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As the dope stopped working the loneliness came flooding in.

She had made numerous references to “how she could have used me” like, “Oh, I totally could have used you last night to help print my resume.” or, “I Totally could use you to fix my computer.” I was shocked to hear this with sober ears and be fully aware of the sickness in that kind of talk.

As I got up to leave she came fluttering over to the door and through desperate attempts at speech came out with,” so are we friends again? now that we’re neighbors I can call you up to help with stuff?” I immediately felt myself retracting. I no longer have use for relationships that consist merely of bartering services or goods.

I wasn’t sure how to reply to anything she said. I was careful with my words. I didn’t want to say something which in ordinary circumstances would be completely rational and okay but in this circumstance I knew from experience that any number of things could make her retract beyond retrieval. Would that have been so bad? Not like I really wanted to be there eating her words.

I replied with, “So you mean, how can you use me?” I could see her caught off guard.

“Well, what do I have to offer you,” she thought out loud. “I could offer you sewing services?”

I could tell she was thinking about offering hummers. Or at the least I knew there was a part of her that knew this was bullshit. That relationships aren’t supposed to be business deals of how we can “help” each other out. I don’t feel obligated to do anything for my friends. I do it cause I want to.

“Can’t we get along? Why do you have to be an ass,” she stated. “It’s not like I’m the one who left you.” I thought about this statement and her obvious delusion surrounding our breakup as she supported her argument, “You left me, Nicholas, not the other way around. Just remember that.”

I said nothing. I tried to not even give away my emotional response. I gave her a deadpan face. I guess in a way I did leave her. I left her with her drugs cause i was done with them. I knew there was no future for us anymore. I knew we were both more in to the dope than each other. So when I left the dope, I had to leave you as well, in your tangled intertwined mess. When the two of us started doing dope together that last run, there was no “us” anymore. Our relationship effectively ceased to exist the minute we picked up dope and passed the pipe back and forth at that west end apartment. We could fantasize all we wanted that we were just like Sid and Nancy but really we didn’t care for each other. We stopped fucking each other and started fucking a 40 dollar bag of dope. When we actually broke up it was nothing more than reality catching up to what we had been doing all along. “Oh look at that, we actually don’t give a fuck about each other anymore. Oh look at that, you’re not at all the same person you were a month ago. Where did you go?” And all i could feel was the loneliness ramming it’s head out of my only comfort – a blanket of numbness. It was then that I started to really miss you. You were gone from my life. And there was no getting you back. I haven’t seen you, actually see YOU since we first picked up dope at that west end apartment almost 6 months ago. The only thing i’ve seen is a doped up lonely and confused girl walking around in her old body, since neglected and since abused.

Yes, I did leave you. I can live with that. The exact circumstance I remember clearly now. I had been sober almost two weeks. It was the weekend of the Northshore Roundup at the Hyatt, downtown. We weren’t seeing much of each other during that time. I had made up my mind to get clean, yet wanted you to come with me and leave the dope. In my mind, you had already chosen the dope over me. I remember one night sitting in Tim Hortons with you. I told you I loved you and that provoked no response. I remember how what I was telling you meant nothing to you at all. I knew then that you were gone. That there was no point in even trying with you. We weren’t seeing much of each other during that time. On friday night I slept at your house with you. That was our last night together. On saturday I called you to come to the Roundup. You showed up stayed for a meeting then split. Later I found out you had left to get high. I met Breanna that weekend and I found someone who was real and who provided the love I missed. Sunday night I called you over to let you know what I had known for a couple weeks but was so reluctant to do. To give up on you. I told you “I really want to stay clean. I can’t stay clean and be in this relationship with you. So I can’t be in this relationship with you.” Yes, I did leave you. I totally left you. I left you. I left you so I could pursue staying clean over the last 5 months. So i could stay clean and pursue my life. So I could live and be in 3 art exhibitions since then. So I could stay clean and have the ability to get a job and earn money. So I could stay clean and have the ability to throw 6 parties that paid our rent at the warehouse for 4 months. So I could stay clean and be capable of being a son, brother and friend to my family and close friends. So I could stay clean and get this apartment with the gorgeous view that makes me grateful to be alive and healthy. Yes, I did leave you. I totally left you cause if I stayed with you I couldn’t have had any of these things.

When I brought you your fleece today I didn’t want anything more. I simply had something of yours and I wanted to return it to you. Maybe I shouldn’t have entered your house. Maybe I stayed too long. I had my guard up. I noticed every reference you made to your pursuits of hot guys. How you love to eat even though you weigh 90 pounds. How you are having sex with X guy. I know that you want me to think you’re doing okay. I don’t think you are. I don’t buy any of it. More importantly, if you are okay or not it makes no difference to me. Cause this is the important conclusion I’ve made from our interaction today: That I left you because I could not stay sober and be in a relationship with you while you’re still using. The fact is, you’re still on dope and I’m no more able to be in a relationship with you now than I was when I left you. And by relationship I mean on any level whatsoever. You’re not the girl that I want to have a relationship with. You’re not the girl you were.

I know one of these days you’re going to call me. I initiated contact between us. I returned your fleece. Now there is a precedent set that phone calls are okay again. So I know you’re going to call me. When you do it will be because you want something. I guess I could decline your request because I’m not a fucking service listed in the yellow-pages. I could decline you cause I don’t want to associate with you while you’re using. I could decline you cause I simply can’t cause of previous engagements or cause I am busy. All the same I know a time will come when I again have to confront you and make firm my boundaries. That I can’t be around you. It makes my skin crawl to be around you. Today, I sat on your couch watching you flutter around the room babbling about relatively pointless and inconsequential shit given the circumstance – you’re actively dying from a mental illness and are too deluded to see it. I can’t bear to watch it. It’s sad. And moreover, it’s oppressive to have you take your shit out on me.

[K, think i got it out now. -ed]

Walking down from the third floor room with the view to the oppressively hot and humid first floor I can jump on this amazingly strong wireless network, thus allowing me to check my email and write little entries with no soul in my blog.

Here’s one with soul:
After all these years it still feels so good to be next to you. I’m glad you stopped me when I started to kiss your neck. You froze and when I could tell my kisses were causing you to feel unfaithful I relented. “I want to cuddle with you,” you said “but that’s pretty much all i can do.” I was happy with that arrangement. It felt so good to be next to you, my arm behind you, or your hand in mine. You nuzzled your head in to my neck, smelling your sweet hair and soft skin. Fuck, it felt good. I didn’t want to let you go, like that first time, when we were 13 in the vacant backroom at the community center, you laid between my legs, so that I could kiss you and cuddle like we did for hours while we ate a bag of cherry licorice. You said you couldn’t sleepover. “Parental judgement?” I asked, “Parental and boyfriend,” you replied. It never seems to matter that you have a boyfriend. It’s almost better that way, cause I can give you all my love without the fear of it becoming destructive. Without it tearing us apart. One of those times when you came back from the bathroom, I had put pajamas on and got under my covers. I was tired, we had been cuddling with each other for hours and it was now 4 am. You came and curled up beside me, your arm across my chest, my arm behind your neck and squeezing you close to me so tight. After all these years of absence you still feel so natural, so right where I belong. I began to dream about us. Transcending from that momentary embrace to a dream embrace but this time inside a yet finished house, just big enough for the both of us, as if we were dogs in a doghouse. My POV is aerial and I watch as the roof begins to be constructed over us. But strangely, and stranger still that I notice it, the wrong materials are being used to construct the roof. 1×2 slats instead of sheathing and shingles. Through this vision I hear you say, “Are you in dreamland?” “Yes,” I reply and I tell you what I am dreaming. Communicating to me still in my dream she tells me that my dream is a pretty accurate interpretation of the current situation.

leave everything looking good on the outside.

I went to donate blood today. I had an appointment and I walked there from downtown. I arrived half an hour early and I checked in at the reception desk. I sat down at the nurse’s station and felt the sting as she tested my blood for iron. I was sent off to fill out the questionaire. I was beginning to feel the dread as I answered the questions truthfully.

Have you taken any illegal drugs intravenously in the last 12 months? NO.

Have you had sex with anyone in the last 12 months who has used illegal drugs intravenously? YES.

I thought maybe there was a chance I would still be allowed to donate. I’m not sure why i so badly want to donate and consequently why I fell so upset that I am rejected. The nurse tells me to extend both my arms, hands open and show her both sides. We both looked down at the scars at the same time. I had already predicted this moment but it didn’t prepare me for the way i would feel. What are these from? I used to cut myself. How long ago? Uhm, last year. What date? I’m not sure. Try to remember. Was it in the last 12 months? Yes, it was in the last 12 months. Are you seeing someone about that? Uhm, well, I went to treatment, (get off my fucking back.). Oh, good I’m glad you’re okay. Yeah, I’m wonderful. But unfortunately I’m going to have to defer from donating until 12 months from today. Oh, okay, I understand. We are not sure if you might have contracted some sort of blood infection or disease. So, you can go help yourself to the tea and coffee and juice and cookies in the refreshment area, YOU FUCKING LOSER.

I left the center and tried to hold back the tears. I guess the fact that I haven’t smoked today could have also been a contributing factor to my emotional vulnerability. I sat down at the back of the bus thankful that my sunglasses hid the tears from the people staring at me. I tried to identify my anger, what emotions were at the root of my anger. Shame came first to mind. Then sadness bathed my mind. But the strongest feeling stained my thoughts as it came to mind. REJECTION. I felt defective. I still feel defective. Like, I went out of my way to try to do something good for other people. To be selfless. to be of service. And in return, I was told I wasn’t even good enough for that. Fuck you, i felt like telling the nurse. Fuck you, do you know what I’ve been through? Do you know how strong I am to resist the things I’ve resisted? To give up the things I’ve given up? The fucking misery I’ve been subjected to? Fuck it, I still just feel worthless and rejected.

On another note, I’ve stopped believing any of the nice things people say. It makes me feel so vulnerable to believe them. Even if they are telling the truth, it is till so much easier in the long run to just deny whatever you are trying to say. It is usually bullshit, not actually factual information. It’s bullshit to try and make you feel comfortable or loved or something. Either way, the result is the same, when I believe it I give in to you and you suddenly have the power over me. I give you the power to cut me down with your next words, cause I stupidly believed you actually cared.

Fuck, i’m starting to sound like the dark.

I watched Metallica’s Some kind of Monster, a documentary about the making of their last album and in large about the band as a whole over it’s 20 year history. They formed their band before my current age. I am reading Allen Carr’s book on quitting smoking. The picture on the back of him dates him to his 60’s. He probably wrote it when he was 40. I am and have always been so interested in things people have done. Things people have done that I, in my own seperate world view, listen or read and think of the maker. I have never been entirely sure of what my purpose is in life but i have always dreamed to just be a maker. A maker of something. Something that would affect someone else like me, In their own seperate world like my life has been affected by others. I kneel on the carpet before my window, my window which overlooks Vancouver. I look to the mountains, downtown, the trainyard on the old landfill. I embrace the greatness of it all and wonder what it is I will make. I know it will be something great, but the intesity is in not knowing what or when. I could be 60 before I make my great something. Or maybe it will happen next year. I can think all i want about what I will make. Will I be in a hit band recording platinum albums and touring the world? What instument would I play? Will I produce platinum-selling albums? Will I be the next Basquiat? Will I be a famous designer? Will I go to school to further my education and become someone who makes things that I haven’t even thought of? Will I have a son who I will love and cherish and teach everything I know who will in then become great? Or will I eventually lose interest in my life-long dream of being a maker of something great? Maybe there is a whole lot more in store for me than I even can possibly conceive. I suppose my greatest fear is the fear that I face every single day of my life and is some days more burdensome than others. That fear being that I will not fulfill this desire to make something great. That I will be a no body.

It’s 8:33 am, incase you don’t habitually read the time stamp on people’s posts. I have to be at work for 9am. I am tired, and would love to be back in bed but I realize this is a less sane, self-destructive part of me that wants that. Yesterday I shovelled gravel for 7 hours and when i was done I felt amazing. I felt totally satisfied. And I was looking in the mirror this morning and I lost a noticeable chunk of body fat yesterday. My pudge is reduced and I feel stronger. It’s a feeling I haven’t really felt in a while – since I rode my BMX 6 hours a day a couple months back and before that, when i used to swim 3km a day training to be a lifeguard.

Gotta go to work.

Sasquatch might exist in the Yukon. It was on the news so it must be true. A foot print, and a wad of hair discovered by bored scientists will sove the mystery by wednesday. It seems to be a long time, beyond my range of memory since the last time I watched the news on TV.

I have an engagement tonight with my first ever girlfriend. We dated for a year and a half when we were 13. I’m nervous, excited and scared. I showered vigorously for the first time in three days, and changed my outfit three times. I keep looking in the mirror. Is this what I think would please her? Do I look like a british rock star? When she was 14 she was really in to Oasis and the Spice Girls. We were mutually obsessed with Radiohead. I just want her to like me. I want her to make me feel loved. I would hope that how I look doesn’t really affect that, but realistically I think it does.

I am spending the week at my parent’s house before I move in to my new place.

Need to make a phone call.

I have made a concious note that as of late my spelling has become atrocious. My vocabulary has diminished as well. I’m self concious of these because I usually have prided myself on my grammar and spelling so I now feel hippocritical, lazy and uneducated.

Talked with my sister on the phone today. First time I heard her voice since she left. She’s stressed out about all her probelms. The main one being that she has no ability to find an internet cafe with free wi-fi. She seriously sounds on the virge of a berakdown. Shit. I hate feeling so useless and unable to help. Mental illness sucks. Why is everyone I know mentally ill?

I’m sure when you said “this may hurt a little” it was a mental note regarding harm done to yourself to rid yourself of your demons rather than hurting others through what you right. Atleast, that’s what I would guess given your last post on other people assuming everything to be about them. hmm. well… uh… don’t feel alone cause i feel (or think, rather) pretty much the same shit in my head all day about everyone as well. Cept i end up directing more of that hatred back at myself, cause the fuckin fellowship has convinced me that i am at the root of all my problems and that all hatred is MY issue, that really no problems are inherant in the universe, but instead are experiential and entirely subjective. So this leads me to want to buy a gun. shoot myself, shoot you, i dunno. i just wanna go on a killing rampage sometimes. i figure life’s a sick game, and i’m not really laughing. I’m not having fun. I try to play by the rules but the rules leave me losing. sorry for the rant comment. you got me thinkin.

Yada yada, same old shit problems.

The one thing i’m looking forward to right now is my third floor view. Cause a view never hurt anybody, never asked for anything or stopped showing it’s view. Other than that, i really don’t know what kind of life i’m walking in to. I don’t know if I’m even gonna keep making art. I mean, i hope I do. But saying “I hope I do” sounds like saying “I hope I live a happy life and am rich and famous”. I am so procrastinating right now. Tomorrow I am renting a truck. A 16′ truck. The plan is to move all my shit, everything to my parent’s basement. Then, once I am cleared out of this shithole I can sort through my shit and decide what I can and want to fit in to my newly decreased living space. Going from a 6000 sq. ft. warehouse to a bachelor suite is gonna be a tight squeeze.

Oh, and I don’t hate my room mate anymore…. again. I think we’ll appreciate each other a lot more when we are not living together. I think this thing has been good for both of us but I think it’s run it’s course. He said in his blog I’m an asshole. Yup, probably am, infact if he says I am I’m certain he thinks I am, and in his eyes I am very much an asshole. I have huge difficulties with simply coping with life. It’s a struggle. I try my best and do not always succeed. I am okay with the fact that we are atleast talking to each other again and that I don’t feel like I need to avoid him like the plague. Plague of negativity and unadressed depression. Sorry, that was totally a knock. But I can totally accept that I am afflicted with the same plague often enough.

I need clarity. I need purpose. I need someone to love and be loved. Or maybe there’s one thing in my life that I’m neglecting that could fix all this shit.

I want to smoke so bad today. It’s taking everything in me to resist this obsession to smoke. And what i can see is that I alone don’t have the ability or the power to resist it.

I’m done trusting. I’m done with you. I don’t hate you, I might even have love for you. I don’t know what fuckin love is. I wanted to be your friend and there were times when i thought that’s how it was. There was times when I looked in to your eyes and I knew that I could look in to your eyes for the rest of life and feel companionship. But then whether fault of yours or my own, (i know you’re thinking to yourself “it’s his own”) I became an obligation, a chore, another plan in your life to be scheduled. I never should let myself me so vulnerable. You don’t even seem to care when I tell you I’m hurt. And what I hate about telling you is a seem like a needy bitch.

I just wanna shutoff from you. I am officially closing the border to emotional engagement. And i know I’ve said that before. Probably never directly to you, but you may have sensed it. It probably feels similar to how i feel when you pull away from me, physically, emotionally, spiritually. And then i feel alone. And then I blame you, but soon the boomerang of blame comes around and I get smacked in the head with the guilt of knowing I’m really to blame. To blame for letting you in, letting you close, trusting that you wouldn’t hurt me, trusting that you actually could control your faculty for hurting me. Not physical hurt, atleast not so much. I take care of that. Emotional pain and anxiety leads to slashing. But ultimately I’m to blame, and i fucking hate that fact. Cause when i’m alone and crying cause i feel so fucking abandoned and alone I look to the only one who I imagine could recitfy my pain and then I get another boot in the face, and so I cry more, and when I’m done looking for you to offer me a solution I blame you but then when I realize you don’t even give a fuck about giving me pity I realize the futility in my pity. Arrival at the final stages of self-pity and loathing. A place where I am so familiar. Even now you don’t give a fuck, so i look to the only one who can, my face in the mirror. I realize we are alone and there is no rescue squad. There is no salvation. My only salvation comes in the form of a supreme spiritual entity. A fucking “god”. It’s entirely a figment of my imagination. A coping mechanism without which I would have no reason to live. Cause when you realize love is lie you realize your eternal loneliness. And to me and the god of my head eternal loneliness is death.