BFLP Syndrome

There are some days when I want to just sit back from it all. Days when I don’t seem to be enough, or maybe there’s just not enough out there for me to consume. Big-fish-little-pond syndrome. I’ve got the itch and it lies in a spot that I just can’t scratch, no matter how much it burns.

I want a million little things. I want just one thing. I want to be caught in the implosion, that magical explosion where you burst out and suck into yourself in a contradiction – the universe’s idea of a joke. Can you be everything and nothing at the same time? Is it possible to be content and utterly restless? I want to run until I am at one with everything – until I am nothing.

I’d like to explain some things, but there wouldn’t be any point. There rarely is in these hours, these moments, these tiny eternities that stretch on forever connecting and overlapping with one another like ripples in a pond. And if you could see further ahead, that telescopic glance would lead you to the past.

I’m sure the smile on my face is somber and sad, belying the notion that there is something wrong. And if there is I couldn’t be the one to tell you, taking every thing as it occurs. All of its fate and divine intervention and independent will. All at once there are choirs of angels and god on a throne in heaven while satan slithers in the shadows to coax you with ease to hell – and there is only me, no gods, no devils, no hope or faith or belief.

I wish I could tell you that I am afraid, that all this seems to weigh in on my like some crushing rock. That I am lost and merely seeking some small comfort.

But that would be a lie.

The object that I seek is just out of reach. Alas, I have continued the journey long past the death of Hope – she waits still, martyred in that room full of blood and roses and the shredded wings of angels. And I am here, which is nowhere. Where everything is nothing and all of it is riddles – some misspent youth in a looking glass with snarky beguiling cats.

I’d like to tell you that everything will be adequate and that time and faith will mend all that ails you. But I have never been one to lie unless it served a purpose. There are times when the journey serves no intention but to wear you down and put you out – when the sole function of the endeavor is to see just how much we can load on that camel. And I wish you would never have to go through it, never have to face all the horrors and monstrous things that lurk in the world, all those misdeeds and skeletons locked away in proverbial closets that would make Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster run screaming for the light of day – but I know of no other way to build the character.

Much like articles of clothing, you must be broken in and worn down as vintage carries a great many things, including wisdom. And all the nightmares that you face are merely a question of obstacles, of choices you need to make – Athena weaving the tapestry of your life wondering what adventure you will find yourself in the middle of.

The Fates have no interest in building your life for you and so the gods gave you free will. The same determination that makes one abused child a sociopath and the other a champion for civil liberties – that makes one rape victim a prostitute and the other a founder of organizations to help the victims and raise awareness. They care not if you flounder and fail or fight and win, they are simply here to throw you into the deepest pool they can find at a moment’s notice. And it will always only be you that has chosen the area.


I have always preferred to imagine the worst. I like to spend my free time thinking of tomorrow’s possibilities and twisting them to breaking. Visualizing the most horrible outcome for any number of activities that I may be required to perform or happen to chance upon. Vivid and garish: the sounds of breaking bones and steel and glass; the slick feel of blood, like wet velvet; the sensation of exsanguination, of death, of broken bones and dislodged joints, of ripped flesh open wide, the possibilities are as welcomed as the impossibilities.

I enjoy the fantasy of suicide, the sensations of dying by various methods. The predicament of my body upon discovery, the assortment of stages it will take throughout its decay. I have never thought very much of this habit, and in truth its an exercise I take part in many times a day, some more than others, but always during everyday I can remember I having thought of it at least once. I have never set to undertake an examination – a thoroughly noted analyzation of the possible notions, the underlying meaning, the subtext of the subconscious, the wherewithal to complete the flights of fancy.

I like to imagine the horrors. I like to dissect each one, replay the action slowly and examine the inner workings. There is something to this – to knowing the terror intimately. Terror is stronger than horror, so the nightmares lent to it are greater, and if you can be well aware of this – of the things that given to creating night terrors in brave adults, then there has to be something said of preparation. Knowledge is power, and all power corrupts – and in all of us there is a capacity for power then we are all, on some level, monsters.

The demons and devils of lore are nothing more than the fears we harbor about ourselves. Satan is nothing more than the skeleton of the scapegoat we slaughtered haunting our closets. Maybe we’re all just afraid of being monsters, afraid of admitting the terrible things we are capable of. Though I’m pretty sure if we just manned-up and dropped our balls it would be more invigorating than we think.

To be at ease with the atrocities we are proficient in creating on a whim – secure in the knowledge that we are better for rising above and succumbing to these caprices based on any given moment and separate situation. To have the judgment we are all guilty of casting based not only on our mayhem but also on our benevolent endeavors. Maybe that’s really how it goes. Maybe the ticket to getting into heaven isn’t all those benign acts, but also the deviances we take part in with wholehearted gaiety.