i've been thinking a lot about my life since i left southern california the last time.

and how i left because of a deep deep heartbreak, and how sometimes when i think back to what happened it doesn't seem real. and how the overwhelming feeling from the whole thing is just so much shame.

shame and emptiness and so much self-loathing. so so much. an incalculable amount. and how weak i feel because of it. and what a coward i am.

and just sincerely fucked up.

and the nights when i first got to northern california, my brother broken in his own right, both physically and psychically, and how i couldn't even really talk about it (that i remember--i could be wrong. maybe i talked about it all the time. i sincerely don't know. i just remember so much internal silence and a complete chaos in my mind that i couldn't articulate) and just so much darkness and that small room that my brother and i shared, in a tiny two bedroom apartment.

and how over and over my brother has saved my life, and i feel, sometimes, that i have given so little back to him. and how terrible that feels, to feel parasitic to even the ones that you love the very most.

but i remember the full-sized air mattress that we shared. and how often he slept on the couch, even though he was walking around on crutches and mending his own destroyed broken heart, how he would let me sleep alone because i was so sad, and had just started a new job, and that i was scared and broken and just fucked up.

the early mornings of no sleep listening to dirty three on repeat.

the sounds of the busy street, finding a house for all of us to live in.

just trying to get myself together.

and i think about how so much of my life, for so long, has been this long process of trying to get myself together. and it's so fucking hard because most days i can't do anything beyond what i must do. i can't even remember the last time i showered. i slip into routine and let the hours pass until i can get back into the womb of my apartment.

just me, the light of my monitor and music.

i can't concentrate to read, i can't think beyond how i am going to get through to my next paycheck, i can't think about really building friendships with people here because my inside is just so turned around and just...wrong.

it's so hard because i try to make things better, and i really am happier here than i have been anywhere else that i've ever lived.

but jesus christ, what is that really even saying.

sometimes, i feel like i've missed it, whatever train that was waiting to take me somewhere whole, i feel like it's just left and gone.

and even though i know in my head that this is crap, that i have to make my own train and make myself whole

nothing else in me feels like that's possible.

and i try so hard to be hopeful, i try to think of ways to make myself better, but in my heart i fear i am too broken, too fragmented, too inexperienced at how to really connect with other people, just too far gone at this point to ever make it through.

and it hurts most because for a brief period, just a few months of my life, i felt like i was saved, that i had found the key to my locks.

but the key was rusted and broke somewhere in the turn.

and now i just feel stuck.

and tonight it's so dark and quiet. somehow, there's no light coming through my blinds from the street, there's no sounds of drunken people laughing or shouting or just being drunk. a car passes by every ten minutes or so. it's just so dark and quiet tonight.

i turned off the monitor for a moment and just sat in the darkness, trying to see anything.

i climbed down from my chair and i laid on the cool wood floor.