Fries have never been French

Mais quel monde de merde.

Baby steps

Is it the last frontier? Is it the end of the starting line, where the linear and narrow lane disappears and makes room for wild nature?
I don't have the blueprint for what's reflected in my eyes. I've got to make up my mind about crossing that barrier or just finding a way around the upcoming mess.

How long has it been since I last soiled my hands? When was it again, last time I tumbled and got knee deep into the dirt?
It looks pretty steep. I don't have the vigor of my young days anymore. It's gonna be tough fighting an uphill battle.
And what about all these holes on the ground, the fallen branches; memories of the someones who walked that path before me and did not fare so well? And are we gonna talk about the bruises and scars on my own body? The ones I suffered walking though up to this point? It has not been an easy ride man. Not at all. I mean, you guys know all about my collapsing - more times than I would care to admit. My legs are a mess. My clothes are drenched. The scene reminds me of a weird flashback. Kaneki before facing Arima. Or something similar. I've made it here, somehow, god knows how.

I thought I had given up?

I mean, it was pretty obvious to me I was just looking for a way to get out. What happened? Do I really have to climb this mountain? I cannot even see the tip, for fuck's sake. There's mist surrounding it, and it seems to be draped in weird and creepy noises. I'm back on my feet now, so it's the perfect opportunity for me to just turn around and run towards the exit.
Then I can rest. Let's rest a bit, right?

If I jump over this sign, I know what's gonna happen. I'll get hurt, again, big time. It might open the cicatrized skin. I will pour blood like always before. I will have to grovel, I will have to run. I will not have time to breathe.
Don't I deserve some breathing space?
If I go, I will suffer. And it's not a pessimistic account of what is to happen. It's reality. It is what will happen to me.

But, I sustained these wounds, and I'm still standing, aren't I? So who is to say I can't take a couple more, now that I'm replenished?
I'm gonna fuck up. It's gonna end in a bad way. The kind of bad I remember without making fun of.

Hell yeah I'm gonna give it a try.
My eyes are red because I still have too much blood to clear out. My mind needs to cleanse. My soul needs to purge. It has been drunk for years now, it's time to bring it back.
I am not afraid to get hit, I have the strength to get back up. And I know this haphazard piece of environment won't lead me anywhere. It's not the point. Because it's either get through or lower your head and turn back.
I am one to see the brick wall and still punch it until all my knuckles are wrecked.

The scenery looks nice from here, and I know it won't be quite that beautiful once I get entangled with this level of reality. But the grass always looks greener on the other side, that's common knowledge.
I don't need the grass to be green anyway. It will soon be sweating of blood drips, so I don't think its extent of greenness will matter too much anyways.

I've won once, I can win again. It was not to happen in game 1, or 2, or even 3. It did not happen again by game 5.
But I will have many more chances.
And I know I can convert one of them, at some point. Life has been exposed, so I know. I know there will be a solution.
I can pull it off again.
So look out stars, I'm back. And I'm coming for you.


So here I go, but let's not make the mistakes that doomed our knees in the first place this time.
One step at a time, alright?
One step at a time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEOGuR5CD3Q

Move 78 - The tree with the red leaves and the little box

I have so many songs in my head that I can't hear the thoughts in my ears shut up. I was not programed to deal with that stuff. It's outdated data, the kind I am not equipped to analyze anymore. I am at a loss for whatever.
It's already been three years I threw all this over the bridge and decided to go forward. Not backward. Yet I've been walking ahead with head turned around all this time, haven't I? Out of fear, because the task of starting over is daunting and the memories are haunting. Yet I had worked out a system, I had managed to shape myself into a normalized engine that processed things like an extremely well human being. Made of flesh, blood, but without a feelings box to hinder the whole.
Well fast forward to the future present of my past, and I'm in the middle of a predicament, aren't I now? For something is showing where the hole was left pillaged. And a grave digger may have found a seed. Or may not, for all I know.
But the landscape has changed.

I don't like to make a big deal out of my birthday. But I like it.
It has not always been the case.
When I was younger, I did not care much for it.
When the filling of my heart was ripped away from me, I altogether refused to celebrate it.
Ever since, it has been an occasion to look to the sky and in the eyes so as to show him that this particular today, I win. And that I will keep on winning.
This birthday was not supposed to be different.
This birthday you were not supposed to be here.
But well, things happen, am I right?
Life is possibly the worst opponent one can face. Because just like a machine it does not get tired, frustrated, anxious. But you can. And however good your reading skills can be, it will always find a way to refute your brilliant moves. But it makes mistakes sometimes, because it's not perfect; it opens up opportunities for you to take, as if it were probing you to gauge your strength.
So while you might get flummoxed, taste despair or grow seethed, at some point there will be an open crack.
Up to you to dig further.
Usually, I don't. I just don't, because something tells me not to. So I find excuses, I back off, I throw in the towel delusionally talking myself into thinking it's best. And who is to say otherwise? What did not happen can't be proven to have been better. Albeit not a great way, it is a path I've walked down one too many times because something was not right. My gut feeling was saying no.
This time it was shouting yes all over the place.

I did not have the kind of exhilarating intuition I once got with Marion. It was not the ominous one that tried to warn me about Emma - to no avail. There was nothing at all, actually. She was there, she had arrived, and while my brain was computing and my heart was AWOL, my guts did not seem to care. Yet there is no doubt that opened the crack.
And as the night went by, as the shenanigans started to pile on, as I was starting to become more human in a way - and not a good one - my guts began acknowledging the mistake that life had just made, one it had never made before.

It had just given me a shot at something I would be willing to fight for.

And so it became. My guts took over and switched my brain off after all these years. In case of an emergency, it had always been a secret ability that was to never be used. For it to be applied, both heart and guts had to agree. Heart was nowhere to be found.
And that is how the engine was forcefully put to rest.
I was left here, with what is arguably the strongest weapon I've ever had, without any hindrance sealing its power away. It made things easy. And there is a reason for that.
It had played against life so many times that even if it could not read everything out, it knew.
It knew life could not counter that one.
I was not shaking, nor was I anguishing. I was deprived from my thinking functionnality.
And I just played it all out like I was supposed to.

And it changed my world, even if just a little bit.

It opened the eyes of my soul, and I came to the realization that all this time, I was not the strong character who had built a castle of glass in which to stay sheltered and imprisoned. I've been a fragile piece of a human being who had managed to erect too sturdy a monument. In those three long years, I had never once allowed anything to break in through to me. I was never forbidden from tasting the outside, but I would not get myself hurt.
I refused to get hurt.
I refused to be human.

The realm has fallen. The crown is broken. All hail the world.

It did not take much. It was never going to take much of anything, really. I just needed the right thing. And all had always built up to this, to this moment I would know would break my self-induced pain.
It was just what I needed, a moment suspended in time, hanging on by invisible threads forming a safe bubble in which I could blow the seal away.

I felt alive, for the first time in forever. Maybe not forever. But in at least forever.
And I needed not any more. Because unlike the previous turns in my life, this one did not come with the leech element attached to it. It's not something I have to cling to in order not to fall. It is something that gets tattooed on my soul and will not vanish. A triumphant scar picturing a victory over life.

All this time I just wanted to feel alive.

Now as to how, this is quite simple: my Cinderella requirement was met. That is, she took me by the hand to show me the open world. Not the other way around. If this is not what triggered the mistake in the first place, it was the move that decisively gave me the upper hand and the confidence that I would not let this one get out of hand.

Now it might be nothing more. And I would have been glad with just that. I did not expect a door to be open for a sequel, happy with a lacklustre happily ever for now. It took me by surprise, and I don't quite know what to do with it. But my brain's been turned back on, and it has been trying to process too much for the past couple of days.
That's normal, and I don't know when guts will finally tell it,
But it's broken, and it won't be fixed.

This device does not work well enough for what I need. It is too biased towards calculations and not enough towards what I can't see. I need to use what I can't see to see what is right before my eyes.

Yet it has been exhausting. For the scars of my past remain, and while they have been covered up, possibly only temporarily, and don't hurt for now; the memories that are the wounds underneath them have etched my soul with unfogrettable holes. And I don't want to reproduce those mistakes.
So I keep my head just below the clouds.
I would love to let go and dive in them, for they are euphoria imfeelingated. They are a safe bubble in which you are immune to hazard. They fill you with the warmth of the stars without overwhelming you with the heat of the sun. They show you a clear sky above the foggy reality. But beware, because euphoria is a powerful drug. It feeds on your contents to grow, and when nothing is left, it leaves you behind and empty. So when the cloud is ripe, it will pour you down.
And I am not sure I could weather that if I kept my guard down.

So I consciously hamper myself and stand just below, in order to have a split second to dodge if furious hail starts swarming my world. But it's sapping. It gradually crumbles my armor and rusts my sword.

I know that part of myself more than I should. That's the only part I know of actually, because it's the one that has made most mistakes in the past. And I've learnt from them. It's the part of me that has been exposed, tampered with, the one that toppled in the past too many times for me to recollect. And I know of its gullible nature. It will fall for anything. It will bet everything on a whim. Make no mistake, that part is at the core of my being. It is the very essence of who I am, the thing that shows when you scratch off the multiple layers of wallpapers. It is me, so to speak. But me is dangerous to myself. Because me has been stuck in Groundhog Day. While I learn from its mistakes, it repeats the same process over and over again, foolishly thinking what's wrong is not the approach, but the issue parameters. Using it always leads to a similar result. But on the other hand, this might be the most human part of my being; the very recipient of the real world, what bounds my existence to the materiality of it all. It's what is behind my greatest mistakes and my most surprising victories.
It is what was dug out a few hours ago.

Now I am not gonna set it free so easily. Neither will I make the mistake of leashing it. But I don't know the in-between solution.

Today I would like to find something in between.
Because I am not ready to bleed again, but I am far beyond acting so as not to.

I don't want to think about tomorrow, but tomorrow, I will have to think about the today. And while I will be different, the same real world dilemma will just turn into a cancer and grow to disproportionate size.

To oversimplify, I don't know if I am ready for something that does not exist; if I am not ready for something that is mine for the taking, if I am backing down from an illusion, or if I am willing to go for what is mine to lose.
I don't know jack shit.

I've been given a new feelings box, and I seem to know its mechanism. It's pretty similar to the previous one, except maybe cleaner since it has never been thrown away yet.
Now the real question is, do I try to use it.

I've been trying to stay neutral in all endeavors of late, which is like spitting on my very existence. I am not here to stay still. The unease and sentiment of doom only disappear when I put everything in the balance.

They disappeared the other night, the other morning, and it wiped the slate clean. Whatever comes next, I'll face it with newfound resolve. If I decide to bleed, I will bleed a new blood. If I fall, I will face the sky. If I want to turn back, I won't let it change my course.

I am going to take care of this feelings box, I am going to nurture it right this time. The second coming will be nothing like the first. Or maybe it will. But no matter what, it will be different.

The only question is whether I choose to baptize it now, and take the chance of drowning it; as my hopes suffocate and my dreams sink away.

And the real problem is that there is a major discrepancy between my universe and the real world. And the link is pristine, it has never been tested, hence its inability to act accordingly.

And because both worlds have a set of rules that often doesn't apply to the other, I am clueless.
And as my skin burns with the scars of a new beginning, as my brain let itself reach too close to euphoria, as my heart has come back to long for utopia and as my lungs breathe a brand new air of feeling; my guts have taken over at long last and lead the way to something.

I don't know what that something is, but there is something beyond the crossroads.
Now I just need to pick my poison and let my veins run with it.




But whatever happens next, I won't forget that with you in my arms, and like never before and certainly never again,
I felt alive.

And life will never be able to take that away from me. Ever.

So if just for this once,
I won.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfAkM1sSx44

Sang words

It's like world ablaze while completely fireproof.

I do my best, I try to conceal that there is a war being waged inside. My brain has lost its mind. It's gone nuts, and my sanity has all but squirreled its way out of here. I've long been unstable, that is no breaking news, but there was some sort of balance in place, something helped keep me straight on the dangling tightrope. But something might have been building up, and the bad seems to have taken over. I've had bad night terrors, and I don't mean the ones you come across when you're sleeping. It's like the devil and god are raging inside, except we're just talking about a fallen angel and a sneaky imp. I feel trapped, because I miss things I was not used to be lacking. Goals, someone to look up to, something to look for, someone to look after; but look, these are just empty boxes right now. I know why I've kept chasing girls since I started feeling alive: to distract me from the fact that I was not. I have exceeded the point where it can be beneficial to use self-deprecation. It's become a motto, it's engraved in me. I'm never good enough, I am bloodthirsty for strength, progress, power; many abstract notions that do not even make sense to me. Yet I long for them, hoping that they will carry me to the stars. They're just so far away, and the closer I seem to get, the more the path seems to close. So I just put on a smile and get by, I do my best to transform into a puddle of myself in society, or what I think is a puddle of me, since I don't really know what either me or myself refers to - a set of feelings, emotions, behaviors, endeavors? I hold the belief that I am a reflection of the people surrounding me. I don't think I've ever been someone so to speak. I wasn't born bland, I was born flawed, but with nothing to cover the wrong. I never took away, but I took after who I deemed fit, friends, family, one-time acquaintances even to scratch away the paltry wallpaper and smother the flaws with thick layers of betterness. But the bitterness stuck, and I still don't know why, still don't know what is wrong with me. But I seemed to deal just fine. I still think I do, the episodes just are more common these days. Maybe it's what they call growing up. And while I certainly feel like I am still growing, I am growing still. And as a reflection of the people I've loved, I try all the combinations, but often come short. Something is not here, something is missing, something that would allow me to bust out of this prison of mine and take on the darkness. Because I can keep on keeping it on a tight leash for as long as I want, it's not gonna get rid of it. There has to be something here that would up the ante and still let me reach for it without pushing the sky farther away. And now that my brain has committed suicide and my heart has worked itself to death, it seems that only my guts are left.

And I'm not sure they're gonna have the guts to do that on their own.


Every time I try to write sang words, it feels wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4uyXUB4PHo

Pent-up

When exactly did I lower my head, leave the little thing on the ground, and resume walking?
Well, somewhere around last summer, maybe? I don't really have any recollection of that event.
But I mean, I had to right? Poor thing was not working anyway. I tried to fix it, for like, ever; it just would not mend. It kept failing and I kept idling part of my life away. Ok that might be a bit of an overstatement, but still. I could not get it to function, and it's not like those things are commonplace in the open. I'm not a surgeon. I tried to act like I was, but I clearly don't have the skillset. So yeah, well I figured, I just need the part that pumps blood to go on with my days so might as well not bother with the rest. Once again, it was to never work again, so... My brain actually can pull a hell of a copycat. It looks pretty darn similar, but it does not nearly feel so.
Well at least now I don't really have to worry anymore about all that shit.

Doesn't it feel a bit like giving up though?

Oh yeah no I remember now, it was not last summer. Yeah no, my bad.

You came back and well, oh boy, was it unexpected.
Let me clarify this: Along the way of all these peculiar and often unfruitful tales, I've always attempted to capture a few tidbits. To put it in a fun way, it's like when you go to the Safari Zone. You've been allowed some time in it, but when you know time is running out and you failed at capturing this super rad Pokémon yet once more, well you still don't want to go out empty-handed, so you try to catch a smaller fish. In my case, that would be my Magikarp collection.
When you look at it more closely and rationally however, you might just be able to see an old, dusty trophy cabinet with an excess of consolation prizes. But until a few weeks back there was still a pair of items that kind of stood out: a huge cup, right in the middle that obviously had been tampered with -it was kept perfectly clean in some places, but was terribly damaged in others. The contrast was, well, flustering. The other item was, in its own way, even more subject to catching the eye. It was smaller, yet arguably kept on ice and preserved for many more years to an amazing degree of perfection. It also had a couple other unique characteristics to it.

Well, not anymore.

Seeing Emma was, indeed, beneficial. But not right away.
Then you came back to me, and I realized, well, too litle too late, I don't love you anymore, and I don't love Emma anymore either. The two girls that were to remains the loves of my life had just become, in fact, heart memories. It was not vivid anymore, it was not beating for them.
What a waste.
At this point, well, yeah, I decided to get rid of my old dysfunctional - my apologies, not-the-least-functional-in-the-world feeling box.

That's crazy. If I could go back to the kid I was and I were to tell him that I would, at that point, refuse something I would have most definitely been willing to die for - multiple times if necessary -, I think it would not compute. "No way, I couldn't ever do that, whatever, wherever, whenever". Well, you would not be entirely wrong buddy. I mean, you could never have done that. I did.
I swore I'd never chang, and I lied - sort of. I've said it before, I HAD to adapt. I'm not immune to survival of the fittest. And now, well, I'm not that same person anymore.
And I am pretty much sure that I am the one who couldn't care less about it.

You are not beyond salvation though. At the end of the day, anger, hatred, anguish, despair, all that does not deprive you from hope. Fatigue does. You don't self-destruct from those negative feelings. In fact, they are not contradictory to any positive thought. They might even be a good way to channel enough energy into them, if you are good enough of a chemist. You don't even really lose hope at all if you manage to stay alive - because that's the thing, if you had lost hope, you'd not be here anymore anyways. But if you're unlucky enough, at some point, you just realize that you're doing ok without it, and what it brings you is just a conniving chatty sidekick who's way too loud. Navi, anyone?
So you dispose of it. And when you see the light and get out of the well, well, you think you're doing well by yourself. And I was. I am. Ok, if not well then at least as good as before. But that's beyond the point.
But you can't go retrieve it. And then you come to your senses and realize that, snap, that was it. THAT was the little thing that kept the feeling box going.
Too bad now though, because it's nowhere to be found. You have to make do.

So no, you, most people, they are not beyond salvation.There is no such thing as beyond salvation, everybody alive just has a fundamental right to run towards love. That's just, my map's buried in the trash.
And truth be told, I could still easily enter the crowd and follow in the same direction, but I really don't feel like it.
I'm good with my own lonely way, even if I hate this sensation of resignation. But eh, I'll just shrug my love life away. It seems appropriate.



I am not that stupid, I have met many girls, I know some who would be willing to love me if I let them, I know many who would be willing to love me if they let themselves.
They're not my answer.

Nobody is anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhkd2B87Q8

EGIC

There will be times the ride won't go as well as I wanted to, there is no changing that.
I hit a speed bump and was not given much time to get back on my feet. I was hit hard before I could fully come to my senses. And here I am, moving forward like a zombie, hurt, but these wounds wouldn't kill me. They are not nearly strong enough to compel me to reboot, hence I am but locked inside this uncomfortable state in which I go forward because I don't really know any other way but, truth be told, I suffered a couple of blows which slashed through and opened deep, profound cuts. They're not bleeding though. They won't rid of the poison, they remain infected. I don't feel good. I don't feel right.
I hate to disappoint myself.
I am needfully questioning, reconsidering, reassessing my calling, whether I fit. Whether I deserve to be where I am in the first place.
I had it coming I guess. I got a tad too sluggish in my house of cards, idling, looking down on whoever by fear of falling back down, heckling who I wanted not to be again. My pain had to be enough to sustain that authority. But I got thrown away from the throne. My paper crown isn't worth what I thought it was.
I'm not gonna say it's for the better. It's not.
But now that I'm back down where I started, it feels like all of it was for nothing. All of it has been for nothing. I am a fallen whatever, and it does not matter if it's climbing up there or going through the crowd,
I'm not going anywhere I feel like I belong.
I am not getting over it yet.
So I get work done to work myself down, I use the blades that attempted to lacerate my mind to cut the dangling limbs, knowing the whole thing is already contaminated. I've lived with venom running through my veins before. I can most definitely do it again. So I chop off what I feel failed, to take my mind off the fact that my mind is constantly self-inflicting contempt, undercutting what had préviously been established as viable parts of me. The view is blocked on some paths I was eager to follow. I am waiting for the blades to show me which way to clear out next, which ways to weed out.
I hold the belief that I will fall back and promptly be back on my feet. I will fall back on my feet. Unfortunately, I cannot get too acquainted with resignation and surrender. I will painstakingly look for the harbinger that would usher me onto my new road.
But for now, all I see are bad omens, unresolvable conundrums and unheralded catastrophes. This is how my mind shields itself, hoping for the worst. It is not very effective. It gets lonely in there, conviction-wise. Yet I keep trying, because it is what I have always done in my oxy-moronic existence; struggling to make something out of something I am not made for. I am attracted to what I hate, I secretely long for what I was denied. I am never on the same page with life. I never agree with what is supposed to have been decided from the get-go.
This is the burden of being hopelessly hopeful.

I am not really fine these days. I am just trying to find my way awkwardly through the life I chose against its will and that seems to remind me of it once in a while. The only thing that will show which one of us was right all along will be at the picket line. I am possibly headed towards a huge manhole for all I know, but maybe I'll get a shot at proving there is something good in that. Maybe there is something genuinely good. Maybe there is.

Let's slap the momentum across the face for a bit to see what happens.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Christmas is upon us, and yet when I look outside,

I see no snow.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhkd2B87Q8&list=PLalVktpBrfW2UvvpALP7yhw0YH2n-JSRw

Citron pressé

What's up, buddy? I heard you were feeling down of late.
All your friends left for life, and you chose to stay here.
But by yourself.
And now you're questioning whether you were right or wrong.
Come on now, get your shit together. You know you did things right. You always do in the end.

You can't keep a good man down.
Life can't keep you down.

I mean, you know life has not always flown our way. Well actually, it'd be more accurate to say that it has quite a handful of times, but we failed to grab what it jettisoned on the trail. That's never been a big deal. At least that was not back then. You just get up, shrug it off and forget about it.

This is the warrior I know.

I guess it piled up, eh? It leaves dust on your shoulders each and every time. And now it's a bit too much for you do the heavy lifting. I get that.
But that's not you bro.

You are not the kind of person to give up. Sure, it's challenging to see people leave, one after the other. You wish you were as well, departing for somewhere on the path of destination life. And truth be told, it would be hypocritical of me to say I've been there. I'm always the one to go first, just so I can avoid being the one left behind.
I left you.
I don't regret it.
But I still feel guilty about it.

And I can get a grip of what you feel. Remorse or  regret. Yet you had something, someone to stay for. You can't rewind.

Dude you're 23. And I know it's easy for me to say, because while not really having been places, I've had the chance to stop a couple of times along the ride. But you are. And life is waiting for you.
It really is.

You feel alone and I'm sorry about that. I am sorry because I have not been there for you. But I've been here for you.
I'm always in far away places, but I don't forget. You gave me 2 of my best years, almost all by yourself. You were not the most present when I collapsed, but you certainly were paramount in my recovery. You were my crutch, and so much more. And when I finally was healthy enough, I flew away. But you, my man, are a central piece in my life. You're family. You're a brother of mine.
I wouldn't be who I am today, and I would never have been able to achieve it all without you by my side. You've been my staple. And that's etched in my soul for lives.
And I can't stand knowing you're in a bad place.
I just wanna kick your ass the way you'd kick mine.

I'm thankful to you for countless things. We built memories together. Together. And you made me stronger, so much more than I could have become without you.
And I know, it's not a husk. I know beneath the surface you are feisty for existence; otherwise you wouldn't get hurt; not this way.
You're certainly more relentless than I could be in my worst days.

So fight back, mind-wrestle the shit out of this son of a bitch of a life. Cuz you definitely have a shot.
And you're not alone in this.
She loves you, and that is the only victory that conveys any meaning when weighing success against failure.

You did make the right choice.




Nobody's home, and that's gotta be a heartsore, but don't let the sinking feeling fill in; because before you'll know it;

I'll get there.