Just where I am tonight

Tonight I feel as if I am circling the drain of hell. Or “a” drain. Perhaps hell has many drains. My cat (Mally) is running around, somehow it is overwhelming. I am exhausted by the business of opening and closing my eyes to find her so I can plop her in bed, of accidentally noticing the way I am breathing, of knowing I still have to get up again after this and brush my teeth, of moving through any physical or mental thought process at all. This is a phase I sometimes I go through before I start to go through the most dangerous phase, where I feel nothing, where all is sludge. Sometimes this passes quickly. Sometimes sleep alleviates it. Sometimes it doesn’t. I am currently overwhelmed by my objectively weird and painful history, trying to calculate how much of it was my fault (or what). Despite all of this, I remain certain of that I possess a real sparkle. Beyond talent or words, maybe beyond kindness or some sort of social chameleon tendencies. I would not have survived without it. It is the reason the young kid (well, he is compared to me) at the cafe always goes out of the way to bring me free samples I think (he’s gay, no funny business) and has told me I’m so kind. Other things like this that I’ve noticed over the years. Yes, it’s also in the people have lasted beside me. Or the older woman I worked with who told me she wanted to be me when she grew up (hah.) All of this equals what? Light, or something like it. I don’t grow on trees, didn’t fall off one. They don’t meet people like me all the time. Maybe I’m being presumptuous, but I get that impression. They wouldn’t have met many like me before all this started, the mental flickerings or blackouts, and for what it’s worth, I am not sure I have met anyone else quite like me either. So maybe that’s the reason I think that. I may have met one recently in a half-moon sort of way. Only I know what I mean by that, and that’s okay I suppose. I hope I am remembered for the ways I was good. I’ll have to end here eventually, like everyone else. Yet part of me doesn’t really think I have an end. My mind, blackouts and all, stretches out. I am learning. And even on the day I die, I think I’ll end it all incomplete, still searching, guessing, dreaming of something better or cleaner than whatever is in front of me. And maybe in heaven I’ll get there.