.
Black edging near my head, laughing at me.
Light threatening to take me away
back to....
Reach for the remote: no, I promised myself. No television. That's weakness.
But... what is there to do besides waste the time?
Mr.Samsa has gone..... he's morphed back into Gregor....
everyone gives in after a while, everyone goes back to being human.
Human instinct.
But no... if he had relented, then I would have nothing more to believe in.
Time goes by so slow when you sit and stare at the clock.
4:23. I wonder if that's AM or PM. Having been exiled into a lower level of my house, not even the daylight can touch me now.
There is nothing to do.
4:24. I had been dreaming of something. I noticed, when I woke, that I was afraid. I jumped and looked around paranoid before I realized, with regret, that I had been dreaming. Trying to forget the dreams, because remembering would confuse things. But something had been chasing me.
A monkey. I laugh. But no, then it had morphed into something quite more.... sinister. But - scare me? No, how silly. Nothing can touch me, not even death. How can I be afraid of anything?
And perhaps - there was a girl...... no
no, nothing of that. Some silly dream. Goddammit, why hasn't the clock moved to 4:25 yet?
Oh, there it goes. 4:25: ho, hum. Time is passing. I'm getting closer to the end of it all. Perhaps I should make my own sect, of meditators; sit still, feel nothing, and become one with the world. No, no, that's not the way it should be. Sit, and realize that you're above the world. Yes. Out and beyond. Don't let them drag you into this sickening physical reality.
Close your eyes and meditate. Time passes. I am nothing and everything. Transcendence. Nothing else matters because everything is shit. So let go, and in that, find a real truth. Something beside this petty stupid world. I know it's gotten bad when all I can think of is how stupid and hateful and pointless everyone is. I need something to turn to, I can't just hate, until the hatred becomes me. That's what happened before, with the doughboys. Consumed with hatred of those who don't even deserve to be thought about. I can't waste my time on them anymore. I have to become something else, go beyond them.
Peace; Transcendence. I squint an eye open: 4:25??? STILL! Shit, you've got to be joking me. I glare at the clock. Move, damn you. You can't trap me, I'm gong beyond you. I stare at the dull red letters, spilling an eerie bloodish glow about the otherwise black room. After a while the set of numbers begin to dance and spin. Eyes playing tricks...? Dry; sleep refreshing... but I can't see any clearer. What?
4:26 spins from left to right, mocking me, 'you don't know reality.' nothing is concrete. HAHAHAAH 4:26 screams at me. Wood splintering into my fingernails; holding the chair too tight, maybe? 4:26 pauses; so do I.
Come on. Move. 4:26 teeters on the edge of a cliff. Time passes, or appears to; 4:26 is rolling on the floor laughing at my discomfort. It refuses to budge. "FUCK YOU!" I shout at it. But it remains indifferent to me. Shit, anger is an emotion. 426 doesn't hate, doesn't frustrate, doesn't care. 4:26. 4:26.
The red blurs and distorts, slowly melting like warm chocolate, into three red drops of blood hovering in the darkness. They slide away from each other, closer; I can't even tell if they read four twenty six, four twenty six, anymore. An intensity; eyes? They could be eyes, if there were only two. But again, 4:26 confounds me, refuses to conform to a nice clean metaphor. Instead it remains this ambiguous three eyes glaring deep into my soul, that is if I had one.
Then they blink, longer than they should; three full minutes by my own internal clock pass in darkness, before the red eyes return.
"You want me to passssssssss......" Something hisses. Scratched voice, like a record. The last few words "me tooooooo passsssssss" slow, as if on purpose, but maybe it's just my perception of time that's fucking with me. "tooooooooooooooooo............. passssssssss............" in slow motion, drawing out the words painfully and carefully. Followed by a fast, but not high-pitched, cackle that abruptly stops.
Wetness; blood dripping from my hands; I pull them off of the wooden box. Pain only slightly tingled my hands.
"This is ME!" Surprise, and then a flood of images.
Running through the woods, sunlight spilling in rows of rays that shatter the green growths that threaten to swallow me whole.
Being punched by a thick, hateful bully at school, the smack oozing of blood and delicious pain, some acute sense in my head being awakened: I'm ALIVE.
Leaning forward to embrace someone who will make it all better, make the loneliness and hatred dissipate....
Protesting the idiocy of government issues, joining a group and gaining strength in voice.
Hating a person out of jealousy, wanting them to burn in hell not because of their idiocy (that was worth only pity), but because you respected them, and they looked down on you.
Sadness, hatred, envy, love, hope, failure, physical pain, all burst through my body at the same time, lifting me off of the wooden box and high into the air, dancing with the red glaring eyes, telling me, this is me, this is you, this is the world. Fuck you, fuck that.....
seething water
fills the hole
and inside
one drowns. or swims.
but it doesn't really matter.....
and that makes it worth trying.
"AAAAAA" I find concrete ground by my own voice, and at once the images let go and I shatter on the floor. The eyes watch me incompassionately. Why is my body shaking? Why do cold chills skitter down my spinal cord, almost bewitching me to attack my back in an attempt to brush off imaginary ice? The room is very cold. And black. The red has dimmed, but I still feel it laughing. My head rolls without my control and I fall in a heap on the floor.
"You want time to leave? You want to give it all away?" 4:26 comes back into focus, and then flips to 4:27. 4:28. 4:30. 4:37. 4:45. 5:00.
"Wha---" I mumble, senseless. 5:40. 6:56. 8:00. 1:00. 4:00.
"Stop -" the numbers quicken, spinning, relentlessly, forward and faster. A day has gone by, and I am tired and hungry again. Another day, and I am weak. Time is spinning fast, and I am helpless.
"This is what you wanted, right?" The voice sneers. The clock spins even faster and it is next week. I drop to the floor, wanton with thirst. My insides are caving in. I slowly realize if time keeps up the pace, I will waste to death on the floor. It's destroying all the lovely visions it just tempted me with. It's all slipping out of my hands.
"Stop!" I shout with what strength I have left. A month passes. Panic quickens my heart and I cannot breath.
no..... I want to feel.
I want to live.
Time laughs and a year has gone by.
I collapse, in what seems the third time, physical reality heavily oppressing any other thoughts.
Johnny, empty stomach, shit in his pants, in a puddle of drool, sweat, blood and tears, lays motionless before a clock.