7/7/05

tyler. i know you're reading this journal. i know you're hunched over those pages. i can see it as clearly as if you were sitting there right across from me. i've seen you over and over again in that exact position, just barely hanging off my bed like you're being pushed. i've always been a bitter bastard and now you know why, i guess. every day, every night i saw things i couldn't understand. even now i don't, really. the future is suffocating. the future is bright and bleak. it's a good place for you and not for me.

i'll be dead soon. it's not because of what you may think. it'll look like johnny's gonna introduce us to his friend keith and i'll kill myself because mike's getting replaced. well, shit. it might be because of that. truth is though that i'm doing my part. i wasn't grieving for mike as much as you thought i was. i was grieving because i knew i was going to die soon and my visions haven't been wrong. not once. so i've gotta go out on my own terms. does it make sense to you? maybe not.

i know what you'll do. you'll take my computer and pretend like i'm still alive. that i'm going through some sci-fi bullshit. i know i can't stop you anyway. you've gotta do your part just as much as i gotta do mine. so all i can really say is good luck. and don't cry too much over me. and don't make me look stupid

what you write is how i'll be remembered, after all. not for anything major, like curing cancer or anything actually notable.

i'll be just another face on the internet that had a somewhat interesting story tied to him.

I am running away from Carly. I am in the marshy woods. I remember. I am running away. I am in the woods.

I stand up straight. I can think clearly for what seems like the first time in years. I remember the past months of my life. He got me pregnant. Carly was trying so, so hard to get through to me. Trying to tell me that she... cared. That she and Sandra both were worried. I feel myself slink to my knees, the wet dirt underneath softly "squelching". How could I have been so stupid? My hand traces my stomach.

I stand back up. I'm now aware of how much I've been crying. I've been away too long. I've been running away too long. How could I have been so stupid?

I walk these barren streets. I notice that they've cut down that cedar tree. I have a message I need to deliver.

The hospital staff are taken aback by me. When I ask who I want to visit, they stiffen. They explain to me that he's been yelling for me to "come and see" this whole time. I understand. That's the way he is.

I meet him again face to face. The veil is off. I see him for what he is. A dog chained to a post, trembling and drowning in a bottomless rage. I say one thing.

"You've never been the suave type."

I turn to leave. His curses don't reach my ears.