De memoires van Cassandra en Cassanova, final chapter.
23-11-2009
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Two names, linked by two letters, proof of your happiness, and my despair. I seem to live for pain. She wants to see me, wants to be my friend, I can only hurt inside for what I've lost. I've been replaced with someone better, not only in your life but in every aspect of mine too. She took over, and you love her for it. I barely sleep. Can't remember when I slept more than four hours, I lay awake, or am kept awake, if I don't, I dream. Horrible dreams. Crazy dreams. Never ending agony. Whether awake or asleep, nothing brings me comfort anymore. The role is getting easier. I stopped fighting it, and I enhance every day. I
don't know whether that's good or bad. It makes him happy though and
that affects me too. Circumstances beyond my control still take flight,
but at least I didn't cause them. I'm vulnerable, I'm lost, I'm lonely, I'm writing my funeral. Line by line, not expecting anyone to be there, but still. I want to be prepared, I don't want to cause more harm than I already did. I need a notary, my will, I must specify my will.... Got to be prepared, I never stopped my life insurance, I wonder whether it 'll pay his mortgage back, bet he'd like that.
"though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I deserve every sling and arrow that wrecks me..."
I shall not yield I shall not yield Broken inside dead beyond saving. I cannot yield. You do not love me. Things I want I cannot have. Things I lost I can't have back. Useless creature created by light. Nothing but air, swift loss in sight. Everyone scared when my true nature shows. Too beautiful for earth. No place for me. Everything hurts, I'm dying from the inside out.
I dreamt my death last night. I left five hearts broken and the rest of the world relieved. The laughter still echoes in my ears. Glad you're dead. Glad you're dead... Glad you're finally out of my head... Cruel life. I did it myself. I created it. I know I deserve it. Vicious creature, overcomen with fear, not making decisions, all 'll be alright in the end. But it won't. Things will never be alright again. I'll never sleep again. I love you more than living.
Another day another mystery revealed. Talking all night about how you feel, how you still miss her, how you feel guilty for letting her down, lying to her, how perfect she was, that it might have been a mistake. Old feelings that stride with your life now, don't think I don't know what you mean. That's why you ask me why I let you stay, you want me to give you the reason to go back. I can't, I can't give you the reason, I've got the same battle to fight. You will never have suffered enough, and neither will I. We're screwed either way, we can't go without eachother for it's the same reason that keeps us together, we're waiting to get hurt, or hoping the pain 'll go away eventually. We're not that different in many ways. It hurts, it hurts so bad. At least you still talk to her, you can ease your guilt by helping her with your words. Though it's starting to get tougher and tougher not to be with her. I'm still cut off from the world. I can't breathe. I don't want to breathe. I love you, but I don't...
Don't you die on me, you haven't made your peace, live life, breathe, breathe...
Dark wings they are descending, see shadows, gathering around....
Unable to give what you want, you blame me for it. I'm not perfect, and you can't stand it. You feel sorry for yourself having to cope with me. I crash, die inside, can't tell you what I know, your dishonnesty would punish me anyways...
Waking up, feeling the torture, another promise not kept. You can't let it go. You don't understand why I want it, Why I made such a fuzz about it. So you take it away. Another experiment to see how I'd react to it. And I did it again, crashed, panicked, reasons you'd never understand, and if I told you were to blame, you'd only feel sorry for yourself. I can't accuse you of it, because you're never wrong. If you are, it would kill you. And
so I crash. Because I can't give you other reasons, because I can't
make you stop doing this. I can't tell you the truth for the truth will
destroy you, and there's no logical explaination besides the truth.
That shortwires me. Sets me of. Tantrum, hysteria, everything was
there. You slap me, I crash harder, you try to hold me while all I want
is run, run like hell. I can't cope with it. I can't stand trying and
failing, over and over again. You tell me you want to know
everything. Then stop punishing me when I do what you ask me. Truth is
always ugly. And if you can keep things from me because you know
they'll upset me, why can't you trust me that I only keep things from
you that would kill you? If I told you what I see. You'd kill
yourself. Because you fail to see, that it's no big deal, that I accept
you for who you are. Stop the paranoïa, there's nothing I can do,
there's nothing I'm doing, but waiting, 'till you allow me to live
again. And stop pinning things on me that you are doing. I know what
you want, I know what you think, I even know how you feel. I really am
that connected to you, whether I like it or not. I can fucking read your
mind. And I know you know it. Why on earth are you still testing
that? Why the fuck would you want to hurt me so bad? You know I could
never tell you what I see in your head, I need real life evidence, black
on white. Whatever's in your head, you can deny it. Doesn't matter
whether I see it or not. And you'd ask me to stop, and I can't. It
doesn't work like that. I'm IN your head, if you ask me to stop, you'd
have to leave me, get as far away as possible, and then it might end, if
you hurt me enough by loving someone else. Then I'd retreat to protect
myself. No sooner. I'm waiting for it to come crashing down. You're
based on lies, charades, like all the others, you think you're better,
but you're just the same. Human. Nothing more, nothing less, you are
human. And now I see it's you that's killing me, insnaring me, this is me dying in your arms...
To die, to sleep no more, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come? Everything will be normal again. Soon. Drama,
everything I do is wrong, everything I say is wrong, you suffer under
my happiness, because you were alone. I left you. And you're so sorry
for yourself. Shuffing me the responsibility of your wellbeing. Me
being wrong does not make you right. You claim me to be cruel to you
while everything I do I do for you. I changed my life, made everything
as you want it, except for the few things I can't go without. You poor
little thing, beaten down by my life.... I don't feel sorry for you.
You're creating your own doom and try to tell me I'm doing it. You
lie, you cheat, you hate but still, you breathe. And alone I face my burden.
For he's happy with someone else. How are they? My children? Why let me go without a fight? Was I that disappointing? Hell 's a playground compared to what I'm in. No one sees, no one is really looking. I still am me,looks don't show feelings.
What lies are worth revealing? What really is truth after all. If you
lie to me and I never find out, do I need to worry? But I do, I do find
out, I can feel it. You're own behaviour gives you away, time after
time. I read your mind and it tells me everything. I wonder why it's
taking you so long to get over your guilt. That puzzles me. You've
always done it, why still bother? Are you trying to see how far you can
go? As far as you please. That's the whole point. I can't leave, I'm
in the cage. Only thing I can do is not to worry about it. To close
myself up again. You'll never really love me, not unconditionally
that is. There's always the condition that you yourself have to gain
something out of it. Where are you? What are you doing? Questions that drive me on the verge of insanity. If I don't know, do I care? If you know you don't care? Agony, day after day, insecurity, I'm so worthless in your eyes. You don't respect me at all. You can't kill me. I'm already dead, inside my world, inside my head. I run from side to side, locked away in my cage, no sleep, no tears, no games, go feed me to the vulptures. Hang my corpse out to dry. You can't love me. Why do you even stick around?
Imagine a cage. Glass walls, sound and bullet proof. Allows you to
breathe and stay alive. But does not allow you any contact with what
you see. Imagine that no one can see the cage, or what it contains Thats me. Thats my life. Or at least how its become. Now
think that you had it all, a full life, a magnificent partner, a giant
property, the world was at your feet. And then, youre in the cage.
Cut off from everything you had, everything you desired, and no one
notices. Instead, they think you left. They think you didnt want what
you had. And they start over without you. Not really start over, they
just continue living. No one expects you back. No one is waiting. no
one is trying to get you out. Then find out that the cage youre in
does not allow you to cry, scream or utter any emotion what so ever but
happiness and laughter. The torment is so much more unbearable than
physical pain. You feel youre losing your mind. You can feel life and
sanity slipping away second by second. Thats me. Or at least how Ive become. I
hurt myself. To numb the pain inside. Quietly, the cage must not find
out. And sometimes violently, for I cant control it any longer, and
then the cage takes its vengeance And then there are these times,
when all seems fine. When all of the sudden you realize the cage isnt
that bad. Letting your guard down. Stop hiding. But the pain of all
youve lost and cant ever get back smacks you in the face. Selfpity,
rage, jealousy, grief, it all comes back. You want to die. But the
cage doesnt allow you to die. The cage comforts you. And you think
the cage is helping. Confused. All over again. What if Im wrong
and the cage is right? What if Im the problem and the cage merely
protects me and the outside world from it. I let go. I let
everything go. Put my trust in the cage again. It manipulates me, and I
try to manipulate it. Being sure I manage, but not entirely. Im not
convinced Im playing the cage, the cage could be playing me I created the cage, allowed it to trap me. I am the cage I
improve my life by improving others. I dont like the cage, I still
want to go home, but, home isnt there anymore. Therefore I make my
cage conditions better. Not by fighting, but by loving and adapting. Which life is mine? The one I had or the one Im building from scratch? Which do I want? Does that make a difference if you cant have what you want? What if there are no choices?
The endless hours I spend alone you sleep I work, you work I sleep and you've got that other life of which I'm not supposed to know I pretend to myself that I'm imaging all keeping myself from looking for evidence trying to silence my inner voices who are screaming of your betrayal trying to stear clear from you thoughts, I don't want to know, it's easier not to know, at least not to see that you're unaware of your guilt, but I know everything, every tiny detail, it's all there, you don't even try to protect what's in your head don't even wait for me to leave to think of what you'll do once I'm gone I try to give you chances to confess confide in me I beg of you I know what you're thinking I know what you're feeling, I know what experience you're in, I know your drive, your reason You don't think you're doing anything wrong it'll be the retrospect that'll make you realize though I'm not sure you'll ever care you're breaking me please don't do this I've got so much more to lose than you for you'll never see me as worthy, for you love yourself the most, I'm another snack on your plate of life, I know to you I'll never be special... And you'll always be sure you deserve better than me... But please please, don't break me, please kill me.
Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life
At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.
However great a man's fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance -- so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamor to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature.
If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back
together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering
myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable
approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for
the first time give things the shape of my will.
Desolation, Wide open space, Between the trees and me, Emptiness and me, Confusion and decisions, Feelings hard to define, And I say to myself, Just a little longer,
Coldness seeps Its way in, I am falling deeper, Into what I fear most, As I reach out, There is nothing there, As possible there was something once, Only to be gone, And I say to myself, Just a little longer,
The sun drops, The last inch of light falls, The squirrels more likely to be huddled up, But not me, Something I never possessed, And I say to myself, Just a little longer,
Then the sun has gone, Darkness spreads its wings over me, I see nothing so no one sees me, Feeling of bitterness only, And I say to myself, Just a little longer,
An Owl peers down, With question in her eyes, She doesn't have a hope, In helping me, As she doesn't see my pain, Spreads her wings, Passes me by, And I say to myself, Just a little longer,
The soft earth, Seems the only thing holding me up, Even then I could slip, And wondering takes me, To why and how I got here, Without even knowing it, Yet no one notices, As they didn't see before, So I say to myself, Just a little longer,
Shimmering in the darkness, I see two moons, Reflecting off a stream of thoughts, Ongoing forever more, Along a rocky road, Slowly giving in to finding a way out, I take the plunge under the river, Then the wind carries a whisper, Gently on a breeze, 'Just a little longer.'
"Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon." Aristotle
Er was eens een wolkenzaal, die zich bevond tussen de sterrenhemel en de
aarde. De zaal was gevuld met gelukkige kinderen. Ze speelden en
lachten en maakten plannen voor de reis die hen te wachten stond. Ze
zochten ieder hun rugzak op en vulden die met allerlei dingen, want het
was fijn om goed voorbereid op reis te gaan. De kinderen klapten en
juichten als een van de engelen het gouden klokje ging luiden. Dat was
het teken dat er weer iemand aan zijn reis kon beginnen. De reis naar de aarde. Nu
was er in de wolkenzaal een kindje dat telkens met spanning keek, wie
er aan de beurt was. En elke keer zuchtte ze van verlichting als ze nog
niet hoefde te gaan. Zij vond het fijn in de wolkenzaal. Het was er warm
en licht, veilig en vrolijk. Op de aarde, zo wist zij, was het niet
altijd zo warm en veilig. Je kon je daar zo stoten aan scherpe doorns en
schaven aan harde punten en ruwe stenen. Hier in de wolkenzaal was
alles zacht en rond. Toch wist ze dat ook zij een keer aan haar reis
moest beginnen. Maar eigenlijk wist ze niet zo goed wat ze allemaal in
haar rugzak moest stoppen. Hulpeloos keek zij haar engel aan, die haar
er vriendelijk op wees waaruit zij kon kiezen. Op een keer, het
gouden klokje werd weer geluid, keek zij verschrikt op het was voor
haar. Met knikkende knieën pakte ze haar rugzak op. Haar engel nam haar
bij de hand, maar bij de poort van de wolkenzaal zei het kindje: Ik
durf niet. Het is zo anders daar. Ik ben bang. Ik wil hier blijven. De
engel nam haar op en sprak: Wees maar niet bang, ik zal heel lang bij
je zijn, totdat je groot bent, en dan nog zal ik over je waken. En
gesteund door de engel begon zij aan haar reis. Ze kwam als baby op
aarde en, zoals elke baby, at en dronk en sliep zij veel. En als ze
sliep, dan droomde ze dat ze weer in de wolkenzaal was met haar engel
trouw aan haar zijde. Ze werd groter, sliep minder en ging naar de
kleuterschool. Ze begon de wolkenzaal te missen. Ze speelde met
vriendjes en had plezier. Maar soms viel ze en schaafde zich en dat deed
pijn. Dan keek ze in haar rugzak om te kijken of daar iets inzat om
haar te helpen, maar zij kon niets vinden. Zo gingen de jaren voorbij. Ze
werd een meisje, een jonge vrouw. Het verlangen naar de wolkenzaal was
soms zo hevig, dat het leek alsof zij geen adem kon halen; alsof er een
ijzeren band om haar hart klemde. Toen verscheen de engel en sprak:
Houd vol, er is nog zoveel wat je moet meemaken en wat je vreugde kan
bezorgen. Houd moed, ik ben bij je. Soms kwam ze mensen tegen
waarvan ze onmiddellijk diep van binnen wist: die ken ik nog vanuit de
wolkenzaal! Dan voelde ze even de ijzeren band om haar hart niet meer
en dacht gewoon niet meer aan de wolkenzaal, nou ja, misschien soms
-heel even- .. Sommige mensen geven veel en zij gaf aan iedereen om
haar heen ondanks dat haar rugzak niet rijkelijk gevuld was. En zo kwam
het dat ze na verloop van tijd de ijzeren band weer om haar hart voelde.
Het was alsof het steeds pijnlijker werd. En ze wist; Dit houd ik niet
vol. Ze grabbelde in haar rugzak om iets te zoeken waarmee de pijn
minder zou worden. Ze schrok, want haar rugzak was bijna leeg. Zij keek
naar de rugzakken van andere mensen en zag dat die goed gevuld waren. En
dat terwijl die anderen al zo vaak iets aan haar gegeven hadden uit hun
rugzakken. Op een keer kreeg ze het koud, zo koud en plotseling
kwam weer dat hevige verlangen naar de wolkenzaal. Daar waar het licht,
warm en veilig was, daar waar ze haar rugzak weer kon vullen. Ze besloot
terug te gaan. Voor de poort kwam de engel haar al tegemoet en sprak:
Ach, je bent zelf terug gekomen. Wat zullen ze je missen daar. Maar
toen zag de engel de dunne rugzak en begreep dat die helemaal leeg was. De
mensen die je missen, zullen begrijpen dat je rugzak leeg is en omdat
ze van je houden zullen ze warm en liefdevol aan je blijven denken. Ze
zullen je nooit vergeten, want je betekent zoveel voor hen." En samen liepen ze naar de wolkenzaal. Een tekst van Riet Fiddelaers-Jaspers
