cannot

‘Tis the season of all the extras. ‘Tis the season of amplification. I feel too much, I go too far, I sink too deep too fast. Little things spark conflagrations, passing thoughts, fleeting glimpses. Most of the year I go crazy once a day or so. Come the holidays, it’s nearly every hour on the hour. I can’t let go though it’s all there is to do. I can’t keep looking and there’s no way to look away.

It goes and goes. The mood swings have always hit hard around the holidays, the wishing wanting nature of the myths and the sense of lost belonging that has beset me for decades the words that tag along with the madness. I cannot help the hurting, but at least can try to mitigate the evil that my words and actions spread. I know that you gave up on me, and that you gave up for a good reason, even though you didn’t need one. You have to go in the direction of healing. You have to follow your heart.

I kept finding myself wanting you to say something you wouldn’t say, or do something you wouldn’t do. Long after it was clear even to me that you had done all that you could. I realize I was a mistake you made, some side trip reaction to the road you were on and the poison you would name perhaps. I won’t know, and couldn’t believe you if you told me. Whatever the reasons for your little fibs and your sins of omission, they aren’t mine to name or know. My own madness is my department, and its containment and disarming is something I owe to all the non-combatants in the world, you included. All the things I want and need are a story to tell to the walls and the annals of sorrow. What comes next I cannot fathom.