nothing is ever built to last
Did you try to live on your own
When you burned down the house and home?
Did you stand too close to the fire
Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone?When it's time to live and let die
And you can't get another try
Something inside this heart has died
You're in ruins
idk why i’ve started thinking about blood in the past weeks. must be because i’ve stopped leaving the house. or because my mom is forever stuck being a teenager. or because i’ve never felt like i belonged to her side of the family. (because i’m blood of my father’s blood, but mom’s family are my spine & bones). or because i’ve been feeling too much in places it didn’t hurt before. like when you notice you’re bleeding from a graze shot after adrenaline runs out.
sometimes i feel like i’m walking down a road that’s bad (smells bad, looks bad, is probably bad), but it’s comforting. misery is comforting. making mistakes not so much, but this is another topic.
semptember is around the corner & so is the ghost of my father. i took a small break from watching supernatural because it has specks that remind me of him. & i don’t like remembering him because i start feeling angry & “how dare you die like this,” “how dare you kneel & beg to god to die before your own mother,” “how dare you destroy yourself,” “how dare you give up,” “grow a spine, get up, stop running away, stop killing yourself.”
i gave him a ‘ride the lightning’ t-shirt on his 46th birthday. we spent the day listening to tracks he liked—halloween & metallica & iron maiden & megadeath or smth. he was 43 when we watched the avengers together at the theatres & i can’t even remember how many times we’ve watched transformers, the hulk, & ghost rider movies together.
then i started getting bitchy. he started leaving the house whenever i arrived there to visit. ended up visiting grandma instead of him. sometimes i would get off the bus a couple blocks away just so i could hug him hello at the bar. i once stole his pack of cigarettes because nobody likes an addict relative.
“your dad isn’t a bad person,” mom used to say. “i mean, he ain’t good, but at least he ain’t bad.”
idk why i started thinking about him today.
he once told me i looked cool wearing all-black. he would grab stray dogs & take me to the back of the bar’s owner yard to play with their cats & i wonder how much i got from him besides his eyes & eyebrows; his legs & moles. he’d never hit me. he’d faked me acceptance when i told him i would date anyone regardless of gender. grandma told me he would cry at night about “the dead son he’d never had” (aka my dead sister). i was never son enough to him, but i’ve never cared about that, though, for some reason. maybe coz i’ve never respected him enough to care about what he thought of me. i mean, at the end of the day, who was he to judge? i’ve never minded his approval or acceptance or love or anything at all.
“dad, do you still listen to metal?” i asked him once. “i’m a metalhead,” he told me, “i just don’t dress like one anymore.” i still have his early-20s pictures—ripped & patched jeans & military jackets & flannels & band tees & that shoulder-length hair he hated cutting short.
i like mine short. if i had a nice head shape i would wear a buzzcut.
sorry, idk what i’m trying to process here.
mom always said i was dad’s son. i look too much like him.
he had been suicidal since he left high school & more so after he settled with my mom. he wanted to get into the military (and now i know why), but he had a health issue so they sent him home. he watched his sister & his father die; buried both.
i had to look at his corpse to confirm it was him.
the day prior to his death, i had gone sightseeing with my favourite teacher. i took so many pictures. it was sunny & beautiful.
i can’t look at them. don’t want to delete them either because it had been such a magical day to me.
i would rather die than to be like him, but genetics are somewhat like a curse. people don’t take adhd seriously as a debilitating disorder, but i know (i saw) he died from undiagnosed adhd. some nights i wonder, guiltily, what he could have been if he’d taken the right treatment. “he didn’t like to take cocaine because it didn’t hit him right,” mom told me. he self-medicated on cigarettes & booze & he hated coffee (of course he did). sometimes i think about smoking or drinking & i have to tighten my stomach because i know what will happen. “you don’t want to end up like him, right?” my psychiatrist warned me. yeah, i would rather die than to be like him.
but i tie flannels on my waist, i still look for his military jacket with that dumb slayer patch sewed onto it, i listen to punk & rock, i make ghost rider fanart since i was 13 & thread-bracelets instead of plastic ones, & i draw much better than him. i’m just the upgraded software with the same old bugs that made the last one unworkable. same face, same disproportionate long legs, same curl pattern, same bitch-face.
same suicidal tendencies, same punitive-yet-seeking-absolution problem, same crawling-at-god’s-feet, same moles, same “be careful not to hurt your hands,” same nail-biting not to dig into smoking, same dog-seeking, same hearing since birth we are what we are (failures) & we won’t ever change. same mistakes, same mistakes, same mistakes. same holding tight to coping mechanisms that worsen our condition but soothe what we already know.
i’m the lucky software though. i like people & i lack his pride. i’m “weak” enough to ask for help. i have someone who loves me to the moon & back.
i’m just drowning myself in things that hit home & hit hard, & i don’t want it to hurt, but it pricks memories & it’s inevitable & nowadays i find myself dwelling on gore, insomnia, & fasting to soothe my pains (can’t think if you’re too lightheaded & dumb). same shit he did. i wish anger would pull me up, but depression murders action. anger survives on anxiety & i haven’t been anxious since i was 19 (& i much wouldn’t rather be. anxiety sucks more ass than depression & i’ve had enough shares of panic attacks).
again, idk what i’m trying to process here.