Risingson

Sometimes I wonder where this dark streak comes from, that part of me that wants to run into the night and never come back, that part of me that wants to cut the rope and just fall.

I wasn't always like this. As a child, I used to run up strangers and tell them it was my birthday, and get a nickel for my smile. In high school, I was known as Marty Sunshine. Even now, there are people whose first impression of me is "the Nice Guy" instead of "the Psycho."

As much as I look back at my childhood and the mindgames that served as my upbringing, I can't put full blame on my parents. The rational part of me knows that there are many people who were abused much worse than I and are well-adjusted members of society.

So this darkness must come from within me, that it is part of my nature. I take the medication, I take comfort in the presence of my friends, and yet there's that urge. Not for death--the instinct for self-preservation is still strong. I take my blood pressure pills every morning, I eat, I sleep, I look both ways when I cross the street. What I mean is the urge just to let everything go, for entropy.

I have good days, brief moments of clarity when I realize that bad times are only transitory moments in a life that is long and warm. But that pull is always there, that urge. And maybe that's why every small setback snaps me back. I already have the weight of that darkness, that intertia constantly pulling me down.

And I worry that, at some point, the medication won't be enough, that my friends will finally have had it. I have seen that happen to other people, not that those other people don't deserve it--bitter people who drag everyone down with them. So I try to stay afloat, but I get tired.

And I worry that, at some point, I just won't give a shit anymore.