Do the Twist

Where does it lead? A train of thought chug-a-lugging in a downward spiral, circumventing the single answer to its ceaseless stream of questions, each one less inquisitive than the last. Why can’t I? What’s the matter with me? What is keeping me from getting this right? Questions, questions… Questions I don’t want to know the answer to at all, though they are ingrained in my very identity, a beating part of me as much as my heart or veins.
So what is the answer I’m seeking? Which is the one that eludes me every time I long to grasp it? I cannot even fathom it, really, so much a fool am I. It’s a fantasy, a shadow of a dream flickering in the corner of my minds eye, dancing in light cast from the burning essence of my desire. I imagine a perfect life, a perfect world, a perfect way. I imagine myself happy, successful, at peace. I imagine and imagine, and what is still real to me now is slipping out of my control. Such a daydreamer am I that I’m asleep all day, walking about my business entirely catatonic. Somehow I have become a spectator in my own life, a heckler.
I’ve wondered what’s wrong. I’ve thought about it. I think about everything. I think about conversations I’ve had, conversations I’ll never have, conversations I want to have, and how to get them all the switch places. I think about my life, and how I want my life, and how to make them the same. I’ve also thought about curing AIDS and ending world hunger. I think all the time.
But I can’t remember the last time I really decided to do anything. Really decided. I choose things all the time, like an iced triple mocha or to get bacon with that burger. That’s not what I’m talking about. Deciding to quit smoking doesn’t count if I’ve done it a million times, deciding to take the plunge doesn’t count if I never actually jump. I suppose I’m decision-challenged.
What’s worse, I’m self-pitying about it. Wallowing in personal disgust and exasperation, loathing every today more than yesterday, every older face more than the younger. I know no-one likes “that guy,” I know no-one has ever liked “that guy.” If I could be “that other guy who’s okay,” I would. I swear to God that I would, fuck it. I don’t care if he’s bucktoothed, fat, and retarded, as long as he’s satisfied to be a bucktoothed, fat, retarded guy. God bless him if he is.
I’m not satisfied by anything. I’m not satisfied to be anything. I eat because I am hungry, and I stop because I am full, enjoying the finest filet as gruel, and curling up alone like a homeless man in the cold emptiness of my mansion. It doesn’t have to be this way, does it? But it’s not any way but the way it is, isn’t it? How could it have been any way but the way it was meant to be?
Spirals, spirals, back to the spirals. Thoughts coming, one after the other, like drops of rain. I’m drowning, my whole world is flooded, drenched, sodden, and these fragile sheets of paper are all I have to absorb the torrent with. Alas, they soak up but a single tear and leave me treading water indefinitely. Some are good, and keep me afloat, but all too many pull me away, down towards the whirlpool. Spirals, and god damn me but I’m so dizzy.
It can’t be that bad, dying. Compared to living, I’ll bet it’s easy. If you think sleep is refreshing, imagine a nap so rejuvenating that you don’t actually have to get up and do anything ever again. If I’m an existentialist, it means that I’m only pretending that life has meaning, right? And I thought we all outgrew playing pretend. Ha! Now I see that it’s all we do! Acting like we’ve got love and happiness, things to do, right and wrong. But we made it all up, didn’t we?
Think about it. Some people are born poor and miserable, die poor and miserable, and have nothing they can do about it in between. Some people are born happy and rich, die happy and rich, but try and take every opportunity in between to fuck it all up for themselves, get lucky and still make it. Some people are born and die the very next day. Is that right? Is that proper? Is that correct? No, but it’s reality, and reality has nothing to do with right and wrong. Only people are willing to come along with hubris enough to label it either way, deliberating on some useless adjective for something that just is.
Words, words, words, so damn many to choose from and all I can think of is “FUCK.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. The single word not worth a thousand fucking pictures, repeating in my mind, wailing at me like a siren. Like always, I wait for it to pass me by so I can go about my life, but this siren is inside my head, and I’m always being chased by it. Fuck, what a word. And with a million thoughts behind it.
Words are the pastels of thought. Kierkegaard is my Michelangelo, my brain is my brush, and my life is my canvas. All I’ve ever wanted was to create a masterpiece, but I’m no master. My strokes are sloppy and careless, my lines drawn with an undecided finality, my brush guided as much by gravity and the shifting winds as by my impotent gestures. But I play another game of pretend, envisioning Da Vinci gazing past his easel at a smiling young woman while I scribble crude figures on fast food napkins with crayons.