Image of you

  I had a pretty strong visual, this morning, of teenagers in suburban fish bowls, masturbating in chat rooms, smoking dope, dreaming violent dreams, reading too much Burroughs and Huxley and Crowley, determining themselves through the purity of the wasted.
  It's a familiar image of the past, of course, but its appearance, this very morning, a bit of a mystery to me.
  Why now? This is the very question I had been asking myself.
  For a very special reason. You are nowhere to be found, you have disappeared from the face of my middle earth, or, my common earth, rather, for I was as dark as you, a thousand years ago, but darkness was not my natural habitat. I was a very common person, darkened by childhood. Darkness was never a natural residence.
  But, there in the dark, we met one fine winter afternoon, the familiarity of the oppressed and the regressed, like fireworks in the night that surrounded us. Us? Me, I mean.
  Lately I tend to use this very hopeful term 'us', while forgetting that some stories are meant to stay undone and rot in the solitude of forever, undone and wasted, undone and abandoned. But, hey! 'Not yet ', I say.
  And everybody knows I 've done it all. Addiction, obsession, breakdown, desolation, terror, denial. I 've done it all, so the story will not be abandoned. As if my life, as if my heart and soul depended on it.
  Never to abandon what never was and will never be - some form of a reminder of my failure. More than a simple reminder, rather the Manifestation of my Failure. Framed, hanging in my bedroom wall, refusing oblivion, worshipped every night until the early morning hours.
  Failure is cosy. It is safe. It tells you, girl, you don't even need to try - it's hopeless. Stay where you are, windows shut, books, music, art, these uncomfortable silences do not need to be repeated, they broke you in two, they smothered you, you don't need to go back there, you don't need to feel, you don't need to expose your feelings, you don't need to relive the unfortunate conduct of your inactivity, of your inability to tell and take what your heart desires. Close your eyes, and the desire will pass, you will wake up into the world of futility again, just shut your eyes for a moment, and everything will be OK.
  Failure is lazy. The risk-less world. Worse than 'disappearing here!', you can live forever.
  Strange, uneven thoughts, this morning. The image of you. Or the image of me, for all that matters. I sometimes, really wonder, if you ever existed, but in the landscapes of my imagination. I can't say the trip was not worthwhile. It was a great great ride. Its hopelessness made it so -how to say this - obligatory.
  Since I was not allowed to actions of love, I indulged in actions of destruction. Destroying the self is far more risky than loving it - but I wasn't aware of that truth. I was young, I knew shit. I had the image of you, I had a mirror in my eye holes. I had the mirror of a thousand failures and a thousand abuses instead of a clear sight.
  I even wrote a book about you, a book that will soon be over, the book of the undone. The book of a story that was never written - or something as futile as this. When I was younger, I believed that when the writing will be over, your image will fade and disappear, your memory will fade and leave room in my head for less intense thoughts.
  Now, the book is almost done, and I do know, that you will never fade away. You are my past, you are my memories, and as painful, as wasted, as undone as they present themselves, they are my memories.
  The image of you is the image of me. Letting go was never an option. There was love there, there was too much love to be contained into a frail body, into a terrified heart, into an unconnected soul. There was so much love, that formed me into who I am.
  And that can never be abandoned!