Sunday, November 14, 2010

Anguish

It is hard not to hate myself for my lack of success with most things I try my hand at. I feel like a reverse King Midas at times; everything I touch turns to rust. If there is something beautiful and golden about life, you can be sure that I am going to ruin it somehow. Usually, it is through my desire to preserve it, or capture it, or even, sometimes, just witness it. And, of course, when I touch something beautiful or golden, innocently at first, then with the desire to possess, it crumbles before my eyes in that dirty rust pile. You would think that I could be used to that as often as it has happened to me, but each time it happens, I am so distressed and distraught about it, that I can barely function.

I feel monstrous, like there is an inherent flaw within me that causes this to happen despite my best intentions. And this monstrosity creates a pain that burns into a searing white hot blast of hatred for myself. I eat the fire of hate and it boils in my stomach, a toxic crucible of molten pain. And in that crucible, the devouring snake of nihilism, grief, anguish, and tortuous cruelty winds itself upward to my heart and swallows it slowly in the grotesque opera of self-destructive hatred. My brain tries to speak to my heart, to soothe it, to prevent the snake from completing it missions, but it can't be heard above the heart's screams.

And then, the snake, having eaten its fill whispers its forked narrative of hatred. I become the monster of hate for myself. My snake heart convinces the brain that I am the most hateful person on the planet, that god has decided to hate me, that it is my destiny in life to be isolated, alone, and ugly. My brain, struggling to pull logic out of a locked or hidden closet, says that there are things I can do to prevent this from happening. But the snake heart is more convincing; its words have more sting. "You will not be successful," in one venomed filled word. In another, "you will always be alone," and "women do not like you," in another. My brain cannot make reply because these words seem to be couched in the deepest truth.

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I am in utter anguish about my failures. I want so much to connect to a special person, but it is not for me. I have prayed, pleaded, bargained, and struggled until I cannot sleep anymore, but it is no use. I am monster. Hated, ugly, and alone.