DESOLATION
I’m being pulled apart, and I can’t stop it. I don’t even know what’s real anymore. The voice of literally everyone I know is in direct conflict with the one voice inside me, and they all say it’s a delusion that will leave my life in ruins. I just need to silence it, forsake it, and get back to my conventional life like a normal person. It’s clear my options here are mutually exclusive, as clear lines have been demarcated for me and what I’m expected to do.
The miserable truth is I can’t do either. I don’t know what to believe, but the second I lean one way or the other I break down. I’ve been having panic attacks, upward of six or seven a day now, completely unannounced, at the most inopportune times. Anytime my mind drifts toward that terrible choice, I’m consumed with the most ferocious anxiety. I can’t even do my fucking job!
After one of these attacks, I lashed out at God in agony. I hesitate to speak of it, but it needs to be shared. The pain is real, and the words are an embodiment of it, of my ambivalence, and of deep frustration. I’m very human, my life is falling apart before my very eyes, and I’m having to confront the terrible ugliness of what I’m capable of when resentment and hate have their way.
Lies, it’s all lies! Everything we were working toward, everything you said. I thought there was a reason behind all this, behind all the communication, all the guidance, all the encouragement. After all, you called me in 2005, not the other way around. For what, to torment me and destroy everything I’ve ever loved?
I’m hearing you’ve done nothing but pander to my ego's need to feel special all these years, that it’s all been a charade. I hear you’re always with me, but I don’t want you around anymore. So get the hell out of here! This was supposed to be the year of The Word. Yeah right! He can shove off too, him and his love of condemnation! Jesus, why don't you tell me again about the wheat and chaff, the sheep and goats, and the countless droves that won't be entering the Kingdom of God? How about you lecture me on the teeth-gnashing anguish of Hell I have awaiting me? Or the narrow door or the seed scattered upon the path? Because that's what you do when you want people to do something whose goodness isn't self-evident or borne out in experience. You incite fear and use it as a tool of control. Damn you and your God-damned condemnation!
I look out upon this world you've made in absolute disgust and search in vain for a higher meaning that just isn't there. We live for 80 some-odd years in a universe over 14 billion years old and do what, exactly? We follow the machinations of an engine that's been running since long before the first single-cell organism came into being. We do what life has programmed us to do: perpetuate it. We reproduce and raise our children so they can grow up to do the same. We love others because it increases our survival chances and happens to provide us with more agreeable stimuli and consequences than lives defined by hate or indifference. But in the end, it's all so mechanical. It's just wash, rinse, repeat - forever.
So how’s about raining Sulphur down on us like you’ve promised?? At least that would be something different! At least then those 85 assholes we all serve can die with their piles of gold like the rest of us. And then it would be quiet, maybe even quiet enough that whatever's left might actually be able to hear your pathetic and all but silent voice.
What else are we going to do? Every God-damned day, it’s the same meaningless drivel. Gripped with a fear that emanates from millions of homes, schools, and offices around the world, we scurry around fretting, “whatever are we going to do without a bigger house, without a nicer car, without an iThis or iThat, without a 60” HDTV, ad infinitum...?” We're like God-damn clowns that tap dance for the corporate elite at their bidding. This fertile planet is an unspeakably prized anomaly in the universe, and it’s being wasted on us. Just a bunch of chattering voices scrambling about trying to convince everyone how important we are.
It's all been lies. And now there is emptiness, the dark void of betrayal. I loathe you and your lies. I am not your son; you haven't called me for anything. I was hearing what I wanted to hear. To hell with it. I swear, I wish judgment applied to you too, so you’d have to answer for your utterly incompetent craftsmanship. Knowing you has hollowed out my soul and filled it with darkness. It’s worse than a complete waste. It’s a curse.