erasure

my feelings and emotions the past couple weeks have been an ant trapped in the amber of depression and anxiety. sometimes they just sit, and sink. sometimes there's a short burst of violent struggle to be free that only results in faster suction from below, fevered sinking. mental panic while the body goes numb.

it's not that cancer beat me, although someone was blunt enough to phrase it that way. that i'm letting it beat me. it's the anxiety about the future of my cancer or not-cancer that's beating me. give me a solid answer, doc. don't give a neurotic what-if's. that's like handcuffing an alcoholic to a seat at an open bar.

i'm sitting in a giant mesh of blood, and meat, numb nerve endings and overloaded synapse circuits. my brain has been burnt out, the fuses blown, the bare wires snapping when anything moves them. it feels like autopilot. or, like piloting a plane with all the instrument panels gone dark, the wheel snapped off in your hand, your air-traffic controller popping on every hour for a minute to tell you things are fine, you're doing great. hang in there and try not to hit anything. do you see any signs out the window? we'll find you when you crash, so you're not lost.

caffeine sets it off. the electric flash through the wires, sparks and then black nothing. those are the short violent struggles. family sets it off. mom worries about me, and since she can't fix cancer, she helps by trying to fix everything else in my life that's wrong. i got a $5k loan approval to get a car. i can pay it off in 18 months or so. and what will i do with my car when i get it? probably still sit at home, for all the big talking i do. there aren't any relationships in my vicinity worth having. i want to go see faces, but they're all far away. i want to fall in love, but i just work, and come home, and work, and come home, and work, and come home, freak out at my family, work, come home. i gave them 28 years and i feel like they were a waste.

tonight i just want to be deleted. i want select all, backspace, type it again. get it right. what can you do with 5 years? i may have more than that, i may have less. i don't know yet. i used to think 5 year goals were for pretentious assholes who were so boring they knew where they'd be because spontaneity was a disease they hadn't caught yet, would never catch. born with the antibodies for it. now i think 5 year goals are for selfish, optimistic morons who can't hang on to just the moment they have in their hands, they have to grope for more because their moment now isn't enough. can't enjoy your mouthful because you're already thinking about the next one.

and i'm sitting here at the end of all the moments that have happened up until now, and i don't even want the one i've got. those five-year-goalers can have my moment. they'd do something better with it than i have. the introspection of nothing is only more nothing. holes within holes. i focused on them so much they manifested. i grew a hole that could only be fixed with a hole. and someone else filled the hole with something holes can't happen in anymore. but holes are all i've been good at. they let the rocks through. or they held all the rocks in. i can't be sure.

someone said we write to get a second chance. if you're born to be a writer, all you want are do-overs. my need for erasure is only fulfilling my destiny. you can scrub ink with an eraser long enough, that the paper comes too. sure, the paper comes too, but the ink is gone.

and isn't that what mattered?