The excuses are all gone, replaced with a very real, grounded reason to reach the bottom of this bottle. I’m halfway in, but I tend to only do things half-assed, so let’s see if I can break that habit tonight.

I realize, of course, what these decisions I have made over the past few years have lead me towards; a slothful life full of wasted moments that have somehow become wasted years, turning this mind into mush and these years into a wasted life, a wasted potential, a waste of a waste, truly God’s ideal of the perfect sloth, a biblical lose, a tremendous cost to a human psyche that only ever holds on by mere threads and is foolish enough to risk those lines with the edge of a knife, dangling between the blades of the three witches scissors, caught up as a fly in the venus trap that is the sweet, most unholy allure that is this fight against what I think I can never hold with my own two hands, what I thought was your smile as the background of my phone, the backdrop of my life, but whose life is that if you have all the power? See, so I realized, of course, that this slothful life was so far from God that no light could save me, and while it hurts to be alone, hurting is all I need to know, so this is no grand gesture, no noble sacrifice, merely the only option left after all those decisions made in poor lighting after long days I chose to stay alone, away from the sun and sky and humans and nature and away from anything, since it all reminded me of you…

Sure, could I make the effort to create change? All I have left are ways forward, since my cowardice will not lead me towards a peaceful sleep that is this envisioned ideal of death. Unknown darkness is so much more menacing than this darkness I have created for myself; a home built as a blind carpenter, built on rocks of the most uncomfortable shapes possible, built with no human health in mind, built with towers only to keep others out and not to protect those within, built like a labyrinth to confuse the eyes, the nose, the wayward soul so it may never feel as if a single moment can be wasted on such peaceful thoughts like picnics and smiles and hugs and her…

I have so much…so much freedom, right? What an ugly joke; I’m asking myself like I don’t already know the answer..I have the freedom to get up right now, to go anywhere in the City of Akron, the State of Ohio, the Country of the United States of America. I can get a passport and travel the globe, I can buy plane tickets to Korea or Germany or Alaska, I can buy a bike and travel all of Europe, rent a car and drive from Vietnam to China to Russia. I have that kind of traveling freedom.

I can quit my job and still find more work. I can get an office job doing non-sense email work, organizing projects and coordinating different tasks, I can keep working credit and collect deductions, I can run a kitchen, or cook in a kitchen, or serve anywhere, be a host, be an expo, I can do inventory for a grocery store and just count things all day, or work for a factory and count things all night. I could be a cashier, a cheap security guard, a weekend guest sign-in personnel for a retirement home, hell I could even turn this writing habit of mine into an attempt to cash in with a few blogs, build a following and get people to read what I write. I have that kind of job freedom.

I can eat McDonald’s, or Burger King, KFC or Taco Bell. I can order Chinese takeout, or a pizza to go, or go sit down at Luigi’s Italian joint and have some pasta and breadsticks, or go to Crave and have fancier fare. I can go to a store 5 minutes away and buy canned soups, box soups, bagged noodles I can turn into soup, ramen and beef, pork chops or some chips, beef jerky and orange juice, yogurt or cheese, or protein bars and soda, bottled water and vitamin water. I can cook fresh vegetables or make a fruit salad. I have so much freedom when it comes to picking what and when I eat.

I’m such a waste. The lowest of the low. Potential abound, limitless, but nothing to show for it. I talk like I want to be something, to help others but that’s not right. I just want others to see me trying so they can validate me in their eyes. I only care about how I look..I don’t give a damn about really getting better, or how I feel, I only care how others see me, how I come off, if they think I’m doing good, if they think I’m doing okay, giving it my best, making strides forward, if they see me as striving towards a better tomorrow. But so many people have seen right through me..I’m so selfish, so awful, so empty..

I hate myself.

I hate everything about me.

I hate my stupid hair and how I play with it so much, as if I could ever get it to look good, when I’m such an ugly monster.

I hate my stupid laugh, because it’s loud and comes at the worst of times because I have the worst sense of humor. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard, and it grates my ears and makes me wish I would just choke on my own spit and never make a noise ever again.

I hate my arms because they are covered in scars that only prove I was to weak to push that extra inch, where I would actually reach a vein and bleed a bit more, so I could do the world a favor and just disappear.

I hate my eyes because they look so tired even though I do nothing to warrant that feeling.

I hate my nose because it’s too big, but also to small, and it’s in the middle of the face that I hate so much.

I hate my ears because they hear how small I sound, I hate my hands because they can’t hold anything aside from my own greedy desires, I hate my heart because it beats away just fine, as if it has the right to keep beating, to keep pumping blood throughout this wasteful excuse for a life.

I hate the burns on my right arm I got from working as a cook because they remind me of the wasted weekends I could have spent doing anything, but I spent them as a nobody cook where nobody gave a damn about me.

I hate my skin, my smell, my stupid legs that keep walking me to and from work, but won’t really take me anywhere at all.

I hate my thoughts, all so ugly and unsightly, so conceited and lacking any empathy, any real love and care.

I hate…I hate that I can write about everything that has ever happened to me and twist every story, every experience, every single memory into another thing to hate. I hate feeling so empty. I hate feeling like I need to be saved and I hate knowing I can’t be the one to save me. I hate waiting for my time to start moving again. I hate waiting for someone to make my time move again. I hate it. I hate time, clocks and calendars to mark how much of a waste I have been in numbers and dates, months and lifetimes gone by the wayside, thrown towards the sky and combusting into nothingness because I am just a stupid speck of dust who ruined a perfectly good moment on the morning of August 10th, 1990, bursting into the life of 2 perfectly fine adults who would go on to be amazing parents to 2 amazing kids. I am a black spot on so many existences and I could make up for it all by dying.

What a thought though, right? Thinking my death would atone for the sin of my very existence. I can’t make up for who I am. I can never suffer enough to make up for what I am. I can only continue to hate myself. No praying to God; evil such as me does not deserve something as amazing as the idea of God. I am a monster. Monsters can only hurt, so do the one thing that makes sense, monster.

I hate myself.