Tonight I cried for you again...

I just started back at the gym after a year and a half of insecurities and memories. Tonight I went against my better judgement and met a 'friend' to attend the '80's prom' at the Hippodrome. Tonight I was, once again, in the spotlight amoung faces of people who will never amount to more than kind, but empty, words.

Tonight I cried for you again.

Tonight I faced myself again.

Tonight I looked once more at my fears and my emptiness and for you I cried.

Tonight I've learned that I haven't stopped running.... tonight I learned that I am still angry.

I left myself vulnerable to strangers as I strained to catch my breath and to hold back tears that I felt should no longer be there.

I reach, I grasp, I fight, I manipulate... I claw and scratch to get what I want. I play the games I am so against.

And in the eyes of a friend I saw their acknowlegement of me. My actions. My fears. My petty needs. My false affirmations that keep me alive.

I am sitting here shaking. I am cold and empty. I'm revealed. Naked and vulernable. Empty and alone. Wanting so much to be away from this place, from all these things, from my memories and past.

I swear I know who I am and at the same time I cannot grasp the reality that I live. I run, I travel, I explore.. I dive deeper into everything that disgusts me and I stand on top of it all - in control .. a king.. a lie.

My beliefs escape me. My truths blended into falsehoods that I can barely discern. Lost in this dream that I've created.

So I light another cigarette and I inhale till I feel myself suffocating. The pain is a pleasure to me. Inside of it, I feel alive. Without it, I am dead.

I use my manipulative strategies, peoples interests in me, and mine in others for the same reason. To feel alive. To have meaning. To see that I am something more than an empty shell of a person drifting mindlessly through this existance. Yearning, yet fearful, for it to end.

You left me to carry this cross. To hold this burden upon myself. Me .. alone.

I can feel your laughter. Your hate. I feel your eyes on me waiting for me to drop. To give up. To know that I am no better than you ever said I was. To know that I am nothing.

I hear your words. Your hateful words. The words you used to trap me, to demean me, to make me worthless.

Why then do I long for you? Why does my heart break for you still? Why am I still crying when I should be relieved?

You accomplished in death what you never could in life. You've conquered me. You've gained control of me with your words. You've detached me from myself and left me to wander without meaning.

You left me to fight.

Fight against myself and others. Fight against my dreams, my fears, my hopes.

My anger is like a passion. I lick it from every inch of a strangers flesh. As I take them into me.. as I taste them. I kiss their lips with such hatred. I submit to them and their desires. I drink from them .. I become part of them. My own motives as evil and vile as they are.

What have I become?