#journal:ira

[the-halfoftheabused]

When a monster plays pretend;

           timeline: months into Ira’s recovery

 @orchidwrites How many months has it been since I last wrote more than a handful of  fragmented sentences, scribbled out in frustration and bitter fury?

I wish I could apologize to myself for stopping, but I wouldn’t forgive myself even if I did. I have no excuses. The truth of the matter is that I gave up. I didn’t deserve anything that I had because I didn’t truly fight for it, therefore I must not have wanted it enough ——

No, that’s not true at all. My therapist will be glad to know that, while the level of my self-deprecation has not gone down at all, I can at least recognize when I’m doing it now.  But, I digress. All I could do was want, but the range at which I was allowed to have what I wanted was such a small, minute star in the span of the entire universe. I could want, but only what I was told to want. A higher quality of clothes, the permanent ink on my skin, the blood on my hands, _the flesh beneath my nails._ My passion for music truly was the only __tolerable__ past hobby that I was allowed, although I was enlightened to the superiority of the piano to the ukulele. My faith is gone. _Twice._ I cannot tell Isaiah that.

While I won’t forgive myself, I accept that I can’t give up this time. Isaiah hasn’t given up on me. I finally stopped asking him last week how he could love someone like me, which was an improvement in itself, because a handful of times I mixed my words. Asking him how he could love _something_ like me got a very different response than __someone__ did. The small strides that I take towards a semblance of sanity are the hardest ones for me. I’m certain of that.

I set myself up for defeat in the beginning. During my years under Alexander’s care,  I found it easiest to cope from his generosity by believing that, should I ever leave, everything would go back to normal. Of course, I never realized how painfully wrong my ‘normal’ I was, I was corrected. Still, a part of me hoped that the part of me that Isaiah despises would disappear when he took me from Alexander. I should be more devastated than I am, truthfully. I’m intelligent enough to recognize that. I am devastated, but not in the way I should be. Isaiah is what I want, but the life that I have to live is killing me. Alexander is no longer a formidable presence in my mind, but he left the monsters in my head. No, worse. I am those monsters.

And I don’t feel bad about that at all.

But the thought of that look — that terrified, disgusted look on Isaiah’s face when he found out the truth. I never want to see it again. I try hard to pretend for him. It exhausts me more than any havoc I’ve ever wrought has. If he weren’t a factor, I gladly admit that I would not be doing this. It’s not worth it. What I had before hurt for awhile, yes, but I learned. I liked what I had.

But I love him more.

So, that’s why — for the first time since months before was taken from Alexander —  I write again. The rust on my fingers will shake off, eventually. I started to get callouses on my fingertips from picking at the strings of my ukulele. I still haven’t played a full song yet, but I like seeing Isaiah smile anytime I at least pick it up. I don’t want to be the cause for his unhappiness ever again.

I will never be ‘normal’ again.

But I can pretend.

[the-halfoftheabused]

Damnation; Ira

@orchidwrites

timeline: following his destruction of his church

I can no longer apologize for my brutalities. I am unable to sustain the emotional energy required for guilt. I have no reason to feel shame for my deplorable actions following the ruin of the home of my faltering faith. With the collapse of the eloquent, divine figures of each fallen pillar and the shattering of old tapestries frozen solid from my wintry wreckage, my hope lies buried beneath the rubble upon the corpse of a murdered priest who wasted his time and sealed his fate pitying a demon with delusional aspirations of angelic status again. What a silly creature I was, hoping I could achieve redemption in the eyes of God as an angel, when I was beginning to struggle with the simple concept of humanity. 

There is no reason for me to deny myself anymore.  I still feel the swaying swell of grievous guilt from time to time, like now, but I don’t have to concentrate on it for long. I’m kept busy. Blood is my anesthetic. The hurt I can cause distracts from my own. Ruining others numbs my awareness of my own decay. The sheer volume of screams pacify the troubled thoughts in my head.

It’s only when it gets quiet that I begin to feel those feelings once more.

I am grateful that I am allowed to never let it get quiet again. It can be as loud as I want it to be. 

I like it best at volumes that are defeaning.

[the-halfoftheabused]

beautiful things; i r a

                 timeline: sometime between the first time Isaiah forgets Ira and their second time          dating

It’s an odd feeling to have to relearn something. 

I’m not talking about factual information, or skills applicable to life. Although, I admit that I need to brush over the ancient pile of notes I took in my anatomy classes in college. More or less, they sit in the bottom drawer of my desk collecting dust. Out of sight to stop reminding me of the future I lost. But I digress -- having to relearn something that is taught over a person’s early lifetime is a daunting task. Parents instill love in their children at a young age. They’re taught to care about the environment, about others, about the world. Most importantly, they’re taught to love themselves. 

But what is one to do when the concept of morality is weaponized against them? 

I can’t protect anyone. Only one person is safe from me, and even then, the threat of losing him ruins me. Kindness is not a virtue that I can accept for fear that the fool who takes pity on my lost soul will be ruined, too. I am the cause of so many to part from this earth, but I only grieve the hearts broken by merely being within my proximity. I am not nearly as deprived of sleep because of it as I once was, learning that it is for the best interest of myself next poor, innocent fool that I learn to hate. 

I have fallen. I accept the shackles that will chain me to my eventual fate in the burning cold of the pits of Lake Cocytus. I won’t drag anyone else down with me. I’ve destroyed enough, and I know that this is only the beginning of the destruction that a greater force will have me leave in my wake. 

My morality is compromised, and still, he tries. He is a beautiful thing that I don’t deserve. I fear that my endeavors in mimicking cruelty that I’ve learned won’t be enough to keep him away for much longer. Even when he is only present in the same room as me, I feel human again --- well, no, that’s not true. I don’t; not with his divine presence in my toxic vicinity. But I feel like I’m capable of feeling human. The muscles in my cheeks tire from the rare, involuntary smiles he manages to summon onto my otherwise apathetic face. My chest hurts at times, like the small, underused organ lying dormant in my ribcage was stirred with a beat or two that would surprise me. Warm life comes back to my cold body like a flickering candle resiliently defying the odds and staying lit against a harsh burst of icy wind. 

I want to protect that flame with every fiber of my being. 

But a darker force wants to snuff it out.

                                You are not human. You do not deserve such a beautiful thing.