A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.

i had a dream about you.

is that non-specific enough, for whoever you are, person of the day to feel good about yourself? you can fill in the blanks with whatever you need today, it's mutual, all the names we call each other. there's not a word for abuse, you take what i give and get angry later, i take what you have, and say it wasn't enough. but chances are, next week we're doing the same, and behind all the feelings we're really quite content with this non-specific person of the moment, with a replaceable name, and why can't i quite remember your face?

what day was that again? when we did that thing? there's a reason why some people can't recall dates and times, it's because all of those special things that the other person remembers with such touching, glowing, disgusting gushing warmth has already happened in my life. so sorry. didn't you ever wonder why everyone is nostalgic and that people are full of stories? it's because you can't come close. you can't even come second. you're the ghost of tomorrow trying to haunt my past. it just won't work that way, but i still love you, whoever you are. the person of the moment.

there isn't a word for whore. lets call you a well-read script, that we all take parts in. tomorrow, who knows, maybe i'll be in your play for today. don't take that to mean you are special, because for the moment, you're reading my script quite well, and you have a penchant for drama and that's the genre most people shuffle my review into.

i'm sorry - was all tomorrow's parties not what you were expecting?

let me put it this way. try to figure out which vinegar taster you are, it's still the same shit, no matter who's living it, but how you feel doesn't make you any more special.

if you're confused, i'll sidestep for a moment and fill that empty brain that must of been sleeping through life.

there's these three people gathered around a vat of vinegar, each putting their finger in it and letting us know what's up. it's a simple allegory of three eastern ways of thinking (sorry there's no jesus or replaceable male of the moment here, we all know what a bitter apple that is). the three guys gathered around are K'ung Fu-tse (Confucius), Buddha, and Lao-tse. Confucious said this is sour stuff. Buddha said, like, wow this is some bitter stuff, man. Lao-tse said, "It's all good.".

i had a dream about you. is that specific enough? what were you expecting that day you cried and thought you were special?

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

Who is Tyler Durden?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-05-29-fight-club_x.htm

This is why I want to be hurt, and why I end up with some form of self-injury as a means to just keep on going, to keep on waking up the next day. I guess more and more males are coming to grips with that aspect of themselves, and finding a comfortable social outlet where they can express it, as violent of a way they need.

From the article:
There is also a sadomasochistic thread running through underground fight clubs, said Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at Stony Brook University in New York.

"Real-life fight clubs are the male version of the girls who cut themselves," he said. "All day long these guys think they're the captains of the universe, technical wizards. They're brilliant but empty.

"They want to feel differently. They want to get hit, they want to feel something real."

One of the simple motif's of Palahniuk's Fight Club, that is glossed over, is the basic concept of want. This desire of lack that so many men in society feel, those goals that once we obtain, give us no feelings, that give us nothing for all the struggle that we've put into it. It's simplified into the modern conception of what most people know as the Oedipus complex, but instead as understood within the concept of psychoanalysis as a tool that instead of helping, produces neurosis and that within modern society, namely capitilism, where one cannot ever reach a point of satisfaction, it can be compared to the organic disease of schizoprenia -- all of this was elaborated on in detail by Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Oedipus (and explained much better than I ever could).
When we're left wanting, empty, stretched beyond our abilities, there has to be something to fill the void. Self-injury is often labeled as a borderline trait, when yes, they frequently use it to survive, and yes I do mean survive, but they've grown up in a chaotic world and are faced with a stagnating society where their goals equate to working meaningless jobs, with meaningless promotions, with meaningless marriages and meaningless lives -- and they just happen to see clearly and honestly through the bullshit media, friends, and family give us each day. With men, no one really thinks about how they might deal with this. We see so many examples of how males hold their feelings inside, and how they struggle and make their goals green lawns and a better job, but do they honestly ever feel happy with these small changes? With that greener lawn, that they have to spend an extra hour a day on now? With that higher paycheck, that they have to come home angry and upset because of the extra stress that it comes with? I wonder how many of those men cope with their problems in ways that people don't want to think about. Abuse, hurting their wives, self-abuse with drugs: alcoholism, cocaine, whatever -- the numbing way to hurt oneself or a passive way to say, kill me now, because I have lost the willpower to do it to myself, or, again, there is always the stereotyped and well-known idea of self-injury. For me, self-hurt, is the most consistent and easiest way to fill that emptiness that you are faced with when you come home from a long day, and realize that you really have accomplished nothing for yourself. That self-awareness that I'm just another cog on that wheel, being ground down day after day, holds no comfort to me, and so I turn to the simple things that do. Hurt.

"sometimes the best treatment is no treatment at all"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/health/psychology/30beha.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=login

Thanks, Heather, for the link.

"A few years back, one of my residents was treating a young man in psychotherapy who had great difficulty deciding what he wanted to do with his life.

He wasn't depressed, but he was a very passive person.

It became clear that the patient was using the treatment not to understand his passivity, but to indulge it; he enjoyed talking about what he should do, but made no steps outside of therapy despite many attempts to address his behavior. We stopped his psychotherapy and referred him for vocational counseling.

The possible benefits of no treatment go beyond just patients who get worse in therapy. Some patients have been in psychotherapy for so long that it isn't clear what the advantage of treatment is; in some of these cases, stopping therapy gives patients a chance to discover that they might do fine without it.

Others might seek treatment during a crisis or when they are grief-stricken. As painful as these situations can be, if people are generally healthy and have good social supports, they are likely just to feel better with time and probably don't need any treatment at all.

At first blush, it might sound paradoxical — even uncaring — but sometimes the best treatment is no treatment at all."

Starting out

Starting today wasn't the best. Starting usually is where I screw things up. Waking up, starting out, remembering those dreams that you wish you would stop. Stop wishing, stop having, just stop.
I'm no big loss, is what they say when they turn their face, or say it doesn't matter, or shrug slightly and shift the topic.
I feel so empty lately, no reason inside to write, it's a tired story that isn't any better in the retelling. I don't charge fees, I don't charge admission, and it's still a wonder that there's anyone listening. I'm late night TV, blury and something only to watch as you try to fall asleep.
I want some pity, some attention, something from someone, to make myself lie a little more to myself so the days are a little easier.
I'm so tired of starting each day. I'm all run out, and it doesn't matter if i'm awake or asleep, my life won't change and my state won't change anyone else's life. Just dream those dreams that make me cry, and wake up and take those pills that make me sleep some more, to escape the more pressing weight of being alive and awake with an empty heart and mind.

Just rinse and repeat, as these days turn into months and somehow my life has turned into years of push-button numbness.

Sleep some more, lie to me some more, give me some empty pity to make the days a little easier.

Why the fuck did I pretend

i can't stop thinking,
and my heart won't stop beating.
it's just one more drink, i say.
a few more pills won't hurt, i say.
abuse makes things better;
it's the most familiar feeling i know.
lets hurt ourselves, allen, one more time
it makes other things hurt,
and stills that persistent, beating heart,
and slows those damn, flowing tears,
and helps dull that paranoid mind.
i can say, the clarity and truth
with my mind washed away
of daily cares and daily worries:
why the fuck did i care anyway,
and why the fuck did i pretend,
that you cared.