It’s hard to unlearn the affliction;
It unites me to so many things
It gives me that feeling that hitting a vape gives you when → you’ve associated your breath to a chemical→ and that chemical to valuable people.
Memories.
My best nights. Mostly because, they were possibly terrible nights, but I had great support systems.
I had my friends, I had people. I found a community.
Family.
They cared about me.
I’m sure they still do.
So, why is it hard to unlearn so much of the pain?
I don’t know if drugs are much worse than chasing the feeling of being alone.
Feeling abandoned, feeling rejected, feeling overwhelmed.
Could you imagine chasing the crash?
Looking for the feeling where everything turns sour.
I’m sure only broken people look for those downers.
Downloads.
Down.
Low.
loaded gun.
Humanity is painful if you look all around.
There’s beautiful realms, but there’s the deepest of pain here.
It’s all so deeply pullin.
Gravity must be working with it.
And so, I carry some affliction in order to stay in touch with reality. I let it weight me into earth.
The reality of the world.
Some psychologist should write about the pull.
How it brings us in and somehow we feel connected.
Or maybe some sociologist should find the connection of mental afflictions, trauma responses and addiction, and how, I’m sure, they lead to the war and the suffering we are victims of.
Pull the thread, it’s all connected.
I feel it.
With the noose around our necks and we still hold the stupid black mirror.
Connection. Even if falsely generated.
Aliens gave U.S. technology and we only know to lose our power in it.
Mind-shifters and choosing propaganda.
So hard to make up, so sad to admit.
We fight our demons every day.
And we still play the masochist game.
We could drop it.
We could drop it any time and I’m sure we’d be time-space-traveling.
I’m so sure of it.
I must still ask, why am I attached to my own tragedy?
Declaring I do not identify with the melancholy is only partially true.
Part of me still is that weeping child, that tormented teenager, that troubled young adult.
It must not be the only thing we have that unites us.
The duality of love is the affliction, and while I will never advocate for the worshiping of pain, it must be held.
I do not wish to bring her with me everywhere, nor do I want to be seen when she’s got me by my neck, but it’s true that if I summon her she will come to me.
Sometimes I want her to find me. I look for her, to see if she’s watching. Only sometimes, but I still wish that she will prove my fears to be true. That there is nothing I can do about the overtaking pain. I sometimes want her to have all the power. Maybe that just means I let her dominate me out of effortless routine.
Still, have you heard yourself? Have you heard what I’m saying?
I cast upon her what I wish to be true, only because I wish that my survival instincts will have a reason to resurface. To lay down and be in agony. The biggest antagonist of my own story. Why would anybody search for her, who is almost worse than death?
Cold hands, blue palms. Low blood pressure.
I want the compassion, I wish to give it to her.
Affliction, bae, you’re just as deserving of companion. Loneliness needs company in order to be felt. Without you I wouldn’t know that I can have beauty and warmth. If you didn’t exist, the world wouldn’t know to be grateful, though we rarely remember. It’s all you. Is it not?
I am pulled towards you because I wish to understand where violence is born. I gravitate to the lows in order to get high. I crave it. Like a hooked addict.
Make me feel bad, bring me down. Only that way I will know that it never changes, familiar with the rollercoaster.
Life.
So, affliction. Why is it that when I’m enjoying the love, when I’m unlearning the troubled attachments, when I’m almost at the top, I want you?
I almost wish upon a star that you will knock me down. That’s what I think my remembering body has been trained to get.
Affliction, a sad song. A terrible drinking habit. Not a habit, but a deeply rooted feeling. A feeling so connected to a moment in time. Brings me back to who I was. I want to still be connected to my roots. Even if those roots are not part of me anymore. In fact, the longer I stay away, the less I feel like they were my own burdens to carry.
Why do I hold on to the inhabitant nature of destabilization?
I learned it.
And so, I learn now that the affliction holds me… because I hold her back.
But, how am I supposed to inflict this suffering to affliction, who has seen me for as long as the moon has ?
Or so I wish to narrate like that.
Because she’s not truly mine.
And she’s not actually for me to keep. I seek her, but she doesn’t actually care if I care about her.
Attention, wants it.
Instead though, I remember she can only follow me for as long as I let her. And, its reality comes from the meaning that I give her. She’s only personified because I’ve given her a role to play. Affliction is a vibration, but she’s never been a friend. Unfortunately, as it may be, Affliction doesn’t have a soul.
But I do.
I have autonomy even in a stage with thousands of roles, and a character to play.
Affliction is part of the human experience, and so, I must not forget her existence. I must remember others feel it too. Yet, I should never forget, mental states are only states. Not forever consistent. They drag you down, but down we never stay.
Goodbye Affliction, I know I’ll see you again.
I won’t miss you anymore, I don’t look forward to your visit.
You’re just part of the cycle, and I do my best to stay in touch.
Death and Affliction are bittersweet, and I never liked to mix my flavors, but the bite is often taken without knowing how the taste will land.