Why do people say hell is red and fiery? When really it is gray and icy with each person held alone under a cold metal bell. Pumped full of pain medication, they breath, feel no pain and think thoughts of their own well being. They are glad the bell protects them. They have 100,000 dollars plus a gold brick and they are glad no one will steal it. They know no one can lift the heavy bell to find them. They have won the game of life. Every day tasty meals are dropped into the bell. Anything they choose. They eat with relish. Winning! When they relieve themselves, the byproducts magically disappear. Hell is sanitary. People never cry there. They think they are smiling and maybe they are. Who knows? No one can see them.
Pain is when you go to Heaven. Looking down, you see everything you missed. St Fanci compared entering heaven to having both your legs sawed off with a rusty blade. Pain is the price of admission.
Stabbed in the chest by remorse. You never saw the beauty of everything until it was too late. And now in heaven you’re face to face with everything you wanted to avoid.
The people you least want to see are your greeting committee, standing there waiting in white robes. Those you wanted to impress stand behind you, noticing how you’ve shit your white pants.
Everyone you ghosted, neglected, abandoned, wait for you there with arms outstretched. They hug you and the memories of how you hurt them return. The clarity is excruciating because in heaven there are no clouds, fog or shadows.
And why did you do it? Why were you such an asshole?
Because there was some wound you didn’t want to feel and now it is probed with a million forceps and scalpels. Your mind explodes in an infinite sun of pain. In heaven there are no pain killers.
What is the relevance of this? I don’t know. In life, I am hanging in there. I got a job as a phone psychic and felt I was really in my element. Then I got fired. I was keeping people on the line for an average of 22 minutes rather than 35 minutes like they wanted. There is a bell that rings at 20 minutes and you’re sposed to keep people on for a while after that, because the rates get jacked up. But the callers want to hang up once they hear the bell so they don’t end up with a huge bill.
So money is hard.
And love is hard too because I don’t understand it. I feel like a retard in math class. A bunch of squiggles on the board and I have no idea what anything means. I was good at math but could never understand it which drove me nuts. I couldn’t figure out what numbers WERE. What the fuck is a one? A zero? Are they things themselves or ways of seeing things? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made.
Sometimes I read books about love and it makes things worse because there are always more and more things you aren’t supposed to do because they will emasculate men. Words you aren’t supposed to say- like can would but. Tenses you aren’t supposed to use. If you follow the rules he will love you forever! But if you can’t…. well, no one to blame but yourself for what happens next.
And I don’t want to emasculate anyone. Rip off their dick and leave them with a bloody stump. But following all these rules feels impossible, especially when one of the rules is to be yourself. And you are supposed to be vulnerable and show your emotions, the problem is there’s only one emotion you are supposed to feel- pleased. But the more bound up I feel the harder this mild & flavorless state is to achieve.
Somewhere I must find the strength to take a solemn vow that I won’t abandon myself for love anymore. Because I love romance so much. But romance comes from being yourself and feeling the chemical reaction of self touching the world. Romance comes from the beauty of your own emotions welling up to surprise you. If men need you to be completely colorless and drained of life just to be in their presence then what is the point? Money? Or just avoiding a wound- the infinite pain of being abandoned? Love is one of the bells of hell. Blocking the pain while keeping you dead inside.
I need to find the strength to choose myself but I don’t know how. I don’t feel that strength anywhere.
