fear and self-loathing during the fast (a monkey-wrench to the fairytale)

i can't block out the sound of dance music from the bar next door. some kid sits on the rail besides me and shouts nonsense into his phone. he has hair cut like a peacock and is too ostentatious to be tolerable. for a few moments i wonder about standing up suddenly so my chair falls backwards, picking up my table with one arm, grabbing it around its leg, and throwing it full pelt towards the son-of-a-bitch to cause maximum damage. a few moments later, i decide against it, and turn the page of my book. the wind shifts and i lose my page. MOTHER F*CKER i howl to myself. (and flip it back too easily to where it was. no problem. no problem at all, we're ok here. we're ok).

i'm frayed. my glasses hurt my face. i touch my skin on the drive home and it feels like a foreign material. when i was 9 my grandfather took me to the San Diego zoo and i rode an elephant. my face feels like its hide. my breath smells of decomposing internal organs. my blood is acidic, and in my mouth, there are two loci of pain. (this is where my fangs are growing out). i can't tell what time it is. it is too loud. i put on my headphones and skip through 15 songs in 2 minutes. i cannot replicate the sound of silence accurately enough. i cannot tolerate silence itself, it is the too-loudest thing.

someone sends me a forwarded email about how transcendent they feel while fasting. i grit my teeth and try and diminish the effusive rush of homicide i feel towards them. they tell me how when they neglect their body and concentrate their thoughts on 'the spiritual' they find freedom. (i haven't drunk in hours, i spit a mouthful of sickly saliva at the floor by their feet. this intimidates them into silence). as an individual, i have a non-healthy repugnance of my nails and inhalations and erections as it is. (though i take great pains to venerate these same said qualities. this dichotomy forms the basis of my internal self-loathing, and will no doubt be a point of tremendous suffering to my future wife and children. who will no doubt eventually abandon me to my filthy confusions, thereby allowing me (in my head) to achieve the meticulous and well-planned self-sabotage i have already resigned myself to experiencing) the Fast does nothing but concentrate my disgust and disable my usual aspiration towards the sublime. it perturbs my usual equanimity so that i spend all day concentrating on the shape of my fingertips, the peristaltic motions of my abdominal muscles, the redirection of blood into my groin.

it fills me with lust and fear and i am cold and hot simultaneously. i'm irascible and jealous and my insecurity makes a reprise in szforzando notes. my misanthropy grows uncontrollable. for 19 days every year, i am overcome knee-deep in the filth of myself (while everyone else flies around feeling liberated of their skin, i, for 19 days, am forced to retrace every mistake, every misword pronounced, every misdecision relived, ever scar bruise or hump is traced and retraced and right now i want to throw up 26 years worth of myself and screw it all back to oblivion.

for 19 days i hate god and religion, and stop-lights and anyone else who wants to tell me what to do. (and i can't stand the colour of sunrise and i can't tell 4am from noon, and i'm narcoleptically falling asleep in every whichwaywhere and i caffeinate myself from sunset to sunrise just to manage the things i'm supposed to do to get through life.school.normality etc etc.

(mentally i commit myself to apostasy as soon as the fast is over). (every year).

i don't dare interact with my friends and i try and spend as much time alone as possible. thus i feel lonely. my body is not a thing i am familiar with. it smells and moves funny. my muscles lose their tone and i start to morph into a blob of myself. a smear. (i exhale and hear my ribs crack. my bones are turning hollow. i'm osteoporotic now, great). i've ignored my soul for a week now. all my thoughts are centred on life and living... on being alive... on survival... on nutriton and replication and anhiliation. i am all beast. i don't shave or do my hair in the mornings. my eyes are black around and in and out because i cannot distinguish night from day. i refuse to answer my phone.

finally i rise from the coffee shop. it's too damned noisy. the wind is soo pleasant, i need the air, but it can't pick one direction to flow from and it makes me dizzy. the soda water i'm drinking fills me with sails and i feel white sheets inside my abdomen dragging me around. my head hurts from the 2 coffees, 2 energy drinks, and load of sugar i've consumed in the last 90 minutes to try and keep me awake long enough to read the 120 pages i have to present tomorrow morning. i am failing on all counts. my own body is reneging on me. my soul feels neglected. all i can think about is f*cking and eating and measuring my own grave to fall in.

why do it then? she says.
____- because every year i have it's been the worst year of my life.
____- how many is that?
____- like... four now.
____- the four worst years of your life?
____- yes. (and also the four best).
____- i don't get it.
____- the worst years of your life are where the stories are. that's where... things happen(ed).
____- you do this to collect stories?
____- isn't that the point of life?
____- you're crazy, no! the point is like... to be happy. or something. like that.
____- bullshit. you remember stories. you remember 'lessons'. it's like... wisdom.
____- i think you're insane.

i hate your guts. all of you. i want you all to die.

(in 4 hours i'm going to wake up and pray to be forgiven for everything i've just said)