Stare into the Abyss

There is nothing worse than reaching out desperately for someone to take your hand and pull you from the abyss, only to watch them stare back at you in confusion. Worse even than them looking down at you in derision, or callous indifference. To know that it’s not that they don’t want to help you, but that they cannot. How could they when you don’t even know what you’re searching for yourself?

You’re just Holden wandering through the wintry streets of New York, faking a gunshot wound in a bathroom, running about with that goofy ass hat on.

I want that hat.

And the most fucked up thing is that I want to be Holden.

I know I care too much, worry too much, analyze too much, think too much. I pace, fret and wonder about everything until I can’t do it anymore. But, I want that. Giving in would be too easy, being content would just feel like giving in. Feel like settling.

It’s not that I’m unhappy, far from it really. That’s not to say that I’m never upset, but generally I like my life, I like who I am. But, that’s the thing… I enjoy this. I enjoy the good fight. I enjoy the discontentment and endless self reflection. I like the torture.

Why should I push it away? Why should I pretend? Why should I try to feel something that I don’t? I’m looking for something. What? I don’t know… I don’t even think I truly believe I will ever find it. I’m not sure how any human ever can. Maybe this is where people think fate comes in, God comes in; maybe this is why so many of us are so bitter and cynical.

I wish I knew if I believed in fate or not. I always pretend to be such a logical person, but I’m really not. I always felt I believed in progress, but I don’t know if I do. I’m a burning pyre of contradiction. The rationalist and the dreamer, the optimist and the pessimist, Aristotle and Plato waging war in my very core. I love and hate humanity simultaneously, and that’s probably the hardest to admit. How can I even be? I feel like the main character of some Romantic novel…

I want to spread my arms out to the night sky, tilt my head back and scream my lungs out to some dark street corner, but I know I could never do it, just as Holden never could speak when he called Jane. Something holds us back, leaves us mute. So, I’m left to sit here and use my sign language on this keyboard, to bang out my frustration at the world, my frustration with myself, and wish I was making some actual noise.

“Got to admit it’s getting better, a little better all the time.”
“It can’t get any worse.”