It hit me hard, and a ready as I tell myself I am, nothing can prepare you for the sneak attack. It comes without warning, and it comes with its homework done. The sensation is overwhelming, and they just keep hitting us in all the right places. There isn’t even time to think between the blows, and instinct becomes incapable of coming to the rescue.
So the panic rushes in…
They do their homework.
They go straight for the heart.
That horrifying chill goes up my spine and I feel their slimy fingers grabbing a hold and squeezing for dear life. It is in moments like these when the glimmer of hope is out of sight, the feeling of defeat and the compulsion to give up are greater than ever.
For a moment, I prepare myself for the end, for rest. Then that glimmer comes back, it is so distant I wonder if it’s really there or if it’s just what the end looks like.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Truth - Date Unknown
I have a hard time using words like “believe” and “truth” with a straight face these days, because now they don’t mean anything. Everything I knew to be true has gone out the fucking window, even the big stuff but somehow I catch myself all the time slipping those words into sentences, as if they still mean something. But they don't, not anymore, and that’s how this thing has won. Survivors need solid ground to stand on, those big things that never slip up. The sun comes up every day. The world always brings you crashing to the ground.
And all of us.
Someday.
Die.
But not anymore, not after that day. Things changed and no one knows why.
I’ve heard it all and every idea is as pointless as the next. Even after all that has happened the survivors try to reason and rationalize what’s going on, and right there is the problem. This is an attack on reason. It defies logic, conventional wisdom, and hundreds of millions of years of gut instinct. Its nature is beyond wrapping your head around because while you try, they sneek up on your busy mind and get you. So there are only two options left.
Live or die.
Survive, or let them get you while you’re busy “dealing with it”.
Hah, that’s one thing that always got me. “We’re dealing with it.” There is this compulsion in people to require a moment to indulge their emotions, but one you go down that road, you lose ground and they'll get you in no time. I’ve seen it a hundred times before. They take their eye off the road ahead and get sucked into that sinking sadness. It’s become a venom that puts us down so they can come collect their pray.
Like I said.
I’ve seen it a hundred times before.
I’ve heard all the arguments, heard about “the importance in understanding” but all that talk got us this far and that ain’t saying much is it? If they didn’t have their heads up their asses, we might have had a chance. But’ instead they fought, bickered, wasted time, energy and resources on countless arguments as to the nature of it all.
But again.
Nowhere is where it’s gotten us.
To me it all seems so pointless, because the truth? Is been right in front of us this whole time, right in our hands.
My sword is my truth.
In this world where all the rules have gone out the fucking window it has never lied when I struck it in the right place. Even these abominations that go against everything we though we knew, cannot stand up to its truth. And that is why I always keep it close.
And all of us.
Someday.
Die.
But not anymore, not after that day. Things changed and no one knows why.
I’ve heard it all and every idea is as pointless as the next. Even after all that has happened the survivors try to reason and rationalize what’s going on, and right there is the problem. This is an attack on reason. It defies logic, conventional wisdom, and hundreds of millions of years of gut instinct. Its nature is beyond wrapping your head around because while you try, they sneek up on your busy mind and get you. So there are only two options left.
Live or die.
Survive, or let them get you while you’re busy “dealing with it”.
Hah, that’s one thing that always got me. “We’re dealing with it.” There is this compulsion in people to require a moment to indulge their emotions, but one you go down that road, you lose ground and they'll get you in no time. I’ve seen it a hundred times before. They take their eye off the road ahead and get sucked into that sinking sadness. It’s become a venom that puts us down so they can come collect their pray.
Like I said.
I’ve seen it a hundred times before.
I’ve heard all the arguments, heard about “the importance in understanding” but all that talk got us this far and that ain’t saying much is it? If they didn’t have their heads up their asses, we might have had a chance. But’ instead they fought, bickered, wasted time, energy and resources on countless arguments as to the nature of it all.
But again.
Nowhere is where it’s gotten us.
To me it all seems so pointless, because the truth? Is been right in front of us this whole time, right in our hands.
My sword is my truth.
In this world where all the rules have gone out the fucking window it has never lied when I struck it in the right place. Even these abominations that go against everything we though we knew, cannot stand up to its truth. And that is why I always keep it close.
Monday, October 19, 2009
The Game - Date Unknown
The point of all this up until now was to keep me on my toes.
To keep me second guessing.
It was all about throwing me off.
But like any game of catch, the ball always ends up landing in the once place you don’t want it to.
They had hoped that a big “beware of dog” sign would be enough to keep me out, keep me afraid of looking for the truth.
But they didn’t do their homework.
After all, I managed to put it together this far.
I managed to get a step ahead of them…
When you back something into a corner you can’t expect anything less than a violent last-ditch effort. And just like clockwork, the moon, or anything else you can put a sure buck on, they lashed out and tried to throw me off guard.
But it was too late for them.
I’d had my fill of it.
So I took my time.
I laid it out for them.
Where they went wrong.
Where they slipped up.
Each mistake and its devastating consequence.
I wanted to make them feel stupid.
So I took my time.
To keep me second guessing.
It was all about throwing me off.
But like any game of catch, the ball always ends up landing in the once place you don’t want it to.
They had hoped that a big “beware of dog” sign would be enough to keep me out, keep me afraid of looking for the truth.
But they didn’t do their homework.
After all, I managed to put it together this far.
I managed to get a step ahead of them…
When you back something into a corner you can’t expect anything less than a violent last-ditch effort. And just like clockwork, the moon, or anything else you can put a sure buck on, they lashed out and tried to throw me off guard.
But it was too late for them.
I’d had my fill of it.
So I took my time.
I laid it out for them.
Where they went wrong.
Where they slipped up.
Each mistake and its devastating consequence.
I wanted to make them feel stupid.
So I took my time.
seeds - Date unknown
We used to take so much for granted until we were forced to see just how good we had it. When I think back and remember the kinds of things I “worried” about, a foul sickness pours into my stomach. I have a hard time grasping how we ever had anything to complain about. Once something comes along and takes all of that away, there is only one thing left in your name.
Your life.
Growing up in a world with everything at your fingertips, getting used to having nothing is no easy task.
The ones who can.
Well.
They’re like me.
Here to tell you about the ones who can't.
Those who dwell in the loss dwell in a dark place. A place where they mourn and they allow whatever it is they lost to take something with it. Something that doesn’t belong to it.
We give pieces of ourselves away like a good seed of hope.
We dream of them growing up in a place where they might really mean something. Give too much away though, and it won’t be long until you don’t even have a piece to call your own. I’ve only ever had one piece to give. The rest I would need to get through what lay ahead. What I gave was the very best in me, and I cannot live to see it lost in vien.
Your life.
Growing up in a world with everything at your fingertips, getting used to having nothing is no easy task.
The ones who can.
Well.
They’re like me.
Here to tell you about the ones who can't.
Those who dwell in the loss dwell in a dark place. A place where they mourn and they allow whatever it is they lost to take something with it. Something that doesn’t belong to it.
We give pieces of ourselves away like a good seed of hope.
We dream of them growing up in a place where they might really mean something. Give too much away though, and it won’t be long until you don’t even have a piece to call your own. I’ve only ever had one piece to give. The rest I would need to get through what lay ahead. What I gave was the very best in me, and I cannot live to see it lost in vien.
The Loss - Date Unknown
It hurts in all the right ways.
A sign that things are still working and in the right places.
It has become too easy to misplace the important things, and it has become the first step towards losing ourselves in this. The pain eventually ends up where you least expect, it ends up in parts of you that weren’t meant to bear it. These days pain is one of the few things we have left in abundance. One of the only things that reminds us of how real this is. Our dependence on feedback can be a curse, and sometimes it makes it too easy to lose yourself in the new death.
It takes something sharp to snap me out of it.
Something to remind me I’m still alive.
Something to remind me of what that even means.
The pain I can live with because I find the utility in it.
I build it into a compass, one that always stays true to a pure north.
Out here, you need that kind of direction.
Because I’ve seen good men lose their way, let the burden twist them down the road with an end I care not to share.
That’s why I never follow.
I never stray.
I never second guess.
I trust pains stinging whisper because it has never lied to me.
You can be like them and let yourself hear what you want to hear.
You can try to fool yourself.
You can let its sting strike you in the wrong place.
You can let its message be lost.
But no doubt.
You will be too.
A sign that things are still working and in the right places.
It has become too easy to misplace the important things, and it has become the first step towards losing ourselves in this. The pain eventually ends up where you least expect, it ends up in parts of you that weren’t meant to bear it. These days pain is one of the few things we have left in abundance. One of the only things that reminds us of how real this is. Our dependence on feedback can be a curse, and sometimes it makes it too easy to lose yourself in the new death.
It takes something sharp to snap me out of it.
Something to remind me I’m still alive.
Something to remind me of what that even means.
The pain I can live with because I find the utility in it.
I build it into a compass, one that always stays true to a pure north.
Out here, you need that kind of direction.
Because I’ve seen good men lose their way, let the burden twist them down the road with an end I care not to share.
That’s why I never follow.
I never stray.
I never second guess.
I trust pains stinging whisper because it has never lied to me.
You can be like them and let yourself hear what you want to hear.
You can try to fool yourself.
You can let its sting strike you in the wrong place.
You can let its message be lost.
But no doubt.
You will be too.
Dead Walk - Date Unknown
It has been bad for a while now.
I haven’t seen people this scared since all this started. I find myself having a hard time stopping my knees
from shaking knowing the implications of this.
But I don’t have time for that.
I don’t have time to be like the rest.
We save that terror for the weak, the ones who let their guard down. Ever since everything changed it is hard to imagine things could get any worse. But they can always get worse and the ones who forget that. Well. They end up like the ones who find out the hard way.
What it means to walk dead.
I haven’t seen people this scared since all this started. I find myself having a hard time stopping my knees
from shaking knowing the implications of this.
But I don’t have time for that.
I don’t have time to be like the rest.
We save that terror for the weak, the ones who let their guard down. Ever since everything changed it is hard to imagine things could get any worse. But they can always get worse and the ones who forget that. Well. They end up like the ones who find out the hard way.
What it means to walk dead.
Forgive - Date Unknown.
I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough.
I’ve wasted more than my fair share of time thinking about all the ways this could have played out had I been brave enough. But this defeat is one I have to live with and like any companion in life, unwanted or not, you learn what you can from each other.
Or you tear each other to pieces.
There’s plenty of that going around though, so I took this chance to show the strength I couldn’t when it might have made a difference.
And I hope.
That maybe it’s not too late to salvage even a scrap of dignity out of all this.
I’ve wasted more than my fair share of time thinking about all the ways this could have played out had I been brave enough. But this defeat is one I have to live with and like any companion in life, unwanted or not, you learn what you can from each other.
Or you tear each other to pieces.
There’s plenty of that going around though, so I took this chance to show the strength I couldn’t when it might have made a difference.
And I hope.
That maybe it’s not too late to salvage even a scrap of dignity out of all this.
The Cracks - Date Unknown
It’s been days since we’ve had anything to eat and the further we go the worse it seems to get. Until now we had hoped for so much more, but it doesn’t seem to matter how far we move, this terrible fucking thing follows us in all of its forms. We’ve been nursing frost bitten toes and thinking about all the good boots we left behind so long ago, kicking ourselves for thinking “they’re too heavy to carry.” The snow is bad this winter and it has barely let up for us to find food or get a decent shelter up.
I’m worried.
I’m worried about how long it could be until we come across the next camp
I’m worried even that thought in itself is no comfort.
Because people aren’t holding it together these days.
The cracks are starting to show.
It has gotten to the point where distrust is the norm and more often than not, the people around you become just as dangerous as any corpse if not worse. I’ve seen it in so many of these people’s eyes, to the point where it almost makes me sick to see how many we’ve lost.
I don’t tell Alison these things because she hasn’t been tainted by the mistrust.
She’s the beacon that keeps reminding me somewhere out there is hope for us.
For others.
Somewhere out there we can finally find peace from this. Not all of us are as blessed as her, and such hope for the future is usually scorched by a terrible vision of what this means for us all. She always tells me that we can’t be the only ones. That somewhere there are people like us and we are just “looking for each other.” As much strength as this hope has given me to tread on until now, still it doesn’t fill our bellies.
Her smile though, it’s enough to make me forget the hunger for moments in time. And for now, it’s more than enough.
I’m worried.
I’m worried about how long it could be until we come across the next camp
I’m worried even that thought in itself is no comfort.
Because people aren’t holding it together these days.
The cracks are starting to show.
It has gotten to the point where distrust is the norm and more often than not, the people around you become just as dangerous as any corpse if not worse. I’ve seen it in so many of these people’s eyes, to the point where it almost makes me sick to see how many we’ve lost.
I don’t tell Alison these things because she hasn’t been tainted by the mistrust.
She’s the beacon that keeps reminding me somewhere out there is hope for us.
For others.
Somewhere out there we can finally find peace from this. Not all of us are as blessed as her, and such hope for the future is usually scorched by a terrible vision of what this means for us all. She always tells me that we can’t be the only ones. That somewhere there are people like us and we are just “looking for each other.” As much strength as this hope has given me to tread on until now, still it doesn’t fill our bellies.
Her smile though, it’s enough to make me forget the hunger for moments in time. And for now, it’s more than enough.
Date Unknown
I don’t think about those things anymore.
On days like these it’s nothing but a useless reminder
Days when the storm creeps up on you.
The rain catches me off guard and suddenly I’m pelted by cold and wetness.
The old compulsion is to miss having a roof over my head.
Thinking about warm dry clothes to change into.
But these days.
The idea of a roof over my head.
Makes me uneasy.
Just another box for me to crawl into and wait for death to knock on the walls.
In this new world these feelings have no trouble creeping up on you.
I’ve seen them tear the strongest men to shreds.
I’ve seen it.
On their faces.
A defeated look.
A look of being forced to fear the very things we fought for, the things we miss so dearly.
I’ve seen that hopeless look, and right before it happens I cold swear they were smiling.
Right before they put the gun in their mouth.
Right before they willed themselves out.
The easy way
The coward’s way.
Instead of stories to mourn, we scramble to collect their ammo and whatever else they won’t be needing.
One less mouth to feed.
It isn’t supposed to feel this way.
The doom has soaked into everything we have left.
I don’t think about those things anymore.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Ghosts - Date Unknown
We walk like ghosts pale and unseen.
Only a dim glimmer of what we used to be.
Like the breeze, they only feel the draft of our movements, and our whispers are so faint the ones who can hear them question their sanity.
We can’t move like people because that’s what they are looking for
Instead we move like the wind, undeniable, invisible, and unquestionable.
We walk like ghosts because we are brushed off as such, and the terror of our meaning keeps their prying eyes at bay.
They hope for a useful distraction.
Anything to avoid dealing with the truth.
That we’re out there.
We’re real.
And we are something to be scared of.
Not That There Ever Has Been. - Date Unknown
There is no way out.
Not that there ever has been.
At least we used to be able to afford illusions to distract us from this truth.
But now it is right in your face, and escape has become such a long lost concept that merely mentioning the idea of it draws stares and looks of disgust.
Like bringing up some ancient sin long forgotten.
Most people do the only thing they know.
They let themselves become trapped, and all this is no exception.
I can’t blame them I suppose, it takes a lot more than most have to see through the fear. To just accept the awful truth.
That there is no way out.
Not that there ever has been.
I suppose that’s what makes us different from the rest.
We’re ok with it.
We know how little has really changed, how even after all of deaths hard work, not even his most devastating conquest could wipe the filth from us. Somehow it survived and instead of holding onto old pictures of the lost ones, we clung onto the worst of ourselves.
Maybe that’s why he left us, in defeat against the worst we had to throw at him.
Now we live in a world where even a word as powerful and universal as death has become muddled in context, lost in a sea of “what ifs.”
I live knowing that when the time comes for me, it won’t be like it’s supposed to be. That’s one of the few things that still scares me, that I might end up like one of those unlucky fucks who found out the hard way.
That there is no way out.
Not that there ever has been.
Kernel - Date Unknown
I miss you so much.
And I don’t even know why.
As important of a reminder the pain is.
A reminder of how real all this has become.
This is a pain that I still cannot find a use for, even after everything I have seen up until now. It’s one that lacks grounding in the reality of things, the kind that lives off the stinking breath of a lair’s twisted web.
Maybe I miss you so much, because I miss that piece of myself.
The part that doesn’t belong to me anymore.
Now, I’m not one to waste time regretting the choices I’ve made, because there’s never been any point in shedding weight over the impossible… But… I still can’t help thinking about how impossible a use for this could be.
I’ve carried you so far and I’ve been doing it for what seems like so long now that I’ve forgotten the purpose in it. Like some old forgotten tradition clenched in the cold fists of sentiment. Crumpled up and unrecognizable to its origins.
The history?
The story?
It’s lost on me, on us all.
Because there’s no such thing as purpose left, it has become just another useless reminder of the things that don’t matter anymore.
Yet somehow.
Compulsion seems to always get the best of us, and perhaps that’s why I’m so laden with thoughts of how things used to be.
How we used to be…
I’ve never regretted giving you everything that I have to give, and never once have I cursed the weight I keep on my shoulders tightly wrapped up in your name. A promise is a promise after all, and I keep telling myself that they are the last things we have left these days. One of the few things they can’t take away from us.
Even in death, a promise is kept. As long as you’re willing to die keeping it. But for me, the promise is to run like death is always on my heels. To hide like the cowards buying themselves a few more moments of a life in terror. And no matter what, to keep this safe inside of the one thing I know death can’t get his hands on.
Me…
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