Down and Out in Paradise

that spot on my neck

where it says G O O D B O Y

it was originally supposed to say

무지개 반사

After a while it was supposed to say

𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔟𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔨

very emo of me, but it almost did.

I was laying on the floor and [redacted] was straddling me. Sitting right on my pelvis. You can see the stick n poke h on my neck still if you look close enough. It was an interesting summer. I went on a lot of dates. I was new in town and a handful of the people I met would at some point tell me they had a crush on me, including my would be tattoo artist.

Months later I told them “I’m glad I was too fucked up to do anything with you, I’m really happy we became friends instead”

“no yeah me too absolutely!”

Almost every friendship I’ve had over the last few years starts this way.

One autumn night standing outside of bar in ravenswood smoking cigarettes with the girls, a friend of a friend exclaimed “your boobs are so big!!”

They had already been flirting with me for some time, but it seems they were really feeling the alcohol at that point. Later I was talking to the friend I knew directly about it and they commented on that person’s behavior, apologizing for it. I shrugged it off

“Happens to everyone, eventually they get over it and then we’re friends!”

I’m not bragging. Rather, I’m a bit sad about this recurring phenomena. When people get over their lust and the initial novelty of yours truly, they drift away. They stop hanging out, they take days to respond to texts, so on and so forth.

Everyone has their own heaping pile of things to deal with,I know. It would be nice though, if people felt I was worth keeping around. Keeping up with.

Either way I’m a massive hypocrite. How many people do I follow or am I friends with because I wanted to see their tits or suck them off? How many messages am I leaving unanswered?

Plenty.

It was a very interesting summer. To be surrounded by all these options and turn them all away because I couldn’t stop crying over my ex. A year later, summer is coming again. A lot has changed, except that. I hold myself back from committing to a wonderful girl because I feel it would be dishonest of me to proclaim my eternal love and loyalty knowing it still renders me physically ill, it’s still deeply and presently painful, my heart is still broken.

Though that’s my own fault.It’s my own fault what happens to my heart.

Speaking of heartbreak, I saw a video of a young woman talking about how funny she thought heartbreak was, and went on to start a story about how she handed a grocery clerk a bottle of root beer and a tub of ice cream. She hadn’t been able to eat for two weeks due to her breakup but figured a root beer float would be great.

I looked over to the disposable cup on the floor. There’s still foam from a root beer float I made a few days ago in it.

I’ve always loved root beer floats, especially as a kid. But I realized. ever since the breakup I’ve been making them much more frequently for myself.

I didn’t get to hear the rest of her story, the video was cut off by a stitch. The person reported that a month after that young lady posted that video she hung herself. The video went on to talk about how society minimizes the effect of heartbreak, but I wasn’t really listening, I looked away from the screen. A swell of emotion. I felt so sorry for her, and I was deeply jealous of her too.

Last night I watched a “based on a true story” film about a family of wrestlers deeply and repeatedly struck by tragedy. There’s a scene where one of them arrives in the afterlife after shooting himself in the heart, on a small boat gently gliding along a lake. At the dock waiting for him were three of his brothers who had already passed.

Again I was jealous.

Jealous of people who have been able to go through with it. I know that’s sick and awful but it’s true.

I thought of two other figures I admire greatly who also ended up hanging themselves in their rooms. There was one day a few years ago where I was trying to do the same thing in my parent’s basement. As the pressure built up in my head and it felt like my tongue has started to swell, a book fell from somewhere behind me. I’d never seen the book before, my dad is a bit of a hoarder you see, there’s a million down there. On the back of the book was a picture of one of these men I admired. He was smiling in it. There was some positive, inspiring, encouraging message next to his picture. It was an old book, from many years before he took himself out. Back then I took it as a sign and stopped. In hindsight, I now acknowledge it as another one of those moments. A cruel but funny punchline that leads me to wonder about the hand of god.

I can’t do that to my sister, my friends, my lovers, my family, I know that. I feel some purpose and worth in holding on so I don’t pass my grief onto them. Sometimes though…

Anyway.

The movie ends with the last living brother sitting on the grass watching his sons play as he holds back tears. I think about how he has to hold on and carry the grief so he can continue to take care of what’s left of his family.

I thought about it sometimes in the past. Having a kid so I’d have a reason to hang on no matter what. It was a serious thought, though I also feel it would be a high heresy to bring kids in this world just so I’d have a good enough reason not to kill myself. Now that I’m of age to do so, I know it’s possible that wouldn’t be enough. Plenty of people with children have taken themselves out, and I felt that for me, it would make things exponentially worse to do that to my kids.

It doesn’t matter anyway, I’m sterile.

Couldn’t have kids if I wanted to. A lyft driver asked me yesterday if I had kids. We were just making small talk and I’d asked if he had any. It’s one of the best dialogue options you can choose. If you ask people about their kids they’ll go on and on and on, and you don’t actually have to make any conversation, just pretend to be interested. Nod, mhm, “oh wow!”

When I told him I didn’t have any kids he said “you’re 26 man? what are you waiting for?!”

I once again started thinking about how I have a handful friends who have already had kids or are getting married. One of my exes told me yesterday that she’s getting married as well. I was winded when I read the message. Our breakup(s) really destroyed her, she would constantly profess that I was the only one for her, but now she’s getting married!

It’s surreal, being on the other side of it all.

“Yeah I don’t know man, I just travel too much and I’m not sure I want to do all that yknow?”

I never planned on starting a family at 26 anyway. My plan for 26 was to save up the whole year, then when I turned 27 I would start that travel show I always wanted to make. Something in the vein of Parts Unknown. I’d travel the world, eating good food and meeting great people, and then hopefully 2 or 3 months before I turned 28, my plane would crash or I’d be kidnapped and murdered by locals in some corner of the earth I was filming in.

It would be less painful for everyone around me that way, if I wasn’t the one who killed me.

post script

I’ve been thinking seriously about retiring from all this. I can’t seem to get my head on straight. I can’t seem to just get good and stable. It always interrupts the “content” I want to make and do anyways, and being so public means that more people worry about me. I don’t want to make anyone worry, and I just can’t seem to fix myself.

I don’t think I’d be able to retire though, I’ve tried several times, but I always seem to come back. I always have a new idea for a thing I want to make, I always miss you all so badly.

I always come back

We always come back.

They always come back.

i always come back.

The End Of 4pocrypha.

Such a quick turnover this time. I ended up back down here so quickly. I hope this means this episode won’t last long. I have some stuff that helps me sleep through the days I can’t consciously make it through, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while.

I always come back.

i’ll come back when i’m able to purposefully look at myself in the mirror.