Diary Entry 1014

Life right now is multitudinous. I've gotten everything I wanted as a child. An apartment with a beautiful view, financial liberty... and someone who loves me. Really loves me. The kind of love I always wanted. Unconditionally given. Always there. Maybe that's why I'm so adamant about pushing it away because deep down, I know I don't deserve it. 

What is about your childhood that never leaves you? The dilapidated memories that bundle up in your conscience like a homeless person on a cold, winter's day hurling insults and abuses from its miserable corner. The noise fills up your brain till you can't hear anything else. The perpetual noise that starts making sense after a bit. 

"Hey you! You little spawn. You don't deserve it. This little life. You think people love you? They don't know you. They don't know that darkness that dwells within your sapless soul, if you had one. The only company you'll ever keep is your misery. Forlorn and alone. You don't deserve it. You're not good enough. You know who you are. You're a monster."

Maybe I am a monster. An unlovable, bitter beast. I feel it sometimes. The need to feed. Feed on the good things. Suck the merry dry. Take that laughter and turn it into shouts and angry yells because that's more familiar to me than the words of love could ever be.

Maybe I want this. I want to be alone. And so I stay indoors and push away anyone who could stand between me and my sadness. But they would never know the completeness that comes from being untiringly enveloped in the comfort of unexplained sorrow, the wanton addiction of it - a love for self-destruction given with such abandon that it leaves very little room to love anything else. It is the feeling that persists in crowds and follows in devotion to the midst of empty conversations, like a loyal shadow of a friend you never made. 

I can feel it, you know. My past trying to grab at me. Pull me deeper into the shadows from where I came. The dark, damp, putrid environment. The insensitivity and the violence. Its teeth gnaw at my soft flesh that tears, brandishing its claws and beckoning me for more, and I... welcome it. It feels like coming home.

I know what you're thinking, but I'm not a bad person. At least, I don't want to be. I do charity. But when I hear that something good happened to someone else instead, I want to scream. I want to scream in their face and pull their hair and take it away from them. When I read that a bomb fell on helpless people, I look away and feel relieved that it wasn't me. I'm not a bad person. I just had a bad childhood. 

My mother hated me. Or at least it felt like it. You know that one person who is supposed to love you no matter what, doesn't. Maybe that means something, huh? Maybe she saw the monster I was to become. Or maybe she made me into one.

It hurts, does it? It hurt me, too. But then I just accepted it. I remember fighting it, telling myself that I was good — well, good enough. I would look at myself in the mirror and tell myself, "You are good enough," but then, after a while, I just started to disappear. I stopped looking in the mirror because I didn't see myself anymore. Now I don't know who I am. I look at other people flaunting their self-awareness and nauseating confidence, and it makes me sick. The smile on their faces as they tell me about the promotion they just got, their pretentious holiday plans and, oh, their politics. It's a good thing you can't talk right now. No wonder we're getting along so well.

It feels good to talk. I learnt that in therapy. I never stick to one, so they don't catch up to me. You see, I don't really want to fix it. I just want to talk about it. I want you to know what it was like. The most useful thing they ever told me was to keep a diary, just so I don't forget. Don't worry, I'll be writing about this later.

You know, once I found a kitten on the side of the road and I brought it home. My mother screamed at me and told me to leave it back where I found it. And so I went back to that place, and I put it down on the ground, but it followed me all the way back home. I kept it in secret. I would feed it milk from the shop, and it thought I was its mother. After two weeks, it got sick. A nasty, viral disease that breaks down the insides little by little. I didn't know what to do so I held it all night, saying what a good kitten it was over and over and over. I could've taken it to the vet but I didn't. I think it's because I didn't want it to live in this cruel world. I wanted it to go someplace better. I wanted it to die. And then it did. It died in my arms. I think about it every day.

None of us ask to be born. One day, we open our eyes and find ourselves surrounded by chaos. We didn't choose this. We didn't want this. Then why put up with it? Life is a fluke. How can you have something you never even asked for? It doesn't belong to us. Shh, don't be scared. I'm doing you a favor. It's the right thing to do. 

You need to understand. It's very important that you understand why I'm doing this. I'm not a bad person. I just want to do something good for someone else. I want to free you. Free you from expectations, the pressure to be liked, to be loved, to be rich, to achieve. Now you won't have to worry about solving the climate crisis, the wars or anything else. See, doesn't that sound liberating? Don't fight it. It will only make it worse. You need to accept it. This is the best way. This is the only way to escape.

You're a good person, you're a good person, you're a good person.