Tag Archives: innocence

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They are the two most relatable and utterly contagious human afflictions: love and hatred. And passion is the the most ironic impetus behind both, which quite often causes these two emotions to be synonymous. It’s why we keep coming back to the ones that hurt us the most. Its criminals always return to the scene of the crime. Why the feeder rat runs over to sniff the snake.
I woke up outside and searched desperately in hopes that last night was a dream. But, scratches, bruises, bite marks…..These are all binding contracts that can not be refuted. I caught a glimpse of myself in an old dirty mirror and noticed my eyes resembled an old, worn photograph from the 1800s. The meloncholly it brought numbed me a little, just enough to go back to sleep for another hour or so. The animals sleep outside…..

She keeps me here because the thinks I’m good for her. As if i am the one that’s gonna save her, and that makes me the worst type of hero. The ones that lead you out to the fires under the guise of an innocent and loyal companion who doesn’t know better. I am the canine that destroys all her favorite things and she keeps letting sleep in her bed because I am warm at night. I am the wolf she mistakes for her shepard. And that alone must be enough because there’s nothing else. No comfort, No compassion. Just bent fences and torn dresses. Picked locks and talking our way out of handcuffs. Hours later, applying them myself.
Hours later talking myself into leaving.
Hours later waking up outside.
We are all the most terrible when we are alone. We are all the most unforgivable when the doors are locked. Ive seen it all and talked them into most of it. Because I’m terribly afraid to admit that love and hatred are the same thing. It’s why I choke her when I kiss her. Comfort is the warm room where the greatest obscenities occur. It’s the parasite in my chest and the dreams tearing me limb from limb at night. It’s why I refuse to take you home, because I still haven’t found one. It’s why i sleep outside with the other animals.

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Pulses of anxiety run up my legs and rush up my spine towards my brain the way squirrels climb up bird feeders out back. They collect tiny peices of my mind and run away out into the yard. Every morning I am confronted with the awareness that there are despicable things waiting, and every morning I wake up with less and less of the pieces required to place logic and reasoning in between me and the fear. The Earth feels entirely hollow beneath my feet and inclined to crack and give way at any moment. I’ve spent the better part of 20 years stuck in that tiny bit of helplessness you feel when you go to pay at a restaurant and suddenly discover your wallet missing. 
Vertigo is my consort.
What a repugnant companion.
What an uncharming life.

I lay in my bed and listen to the overwhelming silence and try frantically to discover any type of distraction. I begin to focus on the sound of my cat patting around a small insect – Indifferent to its demise.  It reminds me of being a child in Jersey and all the times I used to bring jars of fireflies in from the field. My mother would smile. Even fully aware that I was destroying all these undeserving little things, she didnt say a word. Innocence is so endearing even though it can mean the destruction of another. A child kills something and we feel empathy, an adult kills something and we feel rage and sickness. It becomes forgivable when we know not our trail of ruined things or countless inflictions. That’s the basis of a lot of poisonous relationships in our lives. Its also the basis of a blissful, childlike existence.

My mother crept into my room each morning and threw away my jar of dead things and smiled. As if I was a cat who dragged a lifeless mouse in as a deplorable gift. To give thanks. She understood that its better to pick the mangled rodent up with a glove and a trash bin than to tamper with that type of innocence and instill the kind of messes within a child that no disinfectant can clean. Thats what we do when we are young – our selfishness and innocence is the most admirable and preposessing thing, even through the complete destruction of all else. 

My only goal in life is to never stop being capable of this. Everything else can drop dead behind me and I’ll hardly notice. I’d like to playfully rip the world apart limb from limb between my claws like an insect and then move on to another without any recollection.

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