you need to leave

it's the state of feeling that an invisible car is always there waiting to crash you
the temptation to toss your keys in the trunk and not even cry
nonexistent threats beguile without needing to try
a mirror suspends in peripheral vision

a fate worse than torture, for it's your own fault
need created from nothing. a nonsense game
but absurdity will reign, under deep compulsion
and a lack of safety beyond those walls

you can't imagine the safety that comes from rules, rules, rules. from instructions and policies and the Way it Has to Be. from rows and rows of records and details and reference and schemes and Writing It All Down. from knowing, forever. forever. forever.

but these things inform the mind - intention. they cannot stop the body - declension. they cannot stop what goes behind and beyond the vicious screen.

the feeling that you're being watched, because the body is ever watched by the mind. the notion that you're being controlled, that you're controlling and yet going unheeded, because the mind is ever outsmarted by the body.

whose thoughts are these? whose rules? when does the boundary come, between when i want to see them and when they're assaulting me? harrassing, they start, nudging and budging, but enough makes too much in time, in time.

who's to say the invisible car isn't there? who's to say the things i'm afraid of aren't real?

to speak of boundaries. they're as real as i imagine them to be.

we're all humans. humans are all animals. the humanity, i have to suppose, is only as real as we imagine it to be.

to be a control freak and to be spectating my own life. it's beyond absurd. it's not maddening; it's saddening.

and we only know how to combat madness. we know not how to combat sadness. we know how to wield these petty techniques against distraction, against disorganization, against ruin. we know how to take down names and dates and pictures and statements and organize an ethereal archive of our every footstep, cross-checked against our rigid, ever-flowing minds. we know how to summon a reckoning of human structures against the impending schism when the cracks peel up and we realize that none of that is real, is real, is real.

what is real?

the melancholy. the fear. this is real. this controls both the mind and the body. this inhabits and inhibits the soul.

the madness is a fleeting driver, in the wind with all its delirious details.

the clock keeps ticking. the world hasn't the time for these little idiocies. and meanwhile, the rest of it is out there living, even if the people in it are not.

i had to go through a hell of my own making, just to show me that it didn't matter. had to grit and scream and bawl, under barbed wire and over laser-dotted mouse-toe traps. had to close my eyes to sinful sights and bite my tongue at unbidden details. and how many other things just...don't matter?

a message sent to the wrong number, a dangerous number. given by someone who should know better, who shouldn't have an old and outdated list. not me. never me.

how could she do that to me?

but does it matter?

i don't know. i don't know. i can't know. i won't know.

but i won't forget. i can't forget. i don't forget.

i spend my life constantly dialing those erroneous numbers, just to check who's at the other end. just to cover my ass. just to protect myself, from myself. from the creeping possibility even when the damage is already done.

i guess i find myself that dangerous. this being, this error-prone being, always teetering on the edge of doom. a soldier beating to an invisible drum, like the car that's not coming, because organic life will continue no matter what the computer terminal says. the deer will keep dying on the side of the road, no matter how recently paven.

and so the impulse comes: ruin it before it can ruin you. instead of waiting for the fear to follow after you, get in there first. destroy everything you've worked for. scrub the records. sabotage the carefully-constructed plan.

that's where the intrusive thoughts come from, if i had to guess. the feeling of such rampant insecurity that you just wish it'd all be over with, without having to tiptoe perilously through the fields of folks who don't feel this way, who don't see the ghost, who don't bend at the scythe rotating without end in their direction.

but the rest of you, the human part of you, doesn't want to throw it all away like that - like throwing something out the window you'll never get back, faster than you've time to blink. like opening up your mouth and saying something you can never unsay, just to get it out of your head where it's been tormenting you, tormenting you, tormenting you.

isn't that horrible? can you imagine?

or maybe everyone's just a little crazy. everyone's just a little annoyed, and annoying. everyone's just got their crazy times, y'know?

i hate that response. i hate that normalizing, genericizing, nothing little answer. i'd much rather believe that there is something wrong with me, i think. because the idea of getting wrecked by that invisible vehicle is not a painless one. i'm flinching all the time.

there's the demon on my shoulder. it's very dark in here.