To sleep, perchance to dream

I live my life between moments. Moments of speaking to her. Every moment is in the context of when I was, how I am or how I will be talking to her. Ask me at any time, and I’ll tell you which moment I just passed and which moment I’m waiting for. I’ll tell you I just talked to her. Or maybe I am talking to her. Or rather I’m waiting until I talk to her again. These are the only moments I have anymore. The moments between those moments I get to speak to her. For years now. Years of living between moments. Years of leaving the last moment and years of waiting for the next moment. Hardly able to live in the now because I can only remember the last or can only live for the next. A whole life on hold. A whole life — between moments.

It’s hard to explain a condition you have that most people just perceive as you just being an asshole. You say, “Sorry it’s just how I am,” and all they see is, “That guy is an asshole.” Asshole overrides any explanations. Asshole. You are. Yet know one knows whats going on inside. No one can understand how you feel while you silently scream. If you screamed out maybe people would understand. But you can’t. You want to scream, but that’s the very thing you can’t do. Social anxiety. An anxiety brought about by social interaction. Interaction. Socially. Social being the root of the word. Social. Definition being living together in groups. Groups. Makes the skin crawl. Makes the throat tighten. Yell is what you wish you could do. More than anything. Yet still silent. You scream how you can. Within yourself. And as the noise rises so does the pressure. The very thing you can’t do is scream — or speak. Speak in any volume to say what you think or what you feel. While what you think and feel choke you down even more. Choking on your thoughts. Choking on your feelings. Thoughts and feelings are intangible, but when you have this condition your thoughts and feelings become tangible objects that you can’t swallow. While everyone is talking and having fun and enjoying ‘company’, you’re merely choking on air. Choking on thoughts. The room starts pulling into itself. Suddenly you’re not standing in a room wishing you could run out of. You’re standing on a hole. As people look to you to have casual conversation like ‘how is the weather’ or ‘how was your dinner’, the hole gets bigger. Gets deeper. Soon it becomes a hole with no end. Falling. You are falling for so long that falling becomes reality and not falling becomes the oddity. Whatever voice you entered the room with has been completely snuffed out. There’s no way you can speak now. Being social is being nice. Not being social is being an asshole. Not being able to be social is not possible. You should just try harder. Why can’t you try harder? It’s just being nice. It’s just being social. Well, you’d tell them why you can’t be social, but then you’d be more social if you did that, wouldn’t you? The very thing to explain your behavior is the very you can’t do that is causing your behavior. The hole gets deeper. You just want to run. The farther you run the more alone you will be. The more alone you are the more you that you will be. Why can’t anyone understand? You are the most you when you are alone. Introducing a new factor into a system changes the system just by its presence. You just want to be you. You don’t want to be the you others wish you to be. You wish they could know what you are when it is just you. But they can’t. They can’t know what you are when its just you because once they are there with you then you are no longer you. It cycles. Rather it spirals. Spirals down into a place where you have no idea who you are. You are this thing being forced to be in this place to do this stuff that you do not do. You are no longer you. You are that. That thing which you can’t be. And as you be that thing you can’t be then you become that thing that no one wishes you to be. That asshole. That asshole who can’t enjoy some company. How do you explain a condition that prevents you from doing the very thing that people consider the thing that makes us people. You aren’t people. You can’t be people. You are you. You with that problem. You just want to be alone. Because when you are alone it is quiet. Peacefully quiet. Ironically, that’s what everyone thinks to be the problem. You are too quiet. They don’t hear the noise inside your mind though. The noise that builds with every moment you are being ‘social.’ You aren’t quiet. The more quiet you appear to be the less quiet you are in reality. You just want silence. But no one likes silence. They want to be coddled through their life experiences and be validated by others. The silence is what you want. The silence is your reward. If only all the world could be silent. If only all the world could be any place other than where you are at that very moment. If only you weren’t an asshole you could talk about all the mundane happenings of society. Of or relating to society or its organization. Another definition of social. You don’t want to be in society and you don’t want to be social. You just want the noise to stop. You want the choking to stop. You’re tired of being choked. As if there were hands around your throat. Squeezing tighter with every casual conversation. Squeezing tighter with every meaningless smile. Squeezing tighter with every moment you are not alone. Is it so bad to want to be alone? Does that make you an asshole? That’s what society says. That thing you don’t want to be a part of. That thing you can’t be a part of. Yet its rules still apply to you. The rules are the hands around your neck. Yet, no one will ever know. No one will ever care. You’ll just be an asshole. That asshole. The one who just wants to be alone. Alone where it’s silent. Silence is all you want. And silence is all you can give. All you are capable of giving is all you want in return. It doesn’t seem that complicated. Does it? Actually, no. Don’t answer that. I don’t really want to talk about it.

They say the saddest thing is
Unrequited love.

I’ve found a thing,
Which takes a place above

Unrequited love is farce,
Transcending feelings - on one side sparse.
Grief wracked we wonder, why not me?
I’m twice the man - can she not see?

Mournful mornings,
Feelings flayed,
A cosmic joke on us is played.

But another thing entire is requited love denied.
That’s a holy feeling died,
Conscience’s coward -
Self deprived.

While together,
Blissful rapture.
What no words could say, a look could capture.
Your shining eyes, with love did speak;
Sang journey’s end, that which I seek.

I went from standing all alone
To sitting on our coupled throne.
Scarce touches seemed to presage bliss
Your every gaze a gentle kiss.
Your smile made my world seem whole.
Such promise plucked my bashful soul.

And shouldn’t love just make us free?
But fantasy found, here not to be.

On the brink,
You stop to think.
You ponder the imagined cost.
You pull away - our moment lost.
Life is long and longer still
When abnegation’s what you will.

But to turn your back on something real;
Give back to heaven what angel’s steal?
Take our gift and throw it away?
Heed only what your fear can say?

And while we yearned for magic’s touch
You dwelled upon dread’s tragic clutch.
Deny our future; deny yourself
There is no other kind of wealth.
That feeling we felt..? Fate did give
Us all we truly need to live.

If life’s a ladder
While we climb
We’ll think upon this other time
And look below at all we’ve left
And shed a tear, for love bereft.

If life’s a dream, one day we’ll wake
And look upon what we did make
And think upon a long past theft
And shed a tear, for love bereft.

If my life’s a story,
When it is told
Someday when I am very old
My children press around my bed
Their children making mankind’s thread.

My wife will hold my shaking hand
My mind is roving heartbeats spanned.
I’ll ponder reasons, find final rhyme
And close my eyes the one last time.
And before it is not quite too late
I’ll think of our unhappened fate.

Godspeed and goodbye my dear.
Be happy, strong and persevere.
And may your journey take you far.
But think of me when you see stars.

-Unknown