It's been 4 years since my last post.
4 years of... running. From myself, ultimately.
I thought I was controlling the damage.
Turns out, I just lied to myself. For far more than 4 measly years.
I have lied to myself since Carla. Since Joanne. Since Jennifer. Since Damara.
I told myself I was in damage control.
No. The damage was in control.
Damage control is a funny fucker; you control the damage... until the damage controls you. Except you never really control that beast, it just tells you that you're in control, all the while twisting its rotting talons deeper into your very soul... until you no longer know where you start and the beast stops.
Until all you can do is exist in state where you hate what you were, what you are, and what you are yet to be.
Hi. I'm "Cowboy." I hate myself. Because of the beast. And it's not just one beast here; it's a whole fucking horde. Picture a murder of crows... if they were all armored attack velociraptors. It's like Jurassic Park... if Jurassic Park was an insane asylum where the only job was to put a hug-me vest on a fucking megalodon.
The first beast? That fucker started 51 years ago. I was 9 goddamn months old; too young to even know it was there. But It was there. The bitch was probably trying to steal my Oreos to sell them for crack and a dick, but that's a story in a different post.
The next beast? That asshole showed up when my first girlfriend dumped me... to marry my fucking cousin. "Hey! Hi! See that guy over there? He's better than you."
Then there was the one when the girl I gave my virginity to lied to me about... well, everything. And then when the girl I was crushing on, hard, chose a guy who looked a thumb and a 40-year-old Richie Cunningham had an illegitimate not-love child with a fucking Klingon. "Hey! Hi! See that guy over there? He's better than you."
Then... there was the BIG beast; the one that made all the other beasts their bitches. 15 years that fucker twirled my brain like overcooked spaghetti:
- "I only married you because no one else would."
- "I only married you to have another child."
- "I hate you."
That beast liked to throw things; big things, small things, anything it got it's fucking talons wrapped around:
- cut lead crystal ashtray
- kitchen knives
- medicine bottles
- hot food
- cold food
That beast? That beast *STILL* twirls it's talons to this day, and I thought I kicked that fucker to the curb 14 years ago. I lied to myself,
Then, the next beast... and the next... and the next... so on and so forth, ad nauseum.
They all share common ground:
- That guy looks better
- That guy fucks better
- That guy is better
- You will never be good enough
- You will never be worth anything more than what you can provide
- You will never deserve anything except misery and desolation, to die alone and forgotten.
You never control the damage; it always controls you. You just don't know it until it's too late.
All you can do is hope that somewhere along the way, as you stumble through a pitch black forest of silent agonies, you find that one little deer; the one that somehow, just walks through everything you thought you put up to protect you from yourself, and touches that scar that hurts the most with the gentlest of kiss.
Find your little deer; she is a gift from the gods.
~ Cowboy
