oxygen

             A section of the universe in western Washington had positioned itself into a Thursday evening in mid-November, when the atmosphere was a rusty metal and cigarette smoke so gently folded within the seams of the air. I had been shrouded in deep confusion for roughly six weeks, but it felt more like forty years at the time. For some time I had accepted the fact that I would, in fact, and quite soon, try to leave the Earth. I decided to execute this plan on that Thursday evening of rust and smoke and cold weather.
             But the revolting fact remains: that I haven't tried to hang myself and I haven't been cutting myself up and I haven't been enveloped in a cloud of opaque darkness, the same darkness that provided me with so many words and ways through which I could elucidate the uneven ricochet between anger and apathy and manic frenzy.
             And there lies the problem: what the hell am I supposed to write about, if not on darkness and the morbid?
             Whenever I was bad, I maintained the ability to more closely identify with my favorite authors whose primary works stemmed from their mental illnesses. In spite of that, I now find myself in the blaring reality of a metamorphosis. During the introduction of this transition, I found myself sad, so I would cling onto David Foster Wallace and beg for Virginia Woolf to take me back. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. But the more I'd let myself live - that is, physically and sometimes mildly hedonistically - the easier it was to alleviate my twisted need to remain a trying hermit. I explored, slowly. I began to realize the dreadful and the beautiful: human beings are all quite insane, very insane, but the idiosyncrasies and discrepancies that render our characters unique from one another are derived from the choices we make and take to display such insanity. To be part of such a beautiful, hilarious, destructive, and hopeful world gives me an honored feeling of acceptance. I'm thrilled to be here.