2005-09-17 - 12:34 a.m.

I used to be a Sentimental Guy

This entry is dedicated to Sam, Tom, Joe, the 4th, David, and Asian Alberts.

The song is by Ben Folds

___________________________________________

I am broken.

There's a moment in my mind
I scribbled and erased a thousand times
Like a letter never written or sent

My fingers snap, my wrist breaks, my organs explode. My head aches. My life is doubling in upon itself. I am a supernova of pain. Nothing escapes. I embrace the pain. I desire the hurt. I want to be snapped in half. I don�t allow myself to explode

These conversations with the dead
I used to be a sentimental guy
Now I'm haunted by the left unsaid
I never thought so much could change

Is life made of the moments of joy, without the moments of pain? I never knew how good things were until they got bad. I see the eyes of people around me looking at me and to my hand and wondering my story. Is it simple? Is it hard? The same question of Why�Why is he broken? I look at their eyes and can ask the same thing.

The hand heals, but the heart doesn�t. The bone is grittily moved back into place. The bone was grabbed by another person and scrapped and forced back into place. I smiled before and after. Can someone else move my heart back into place? Can you make it better? Am I alone? Am I strong? Can I take the pain?

Little things you said or did
are part of me, come out from time to time
Probably no one I know now would notice
But I never thought so much could change

Why is my life so plain? Where is the brilliance of my life. Where is my unique sadness that others never wish for themselves? I want my car crash. I want the plane crash. When is my overwhelming tragedy coming? I don�t want laws, and money, and bloody details to be my pain!. I want my hurricane to wipe away the bullshit and unearth the truth of who I am!. I search in the ground. I have no past! I can�t dig anymore. I do things because I should. I do things because they are the next. But time ticks. Friends leave. Life rolls, and my tragedy is my existence.

You drifted far away
Far away it seems
Time has stopped, the clock keeps going

And no one cares about that tragedy. Where is my heartbreak? Will the bullshit that I do to live be remembered any more than that of a tree of a stray cat? What if I have missed my moment? What if I am not to have that moment of brilliance that defines who I am?

I want to surprise you! I want to be crushed and not submit! I want to be tortured and not give up the information! I want to shock you with my desire to live! I want to get hit by a car and walk away! I want to show that I am invincible and will not fall! I want fire to part open as I walk, and rain to stay in the sky as I stand below it! I dream of recognition!

I dream, sometimes, that my chance at brilliance �my moment-- floated past me in the air, or that I grabbed for it once and it was just out of reach. What if that one spelling mistake cost me my chance? What if that one wrong answer made you not like me? Is life so arbitrary? It seems more likely I missed my chance, than never made the wrong choice.

How many wrong choices have I made?

Hands heal. But scars are left. Bones become stronger. People become more cynical. They are both ready to be broken again.

People talkin' and I'm watching
As flashes of their faces go black and white
And fade to yellow in a box in an attic

Should I give up looking? Should I stop wanting? Should I agree to be disappointed by my multitude of failures? Should I be satisfied that others move on with their lives and am left to mine. Does history not determine the future? If your hometown --your youth�was your foundation � what does that mean when it�s gone? Are we expected to stand?

But I never thought so much
Could change, now I don't miss anyone
I don't miss anything
What a shame cause I used to be a sentimental guy

I will give up. We all give up. You can only build the sand castle so many times before the ocean defeats you. Past friends leave. Future friends have even less incentive to stay. Just because you are whole, doesn�t mean that you are healed. It hurts to lose people. Life doesn�t reward you for just living.

Is the point the search? What about those lost in the woods that are never found? Aren�t they searching for a way out? They just want to come home. But if home is�different; strange; torn down; rebuilt; --would they give up looking? Would they stop there and build another home?

How are you supposed to feel when your past is gone, and your future begins?

before - After

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