man, i know that i’ve totally fucked up my life. whatever i had before is gone, or mostly gone, or in the process of fading away, but at any rate it’s all my fault. i’m not saying it can’t become something else . . . it always does. it’s just that i liked some things in my old life, and i don’t think i can’t get them back. you can’t really ever get anything back. thing is, i needed some of those things to survive. it is so exhausting to find new things to help me survive. it’s tough as hell and i’m doing it straight but i miss it all so much i could die. at night i just read books and exercise. i go on walks and stuff like that. it’s so damn lonely anymore . . . a barb of sorrow lodging in my heart! and all that. i got poetry in me. i got some love! won’t somebody?? please?? help me?? with my memories????

ugh well what the hell man

what’re ya gonna do, really, when it comes down to it, except go to sleep and wake up again and see what happens

i had this good friend for a long time. we met in a weird place and during a weird time, and all that, and sometimes people would ask us how we met, as people tend to do. and i’d say, “oh, i saw her looking at me from across the room, and i thought, ‘whoa! what a babe. and she’s staring right at me!'” and she would always say something like, “ew! i definitely was not. i was thinking about how gross you were.”

then one time i was visiting her in new orleans, and she introduced me to her new boyfriend, and he of course asked us how we met. i said something like i always say . . . you know, jokingly, “i could tell she was wondering if i had a girlfriend or not.”

i have always remembered her response: “no, ryan, i was wondering if that inky forcefield of rotten unrelenting listlessness was, in fact, emanating from you.”

inky forcefield! that’s good. i miss you, buddy. i hope you’re ok, wherever you are~

There Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast—
A sordid god: down from his hairy chin
A length of beard descends, uncombed, unclean;
His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;
A girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.

And lo! toward us in a bark
Comes on an old man, hoary white with eld,
Crying, “Woe to you, wicked spirits! hope not
Ever to see the sky again. I come
To take you to the other shore across,
Into eternal darkness, there to dwell
In fierce heat and in ice.

if you were an absolute psychopath who for some reason needed to put a gun to my head in order to get me to admit which ten movies i love a whole lot, even though i won’t shut the hell up about it anyway, making the gun unnecessary, i guess this is what i would say:

• mccabe & mrs. miller
• the long goodbye
• point blank
• blade runner
• inherent vice
• punch-drunk love
• mad max: beyond thunderdome
• wild strawberries
• badlands
• wild at heart

ok bye lol

i just feel terrified anymore. i can’t sleep, and when i do sleep i dream of things that i later end up believing actually happened. i can’t any longer tell the difference between my dream memories and my real memories. i think mostly i’m dreaming. and when i do think i’m awake, i just feel scared and remorseful and lonely. i know those are the most prominent things i feel because i can tell when they dissipate, and that is when i’m with other people i like . . . specifically if they are in my house. that’s the only time i feel like nothing is going to hurt me. you know? when i had that party two weeks ago, i had a lot of my friends around that weekend helping me set up, and i felt glad that i didn’t have to be alone. everyone was doing something in different rooms, and even in my backyard, and on and on, and i made tea for everyone, and walked around and talked to them one by one and all that. that was a good feeling. i don’t have a family, just a few family members, and i only really ever talk to two of them, so my friends are my family. but of course they have to go home at some point. we don’t all live together or anything like that, though i sure wish that was the case. and then i’m alone again, and i walk around all day and i feel nothing except fear and remorse and loneliness. i feel bad for having ever hurt anyone’s feelings at all. i have this almost end-of-life mentality where i’ve been going around apologizing to everyone for everything i ever did to them, even if it was by accident, which almost all of it is was. i’m not a malicious person at all. i don’t believe in revenge, and i am immediately apologetic when something bigger than me causes me to act out and hurt someone. i never feel good about it, or justified, or anything like that. i don’t want to hurt anyone at all. i try so hard to be nice to everyone. i fail sometimes. i want to fail less at that. i was thinking last night that, as corny as this may sound, the purpose of life (outside of it ending), is to ease the suffering of everyone else around you. yeah? that’s all i want to do anymore: i want to make people around me feel better however i can. i have a little apartment that is hidden off the street and filled with tea and coffee and books and movies, and so on. i have a fifteen-pound cat who everyone loves. i want people to come here if they feel sad and alone. it makes me feel like they’re safe if they’re with me. i feel safer too. i want to feel safe and to help my friends. i don’t think i’d felt this bad in my whole life. but everyone was so nice to me, and so loving . . . always checking in on me, and coming over so i wouldn’t have to be alone, and sending me emails and letters, and on and on, to let me know that they cared about me and didn’t want me to hurt or go away forever. man, that really did pull me out of it. i couldn’t believe how gentle and loving everyone was to me. i felt like i couldn’t just ignore that and end my life and hurt all those people. and so now the reverence i hold toward my own flesh, which i considered to be worthless only two weeks ago, and which i ripped open with a razor blade, is based on the love other people have for me. i have to be alive because it’s important to people who love me that i don’t die. i love them too and so i won’t hurt them like that. and i will use whatever time and resources i have to help them too. i don’t care about anything else except my friends. i have that fifteen-pound cat, who is my best friend and my little brother, and we live in this little apartment together where any of you gorgeous sons of bitches can hide from the world if that’s what you need. i’ll even come and get you wherever you are and bring you here. i want to take care of people and be good to them. i’m going to try to kill off my ego as opposed to my body and start doing the opposite of what my bad programming tells me to do, because i have so much proof that it is ruinous and cyclical. if i turn towards the things i have been afraid of then i can be better for everyone. and anyway what good am i to anyone if i’m dead?? do i want my legacy to be a regret-filled corpse?? i still have some use in me i think.