The stuff I do, the thoughts I have, the way I tell my story, all are criticisms of me. I want you to criticize me, to tell me the story of my youth, to condemn me as I have condemned you. I will hold the nails as you drive them into my flesh, and I will fault you for doing exactly as I have asked.
I will leave you in the dust, kick you to the curb, hurl insults at you and maim your heart for the pure sense of my own suffering. I will walk, muddy, all over your clean floor, trample the gardens you have spent your days tilling, and mock the very art you have created from the bottom of your soul. I want you to hate me, to call me names, and to piss all over my sense of well-being if for nothing else than to remind me of from where I came.
I will enter into relationships that only serve a single part of me. I will fuck my way into a frenzy that leaves me wanting something more and, not finding it, will turn you into the bastard who disappointed me. I will find something, anything about you to fall in love with, and then find everything about you to reject. I will hate you for my fears, despise you for my choices, and finally kick you to the curb for simply no longer being able to pretend anymore. I will choose the fantasy, and I will end up hating the reality.
I am a dreamer, and in my dream I create the most horrid of nightmares. I chastise you for sleeping in my dream, for sleepwalking in my space, for snoring loudly in my ears while I am struggling to hear the story I’ve created. I will demand your silence, humiliate your senses, and finally, when I think you are finally where I want you, leave you to the desolation I have so often tried to find. That is me, a dreamer, silently creating noise others may want to hear, while never truly finding the right tune to set my soul ablaze.
Who am I? I am me, and I am you. I’m the one who left the ruts in your neatly manicured lawn. I’m the one who upset your dreamy tales of sunshine written quickly in the middle of the night. I’m the one who picked your flowers, stripped your tree of fruit, and lit afire the shit-filled bag on your porch before ringing your doorbell. I’m the one you’ll blame for the horrible colors you painted your room, for the tears you cry when you lay on your half-empty bed, and for the deafening silence you hear when you are alone.
Can you see how much I love you? Can you feel how much I care? If not, what stops you? What keeps you from feeling the rays of warmth I shine between the darkness that is mine? What draws your attention away from the stars in your evening sky and from the lone puddle on the dry, cracking riverbed? What saves you saves me, what is you is me, what you have lost I will truly never find.
Now, off to bed I go. To dream, to try to sleep a full night at last. I’m not the one you want, believe me, so be grateful it is not my breathing that wakes you in the middle of the night. I have blessed you with my absence, ensured no future failure of what could exist only in the minds of romantics and poets alike. Ah, yes, when the sun peeks above our Earthly home, reach out to the void next to you and smile, for there is no one to blame but you if you don’t.
Aloneness is feared not because of the solitude it offers, but because there is no one left to blame for your unhappiness. You can blame no one for the choices you, alone, are forced to make. You cannot hide behind the veil of anonymity others provide if those others do not exist, and you cannot claim ownership of the joy that I provide if I am not there to blame. So, enjoy your solitude, and ride the wave alone toward that place where you are not only responsible for all you are, but also for who you have created others to be.
Good night.