PART TWO:

i can't really explain it to you that well.

and i remembered earlier in the day when i was stuck in traffic on the highway and i looked around and felt trapped, surrounded by massive vehicles...yellow ribbons, american flags, bumper stickers reducing my country's ideals into a marketable slogan...the flag i saluted as a child...becoming a brand icon (which made me think of rubbing bbq sauce from my face all over napkins printed with american flags at last year's company picnic and laughing loudly about it). and i thought to myself "wait, i still live in the best country in the world, right?" but if that's true, and i do, why is everyone around me so completely fucked up? so completely sad and empty? i feel nothing these days. all my friends from college...they email me and tell me what they're doing and what they're buying and who they're listening to and what they're seeing...but occasionally i get a window into what really goes on inside them, and it's fucking scary. they don't know what they want. they hate their jobs. they're lonely. they grow bored of the stuff they buy. the novelty wears off so quickly to them. we - ugh..i can't even write this without distracting myself with a bunch of stupid internet bullshit every two seconds... i wish i still had an attention span - we are obsessed with these commodities...and we have to adorn ourselves with them. cover up the ugly skeletons inside. and those...the ones that have all the things they need and don't go hungry but are still sad and don't want to get out of bed in the morning...i am still one of these people.

i woke up and i hated what i saw in myself. i know i've been gone a long time. to everyone. i promise i'll tell you everything. i know i've said it before. but i'm a different person now, i swear. i think. people can change. my heart got broken, i got sick, i tried to get myself fired, then i returned to the gym and started exercising again - tried to do something positive for myself. i feel so much better, and everything's funny again. EVERYTHING is. i'll tell you so much more...

PART ONE:

i finally awoke, as i looked at myself in the mirror, crying pathetically. i stared into my own eyes, tears running into my mouth. i could taste salt and vomit. i could taste remnants of an overpriced meal at a subpar restaurant, packed with well-dressed hideous people. as i looked at myself in the mirror i realized i wasn't as ugly as i'd always believed. and i wasn't as vacuous as i had feared. i saw something in my own eyes. i'm a real person. there is something there after all. and i don't think it's ugly, like i'd been told so many times before. i never told you all about my old relationship. with the girl who i took for granted. the girl who tried her best to see something good in me, even though there was only shit inside. when she talked about politics and world affairs, i'd just nod and think about sports cars and HDTVs. i always thought love was just something in movies and in books...a romanticized idea created by french poets a few centuries ago. or something. when i looked into my own eyes and actually saw love for myself, i understood her love for me. maybe that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. i've never thought about it that much. i just thought love and relationships were something that you had to do...something that was socially acceptable and all my friends were doing. so i did it. i went through the motions but rarely did i feel ANYTHING, through no fault of her's. i just accepted the fact that i was a cold monster and feeling nothing is how we live now. all we can feel is cheap, superficial pleasure. orgasm, good food, alcohol, cigarette, drugs, sitcom laughter. not genuine, deep contentment. i don't think i'll ever feel it again (i know i felt it as a child). but at least i had a moment of clarity...i could see inside myself for once. there is something there.

and i understood why i'll be alone forever.