Hell, it's late. I really wish I could sleep. But, lacking Zz's, I can always have the incessant tick-tick-tick-tock-tack that isn't really there because I can't can't can't have ticking clocks or I smash them. Or the air conditioning, rattling away like rats in the walls, only it's just one wall and the vent, and I hate the little noises the house makes. I know most of them by now, but every once in a while some littlenoise creeps up on you, and you wonder if that littlenoise is a housenoise or a badnoise, and you jump up, grab your knife, get dressed, and wait. And wait. And wait. And it's nothing, of course, but since you can't sleep then why not indulge in a little paranoia? I hear it really complements the auditory hallucinations humans experience as they drift off to sleep. I never remember what I hear, it's all nonsense, but I like listening to it.

And then dreams, interesting dreams, though if I keep not sleeping and then getting woken up early I'm going to continue not writing them down. I have a week left, in a way, and three (Four?) Weeks in another way. I don't really keep much track of time, then I'd have to realize how little sleep I've been getting. It's all so funny, though. Life, everything. Nothing. Everything! Haha!

When it comes down to a choice between laughing and smashing things, I can't choose. Why choose between two so promising options? Why can't I do everything? Life is too long to not do everything. Jump the chains and do something fun, I tell myself, but those are some heavy chains. Metaphorically, rhetorically, historically, it's still not any fun. Have a little anarchy, have a little strange, have a little shiver-down-your-spine what-the-hell-am-I-doing fun! But not at 3:44 am. No-sir-ee! Nothing but quiet, click, quiet, tap tap tap, creak!, tap tap tap tap tap there go the keys. Better than writing, at least this makes my wrists lock up evenly.

My mind doesn't ever lock up, though. It never stops, even when I try so hard not to think. Funny thing is? I am entirely aware right now. Haha! At least for me, I am coherent. This is how I am during the day, same as in the middle of the night and the wee hours of the morning. Not so wee when they loom before you, the soon-to-be-rising sun making the shadows long and tedious. Long and tedious and quiet... but not so quiet that you can enjoy it. Tick-tick-tick-tock-tack. No one to talk to. Not so much the angst of "No one understands me!" because you do understand. When you see it and believe it and stop trying to make it "better", it makes sense. The Abyss gazes also into you, if you just open your eyes and look at it. This is the quiet of the "No one else is awake. No one I trust is able to hear me right now." That's the long sort of quiet, where I have nothing but my ideas and my noises. Tick-tick-tick-tock-tack-creak-click click-Haha! Laughter in the Dark, though I haven't turned out my light yet. The lights never go out here... even in my dreams, I'm analyzing, cataloguing, practicing, watching, waiting, laughing. Laughing as time burns. Tick-tick-tick-tock-tack.

Why are they so pretty? I know you're the best, but you aren't the prettiest. Not yet. There's not enough of you to watch all the time. There's always another pretty. Tick-tick pretty, watch out, the watch is swinging your way. Tick-tick pretty, just wait and it'll be mine soon. Tick-tick pretty, if you can't smile then why not carve it on your face? Tried it. Tried it. Tock-tack, everything heals. That's what they tell me, the voices before I sleep. Even when they're the ones holding the knives. You'll get over it. Everything heals. Look at my scars, and say it again. Look at my eyes, and say that again. SAY IT.

Borrowed something today, again, from many places. I borrow without intent to return, but sometimes I do. Generally I don't care enough either way. That seems to happen a lot. Tick-tick, when can I feel it? Is it there yet? Tick-tick, no, no, you need your anesthetic, you need your compartments and your boxes and your little spaces to keep everything neat and organized while you hold a match to the world outside you. And what about that place, that place in the back of your mind, where up is down and that little blue-and-white voice is waiting, her new eyes watching, and things are all colour and glow. Or go to your void garden and sit and wonder where the light comes from, because when you look up it's not there. And when you look around nothing is there. And she sits on the bench by the trellis, and watches, and laughs, and waits. Because, she is you, you just haven't realized that yet. You put yourself together piece by piece, modular and continually updated. New version. But I just got the old one! Obsolete. New Version. Only I'm not software, I'm a mind, a mind in a body that does not suit it.

I borrow from many places, from many people, all imaginary but not usually what I imagined. Take a number, tape it on, eventually get tired and toss it away. Wonder when they'll call the winning ticket? Maybe it's this one, maybe it's that one. But no, I think it's this one. I think I got it, now. I think maybe my other colours have a better shot at winning now. Byebye, blue-and-white, take your eyes and your snarl and toddle off. Ta-ta, chaos, let's give a hearty welcome to venom. This is what I started with, and this is what I'll finish with. White-and-green. Silly trickster, your number is up, and now I'm you. I remember you, with your pale face. The first one, and soon to be the last one, if I can only remember you. Reinvent you.

I am not my creations, I am not my own creation. I realize that, and know that I probably won't make any more progress towards correcting it. You were lovely, my New Year's Day, but no more. I held a candle for you in the dark, and felt that twisting feeling in the spine, and the wind in the bones of my hands. And I felt my face go hollow and the one that sleeps inside woke up, flicked its eyes open, and collapsed again after feeling the wind in its bones for one fleeting moment. You are my colours, like he was, but I can't have you anymore. No, I will not hold a candle for you again, no matter how dark it gets.

Now I am simply mundane, in a way, and in others not. Some things never change, and perhaps my colours were one of them. Tick-tick-tick-tock-tack. What goes around, comes around, like the hand of a clock, like time itself, if time exists, and I feel like I'm coming full circle. 4:01 am, and I'm seeing my own footsteps in the sand. Walking next to where I walked before, watching the track as if it belonged to someone else and wondering: what did I do? What happened to me? Up ahead, that one line continues, and I choose to diverge from it. The reason there is only one set of footprints in the sand there is because that is the place where I could not retrace my steps. Where I don't remember enough of my past to walk it without getting lost. If who you are is determined by where you've been, then that would explain a lot of me now. I've been around, but if you don't remember where you've been then how can you learn from it? If you weren't someone before, how can you be someone now? You can't. That's the point.

Apathy has addled my brains, obsession has oppressed them and horror has haunted them and I don't know what the hell is going on in my own mind sometimes. When you speak and don't know what words are coming out of your mouth, or act on a whim without even realizing what you're doing, it's all a blur and nothing sticks when you aren't even in full control of yourself most of the time. No wonder I don't remember: I was just along for the ride. I am a bundle of impulse and response, and while my body is out there acting and changing I'm in here thinking and pondering and listening to that incessant tick-tick-tick-tock-tack that is my life passing by without a trace.

I don't know what the future holds, because I don't believe in the future. If the past is so clouded and vague then how can anything in the future be clearer? It's easier not to hope for things, because then it's always a pleasant surprise when it all works out. Then you don't have to hurt when it doesn't. Then you don't have to feel that part of you, that new part that was just starting to bloom, you don't have to feel it die on a public sidewalk while the rest of your party is seated and sated and you have lost your appetite for time. Then you don't have to wait months and months for something to happen that you know you can't change, and even though a part of you says that it will all work out in the end, another part is saying: Nothing ever ends. If I can change it, I can control it. I realized that I can't control my own life. I can't go back and change the one hopeful whim, the absence of which would have made all of this okay. I can't go back and change the one whim that would have changed everything. I can't go back and un-make the wound, and I can't go forward to when it's finally healed into yet another scar, deeper than most and still tender when it rains. I can't know what would have happened, or if things would have turned out as they have. The illusion is there now, this fantasy of correct that clouds my eyes during this stretch of the ticking. The mask over the world that says everything turned out for the best. But I'm waiting for the illusion to fall, I can't hope for anything anymore because one more wound and I won't be able to smile anymore, not even for you. I can always laugh, always, even when I'm broken and bleeding and there's no end in sight. That's when I laugh the hardest. But I couldn't smile for you anymore, and I need you to see that part of me, no matter how small, is still here. I am here, and it is 4:10 am, and I am alone.

And that's how it has always been.