Prologue

A woman shatters the silence in the night with a bloodcurdling scream that awakens Tre. At first, he shutters and pulls the covers over his head, praying that whatever he heard was a figment of his imagination. After a few moments of heavy breathing, he hears the sound of the woman again, shrieking as if she’s been torn apart piece by piece. Tre begins to breathe faster and harder as each second passes. Underneath his legs, he feels the wet sheets soak in urine; the putrid smell enters his nostrils. He waits, terrified, whimpering like a prey cornered by its predator. The woman lets out one more screech, but this time cut off, followed by a thud and an eerie silence.

Tre stayed hidden for a time, listening and hearing nothing. He doesn’t hear any movement, no creaks from the weight of an intruder on the floorboards, no more screaming or even the slightest hint of life on the other side of the door, absolutely nothing. He waits a little longer and then begins to lower the covers from over his head. All of a sudden, blue and red lights start flashing, getting brighter and brighter as each second passes. He takes the covers off and swings his legs over the side of the bed, trying to quietly place his right foot and then his left on the wooden floor. Tre begins to put all his weight on the wooden floor, and it starts to creak as he takes each step toward his bedroom door.

Once he reaches the door, he leans in; his ear rests on the wooden surface and listens for anything, indicating life on the other side. Tre hears nothing, so he opens the door and pokes his head out before entering the hallway. He finds a bloody handprint to the right of his door that is smeared and leads around the corner to his parent’s bedroom. Before going around the corner, he waits a few moments before passing the hallway to the kitchen. He looks on both sides of the wall and sees a trail of blood leading into their bedroom.

As Tre passes the kitchen, he can see a police cruiser and its lights flashing in his driveway. He wants to run out and get the police officer but instead decides against it. The boy makes his way into the vicinity outside of his parent’s bedroom and sees the door slightly ajar with blood smeared on the door handle. His instinct is to call for his parents, “Mom… Dad…” Neither of them answered. “Mom… Dad… Are you okay?” The gut feeling Tre had was gravitating toward the worst possible explanation imaginable. After not receiving a response again, he begins to cry as he steps closer and closer to their room. “Please, answer me.” He goes to push the door open and jumps as he hears the sound of hard knocking at his front door. “This is Officer James. We received a 911 call from this address. Is there anyone home?” Tre doesn’t answer, and he can’t answer. He’s stricken with fear.

The officer knocks again, “If you don’t answer, I’ll be forced to enter the premises. Is there anyone…” Tre’s attention gets pulled away as he hears a snarling behind him. He becomes paralyzed, refusing to turn around and confront what lies behind him. Gradually, he begins to turn his head and sees a beast staring at him with bright yellow, a goldish iris surrounding its pupils. He continues to scan the creature from head to toe and notices blood dripping from its mouth, “Hello, Tre.” The beast smiles and reveals its teeth, soaked in blood. “We warned your parents, and they refused to give you up. They ignored our demands and showed no fear when threatened.” The beast's hands clenched, its claws digging into his palms. “My masters will not be ignored if they ask for anything; there should be no hesitation or resistance in getting what they want.” Tre stood there, unable to move, unable to speak, as he watched the beast’s blood dripping from his palms.

“Since I’ve removed your parents from the equation, I suggest you come with me.” The two stared at each other, allowing the silence to fill the ever-shrinking hallway. His fear turned into defiance. His parents had risked and lost their lives, refusing to give him up. Even though he was just a teenager, Tre knew he had a choice, and he would rather die than be taken away, giving this beast and its masters the satisfaction of getting what they wanted. The beast grinned, tilting its head sideways. “I ask you not to be foolish and believe you have a choice. Make this easy on both of us; no one wants more blood to be spilled.”

Suddenly, the front door was kicked in, and he saw a flash of light. “Holy fucking shit! What is that?!” Bullets started flying towards Tre and the beast; multiple bullets ripped through it while a stray hit Tre in his left arm. “This is Officer James!! I need backup at—”. In the blink of an eye, the beast dashed forward and slit the Officer’s throat from ear to ear. The Officer's eyes grew wide with shock, and fear spread across his face. He reached his neck with both hands and fell to his knees. He tried to speak, but only gurgling from the blood filling his throat was audible. The beast walked up to him and placed its hand around his, pulling his hair back and exposing the neck as blood poured faster and faster from his wound. The last thing Tre saw was the Officer moving his lips, mouthing the words “Run.” The beast then pulled upwards, removing the Officer’s head from its body, and with a loud thud, the Officer hit the floor, and Tre sprinted for the back door.

as you are, not what i want you to be

What I love about you isn’t solely based on the perception or impression you give me or the rest of the world.

What I love about you are all the reasons why you don’t believe I can love you or that anyone should love you to the depths that I do.

Your strengths and grace in what you know and are may make you beautiful, but your weaknesses and insecurities make you perfect for me.

When I look into your eyes, I see what other men choose not to see. I accept what other men can’t or won’t accept. Choosing to love you will be the easiest thing I’ll ever do, but losing you will be the hardest feat I’d have to overcome.

I can’t promise in the future, I won’t harm you. I can’t promise that I’ll always be the perfect man.

What I can promise is to learn from my mistakes, to have patience with you even when I don’t have patience with myself and to trust you with every fiber of my being. We may live to grow old together, we may not.

No matter when, no matter what time we have now I’ve come to realize the paradox I find myself in: It will always be enough and it will never be enough; I will always be blessed as I will always be cursed.

Every day that passes makes me joyful because I’m free of the delusion that someone couldn’t love me, when I’m with you I don’t have to hide who I truly am, who I’ve forgotten I could be.

Every day that passes makes me miserable because I know I have fewer days with you than I’d like. If I could have one wish, it would be to go back in time and relive all the moments we’ve shared.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly because none of the great memories would have ever existed without our struggles. The pain has helped us love harder, appreciate the time we have, and give us the patience to love each other in all our forms.

I vow to love you as you are and not stand in the way of who you want to be. I love you, and I vow to love you for the rest of my life, regardless of where this journey takes us.

For you, I would do anything and everything, all you have to do is ask.

Solo

I have never been much of a talker, I’m comfortable with blending in the background and letting the rest have their fun.

It's hard enough for me to focus and get outside of my head, so being in the present or having a conversation is truly difficult and sometimes feels like an impossible task.

Don’t get me wrong, when I speak and join in, it's fulfilling and people tend to be fond of me, but that doesn’t make it any easier to partake in any social environment.

I thrive in isolation, especially when I get my hands on a project dealing with creativity or using my imagination whether it is to create music, write, digital art, or an invention for random issues that I am ill-equipped to bring to fruition outside of the digital realm and into reality.

If I’m not in a constant state of flow, I don’t feel any purpose and shortly begin to lose interest in anything at hand that doesn’t seem productive.

What doesn’t help is that none of my creations have any substance outside of my laptop, it's so much easier to create, save, and then return to it later without committing to more.

All I am is committed to fantasizing about what I feel would make my life better; falling in love with the random girl who stares at me from across the room, waiting for her to smile at me so I can approach while thinking of a hundred different conversations we could have and the best way for me to make a good impression.

I think about a life with this person; how our worlds would collide and we’d both be better off for it until finances get in the way, my living situation being back home with my parents, my sobriety which will always mean I’m an addict whether I am sober or not.

In minutes I think of everything that could go right, and then everything that could go wrong. I’ve always been in love with falling in love.

It's beautiful because love encompasses everything, there’s pain, sorrow, guilt, vanity, and sacrifice, but on the other hand, there is joy, passion, and companionship, that takes dedication, commitment, communication, and choosing to love and be with someone every day, in all of their forms.

Honesty

None of it matters the finances, the weight, my looks, my intelligence, my job, my mental illness, my routine, etc.

It’s just all an excuse because I don’t deserve love.

I have vehemently pushed aside good things, good friends, good relationships, especially good women.

I don’t want to feel like I deserve it.

I don’t want to make the time to actually improve, I just want to live doing the minimal, avoiding as much pain as possible.

I don’t have control and I never will. I am sad. I feel lonely, but at this point, this must be what I want.

In any relationship, I refuse to get close unless the other person can provide me with comfort and ease.

I’m a narcissist, I only feed off of other people like a leech, a parasite, more like a vampire.

Being sensitive and conforming all the time has become my nature.

Im not only addicted to Alcohol, Nicotine, and Marijuana.…

Im addicted to suffering and draining the people who love me most because I’m not even sure I love them the way they love me.

I just don’t try,

I don’t want to try. Its easier to be everything, but me. Its less complicated.

I dont want to be scrutinized because I already know how terrible I am as a human being.

I can’t even say I’ve tried hard not be everything I hate. I am extremely intelligent and I limit myself.

I make unwise choices because when I hate failing.

I hate being feeling less. I hate being less, actually I love being less.

Confusion and complexity is the only thing I strive for which is why I never want to work on myself.

I could read an unquantifiable number of books, do drugs, sleep with anyone, fall in love with anyone and it’ll never be enough.

I will never be enough for myself and that is why I will never be anything more than what I am today or what I was the day before and I’m not okay with that, but I’m scared. I’m deathly afraid of me, I don’t know if I could even handle knowing the person I have become.

I wish I had the courage to liberate myself instead of always convincing myself to liberate others.

Fond Of

What im fond of..

I am fond of memories, until im not

I am fond of love, until im not

I am fond of fairytales, until im not

I am fond of family, until im not

I am fond of life, until im not

I am fond of giving, until im not

I am fond of you because this.. I cannot and will not stop

Paranoia

Every day, being aware of your thoughts, but not just the act of thinking.

Organizing, Rationalizing, and battling the sequence, the line of insecurities, the paranoia, the way I perceive the world around me.

Its the same assumption, more like accusations every 24 hours:

Are they laughing at me?

Do they think I’m ugly?

Do they laugh because I’m ugly?

They must be looking at me because there is something wrong with me.

Is there something wrong with me?

Why do I care? Why do I let myself care?

Is she looking at me?

I wish she would look at me.

Why isn’t she interested?

Do I even want her to be interested?

Its better if she isn’t.

Im not in the right head space, financial stability, patience, looks, or the fact I’m not interesting enough.

Am I enough?

Will I ever be enough?

If I eat this am I going to be fat?

Am I going to be even more unattractive?

If I don’t pray, if I don’t show gratitude, if I don’t give mercy to others, how can I expect it from God?

Does god even want to hear from me?

I don’t want to pray because Im tired and it feels like a waste of my time.

When I do speak to God, does he take the time to listen when I have doubts, practically have zero faith?

Am I just a loser who lives at home with Mom and Rick? Are they helping me or am I just manipulating them?

Love Her

How can I begin to liberate myself from this burden of loops consisting of only what ifs?

Some days I think about you until dawn.

Most days now, I am restless.

Producing, then digesting mountains of fantasies hoping theirs a side of you that sees what I do.

Still, we repel and with each passing moment, I bleed.

I lose all sense of consciousness and am yours.

Am I fool or a hopeless romantic?

Is there a clear distinction between the two?

I find myself treading along a silver lining.

She believes she’s lead by kismet, but how can that be with a leash around its neck?

This path she walks erodes her.

It erodes me.

I feel it on her skin when we touch.

Spiraling

I am losing my mind all over again and I’m afraid of what can and will happen next.

There is so much that I need, but I think they are just things I want which is a huge difference.

Its not a bad to want something, but to cling onto it as if it’ll fix everything, or the key to my happiness is where I fall short.

I keep on focusing on the outside, external factor that are the issue, but I don’t attempt to fix the broken pieces inside of me.

I need to be validate in everything I do, or else I’ll never be good enough.

There is a wickedness inside of me that I feed.

I believe in all the negative and rarely the positive.

I am getting much better and more mindful about the decisions and life choices im making, but that doesn’t mean I’m okay.

Because im not. I’m not okay.

I dont want to with anyone because im scared of being rejected.

Im scared of getting close to someone else and not pulling through or giving them too much of me.

I know that if I got to that point and something bad happens like a break up, too many fights, different life plans/future, I’d be utterly devastated.

I can barely hold myself together as is.

I wake up in the morning when I wish I could be dreaming.

I go downstairs and make myself an awesome smoothie with strawberries, bananas, cinnamon sugar almond butter oats and some milk.

Its really fucking good.

I watch tv for about an hour or less, take my medicine and then head to the gym.

I park my car closer to the bank which is further away from Planet Fitness because I like walking the distance.

I enter the gym, swipe my barcode with my membership and ask for 20 minutes on the Hydromassage.

After I go stretch for 10 to 15 minutes, lift for another 20 to 30 minutes, then walk for an hour while reading my books.

I get to read like 30 pages which I really enjoy, but lately its all felt monotonous, I am struggling to do the things that I used to really enjoy.

I stretch for another 10 to 15 minutes or hit the hydromassage for another 10 minutes.

This is when I leave and head back home.

Going back home I look forward to eating, sometimes showering, making myself eggs , drinking some protein powder (double chocolate).

I sit to watch something on Netflix, Hulu, Prime or YouTube while promoting my music.

Sometimes Ill make music, sometimes, Ill write a story or create some digital art.

Lately, I’ve been getting into rom coms and feel good movies to distract myself.

I want to be convinced that something good lies ahead.

I want to believe that something real and tangible is going to happen.