She came over and took the documentation away. Now I don’t have any proof.

She cried again about me mentioning her on the site.

I told her, I can’t not write about her and still feel whole within myself. I told her, she has become such a part of my life that I can’t not include her in my narrative.

She said I never gave her a choice about being involved in my site. She said I lied to her, and that is why we are in the situation we are now.

She asked, why can’t I leave her alone? She asked, why do I want to cause her so much pain? She asked, why am I doing this to her?

I told her, it’s not about me doing something to her. It’s not a question of leaving her alone or not. It’s not a question of her at all.

Hope I made the right decision. No decisions seem right anymore.

It’s not art. It’s about me.

Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high,
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.

Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me.

Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly,
Birds fly over the rainbow,
Why then, oh why can’t I?

Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly,
Birds fly over the rainbow,
Why then, oh why can’t I?

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow,
Why oh why can’t I?

Load gun, pull back hammer, aim downward.

Squeeze trigger.

Shoot self in foot.

You sit in a room with fluorescent lights and wait.

In the corner is a television dim from seven years continuous use. The program on the screen is unintelligible, whether you’ve been watching for five minutes or for thirty.

You wait.

You start saying a rosary but you can’t ever seem to keep track of how many Hail Marys you’ve said.

Every time the door opens, you look up. The nurse glances at you, then past, and calls out someone else’s name.

You sit in a room with fluorescent lights. You wait.

For some time now it has been manifestly clear to me that, if I would continue to call myself a thinker, I must sit down and compose a statement regarding those things which I believe to be true; an outline, or constitution, if you will, of the first principles from which I draw the conclusions that guide my everyday life.

Now that I’ve gotten it back from my teacher, I’m pleased to present it to the rest of you. It’s… incomplete. Insufficient. Dead, as all documents are, but alive enough, I think, to let you know what I believe. A rough guide to how the pieces fit together.

Note, for now, that it’s long. I need to break it up into chunks for the web. Illustrate it, maybe? Make a nicer interface. But the words… the words are there.

Megan, here’s where you find out how I can be both Catholic and Punk…

Some time ago– maybe a year or two or more, I do not remember clearly– I was listening to Nirvana’s Unplugged album, and I began to cry.

I cried because– I was listening to “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For a Sunbeam” and it seemed so sad. I cried because– it didn’t seem fair that someone who felt so deeply and so sadly should go to hell. That they should feel pain forever because they tried to escape pain here on earth. It didn’t seem fair that someone who meant so much to the rest of us should suffer for succumbing to that sadness that had endeared us to him.

A little while later I was reading the Catholic Catechism:

2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

I hope… I hope that when I die, many years from now, that I will go to heaven and there be able to tell Kurt how much he and his art meant to me. I hope… I hope Kurt has found some happiness now. I… I miss him.

I heard on all sides lamentations uttered,
And person none beheld I who might make them,
Whence, utterly bewildered, I stood still.

I think he thought that I perhaps might think
So many voices issued through those trunks
From people who concealed themselves from us;

Therefore the Master said: “If thou break off
Some little spray from any of these trees,
The thoughts thou hast will wholly be made vain.”

Then stretched I forth my hand a little forward,
And plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn;
And the trunk cried, “Why dost thou mangle me?”

After it had become embrowned with blood,
It recommenced its cry: “Why dost thou rend me?
Hast thou no spirit of pity whatsoever?

Men once we were, and now are changed to trees;
Indeed, thy hand should be more pitiful,
Even if the souls of serpents we had been.”

As out of a green brand, that is on fire
At one of the ends, and from the other drips
And hisses with the wind that is escaping;

So from that splinter issued forth together
Both words and blood; whereat I let the tip
Fall, and stood like a man who is afraid.

[ . . . ]

Therefore he recommenced: “So may the man
Do for thee freely what thy speech implores,
Spirit incarcerate, again be pleased

To tell us in what way the soul is bound
Within these knots; and tell us, if thou canst,
If any from such members e’er is freed.”

Then blew the trunk amain, and afterward
The wind was into such a voice converted:
“With brevity shall be replied to you.

When the exasperated soul abandons
The body whence it rent itself away,
Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.

It falls into the forest, and no part
Is chosen for it; but where Fortune hurls it,
There like a grain of spelt it germinates.

It springs a sapling, and a forest tree;
The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves,
Do pain create, and for the pain an outlet.

Like others for our spoils shall we return;
But not that any one may them revest,
For ’tis not just to have what one casts off.

Here we shall drag them, and along the dismal
Forest our bodies shall suspended be,
Each to the thorn of his molested shade.”

“My answer is no. I would never do it. I don’t care how much the money is, I don’t care how many financial difficulties I have gotten myself into; I just will not do it. Period. Ever. It would be contradictory to my entire life. If you do that, you might as well slash your wrists.”

~carl is my favorite. It has been since I first read it, many years ago.

In many ways they’ll miss the good old days
Someday, someday
Yeah it hurts to say but I want you to stay
Sometimes, sometimes
When we was young ah man did we have fun
Always, always
Promises they break before they’re made
Sometimes, sometimes

Oh my ex says I’m lacking in depth
I will do my best
You say you want to stand by my side
Darling your head’s not right
You see alone we stand together we fall apart
Yeah, I think I’ll be all right
I’m working so I wont have to try so hard
Tables they turn sometimes
Oh someday
Now I ain’t wasting no more time

Trying, trying

And now my fears they come to me in threes
So I, sometimes
They fade my friend, you say the strangest things
I find, sometimes

Oh my ex says I’m lacking in depth
Say I will try my best
You say you want to stay by my side
Darling your head’s not right
You see alone we stand together we fall apart
Ah I think I’ll be all right
I’m working so I wont have to try so hard
Tables they turn sometimes
Oh someday
I ain’t wasting no more time